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On my packing list: Multiple ‘gowns’, a duffel bag full of books, and a permission slip from the hubby. Traveling to Dubai with a 9-year old – tonight!

Tuesday, May 14th, 2013

 

I’ve wrapped up a BIG project – the draft manuscript for The K-5 Global Education Toolkit (with my wonderful co-author, Becky Morales, www.kidworldcitizen.org).  Yippee. Yay. Sigh of relief. Trepidation…  Now I’m turning my attention to the big trip I’m taking tonight with “Tiny Dancer,” aka “the tiny one,” aka Soph Soph, aka the almost-10 y.o. 4th grader who was just a pre-schooler when I was writing Growing Up Global, Sophia.  I will be visiting two international schools while there (not disclosing their names yet, as I need to make sure they are ok with that!), speaking to an audience of parents, and last, but not least, attending a wedding extravaganza for my dear cousin’s daughter who is getting married on May 17, which also is the 50th wedding anniversary of my parents.  Yes, I am feeling a sensory overload!

So, the packing is a bit complicated.  The actual wedding calls for not one, but TWO “gowns” – a short one for the ceremony and a long one for the party which will probably go all night.  My understanding is that we will attend the ceremony then go back to our hotels for a nap and change of clothes, to return to the party a few hours later.  This is the sort of wedding party where dinner is served probably between 11 pm -12 midnight and children are most definitely welcome!  I’m also packing two more long dresses “just in case,” one for my sister who is meeting us from Berlin (can’t wait to see you!).  And the shoes and other accessories to go with each. Then there’s what to wear during the daytime, accounting for cultural sensitivity (but not too much, I am told, for Dubai); and what to wear in the evenings, which will mostly be comprised of dinners for the bride and groom, hosted by various family members.

I have a large duffel bag filled with copies of my book, to take to my talks. It was too complicated to try to order the books to arrive in Dubai on time, so I will be schlepping them across the planet — of course, isn’t that what every author would do?!?!?

Another important thing I am packing: a notarized letter from my dear husband, attesting that I am not kidnapping Sophia and he has our blessing to travel without him.  Parents: if one of you is taking the kids ANYWHERE on a plane, domestic or international, you need one of these.

All the packing of items for different categories of activity make this trip even more exciting to me. I am so grateful to be able to combine these elements — global education and family celebration — in one action-packed week!

Stay tuned for more updates (and follow my Twitter and Facebook for more frequent posts).

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Posted in Events for Growing Up Global, Flexibility, Global education, Speaking Engagements, Travel, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Growing Up Global Workshop @ CA Association of Independent Schools 2013 Northern Regional Meeting

Wednesday, February 20th, 2013

I’ll be in the San Francisco Bay area March 7-12, with the visit revolving around the annual meeting and professional development day of the California Association of Independent Schools.  If you’re attending the Northern Regional Meeting, please consider joining my workshop!  Here’s the info:

March 11, 2013

Global Education “How-To’s” to Foster World-Class Learning
Workshop # 2-53,  11:00 am – 12:30 pm
Presenter: Homa Tavangar, Growing Up Global

In this highly interactive workshop based on nine years of research, writing, speaking and two decades working with diverse groups across the country, Homa Tavangar, author of the acclaimed Growing Up Global: Raising Children to Be At Home in the World will share best practices around educating responsive, resilient, curious, creative, kind, compassionate global citizens – true “world-class learners”. Participants will leave the session with tangible ideas for globalizing their classrooms. She also will share new materials from her chapter, “Growing Up in a Global Classroom” in Heidi Hayes-Jacobs, ed. forthcoming book, and Homa’s new book, The K-5 Global Education Toolkit.

(The link to the entire program is found here.)

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Sacrificing All for Children’s Education in China + The Irony of It

Sunday, February 17th, 2013

I was riveted by Keith Bradsher’s NY Times piece on the front page of the print version of the paper today: In China, Families Bet It All on College for Their Children.

Through the journey of one family’s incredible, heart-wrenching sacrifices that the Times has been tracking for seven years, the piece showed how millions of Chinese sacrifice heavily for their children’s education.  The reality is that as graduates saturate the job market, the security they seek is increasingly elusive.  The story was sad, sobering, and a sense of overwhelming injustice pervaded my thoughts, as I read how rigged against less privileged families the bounties of education can be for hundreds of millions of young Chinese from poor families.  Bradsher also compared costs of U.S. college for families that must sacrifice to send their children on for higher education, to get a sense of relative terms.

