Becoming a Globally Competent School Leader

Schools today face a crisis of relevance.

Issues that people everywhere face--climate change, disease, hunger--require interdisciplinary solutions. Yet schools are still predominately organized by single-subject courses and narrowly focused high-stakes tests.

By contrast, our students need to develop a range of academic, social, and emotional competencies to solve issues that transcend national borders; live peacefully among neighbors in a culturally, politically, racially, ethnically, and religiously diverse society; and thrive in a global, knowledge-based economy. Youth and adults alike know this; it's time for schools to catch up.

Global competence--the set of dispositions, knowledge, and skills needed to live and work in a diverse, global society--helps educators balance social-emotional and academic learning goals. To that end, school leaders play a critical role in designing and scaling relevant global learning experiences for both students and teachers.

Becoming a Globally Competent School Leader details how school leaders can implement change by aligning aspirational initiatives to existing ones, generating will across school stakeholders, wrangling resources, and creating capacity.

This book offers a holistic approach to school leadership, one that grounds education in the complexities of the real world and aims to prepare all students to understand, engage with, and influence what happens in that interconnected world.

Ariel Tichnor-Wagner is a senior fellow of global competence at ASCD. In her role, she advocates for, develops, and implements innovative frameworks, tools, and professional learning experiences that support educators in fostering the knowledge, skills, and attitudes students need to succeed in a diverse, interconnected world. Tichnor-Wagner began her career as an elementary school teacher in a high-poverty school district in Phoenix, Arizona, where she taught primarily English language learners. She received a master's degree in Elementary Education from Arizona State University, and a doctoral degree in Education Policy, Leadership, and School Improvement from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As an educator and researcher, she is committed to identifying and leveraging policies and practices that improve academic and social-emotional outcomes of culturally and linguistically diverse students and that foster global citizenship.