Michele Anciaux Aoki, Ph.D.

We are delighted to have Michele Anciaux Aoki with us today. Michele is an inspiring and dedicated advocate for change in today's world. Together with other members of the Washington State Coalition for International Education, she is educating all of us about what it means to live as international citizens in our global society. Michele has been particularly active in bringing language and cultural education to the schools via international education programs.

BBFN: Hello Michele. Thank you so much for joining us today. To start, please tell us a little about yourself and the projects you have been working on.

Michele: I've been involved with "things international" my entire life through international folk dancing and singing, learning languages, and living overseas. I speak about six languages and I have a Ph.D. in Slavic Linguistics from the University of Washington. My B.A. was in Teaching English as a Foreign Language, as I was interested in teaching abroad, and I figured I should first learn how to teach my own language!

Since about 1998, I have been very involved in furthering the concept of international education: preparing students for today's interconnected world.

I consulted with the John Stanford International School in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of their partial language immersion program in Spanish and Japanese in 2000-2001. That led to an invitation to be on the State Team for Washington to attend the first States Institute on International Education in Washington, DC in 2002. The rest, you could say, is history.

Since an initial focus group on international education in Winter of 2003, this effort has evolved into the Washington State Coalition for International Education. I have spearheaded communications (and our website and email lists) for the Coalition and been project director for two State Innovations grants to our state and two International Education Summits, as well.
I have continued to be a strong advocate for languages and early language learning, in particular. It's been exciting to see the progress step by step.

BBFN: Very exciting work, Michele! You have put so much of yourself into this. Do you feel that your efforts are making headway? And where do you see the future for international education?

Michele: Yes, I do. It is instructive to look at the tremendous attention that Early Childhood Education is getting in the Legislature this year -- down to a bill to establish a new Department of Early Learning reporting to the Governor. It wasn't so long ago that the conversation on Early Learning was just beginning. In fact, many of the advocates in International Education (such as former Governor Jim Hunt of North Carolina) were some of the leaders in Early Childhood Education just a few years ago.
And the current obsession with testing (WASL in our state), will certainly begin to die down in a matter of months. As we get past the fear that students will be denied high school diplomas because they can't pass the WASL the decision to bite the bullet and do what it takes to help them succeed will take place. (I don't mean that the testing will stop; I just mean that the education community will stop obsessing about it.)

I confess that I am an optimist, but frankly, I can't imagine that the reality of the world today won't begin to sink in soon. It is not just for security and economic reasons that we need U.S. students to rise to the challenge of being full participants in the world community; it is also the best thing we can do for the future of our country and the world. Students already see that; it's the decision-making adults in "control" who are still operating in the 20th century.

BBFN: Your optimism is truly refreshing. Is this level of international education something that is just taking place here in Seattle or is this progress occurring in other parts of the US?

Michele: Oh my, in some ways, we are behind the times in Washington state! There are other states, such as New Jersey, that have promoted world language instruction beginning in elementary school for some time. Unlike many states, we have no full-time World Languages Supervisor at our state educational agency (Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction) in Olympia and very few districts have a World Languages person to provide leadership in curriculum and instruction.

At the States Institute on International Education in DC over the past four years, I've been impressed by the "hunger" that other states like Kansas, Oklahoma, Delaware, and Kentucky feel for bringing global perspectives into the classroom. It should be so natural for us, as the most trade-dependent state in the nation, but I don't think it has quite registered yet. However, that is bound to change.
Speaking specifically of Seattle, we have the interesting situation where international education is blossoming in a variety of schools, but not in any systematic way district-wide.

We have a nationally recognized elementary model in the John Stanford International School, for example, but everyone just "talks" about duplicating it rather than taking action. We have innovative out-of-school programs, such as OneWorld Now! (which combines instruction in Arabic or Chinese language with leadership training for socio-economically disadvantaged youth in several high schools in the city), but they are pretty much on their own in terms of funding and support.

I was shocked to find out that Coe Elementary on Queen Anne Hill offers four languages before or after school (Spanish, French, Japanese, and Chinese) but I've hardly met a person in the district that knew this was going on. We have to move beyond having international education consist of random acts of excellence.

BBFN: If you had all the resource needed to create a perfect international education setting, what would it look like?

Michele: I would build on the core concepts that John Stanford articulated when he was superintendent in Seattle in the late 1990's. He envisioned an international school where each student's cultural heritage was considered an asset and all students were learning a new language and discovering their place in the world. This sounds like a "special place," but it could be the norm for all schools -- and, in a perfect world, it would be. Such an environment does not get created by what you do for students, but what you do with students. I mean, it's crucial that the adults, as well as the students, work on learning languages, experience different cultures, foster an intense curiosity about world affairs. So, money is not necessarily the main thing.

One thing we could change immediately is how we are training new teachers. I would apply resources to ensuring that all new teacher candidates had an international learning experience (travel, language and culture study) before completing their certification.

And, then I would offer generous funding for in-service training that would include global perspectives and travel abroad. Talk to anyone who has traveled abroad and they'll tell you it transformed their perspective on the world and their sense of being American. Teachers who embody that sense of global citizenship are just what our students need!

BBFN: Thank you again, Michele, for taking time out of your busy schedule for this interview. We are delighted to have the chance to speak with you and to learn more about international education.

Michele: My pleasure.