As I was processing the overwhelming odds against students like Wu Caoying, I continued to read and turned to the next page, with the photo of the family, some text, and then a half-page ad for a luxury hotel in South Beach, Miami. The ultimate in pleasure and privilege.  I just gasped at this and had to share. ….The irony of it!  I think it also makes for great discussion fodder for high school and college students to consider:

  • What are the sacrifices their own families have made to get them to where they are, and ensure an education for them?
  • What do they think their own prospects for education helping them to “get ahead” might be?
  • What do they think about this juxtaposition of images – both contemporary and both reflecting either the realities or aspirations of large swaths of the world’s populations.
  • In the context of the Chinese family, and then the imaginary frolickers at the Hotel Fountainbleu, what does the word “deserving” conjure in your mind? Does learning the story of the family in the NYT piece impact your idea of “deserving”?
  • What might the juxtaposition of these images say about scarcity or abundance of the earth’s resources?

page A15 New York Times Sunday, February 17, 2013

 

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Posted in China, Global education, Parenting, Uncategorized | No Comments »

That Fleeting Moment When My Children Are Under One Roof

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2013

I have a running list for an article I want to write one day that I think of as “The Dirty Secrets of Growing Up Global.” This basically covers the anguish, expense, and sleep deprivation (due to emergencies that arise in various time zones) parents experience when they send their babies (of any age) off into the world to explore and grow.  We know the experience is a good thing, so that knowledge takes the sting away, but we still really, really miss them – and maybe worry a bit, too.

Our big girl recently returned from one of these trips, going to Shanghai and Hong Kong during three of the four weeks of her university winter break.  She had just under 48 hours at home after the trip which mostly consisted of an internship shadowing a physician (and dear friend of ours) in a hospital.  She’s such a trooper, immediately bouncing back to our US time zone, 13 hours different from where she was.  It’s so great to be young, where, as she says: “time zones don’t matter to me; I can sleep anytime, for as long as possible.” About 60 hours after her return she starts classes, so we’ll see how that works out for her (I feel like that sounds like it would be said in a Sarah Palin accent, as in “how’s that hope-y, change-y workin’ out for ya?”).

Here’s a picture we managed to get of our three girls just minutes before walking out of the house to take her back to school.  I’ve avoided sharing family photos on this blog but it’s a new year, and I’m thinking, “why not?!”  I shared so much about the girls in Growing Up Global. Maybe 2013 is time for more of that.  This photo just makes my heart sing. It captures joy, sisterhood and the spontaneity that comes with it. Gratitude wells in my heart for our healthy, lovely girls, warts and all.

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Posted in Global education, Moms, My Kids, Parenting, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Raising Global Citizens (and Consumers) So K’Naan Doesn’t Need to Censor His Better Self

Wednesday, December 12th, 2012

I’m struck by the recent op-ed by rapper-poet-pop star K’naan in the NY Times, “Censoring Myself for Success,” found here.  It made me sad – but wasn’t surprising – to read how music industry executives wanted him to water down his message and fascinating life story growing up in war-torn Mogadishu, Somalia, so that his now huge fans base – lots of 15 year-old American girls – can relate and thus purchase his songs.  He shared his feelings about this in the eloquent Op-Ed, which also made me that much more interested in his work and his person.  (He also had come to my attention for performing in the fall’s Global Citizen Festival on Central Park with Neil Young, the Black Keys and others, to raise awareness on global poverty.)  As he related:

Right now, the pressures of the music industry encourage me to change the walk of my songs. When I write from the deepest part of my heart, my advisers say, I remind people too much of Somalia, which I escaped as a boy. My audience is in America, so my songs should reflect the land where I have chosen to live and work.

They have a point. A musician’s songs are not just his own; he shares them with an audience. Still, Somalia is where my life and poetry began. It is my walk. And I don’t want to lose it. Or stifle it. Or censor it in the name of marketing.

My take-away from his piece: if teen-age consumers were better versed on diverse conditions in the world, then the best of artists from all over, even unexpected placed like Somalia, could be better appreciated, and thus enhance every listening and artistic experience – especially for those of us who have never been to that country or don’t know its culture and ways.  Classrooms can serve as laboratories for mining the gems of culture, history, literature and psychology embedded in popular and ancient artistic expression.  Names like Fatima, as well as Mary, would grace songs on the radio in Arkansas and Nevada, and global citizens as consumers would demand that artists share their authentic voices, not some dumbed-down version of their true – and better – selves.  The market place is powerful. Parents and teachers are powerful.  Let’s educate our children to use their power for a better, richer, global marketplace and community.

