106. Creating Global Citizens Starting in K-8 with Dr. Naomi Johnson-Booker

The ease with which we can travel and connect with others across the globe is mind-blowing, when you think about how people traveled and communicated just a generation or two ago. But yet, in some of the lower-income communities in the U.S., people often live and work within a 10-block radius. That means the children of these communities have their worlds limited to these confines too.

That’s what makes what Dr. Naomi Johnson-Booker even more extraordinary. This week on the podcast, Dr. Booker is sharing how the Global Leadership Academy is growing global citizens, starting in kindergarten.

Travel opens up minds and hearts, and it also opens up incredible opportunities for these students, who travel across their state of Pennsylvania, into Canada, and even as far as China, the Caribbean, and Kenya. As K-8 students!

I’m in awe of all that Dr. Booker has been able to accomplish since founding this school and I hope our conversation provides inspiration to you!

Dr. Booker is 76 years old and still works with the motivation and strength she had when she first entered education more than 50 years ago. Dr. Booker’s claim to fame is that after leaving the School District of Philadelphia where she went from a 3rd-grade teacher to an assistant superintendent, she created the first K-8 public charter school in the United States to send urban scholars on expeditions at every grade level to include international travel. 

And this dedicated septuagenarian has more than one job—she is the Founder and CEO of the Global Leadership Academy Charter School West, Founder and Executive Director of Global Academies, and Founder and Administrator of Global Leadership Academy Charter School Southwest. Her scholars come from neighborhoods in which children tend not to travel beyond their 10-block radius. Dr. Booker breaks them out of that radius by taking them to culturally relevant historic sites in Center City such as Mother Bethel AME Church where Richard Allen is buried. With each grade level, the scholars travel further from home on GLA’s K-8 designed pathway that includes visiting rural PA in the Amish Country, the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, following the Underground Railroad from the Belmont Mansion to Canada, embarking on a civil rights tour spanning Birmingham, Atlanta, and Memphis where Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered, and in 8th grade, they travel to an international destination based on the school year’s studies. These passport-holding young teens and tweens have been to Africa, China, Bahama, Haiti, Jamaica, and will continue to add more nations each year once travel can safely resume. Dr. Booker has received the School District of Philadelphia’s prestigious Lindback award, named as a “Woman of Distinction” by the Philadelphia Business Journal, and recognized by the Philadelphia City Council as a “Living Legend.” At the time of this writing, Dr. Booker is completing an application to add a high school.

• [1:54] From not wanting to teach to Johnson became transformational leader
• [3:46] Principals can make or break a school & the future of so many youth
• [4:25] Doing things differently, starting in the 90s
• [7:54] Early teaching developed new curriculum to teach about the city
• [10:36] Doing what’s right for kids: get them out of 10-block radius, let them see the world
• [11:29] K-8 scholars travel the world
• [16:38] Learning how to give back, community service 
• [17:07] Real world experiences stick 
• [18:03] Children are not a test score
• [20:46] Pandemic was opportunity to change the way we do things
• [21:31] 50 years in education and still trying to create more
• [26:30] Turbo Time
• [37:16] The great part of traveling with youth
• [38:59] Magic Wand
• [43:23] Maureen’s takeaways

• Global Academies
• Learn more about Dr. Booker
• Book: Making It: What Kids Need for Tomorrow’s World by Stephanie Malia Kraus
• Cultivating Genius, Dr. Gholdy E. Muhammad
• TED Talk: How to Fix a Broken School? Lead Fearlessly, Love Hard
• GLA YouTube summary
• GLA YouTube of alumni stories
• Email Maureen

• Maureen’s TEDx: Changing My Mind to Change Our Schools

• The Education Evolution
• Facebook: Follow Education Evolution
• Twitter: Follow Education Evolution
• LinkedIn: Follow Education Evolution
• EdActive Collective
• Maureen’s book: Creating Micro-Schools for Colorful Mismatched Kids

• Micro-school feature on Good Morning America
• The Micro-School Coalition
• Facebook: The Micro-School Coalition
• LEADPrep