Submitted Content
To the editor:
As the children start back to school here, I recall a conversation I had with my daughter, who is a middle school teacher. She described her plan to have her seventh grade students pick a favorite object, find out where it was made, by whom, and under what conditions—and then decide if they would purchase the object again. The goal is to teach about globalization and the interconnectedness of people, even strangers far away.
This curriculum seems especially relevant when we realize that, around the world millions of children are unable to go to school. And this affects all of us. Education worldwide improves the state of the whole world: according to the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), “every year of schooling decreases the chances of youth getting caught up in violent conflict by 20percent.”
Fortunately, there is actually something we can do here and now that can help get education to the kids in the poorest countries. The GPE, an alliance of many countries both wealthy and poor, has a plan to give 25 million more children an education. The U.S. has increasingly supported this plan since 2011, but this year our support may be cut. Each of us can support the Global Partnership in Education by urging our representatives in Congress to sign on to H.R. 466. This resolution reminds us of our interconnectedness and of the importance of education. It empowers us, through our representatives, to improve the world.
Judy Livingston
Hopewell Borough
