Giving Austin teenagers a voice and power: Stephen F. Austin High School’s Academy for Global Studies
We love our neighborhood schools. Offering specialty programs—dual-language, the arts and humanities and STEM, to name a few—as well as highly-ranked, multi-disciplinary coursework, they provide Austin’s elementary through high school students with lots of great choices.
One program that’s near and dear to many of us at Blairfield Realty is Stephen F. Austin High School’s Academy for Global Studies, or AGS. Now in its ninth year, AGS’ vision is to “engage students in an educational experience that fosters international understanding and welcomes diversity of thought, while preparing students for a globally interconnected world.”
AGS is part of the International Studies Schools Network, or ISSN—a network of schools formed by the Asia Society in 2003 “to create a global vision and culture, build students’ global competence, and develop and inform best practices for educators.” More than a decade ago, Asia Society approached AISD about starting an ISSN school in Austin. Together with Austin High’s then-principal, John Hudson, they determined that Austin High would be an ideal place for such a program, both due to its proximity to downtown and the many partnership opportunities with neighboring UT Austin.
Theresa McCorquodale, the first AGS director, assembled a freshman team of teachers, among them Stacy Webster, sophomore English teacher and International Studies Coordinator. Webster and the rest of the team set out to figure out what a global learner looked like. Together, they assembled a rigorous, interdisciplinary curriculum—an integral part of the AGS experience.
The concept of an integrated curriculum was not entirely new to Webster. For several years, she and Edward Tierney, a World Studies teacher, had been building a humanities-based program for a segment of their classes—so when his classes were studying Greco-Roman times, for example, hers were reading Antigone and Julius Caesar. Webster and Tierney were thrilled to join the smaller learning community and have the opportunity to expand their humanities course into a full interdisciplinary experience focused on problem-based learning, authentic assessments and service learning.
Today, AGS is a well-established, well-regarded program, but it still continues to evolve. “We are constantly looking for ways to bring in global connections so students can see the relevance of their coursework to our global world,” said Webster. “Over the years, we’ve also become more purposeful about articulating the interdisciplinary connections to our students. When students are able to see the connections, they have more of a lasting impact.”
For Webster and her colleagues, this means using project-based learning in which students identify issues and find solutions to problems affecting their community. It also means using travel as a way to bring coursework to life.
Freshmen travel to Heifer International in Arkansas and participate in a poverty simulation in which they learn to share resources and come together as a global community. Sophomores visit Costa Rica as part of their exploration of colonialism and post-colonial identity. They live with the Bri Bri, an indigenous tribe on the border of Panama and Costa Rica, and attend EARTH University, where they learn about innovative solutions to global issues such as poverty, hunger, access to clean water and waste management.
Next, as part of their exploration of Native Americans and U.S. History, juniors visit a locale that in some way embodies the American experience. In past years, they’ve traveled to New Orleans, Boston and Washington D.C. This year, they’re headed to Santa Fe and Albuquerque, where they’ll meet with Pueblo and Navajo people and learn more about their geography, history and the convergence of cultural groups in that region.
For their final trip as seniors, AGS students are encouraged to reflect on what they’ve learned and what it means to be a global citizen. They travel internationally—ideally, to a culture that’s very different from their own. In the past, they’ve visited Turkey and Ecuador; this year, they’ll be exploring China.
Webster, who has been with Austin High for 15 years and a teacher for 23, still brims over with enthusiasm when she talks about AGS. Asked what she likes most about being a part of the program, she said, “It’s the focus on service learning. One of the big pillars of ISSN is ‘take action.’ We aren’t training our students to do work someday; we believe that teenagers have voice and power and can make a difference right now. We try to make learning really relevant, and we give kids the space to use their power and their voice to be a significant contributor to both local and global communities.”
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