Printed in the New York Times, Illustration by Jimmy Turrell, from a photograph by Steve C. Mitchell/European Pressphoto Agency

Postscript:  K’Naan’s piece also may have struck a chord as I’ve been thinking so much about Pandit Ravi Shankar’s passing yesterday. He didn’t seem to water down his culture, and for that generations of Westerners can thank him for introducing the mystical music of India. Citizens of the planet are so much richer for his masterful, soul-stirring music. I was honored to meet him and his daughter Anoushka after a concert, where his humble majesty was felt by all in the room.

 

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Posted in Africa, Bullying, Global education, Immigrants, War and Peace | No Comments »

A Family Thanksgiving Tradition That Gives Back

Wednesday, November 21st, 2012

One of our favorite (newer) traditions each Thanksgiving with our large, and usually ornery extended family is what we call the “Global Giving Game.”  I described it in this piece linked and pasted below, which was published – surprisingly! – on FoxNews.com soon after Growing Up Global’s publication.  I’m a little disappointed that all the comments have since been taken down, as they were as (more than?) entertaining as the article, but mostly for their negativity and misinformation.  Most comments went something like, “What a bunch of liberal sissies brainwashing your kids. … Don’t look at problems in other countries; we have our own here. … Don’t teach about being a global citizen, be proud to be an American citizen…”  Yeah – we’ve heard that  before…

Also, note the title of the piece, “A New Black Friday Tradition.”  When Global Giving learned about our activity, they really wanted it to dovetail with their terrific “Great American Sleep-In” campaign, encouraging the avoidance of the malls, big box stores and rampant consumerism.  The two (giving and shopping) don’t need to be mutually exclusive, and every family will make up their own priorities and values, but it’s a great idea, even for a dinner table discussion!

Here’s the link to the original piece: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/11/25/homa-tavangar-black-friday-giving-global-giving/.

And here’s the text in it’s entirety, if that’s easier to access. 

A New Black Friday Tradition

By

Published November 25, 2009

FoxNews.com

My large extended family loves Thanksgiving. We make travel arrangements months in advance in anticipation of my mom’s delicious homemade feast. Recently we’ve added a new tradition that begins with an e-mail to everyone who plans to gather around the table Thursday. The e-mail makes no mention of recipes but instead offers instructions and a challenge. It’s tied into a new holiday tradition in our family called Global Giving’s “Great American Sleep In.” This resembles a game, but has real consequences.

While writing the book “Growing Up Global: Raising Children to Be At Home in the World” I discovered many ways families could engage with and explore the world – even if they couldn’t purchase plane tickets – and I developed a “toolbox” to help kids have fun and make sense of the world they are inheriting. At home, we decided to hold a “theme dinner” and watch a movie from India, Ireland or Iran, interspersed with our usual Disney classics; we adding dance tunes from Brazil, Sweden and Morocco to our favorite music playlists; we are now engaging in richer conversations at the dinner table and even keeping a globe handy in the kitchen. We’ve enjoyed these new traditions that not only have connected us with the larger world, but have brought us closer as a family.

Likewise, at Thanksgiving, when we usually play games like “Scattergories” or charades we considered an alternative. We asked, “what if we added a fun experience that also made a difference in the world?” It was then that we decided to make giving back a conscious component of our larger family gathering. I learned about so many great causes while writing “Growing Up Global,” the biggest challenge seemed: “which one to choose?” Luckily I found a solution to this conundrum at GlobalGiving (www.globalgiving.org). This terrific organization operates like an Amazon.com or an eBay for charitable giving in the U.S. and overseas. You can “shop” for the cause that most appeals to you and get involved as much or as little as you wish. So how does it work?

Between the main meal and dessert at our Thanksgiving feast last year we divided the family into teams. Each team had a laptop and navigated the GlobalGiving.org Web site (if you’re doing this with your family you can also play together around one computer). We allowed each group twenty minutes to come up with a team recommendation; then the entire group got to choose one charity from among these to support. Our family teams passionately debated the merits of providing lunches for students in Burkina Faso, or foster care for abandoned infants in the U.S. We were most challenged by having to decide on a single project — the needs of the world seemed too big to narrow our choices down in such a short time, or ever. Finally, we decided on a program supporting girls’ education in Afghanistan.

