Bem-vindo ao meu blog (Welcome to my blog)
My name is Bryan Peters. I’m a high school teacher in the Chicago Public Schools system, where I work with multilingual learners from incredibly diverse backgrounds. I teach English as a new language and have a leadership position within our ELL department.
Our students come from over 80 countries, and every day in my school, I see the world through their eyes. As they develop proficiency in a new language, our students boldly navigate uncharted experiences and cultures; and it’s their curiosity and resilience that drive my own passion for global education. 🌎🌍🌏
A Foundation of Global Citizenship
My journey as a global educator didn’t start yesterday nor is it solely based on the fact that my classes are unofficial United Nations assemblies. My commitment to empowering students as global citizens has been shaped by two previous, transformative fellowships:
🇲🇾 Malaysia (Fund for Teachers): After collaborating with NGOs who provide educational services for Rohingya refugees in Penang and Kuala Lumpur, I worked with my fellowship partner to develop a new social-emotional curriculum specifically designed for newcomer and refugee students at our school.
🇬🇭 Ghana (Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms): My Fulbright cohort and I had privileged access to Ghanaian educational systems that were undergoing major national shifts in teaching and learning practices. While there, I also investigated the critical role of perspective-taking in fostering global citizenship.
These experiences taught me that in order to empower my students to be changemakers, I have to be a learner first. I have to grapple with the same real-world challenges I ask them to face. I have to go continually through four domains of global education myself (investigate the world, recognize perspective, communicate ideas, take action) if I want to engender my students’ abilities to do the same.
Why Brazil? 🇧🇷 Why Now?
This year, my focus shifts to the intersection of sustainable development and resilience. As a 2026 Fund for Teachers Fellow, I am heading to Brazil to launch my self-titled “The Peters Project.”
Brazil is the perfect "living laboratory" for this work. My fellowship is centered around three key locations that represent the complex balance of our modern world:
🌇Rio de Janeiro: Exploring how a megacity fosters community resilience, supports socioeconomic development, and protects delicate ecosystems amidst rapid urbanization
🌿The Amazon Rainforest: Studying the preservation of the world’s most vital carbon sink in relation to both climate change and the intricate balance between economic and ecological interests in the region
⚡️Foz do Iguaçu: Investigating multinational cooperation on sustainable development: Brazil & Paraguay on the massive clean-energy infrastructure of the Itaipu Dam, and Brazil & Argentina on the conservation of a cross-border national park system
🌱 Rooted in the SDGs
Over the next few months, I’ll be sharing how these goals specifically shaped my planning, how they come into practice in my fellowship, and, eventually, how they will shape our classroom projects.
Thank you for joining me on this journey. My ultimate goal is to bring the world back to my students so that they, in turn, can change it.
Next up: A deeper look into how the SDGs became the roadmap for my Brazilian expedition, aka, The Peters Project!
Comments
Post a Comment