As part continued initiatives to help students on their path to becoming good citizens, the Anne Arundel County School system is celebrating the fifth year of their signature program, “Community Development and Global Citizenship.” The signature program selection involves not just the students and faculty of a school, but the community at large, and is representative of the community’s needs, concerns, and values. Read on to discover more about the Anne Arundel County signature program and how it has already worked to transform the lives of students.
Community Development and Global Citizenship: Selecting a Theme
Many meetings were held in order to discuss and decide on a theme for the County’s signature program focus. Two key elements were prioritized throughout this discussion: the particular needs of the Anne Arundel community and the skills that are most vital to students in today’s world. With both the importance of the immediate community and the County’s diversity in mind, the theme of Community Development and Global Citizenship was chosen in order to highlight how the needs of a small group of people could be translated to a global scale, and vice versa. The final mission statement of the program reads, “The Signature Program at Arundel High School educates all students to the highest standards and transforms their education experience to create passionate, engaged, future workers of a ‘glocal’ community.”
The Signature Program at Work in Schools
The signature program’s goals are met in a variety of different ways. Within the classroom itself, several new courses were designed in order to create new types of learning experiences for students. While the same essential skillsets, such as algebra or literature analysis, are taught, they are now taught with this global/local perspective in mind, giving students a context for their education that is relevant to the way they live now. This extends outside of the classroom with extracurricular activities, guest speakers, conferences, and field trips to bring to life the concepts the signature program endeavors to teach.
One student, Gabby, from Arundel High School showed the effectiveness of the signature program when she discussed it in her college essay.
“This program has been my home,” she writes. ‘A place for me to grow and learn about the world around me.”
The signature program will hopefully continue to give students a similarly positive experience for years to come.
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