For foodie families like ours, proposing anything new at Thanksgiving took some getting used to. Responses ranged from skepticism to curiosity, and eventually, enthusiasm. The youngest ones came the most prepared. They proudly shared money saved from allowances and the tooth fairy, ranging from 78 cents to $3.00.

The challenge spurred a family discussion around the question “Why care?” Conversations with my kindergartner influenced even the most cynical members of our family. We talked about how all the people of the world function like a human body. Our liver might not be aware of our little toe, but if you hurt your little toe and the pain doesn’t go away, the whole body suffers. Likewise, we can be affected by someone far away. Their hunger or lack of schooling might not seem connected to us, but eventually it is –whether in the form of a global financial crisis or the spread of anger that turns into terrorism. Here’s another way of thinking about it: if we truly believe that all people are one family, God’s children, then we wouldn’t want our family to suffer.

Our goal wasn’t to raise big money, $10 dollars here, $5 dollars there would suffice but over the course of the game something else happened — wallets and checkbooks kept opening. For the rest of the evening and even into the New Year, our family’s conversations returned to the GlobalGiving experience and the girls’ school in Afghanistan. This year we’re taking things a step further with the “Great American Sleep-In.” Instead of braving the mall traffic on Black Friday to acquire one more gadget or tie for dad, we think we might help to transform a life in his name, with a gift that gives back through GlobalGiving.

Our little interlude between turkey and dessert helped open our eyes to tremendous and complex needs. At the same time, we felt optimistic and empowered that great things are being made possible by good people all over the planet. Their causes helped to unite us, from age 5 to 93, around a common vision of hope and giving. And for this, my family is truly grateful.

Homa S. Tavangar is the author of “Growing Up Global: Raising Children to Be At Home in the World,” released Fall 2009 by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, and named a “Best New Parenting Book” from Scholastic Parent & Child. Visit her at www.growingupglobal.net. Join the “Great American Sleep In” at http://www.globalgiving.org/gifts-black-friday/

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/11/25/homa-tavangar-black-friday-giving-global-giving/#ixzz2CrsR4m3j

 

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Posted in Articles, Food, Giving, Global education, Global Giving, Golden Rule, Holidays, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

A Teachable Moment About the U.S. Election – Thanks to Foreign News

Monday, November 5th, 2012

Driving this morning with my nine year-old, as we half-listened to the BBC news on the radio, yielded a nice teachable moment. They advertised their round-the-clock election coverage of the U.S. Presidential race.  It sounded momentous and a little urgent.  I took their tone for granted, but I’m glad my daughter, Sophia, didn’t.  Here’s how the conversation followed:

Sophia: “Mommy, why would the BBC care about the U.S. election? It’s not their country.”

Me: “That’s such a good observation. It’s our election, but the whole world is watching.”

Sophia: “Why?”

Me: “The United States is the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world.  Did you know that?”

Sophia: (Tentatively) “I think so.”

Me: “So, decisions the President makes about how much money to spend, where to buy stuff, if they will start or end a war, how they will help other countries, if they let in immigrants from other countries, all affect people around the world very much.”  Then, as I thought more about it, the list, aimed at the 9 year-old’s understanding, got longer, and I added: “They make decisions about spending and organizing healthcare and education; building or repairing roads, tunnels, bridges, airports.  The building supplies can come from the U.S. or another country. The education and healthcare will help decide if companies want to have offices here or somewhere else. This will make a difference on how many jobs there will be, and how good the jobs will be.”  Then, before I got into the topic of appointing judges, we had arrived.

As Sophia slid open the minivan door, she got in the last word: “I hope whoever’s President won’t start new wars.”  She scampered into school, and I was left to utter to myself, “Me too…”

To learn more on talking about the election with children, see “11 Ways to Get Your Kids Excited About the Election” from Redbook.com.

How do you talk about the election with kids and explain why the world cares so much about the U.S. election?

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How a World Map Can Feed the Spirit and the Body

Tuesday, October 9th, 2012

When I excitedly opened the cardboard tube containing the new Children Inspire Design map delivered to my door, my first reaction was perplexity.  The world map had no countries identified on it, but did have whimsical animals and people.  What’s the good of a map without, at minimum, national boundaries?

So I stared at it for probably a minute, trying to understand what artist, mother and social entrepreneur, Rebecca Peragine, whom I admire, might have been thinking by making this minimalist map.

