International Education | Article 1 |
College of Education Committed to Playing Important Role Through the World

When you think about the College of Education, your first reaction may be teacher preparation, or kinesiology, or possibly rehabilitation counseling. With its diversity of programs and faculty research and outreach interests, the college serves many constituencies.

But what may not always be apparent is that the college has maintained for many years a major presence in international education. That international perspective has over the years enriched and informed the understanding of educational practices at home and abroad.

“Education in all countries is very parochial,” said Jack Schwille, assistant dean for international studies in education. “Education takes place in institutions that have been developed in a national context. People get so wound up in their own educational systems that they don’t look at the rest of the world. We as Americans are no different.

“For us, though, it is terrifically important to look beyond our borders because we have a very unusual educational system. It is different than most other countries, and we have good reasons why that is so. But that also means we can learn a lot from these differences.”

The international projects have spanned the globe, from Burundi and Zimbabwe to China and Thailand, from Mexico and Canada to England and Pakistan. But what hasn’t changed are the goals of the program: to bolster the educational systems of developing countries, to foster comparative research in order to improve schooling in the U.S., and to help internationalize American education.

An Integrated Approach

The growth and development of international education in the college coincided with MSU’s rapid expansion of its international presence during the 1950s and 1960s.

The international component of the college has evolved into an integrated program centered in the Office of International Studies in Education.

Faculty from all four of the college’s departments have engaged in international work, and all the departments enroll students from countries throughout the world. Many faculty members have taught through the Graduate Studies in Education Overseas (GSEO) program, and others have engaged directly in research and outreach projects with international components.

Those projects make up what is the very essence of international education at MSU: comparative research and technical assistance. Throughout the years, the college has consistently conducted research that looks to understand problems or practices in education across nations. (See related articles on pages 22 and 24.)

“There has been criticism that some comparative education research isn’t comparative at all. It’s mostly about one country,” Schwille said. “The college has a strong comparative emphasis. We’re committed to it. These types of projects tend to be highly controversial and highly influential at the same time.

“They are important projects because they respond to many of the questions we as Americans have about how well our kids are learning compared to other students in other countries.”

In terms of technical assistance, helping nations seeking to improve their institutions has long been an essential part of the land-grant mission of the university. The college has played a role by helping bolster the educational systems of developing nations.

“The problems can be economic, or environmental or what have you, but all these things can be addressed through education. The research is very clear that education is extremely important in how countries deal with these problems, and agencies like the World Bank are spending billions of dollars of assistance based on this fact.”

The Asian Connection

Although College of Education projects have involved nations in just about every region of the world, Asia has been an especially strong focus. When the Office of International Studies in Education was established, the college hired two professors with international education interests: Lynn Paine and Mun Tsang.

“Both had superb China credentials and instantly placed China as an important focus in the college,” Schwille said. “Asia has remained a central focus of our international research.”

For Paine, the integrated nature of the international work was what made her seriously consider MSU as a place to launch her career in 1984.

“I was very intrigued by the college’s deliberate decision to have international education infused throughout the whole college,” she recalled. “Most other institutions have not gone that route. It is very unusual to have the kind of arrangement we have here.

“That integrated approach was very appealing to me. I was so struck by the possibilities. The people I would be supporting in their learning would be teachers who might be teaching right here in Michigan. I didn’t have to work with just specialists who either worked at the World Bank or in ministries of education in various countries.”

The college has also fostered a close working relationship with Thailand. Throughout the 1980s, one of the most important and successful efforts was 

Project bridges (Basic Research and Implementation in Developing Educational Systems). The project, which was funded by USAID, focused on improving primary schools in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Burundi and Pakistan.

The most extensive MSU involvement, however, was in Thailand. That effort was led by Professor Chris Wheeler and later involved Professor Jim Gallagher. The collaboration with Thailand has resulted in an environmental project that has linked Thai rural schools and communities in new ways. As a result of the project, Thai students in the middle grades have been able to study local forestry problems and work out solutions with adult villagers.

Paine and other faculty members have also remained active in China. Paine has been conducting classroom observations and other grassroots research on teaching in China for the past 20 years. Currently, she leads a team of researchers studying teacher induction and mentoring in China as part of a multinational study funded by the National Science Foundation. (See story on page 22.)

African Linkages

The college has also had a strong involvement in Africa. That involvement in Africa dates to the 1960s and MSU’s pivotal role in helping to establish the University of Nigeria at Nsukka. A number of College of Education faculty members spent long periods of time working at that university.

Since then, the college has maintained an active presence with work in the 1990s in Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, and Zimbabwe.

In one Africa project, for example, Schwille and Martial Dembele (PhD 95) have worked for seven years in Guinea on a World Bank–funded assistance project to develop a nationwide program for teams of teachers to carry out their own school improvement and professional development activities. Eighty-three percent of the country’s primary school teachers have now been involved in writing proposals for their own projects. About 1,000 teams have received funding to carry out their projects with the help of some 300 local education officials trained as facilitators and evaluators.

The work in Africa over the years has been effective and has helped build strong and enduring relationships between MSU and educators and officials throughout sub-Saharan Africa, Schwille said.

Continued Commitment

Another important aspect has been international students. During the 2000-2001 academic year, the college enrolled 100 international graduate students from more than 35 countries. To Schwille, the international students are a vital part of the graduate experience at MSU. They bring with them different perspectives and experiences that enrich the learning of all students.

The influence of international graduate students has also extended to k–12 classrooms through the college’s most important internationalizing initiative, the lattice project. lattice (Linking All Types of Teachers to International Cross-cultural Education) brings Lansing area teachers and MSU international students together once a month to learn from each other. The teachers and students engage in cross-cultural discussions about such things as childhood, families, school and work—all within their larger cultural, social and historical contexts. Over the years, lattice has received a number of awards and grants for its innovative approach. (See New Educator, fall 1999.)

Many international students who have graduated and returned to their home countries have maintained links to faculty in the college. In Thailand, for instance, Panom Pongpaibool (MA 70/PhD 74) is now permanent secretary of the Ministry of Education, the highest nonpolitical appointment in the educational system. He worked closely with Wheeler on his Thai projects.

This type of partnership and collaboration is the shape of things to come. No longer can it be assumed that a developing country does not have the expertise to address its own problems in education. In the development project in Guinea, Schwille is the only American in a team of mostly African international consultants. Working with international alumni and others in mutually beneficial ways has become a key to effective international development work, Schwille said.

In the end, Schwille believes that the college has much to be proud of in its history of international education. Important research and development work has been accomplished despite the challenges of international work that relate to political and economic instability, cultural differences, language barriers, and lack of resources.

Although it takes great determination and a proactive approach to do international research and development work, Schwille takes pride in the fact that the college has remained deeply invested in international education. And for Schwille, the future is bright for international education in the college because the world has become increasingly smaller in the Information Age and international research and development work has never been more important as a way to build professional relationships across countries that will benefit educators and students in the U.S. and throughout the world.