Outreach for precollege education about international topics, places, and languages

With the launch of the Soviet Sputnik in the 1950s the national government in the USA launched a long-term commitment for boosting international education and expertise at college and precollege levels. This included the NRC (national resource centers for international education) and the LRC (language resource centers). These engage people in the surrounding counties of the campus-based centers, but with the advent of a widely available and widely used Internet, the service area is planetary, serving students of USA schools domestically and abroad, as well as no-USA students and educators, too.

The website, https://teachingtheworld.net/, comprises the collective wisdom and products and services of the NRC today. Browsing the site, though, it can easily overwhelm visitors curious to see what might suit local needs or goals. Both sides --the university experts and the precollege teachers (and students)-- are eager to improve the quality and quantity of international and comparative experience in the classroom and online. But judging from the topics offered at the website,  the university-types want to give TMI in units that make sense to them. The mismatch comes from the audience, the precollege teachers and learners, who have a preexisting platform and scaffolding leading to that platform. They don't want to displace what they have now (or are required to do now). Instead, they seek illustrations, ice-breakers, eye-openers, factoids, and sources for comparison (voices and viewpoints absent from their trusted old content). The teachers seek appetizers; the presenters offer 5-course feasts.