"Come right over! I've got something for the girls of
Savannah, and all America, and all the world, and we're going to start
it tonight!"
-Juliette Gordon Low to her cousin Nina Anderson Pape on March 12, 1912
Happy 100th Birthday Girl Scouts!!!
If you've never been very involved or been around a very involved scout, you likely have never heard of World Thinking Day (called Thinking Day when I was a scout and up until 1999). To celebrate Girl Scout Thinking Day, I remember learning of other cultures and distant lands yearly, usually on a February Saturday in some gym in Northeast Georgia. At the start of this paragraph, I used "very involved" because just attending a weekly meeting and selling cookies is NOT what Girl Scouting is truly about.
The last two years my school has had an International Night. Both years I've had students participate because of a country they had initially learned about on World Thinking Day. I might also add that one of the most genuine and exceptional students I have ever taught is a Girl Scout Gold Award recipient and scout through high school graduation. How many high school students would tutor young children as well has her high school classmates in French? Now as a sophomore at Georgia Tech, she still comes back every year to help me with a service project that she became involved in going on 10 years ago. Scouting is more than cookies. It is about a wider world and inspiring young women to embrace and contribute to that wider world. Global Tour of World Thinking Day
What did I gain from being a Girl Scout? More than you can imagine. I learned how to change a tire and basic car maintenance, became 1st Aid & CPR certified for the first time, practiced public speaking and presentation, helped publish a cookbook, rode Amtrak to New York City where I saw the only Broadway musical ON Broadway I've seen to this day, went to Washington, DC, visited the state capitol and many more things. The list of life lessons I gained could go on and on. Those lessons make me a better person, and most certainly a better global educator.
That is why HAPPY 100th BIRTHDAY to GIRL SCOUTS belongs on a blog about Global Education!!!! :)
Check below this image for a Ukrainian message to Girl Scouts!
The message below came from the Association of Ukrainian Guides on World Thinking Day in 2010!!
We would like to send you our best World Thinking Day wishes!
We are happy to be a part of an amazing family of Guides and Scouts from around the world. Having such good friends as you are we are sure together we can change the world!
Best regards,
Association of Ukrainian Guides
GPB Georgia Stories highlights Juliette Gordon Low's life and the founding of the Girl Scouts.
