For years, Roosevelt Middle School’s music and drama teacher, Robyn Clarke, has explored global cultures with her students through music and performance. Her students do more than just sing in different languages—they gain an understanding of the people, traditions, and histories of the cultures behind the songs.
As Roosevelt Middle School and Participate Learning began working together to implement the Global Leaders framework, Clarke saw an opportunity to deepen students’ global competencies—such as intercultural understanding, self-awareness, and empathy—through hands-on, creative expression that went beyond reading about other cultures.
She decided to collaborate with art teacher Brian Baker to brainstorm an engaging way for students to connect with global themes. Their solution? Shadow puppet plays, a centuries-old storytelling tradition in which puppets made from flat materials cast shadows against a lit screen to bring narratives to life. Students shared in Clarke and Baker’s excitement about the project. They immediately jumped at the opportunity to bring stories from around the world to life and think critically about shared global issues.
The most successful global education frameworks are those that take the information learned in the classroom and bring it to life through action. This is the story of how Robyn Clarke, Brian Baker, and their students did just that.
To guide their seventh and eighth-grade students through the project, Ms. Clarke and Mr. Baker developed a framework for a structured approach:
In groups of three or four, students dove right into research by first learning about their chosen country’s culture, geography, and challenges. They used the issues that they learned about—poverty, hunger, government corruption, and many others—as the dramatic tension for their stories. Inspired by these real-life events, they created compelling narratives with creative and thoughtful resolutions.
In one play, a middle school student arrives in Haiti and is quickly exposed to some of its many challenges—specifically, a strained medical system with limited supplies and staff. In the end, the government intervenes by turning abandoned buildings into makeshift hospitals to expand medical services.
Another takes place in Nepal, where 25 percent of the population lives on less than 5o cents a day. In this story of philanthropy, a man who is generously gifted a fortune by a local millionaire decides to give back to others living in poverty.
Students told stories of solving pressing issues all around the globe—famine in Sudan, deforestation in Madagascar, environmental issues affecting animals and ice caps in Antarctica, and many others.
Once their stories were completed, they refined their scripts, recorded the voiceovers for character and narration, and created the characters and scenery with paper cut-outs. They performed first for others in the class and eventually for 120 fourth- and fifth-grade students from a neighboring elementary school. Through this experience, the eighth-grade students became both storytellers and educators, using the art of storytelling and theater to foster awareness and inspire action.
By learning about other cultures through these shadow puppet plays, students also developed many durable career-ready skills. By engaging in storytelling, problem-solving, and collaboration, they strengthened competencies essential for their future careers and lives as global leaders.
As Mr. Baker says, “Everyone has been hungry at some point.” Whether the student shadow plays explored hunger, poverty, or protecting the planet, students gained a deeper understanding of what it means to care for others. They recognized that global issues are interconnected and that their choices, no matter how small, can contribute to meaningful change.
Students became fascinated by the cultures they studied in-depth as well as those they learned about through other students’ shadow plays. Becoming connected to different ways of life helped the students gain a deeper appreciation for the similarities and differences between their culture and those around the globe.
Students shared ideas, supported one another, and solved problems during moments of disagreement. The students also learned that it’s okay for learning to be a bit messy. Discovering how things do or don’t work can be fun. They learned that effective teamwork requires listening, compromise, and a willingness to adapt—skills that will serve them well in any career path.
Working collaboratively also helped students gain agency and learn the value of working independently from teachers. Besides initially identifying the guidelines of the project, the teachers had very little involvement.
Performing for younger students gave the seventh and eighth graders a sense of responsibility. Students developed leadership skills by taking ownership of their learning and sharing it with others. By performing the plays for the fourth and fifth graders, the students learned to speak publicly and communicate complex, difficult subjects in an accessible manner.
The students had an amazing time developing the shadow plays, which allowed them to flex their creativity and critical thinking—skills valued in any profession. With minimal resources to create the special effects and paper cut-out characters, they had to carefully plan how to bring their stories to life.
Developing the stories also required imagination to develop interesting, emotional stories with impact. They had to make sure the final message of their stories moved the audience and left them with a strong message.
The imagination, critical thinking, and creativity needed to bring the shadow plays to fruition mirror the essential skills required in the modern workforce—where innovation, problem-solving, and effective communication are crucial for success in any career path.
Developing and performing these shadow plays was such a hit with Ms. Clarke and Mr. Baker’s students that they plan to keep this assignment alive for future students. They’re also hoping to include the help of the orchestra class, who could add some musical tracks from the cultures represented by the shadow plays to the recorded script, and open the performances up to the surrounding community.
In the meantime, both Ms. Clarke and Mr. Baker will continue engaging their students with global education through art and creativity. Before the end of this school year, their students will have the opportunity to create hand puppets inspired by folktales from other countries, participate in the Chinese kite festival in tandem with festivals in China during the month of April, and plant Bonsai trees while learning about the trees’ history.
Schools like Roosevelt Middle School use Global Leaders as a framework for threading global education throughout the classroom and school community. Their commitment to the framework ensures that global education is not just an add-on but an integral part of learning. Doing so has helped enhance student engagement, develop career-ready skills, and build stronger relationships between students, teachers, leadership, and local communities.
If you’re looking for a way to implement global education in order to help meet existing school priorities, see if our Global Leaders framework is right for you:
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