Teaching and Learning for Intercultural Understanding Issue 3, September 2019

Embedding Intercultural Understanding in Our Schools

We are learning all the time and everywhere, and opportunities for intercultural learning and understanding are all around us! We can help make intercultural learning and understanding visible when we intentionally provide opportunities for children to reflect on and share their intercultural experiences.

We can develop intercultural understanding best when we intentionally embed it the life of our classroom and school. In my last blog I shared the following learning activity.

When I taught Grade 3 I wanted to help make learning visible and learning strategies evident for my students. I began the school year with an activity that beautifully set the stage for enhanced learning and collaboration in the coming year, and we looked back on it often. It helped the children know each other more and discover commonalities as we began to develop a sense of community. It also highlighted and encouraged intercultural learning and understanding, and I would like to share it with you.

The first week of school I asked the children to bring in an item that reflected something new they had learned that summer. I explained that it could be an artifact, book, photograph, audio or video clip etc. I asked them to share with the class what they had learned and how they had learned it. I shared my own learning as well.

One child brought in a stick and a plate as he had learned plate spinning at a circus camp, which he happily demonstrated for us! Another brought a guidebook of Spain as she had visited there and loved learning about flamenco dance. A third child brought in a photograph of himself learning to waterski and another brought a French-English phrasebook as she was learning French after meeting French children on holiday.

We created a chart of our learning strategies that we added to and referred to throughout the year. They included take lessons, read a book or online, practise, ask questions, listen to an audio guide, observe someone, watch a video, try it on your own, experiment, work with a partner and more.

The children then interviewed a parent or adult family member about something new he or she had learned in the past six months and how. Some examples were began to learn a new language, learned how to drive on the left-hand side of the road in London, and created an iMovie. We added their learning strategies to our chart and saw that learning happens at all ages, and that children and adults learn in similar ways.

You can use this activity to set the stage for intercultural learning at any time during the school year and specifically focus on intercultural learning and understanding by asking, ‘What is something new you learned about another culture or language?’ Intercultural learning and understanding can happen through experiences such as travel, going to an art exhibition, making a new friend in the neighbourhood, attending a world music concert, going to a language camp, reading a book set in a different country or culture, or seeing a foreign film.

Point out that we are learning about new cultures and languages all the time, and that it would be interesting to share our knowledge and experiences with each other. Posing the question, ‘What is something new you learned about another culture or language?’ you could post a chart in your classroom where children could record their new cultural and linguistic learning throughout the year. This provides a powerful visual representation of our learning and communicates the value we place on such learning. Creating a class blog where children (and adults!) can share their intercultural learning is another option, and there are many more.

I hope you have an opportunity to use this idea with your students and that you find it as effective as I did. Another useful resource is my free lesson plan based on the charming children’s book, BIG, by Coleen Paratore, that is filled with ideas to intentionally develop and demonstrate intercultural understanding. You can download it under Resources on www.debrarader.com.

I also suggest my lesson plan based on What Does To Mean to Be Global? by Rana DiOrio included in Teaching and Learning for Intercultural Understanding. It contains a range of practical and creative ideas for making intercultural learning and understanding visible throughout the year.

Inclusion and Connection

Where peace exists there is inclusion and connection, and when we promote peace, we promote inclusion and connection. In my book, Teaching and Learning for Intercultural Understanding, I have included a lesson plan based on the excellent children’s book, Peace Begins With You by Katherine Scholes. The author clearly and simply explains the concept of peace, why conflicts occur, how they can be resolved and how to protect peace. As she so wisely says, ‘peace begins with you.’ She also tells us that ‘peace is being allowed to be different and allowing others to be different from you’ and that ‘lasting peace can only occur when people are treated fairly.’ These are critical ideas to explore.

The lesson plan provides valuable discussion points, and a range of engaging strategies and activities to address these ideas, and help children understand, experience and create peace. With your students explore ways we can all be peacemakers and help protect peace in our classroom, school, home, community and our world. Identify what you are already doing and what else can be done individually and together.

The topic of peace can and should be addressed in our classrooms throughout the school year. It is helpful to regularly check in and see how your class is doing with creating a peaceful and harmonious learning environment.

The 21st of September is the United Nations International Day of Peace and is an ideal time to highlight peace. This year’s timely theme is Climate Action for Peace, which is particularly important as we come to understand that climate change and natural disasters disrupt peace in our communities and world. As I write we are responding to the devastation caused by recent hurricanes. There will be a Youth Climate Summit held as well.

The International Day of Peace leads up to the UN Climate Action Summit, which takes place at UN Headquarters in New York City on the 23rd of September. UN Secretary General, António Guterres, tells us that ‘urgent climate action is a global imperative’ and calls on us to ‘strive to build a world where we can live every day in harmony with the environment and each other.’ Swedish teen activist, Greta Thunberg, who has inspired people of all ages around the world to take action to fight climate change, is scheduled to speak at this event and many other young voices will also be heard. Explore ways your class can engage with this vital work locally and globally.

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