“The earth is but one country…”

Then I soon remembered a quotation from Baha’u’llah that has inspired my life: “The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.” I had thought about what this sentence means in terms of breaking down barriers for getting to know diverse people.  I had thought about how seeing the earth in its entirety as one common home can help to shed the fear might be tacked on to the unknown places, people and belief systems that arise when we see the earth through a divisive lens.  I had thought about how it offers a mindset that rejects an “us against them” mentality, and how useful it can be to embrace this idea early in life.

But I don’t think I had ever thought about it literally – what its physical representation on a world map could look like or mean to me.  Until I saw this map.  Suddenly, the absence of national boundary lines offered a sense of expansiveness, of freedom, and the possibility for peace.  It connected with a concept that I consider to be deeply spiritual:  If we are all God’s children, then efforts toward realizing our oneness are tantamount to an act of faith – like a prayer.

“Compassion for the Earth and All Who Inhabit It”

The next thing that struck me about this map was its title, “Global Compassion,” and the message at the bottom: “Compassion for the Earth and All Who Inhabit It”.  When we aren’t bound by the lines that divide us, compassion comes more naturally.

When “compassion” enters a child’s vocabulary early in life, they have a greater opportunity to practice and understand it, to become experts at it.  A thoughtful initiative to advance us in this direction is the Charter for Compassion, which begins:

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

One phrase that I had glossed over in previous readings of the opening of the Charter: “to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world” took on a new meaning for me.  Without the traditional boundaries encumbering us, when “the earth is but one country” we can more easily step aside from the center of our world, and do things that are greater than our solitary selves.

The Map That Gives Back

In the spirit of global compassion, artist Rebecca Peragine didn’t stop with making her map; she’s also donating 100% of the proceeds to Future Fortified.  Each print gives a month’s worth of nutrients to 20 children in Kenya; so we can each help make a dent in the alarming fact that 2 billion people around the world lack access to the essential nutrients they need to lead healthy lives.  (See a lovely short video about the effort here; they’ve already surpassed 3,800 children with nutrients for a month.)

I asked Rebecca about her inspiration and she said:

“I chose to leave out national boundaries because I wanted to focus on the life of the print, meaning the animals and people who inhabit it.  The message ‘compassion for the earth and all who inhabit it’ gives a sense of oneness, and I didn’t think showing geographical divides would support that.”

I realize it may sound naïve to imagine that hanging a simple wall map can start a life-long conversation with our children, to start envisioning and building a better world.  But I firmly believe it – because I’ve seen it happen.  I’ve spoken with hundreds, maybe thousands, of adults who remember a globe, map, or picture on their parent’s desk or the fridge or their walls or at a friend’s home that spurred them to consider their wider world.  It made them more open to making friends who were different from them, changed their course of study, their career path, or the way they raise their children.

These small steps toward mindful compassion we take today can open up a whole new world – perhaps one that is less focused on our boundaries and more on our possibilities.

What steps do you take to teach “global compassion” at home, in the classroom, at work, or in your community?  Please comment here and/or on Growing Up Global’s Facebook page to WIN a GLOBAL COMPASSION MAP!  (Last day for comments is October 19; winner will be announced October 20.)

 

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Posted in Global education, Golden Rule, Interfaith | 21 Comments »

Channel the Concern of a Sleepless Night

Wednesday, September 19th, 2012

“So many creative initiatives, like Free the Children, Ryan’s Well, and Wheels to Africa, began as a result of a caring child who was agitated after learning about an injustice perpetrated somewhere in the world. Their compassionate parents didn’t tell them to forget about those thoughts or that it’s “all okay.”  Instead, they helped the children develop a plan of action, find creative avenues for service, fundraise, and even engage in policy advocacy. This way, kids felt empowered to right a wrong and not stand helplessly or anxiously on the sidelines. These successful organizations all started because of a young child who was deeply affected by a situation they learned about in the world.”

This paragraph is excerpted from Growing Up Global, page 216.  I thought of it as I read about Hugh Evans, age 29.  Evans is the co-founder of the Global Poverty Project, which is organizing a massive concert on Central Park, September 29, 2012, to call attention to extreme poverty in developing countries.  According to a New York Times profile, his passion for this cause began at age 14, so he’s had fifteen years to hone his expertise in activism.  What a great example of impact that can be made when we start at an early age!

 

 

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Posted in Giving, Global education, Golden Rule | 3 Comments »

Playground games to help you “visit” a new country

Tuesday, July 17th, 2012

(Excitement around the London 2012 Olympics is building!  The games offer an excellent window to the world for all ages and interests, wherever you’ll watch them from.  This is an excerpt from Growing Up Global: Raising Children to Be At Home in the World, to get started in your backyard, nearby playground, or wherever you go outside to play!)

