In his article, Lindahl (2006) addresses the right to education as an irrefutable right of every citizen of the world. The focus on globalism and the active promotion of cross-cultural communication and cooperation have shaped the environment of modern education to a considerable extent. Because of the propensity toward viewing academic processes from multiple perspectives, including a legal one, global legal principles have been incorporated into it recently. Particularly, the right to receive education as something that everyone is universally entitled to should be viewed as a significant breakthrough in the modern international relationships.
According to the principles of equality in education promoted by global organizations, particularly, the UNO, every single person on the planet is entitled to receiving a proper education (Bolman & Deal, 2013). That being said, for a range of reasons, most of which revolve around economic and financial factors, a significant percentage of the global population does not have access to free education. Even in cases when basic educational opportunities are provided, the quality of the teaching process may be questioned.
Furthermore, the choice of the knowledge and skills that students should be taught, as well as the qualifications of the school staff, can be deemed as the areas of concern in the present-day education system in a range of states. The shortage of qualified staff and coherent instructions will have to be addressed by improving the economic system and the financial situation in some countries.
Reaction
The idea of making education available to everyone without any exceptions seems exciting to me. Despite the fact that the principles of equality are currently viewed is the foundation for building relationships on both interpersonal and intercultural levels, prejudices and other obstacles on the way to equal educational opportunities remain in their places. Therefore, I find the idea of using modern tools for enhancing the importance of equality in education across the world an essential step toward improving the education system.
Implementation in the TESOL Classroom
However, I must admit that the elation caused by the article was immediately toned down as I realized that the goals set by Lindahl (2006) are not quite achievable yet. First, the premises for encouraging global equality in education must be created. Or this purpose, gender- and culture-related conflicts, as well as similar issues preventing the enhancement of equality, must be addressed. The identified processes, in turn, are bound to take much time.
The article by Lindahl (2006) raises a lot of questions, most of which concern the issue of controlling the quality of education. While the intentions of the author are admittedly noble, there is a tangible threat that the implementation process is likely to be hampered significantly. Seeing that the strategy offered by the author can be described as rather generic, it will require further adjustments and changes once it is applied to the context of a particular environment.
Therefore, the process of introducing the idea of equality into the realm of a TESOL classroom will require significant flexibility and a perfect understanding of the specifics of the target culture. The choice of a cross-cultural communication framework that will be applied to manage the changes and encourage students and teacher to accept the suggested system of values and quality standards will define the success of the framework implementation. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that the principles of the transformational leadership style should be used as the foundation for the change. Thus, the active promotion of the respective values and philosophy will become a possibility.
Reference
Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2013). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
Lindahl, R. (2006). The right to education in a globalized world. Journal of Studies in International Education, 10(1), 5-26. Web.