Manchester educator selected as 2018 NEA Foundation Global Learning Fellow

The NEA Foundation named Karyn Burgess, a special education teacher at Hillside Middle School, as one of the 48 public school educators to become a member of this year's class of Global Learning Fellows. Burgess will spend a year building the capacity to understand and act on issues of global significance -- otherwise known as global competency skills.

As a result of the Fellowship, Burgess will be better equipped to prepare students for global citizenship. Fellows also create valuable global lesson plans for their students that are freely shared with educators across the national and the world through open-source platforms.

“The Global Learning Fellowship provides a great opportunity to teachers who are interested in sharing the world with their students,” says Burgess. “I love the idea of learning even more about global competency since it aligns with my teaching philosophy.”

The 2018 Fellows were selected from more than 400 applicants from across the country. They teach all grade levels and all subjects: from visual and performing arts to agri-science, vocational studies to history. They come from rural, suburban, and urban schools. They are National Board Certified, curriculum coaches, IB coordinators, foreign language speakers, and more. Some have participated in similar programs, and some have never traveled abroad. The diverse cohort will allow educators to learn from each other and bring global perspectives to a wide range of students.

“We believe that educators are the key to giving students the skills to thrive in an interconnected world,” said Harriet Sanford, President and CEO of the NEA Foundation. “We created the Global Learning Fellowship to provide professional development in teaching global competencies and to support educators as they integrate these skills into classroom instruction.”

Over the course of a year, the NEA Foundation staff, partners, and field experts will support Burgess as she immerses herself in online coursework, webinars, and collegial study, including a two-day professional development workshop this fall and a nine-day international field study next summer, bringing the full cohort together with experts in global learning.

Prior Fellows have contributed valuable knowledge to the field by posting replicable lesson plans on open-source platforms. Past Fellows have returned to advance global competency in their schools and districts—one Fellow recently brought Peruvian artists to her school to teach her students how to incorporate their own culture into their art.

The NEA Foundation is a public charity supported by contributions from educators' dues, corporate sponsors, foundations, and others who support public education initiatives. The NEA Foundation will accept applications for the 2019 Global Learning Fellowship this fall.