What 3 years of the Global School Alliance meant to me

The following article comes from Tatiana Popa, GSA Ambassador and Deputy Academic Director at Heritage International School Moldova.

It’s difficult to go back to the times when we didn’t have the Global School Alliance as a platform for global educators. Now that we do, every single meeting with peers around the world looks like a little celebration of our work in our respective schools.

To start with, the GSA appeared in the COVID-19 pandemic, like a breath of fresh air – a place to learn from others, be it about distance learning, tools, educational platforms, or to share with others: global projects, SDGs resources, ideas and best practices. It has always made me feel more empowered, more part of the “we are in this together” feeling. Also, it helped us all have a voice in the global community.  

It helped us all have a voice in the global community. 

Educators are free to join the monthly GSA conferences that explore a wide range of educational topics for teaching  and learning, educational leadership, exchanges and many more. Teachers can join either as participants or even as speakers. Each session is well planned and speakers are contacted beforehand. Luckily, I was invited to join as a speaker on so many occasions and spoke about different topics, be it student leadership, the UN sustainable development goals projects, artificial intelligence, or global projects at my school, among others. The feeling of belonging and community has always been present at all the GSA sessions, which made me feel part of this global professional community of educators, uniting all continents together for the benefit of our learners.

Besides conferences, the GSA team offers the possibility to write blogs on different topics, be it a back to school diary of an educator, or why sustainability is important to teach, why global projects matter, or how to deal with AI in the classroom, even how our schools and communities deal with the war in Ukraine, to count just a  few… The GSA  allows you to co-write blog articles with your colleagues on various topics or issues. Such an example was the article on global education written by me, together with Rob Ford, our Heritage International School director. Each blog article has interesting ideas that we can pick and implement in our respective classroom, no matter the country and school setting.

Furthermore, it’s not just professional development for educators, but a chance for our students to get involved and participate in the GSA Student Councils, for primary and secondary students. My students have been involved for two years and they truly enjoyed exploring various topics, doing school projects together on any ardent issue, such as sustainability, mental health, or student leadership. They celebrated many achievements and even national holidays together.

The GSA Student Council is the place where democracy reigns, as they elect a president, they vote for topics to discuss the following time they meet or projects to work on. My students never miss a meeting! They want to be ahead of the curve and get involved as much as possible. They have made plans for the next academic year already, and the GSA Student Council is cleverly embedded into their “unofficial academic calendar of events”. No matter the age, students love meeting peers from around the world – I love hearing their discussions after the meetings, be it presentations quality, uniforms, or what their interest is.

For all the things mentioned above, and all the rest, I am truly grateful to the Global School Alliance support and guidance. My school got both the bronze and silver awards in just one year, and we can’t be happier than that!