Microsoft and the World's Largest Lesson have included my Seven-Step-Plan for embedding the Global Goals at school in their TeachSDGs teacher training course. You can complete the course here.

I work with teachers from all over Europe in the Pestalozzi Programme, the Council of Europe programme for the professional development of teachers and education actors. Through the Global Teacher Prize and TeachSDGs I am connected to educators from all over the world. Working with teachers from all parts of the globe makes me realize that education has an enormous impact on local, regional and global processes.

In September 2015 UN published the Global Goals for Sustainable Development and supported The World's Largest Lesson to introduce the Goals to the young generation. Many testimonials supported the campaign. I created a lesson plan for The World's Largest Lesson and translated video content into German to help. Still, I have the impression that the Global Goals aren't as well-known as they should be. We need everyone on this planet to know about them and help contribute to achieving these goals. This should be the ultimate goal of all our education efforts.

The Global Teacher Prize is an annual one million dollar award from the Varkey Foundation to be given to an  inspiring teacher. One innovative and caring teacher who has made an impact on their students and their community will receive this award. Teachers currently teaching children in a compulsory setting or between the ages 5-18 are eligible.  The award is there to shine a light on the teaching profession and also unleash thousands of stories about inspiring teaching. This aspect of the award is very important to me: There are tons of inspiring stories about teaching. And I believe they need to be told.

As finalists of the Global Teacher Prize we currently work on ways of supporting the global teaching and learning of literacy, maths, science, global citizenship, socio-emotional development, creativity, teacher reflection and school-community relationships. Our work is supported by Professor Fernando Reimers from Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Since 2016 I also work as a judge for the Global Teacher Prize. Through this work I get to learn about some of the most fantastic work teachers do in this world.

The Pestalozzi Programme seeks to promote Human Rights, Democracy, Sustainability and Diversity in European education. It offers a summer school, European workshops, trainer training courses and conferences and has just published one of the most important documents for European teachers of our time, the manifesto "Education for Change - Change for Education" which has been prepared by representatives of the Community of Practice of the Pestalozzi Programme and the working group “Teachers’ profession in the 21st century” of the Education and Culture Committee of the Conference of International Non-governmental Organisations of the Council of Europe for the jointly organised conference “The professional image and ethos of teachers” in April 2014 at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. I have been very honored to be a part of this process and meet inspiring educators from all over Europe as well as the organisers of the conference Josef Huber, Head of the Pestalozzi Programme, Sabine Rohmann, Chair of the Education and Culture Committee and Pascale Mompoint-Gaillard, pedagogical consultant for the programme, who is also very involved in the process and is a great role model.

The Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes in Kansas, USA, has chosen me for a stipend to be a Lowell Milken Fellow in 2015. I was invited to go to Kansas and work with some of the best American educators. The center discovers, develops and communicates the stories of Unsung Heroes of history: People who are unknown, but are role models who demonstrate courage, compassion and respect and made a difference in the lives of others and in history. The Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes works with students and educators across diverse academic disciplines to develop history projects that highlight these stories.

I have written several articles about my experience.

Mareike Hachemer. What I have learned.

Mareike Hachemer. Mareike Hachemer travels the world.

I have visited and contributed to plenty of international conferences which included keynotes, workshops and discussions. What I found to be very inspiring is when actual teaching is also a part of a meeting or a training course, because education is a subject which can often lead to people thinking that they are talking about the same issue, while they are not. We're all from completely different backgrounds. I dare to say that no two teachers in the world have the same job. We're in different schools, teach different subjects, follow different curricula in different school systems. How do we even think that the word education means the same to our conversational partners?

Teaching each other shows the differences. In a situation in which we pretend that we are each others' students we get to learn most from each other and create a great opportunity for inspiration. Also, we get to go back into a students perspective which is always a good viewpoint to have. (That's why drama teachers should also be actors every now and then and language teachers should learn new languages.)

The main reason why I had the chance to become a globally active teacher is that a lot of organizations have supported my professional development and my projects through scholarships, awards, free education, funds and fellowships. I want to say thank you for all these opportunities. I am aware that this is a privilege.