Last summer I had the opportunity to revisit the Austrian family whom I had lived with during a student exchange 20 years ago. Since my first visit, the horizons of the family's world had expanded considerably. Monika, my Austrian “sister” who used to consider the 30-minute ride to Salzburg a grand expedition, had now traveled to the United States and Russia as well as all over Europe. Her teenage son was in Norway observing an eclipse of the sun, and her daughter had just returned from a stay in Italy and was making plans to study in South America. A Spanish boy who had met the daughter at a language school in London was with Monika for the summer. Her family was a living example of the European Community.
Now it is inside an American classroom that my own foreign language students are hard-pressed to identify the world outside their country. They moan at the idea of locating the border countries of France, many have no interest at all in Africa, and they ask “Will this be on the test?” when I try to “enrich” the textbook with references to the history of France and the French-speaking world.
It would be easy to leave the Impressionists to the art teachers, Marie Antoinette to history, Pascal to science, and the European Community and African Francophone countries to social studies. But I want to give a context to the posters on my walls, the French magazines on my shelf, the African folktales we read, and the references to Marie Curie in our text. However, I am a French teacher and these other subjects are not part of my official foreign language curriculum. Nevertheless, I have found a way to permit students to see relationships and experience the interconnectivity of subject areas: Technology is our bridge.
The need to explore the uses of technology has generated the greatest cross-fertilization of ideas that has ever occurred in my school system. Somehow, in our desire to learn how to use technology in our separate classrooms, the physics, English, French, and business teachers began to advise one another and to learn together. Inservice training, technology conferences, and technology journals found us engaged in common pursuits.
- Technology helps students in all disciplines to access information. More often than not, different subject areas consult the same sources. Even more significantly, in the processing of information conveyed by technology, students in all classrooms use the same thinking skills that are applied in both writing and mathematics.
- Technology often demands teamwork. Research has shown that the most effective use of the computer is frequently within small groups. Looking at how these teams work, we discover that team members specialize in different aspects of activities that include computation, writing, or analysis of data from the perspective of history, the arts, and/or science.
- Technology links the classroom to the outside world. In this respect, “knowledge” is no longer vested exclusively in the teacher and the text, but may come from an outside source, an expert, or a group of peers. For example, my French students connect directly with students in France using a computer and a modem, and we discuss issues of common interest. We shared a marvelous exchange with our French friends on the Gulf war. Our conversation became more meaningful and more international as Danish students entered the conference speaking French, Americans in Indonesia joined using only English, and a German class joined using German. It was evident that we could not limit ourselves to one language, or to a topic prescribed by our textbook.
Once our students are empowered with the ability to wander in the global village, to discover “real” problems and to interact with others on those problems, they may be reluctant to return to a textbook and a curriculum devoted exclusively to one discipline. If we want a better world for our students, teachers must first show them how to achieve it by working together as a team.
My computer and my modem bridged the artificial boundaries of “French class” to help students from all over the world discover common issues in a community where sharing, not language or subject area, was the common denominator. In this respect, technology serves as a model showing how we should teach by making connections. If I can work with a math, an English, and a science teacher to discover new applications of technology for our classrooms, can't I also find time to work with them to integrate our expertise into projects that broaden the knowledge-base of our students?
Our classrooms must not be protected little cells where disciplines are refined in isolation. We must allow our students to make connections to the outside world by making connections among ourselves. We do not need to change what we teach. We need to change how we teach. We need teamwork within our faculties as well as within our classrooms. Teachers of different disciplines need scheduled time to teach together and to work together to place our subject matter in a context that has meaning for our students.
I would like my French students to use their foreign language skills to communicate with contemporaries—be they French, Danish, Indonesian, or African—and to explore common problems relating to racism, environment, politics, or simply themselves. Moreover, I want them to use that information to begin to think creatively, to problem solve, and to feel more connected and powerful in the world they inhabit. I need both technology and support from my colleagues to do this. My training as a French teacher is not enough to answer all the questions I hope they will ask.
The children of my Austrian “sister,” Monika, have discovered new communities and interests through travel and exchange. Unfortunately, most of my own students are still exploring their personal connection to the world outside of themselves and have not even begun to dream of faraway places. Technology can offer them the vehicle to make the first mental journeys, but it is the collaboration of the teacher-experts that can best fuel their new vision with a purpose and a sense of importance.