 

In addition to soccer and many of the Olympic sports, there are so many other universal games to play on the playground or in your neighborhood, from tag to rock-paper-scissors (known as Jan Ken Po in Japanese), sometimes with slight variations. Monkey-in-the-middle in Thailand is called Ling Ching Bon or “monkey snatches ball.” Hide-and-go-seek in Iraq is known as Suk Suk, meaning “home home,” and when a hider is found, they race back to home base to avoid being “it,” just like the Welsh game “Danny one-two-three” (Danny un, dau, tri in Welsh).

Kids playing their invented games in Clif Kid's Backyard Games of the Year, 2011

 

Tag probably has the most variations. We used to play snake tag, TV tag, and freeze tag when I was  growing up. Variations on snake tag—where the person tagged joins the “it” by hand and the snake or chain grows bigger with each person caught—include l’aranya peluda (“hairy spider” in Catalonia), Kettenfangan (“chain tag” in German), and Mamba (“snake” in southern Africa). The games stay fresh when you discover variations from other cultures—both in how to play it and how to say it. It’s exciting to learn words in a new language and everyone gains a little confidence that they can say something familiar but totally new. Instant translation programs online can fill in words from a particular language. Search the game in that culture, or ask a friend about variations they may remember on the playground in the country where they grew up. Words are more easily remembered in a foreign language during a game because they are being used in a fun context.

 

If you have a particular country you’d like to learn about with your children, are traveling to, or where a new friend is from, you can try a game from that country as a means to get to know its culture better, and the games can be taken together as a sort of “journey around the world.” With elementary-school-aged kids, you can pretend you are going on a trip to the country whose game you are going to play. What do you need to prepare for your trip? Look at each of the games listed following as a “visit” to that country. The original name of the game in its native language is listed after the English translation—try using the original name as part of your “travels.”

 

Visit the Netherlands! Play Conquer New Lands (Landje veroveren in Dutch): This is sort of like a physical version of the game Risk, with four to eight players. Object of the game: Remain a free country. Draw a big circle with chalk on the ground, divided into pieces like a pie or a pizza. Each child will be a country. Write the name of each country on one of the pie pieces. To start the game each child stands with one foot in their own country. In the original version, one designated person says, “I declare war on . . . (name of one of the countries).” Then all the children run away from the circle. Only the child/country that war has been declared on (the new “warrior”) stays in the circle, then calls “STOP!” At this call, all the children stop running. Then, all must try to get back into their own country by walking slowly to the circle when the warrior calls, “WALK.” When one or more children get close to the circle the warrior again can call “STOP.” Remaining with at least one foot in their country, the warrior needs to try to tap a child (this also can be done by lying on the ground to extend the reach—the warrior can move around, but only within their own country). Once a child has been tapped, they have conquered the other country. Try to get as many new lands as possible.  Children who reach their pie piece without being tapped are free. The last country to be conquered will be the next warrior.

(You can vary the concept of war by saying instead: “I will UNITE with . . .” Instead of being a warrior, the “it” person can be the UNITER, the UN secretary general,a monarch, or the president.)

Visit Thailand! Play Crow Sits on Eggs (E-Gar Fuk Khai in Thai ): Two circles are drawn, one within the other. The outer circle should be about four feet in diameter and the inner circle just one foot. Small rocks or other similar-sized objects are then placed inside the smaller circle. One of the players is chosen to be the “crow.” That player has to remain within the circle and guard the eggs. The others have to try and steal the eggs from the crow. They can do anything they like to trick and tease the crow. However, they mustn’t enter the circle or be touched by the crow. When all of the eggs have been stolen the crow is then blindfolded.  The players then have to hide the eggs that they have stolen. When they are ready, the blindfold is taken off and the crow has to search for its missing eggs. The owner of the first egg to be found then takes over the role as the “crow.” (This and other Thai playground games can be found at: Thaistudents.com; search for games.)

Visit Nigeria! Play Catch the Tail: This is a variation on Snake Tag. Kids form two teams; each is a snake. Each team has a tail (handkerchief or scarf ) in the pocket of the last person in the chain. The other team tries to capture the tail in order to win.

[For more games, like those from Wales, South Korea, Mexico and "global" games, and other ideas around play, please see Growing Up Global's Chapter 3, "Play!"]

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