'A Shift Is Taking Place'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-8DRPCJ86U&feature=related

So we watched this youtube video in my TE 402 class last week and it really got me thinking about a lot of different things. It also got me thinking globally as opposed to just inside the US, which is sometimes harder to accomplish, and much harder to keep in perspective, at least for me.

One of the first questions this video asks is what will the world be like for children born today? Some of the facts brought up in this video were mind blowing for me. Like, the number one speaking English country will be China? And that 100% of college graduates in India speak English? But then how many college graduates in the US speak another language fluently? I looked it up on google and I could not find a statistic, but from my own experience here at MSU I know that not 100% of us are fluent in another language. Does that make us ignorant? I know that high schoolers in most European schools are required to take classes in at least two non-native languages. My high school required two credits of one foreign language. Are Americans that egotistical? Perhaps some of these facts are reasons why American tourists are not perfectly welcome in all countries around the world.

I realize that this video does not directly relate to underrepresented populations, but it does discuss some misconceptions about populations that exsist in our society, which is just as important. Americans are often perceived as being less informed than citizens of other countries, and I wonder just how true that statement is. I do not pretend to be someone who knows about all different races, religions, ethnicities, or other cultural groups, but I would like to be someone who is willing to learn about and experience all those differences. It also made me think about the average effort level of Americans to force themselves out of their comfort zones to learn about them. This video presented information about other cultures that I did not know, and probably would not have known had my professor not shown this video in class. I suppose the question is how can we as future teachers help our students to know and want to know this kind of information?