Teaching and Learning for Intercultural Understanding Newsletter January 2021

Reimagining Our World

31 December 2020: New Year’s Eve in Times Square was very different this year. The usual crowds and their revelry were replaced by a small crowd of invited frontline workers representing, and rightly honouring, all of those who have taken care of others during this pandemic. Just before the ball dropped, American singer and songwriter, Andra Day, carried on the tradition of covering John Lennon’s Imagine with her beautiful rendition. This song, written 50 years ago in 1971, resonates particularly strongly today in 2021, when I believe we are beginning to imagine a better world, and reimagine our world and our part in creating it.

Much has been written about what we have learned this past year through the Covid-19 pandemic, racial injustice and inequality, and the BLM movement that resonated in countries round the world. And much has been written about our enormous capacity for empathy, compassion and love. Across the globe we saw examples of people of all ages reaching out in kindness and taking care of one another. Make the World Better is a stunning collaborative student-led project created in the spring of 2020 to bring joy, comfort and express gratitude during this crisis. Our need for human relationships, connection and community was, and is, clear.

The Guardian columnist, Jonathan Freeland, described this well when he wrote, ‘The pandemic took away so many lives, but it also reminded us what life is for: the simple joy of being with other people, close enough to touch and be touched. Like a magnifying glass placed over each one of us, the virus revealed what is our greatest weakness but also our most precious strength: our need for each other.’

Human relationships are central to education and to creating an inclusive learning community. Knowing ourselves and each other is essential for forming strong, nurturing and positive relationships. It requires self-reflection, self-awareness and self-knowledge, the willingness to share who we are with others and a genuine interest in learning about others as well.

We learned that all of us, children and adults of all ages, can have a positive impact and make things better NOW. This knowledge and the action it inspires will continue to be part of reimagining our world and education. We do need one another and together we can reimagine our world where we come to know one another, to honour and respect one another and to lift one another up. We can learn to love and care for one another, and with common purpose and vision, create an inclusive world in which we can all live equitably, safely, peacefully and joyfully. I invite you to read the blog I wrote in June 2020, The Yearning We Are Feeling Is for Love.

There is a renewed commitment to anti-bias and anti-racist education, and to promoting diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice in our learning communities Intentionally teaching about human relationships, and the ability to live and work together with understanding, compassion and positive regard is central to this commitment. Sharing our identities, cultures, personal histories and stories is part of this work. Read more about embracing equity, diversity and inclusion in my blog, Solstice 2020: A time of stillness and reflection.

In his excellent article, Teaching Kindness Isn’t Enough, Bret Turner instructs us to go beyond kindness and create a culture of justice. He says, ‘Moving away from simple kindness and toward real justice begins with building an identity-safe classroom: a place where everyone’s story is not only recognized but honored, studied and loved.’ We are reminded that kindness needs to be paired with positive action.

The inspiring children’s book, What Does It Mean To Be Kind? by Rana Di Orio, is an excellent resource to spark initiatives amongst your students for spreading kindness in our world, including celebrating our differences.

First Book has published an excellent guidebook on race and racism for educators, which I highly recommend as you engage in ABAR education.

This is a hugely pivotal and transformational time in our world and in education. There is work to be done and it is ours to do, students and adults working alongside one another. It is exciting work. It is challenging work. It is vital work. And it is hopeful work.

Andra Day’s powerful song, Rise Up, inspires the hope needed to engage in this work together. May 2021 be a better, brighter and hopeful year ahead as we reimagine our world together.

Inclusion and Connection

‘Diversity is about all of us, and about us having to figure out how to walk through this world together.’ Jacqueline Woodson, Author

A diverse community is not necessarily an inclusive one. Intercultural understanding is the bridge between diversity and inclusion. Inclusive learning communities are developed intentionally when all members, students and adults, work together to ensure that everyone is valued, and feels a deep sense of belonging.

Intercultural understanding is a disposition and competence that enables us to engage with all forms of difference and diversity with appreciation and respect, establish inclusive relationships, and work to create inclusive learning communities. We continue to develop intercultural understanding throughout our lives, and as we move through our lives we come to understand it more deeply and live it more fully.

As a disposition it is a mindset or orientation and includes beliefs, values and attitudes; as a competence it includes knowledge, understanding and skills. Together they provide a way of being in the world that enables us to approach and engage with difference in mutually respectful and affirming ways.

In my book, Teaching and Learning for Intercultural Understanding: Engaging Young Hearts and Minds, I present a Framework for Developing Intercultural Understanding (Rader, 2016), which contains these four components:

KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING of topics including culture, language, identity, beliefs and global issues

TRANSFORMATIVE BELIEFS, VALUES AND ATTITUDES including appreciation and respect for diversity, compassion, empathy, curiosity, human rights, social justice and equity

ESSENTIAL INTERCULTURAL, INTERPERSONAL AND LIFE SKILLS including intercultural awareness and sensitivity, communication, adaptability, collaboration, creative and critical thinking, resilience, and the ability to recognise, challenge and resist stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination and racism

ENGAGEMENT IN POSTIVE ACTION that puts into practice what we are learning, aligns our beliefs and values with the ways we live our lives, and makes a positive contribution to our world

These components of the Framework need to be intentionally taught, modelled and practised, and embedded in the curriculum and life of the school. I provide detailed lesson plans based on compelling children’s literature, that integrate the Framework into your practice.

I invite you to bridge diversity and inclusion in your learning community. Come join my colleagues and me at one of two workshops on Teaching and Learning for Intercultural Understanding in February and April 2021. See the Events listed in this newsletter or on my website www.debrarader.com.

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