PROMOTING%20INTERNATIONAL%20MINDEDNESS%20IN%20SCHOOL

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PROMOTING INTERNATIONAL MINDEDNESS IN SCHOOL

• In todays highly interdependent world,
  individuals and nations can no longer resolve
  many of their problems by themselves. We need one
  another. We must therefore develop a sense of
  universal responsibility It is our collective
  and individual responsibility to protect and
  nurture the global family, to support its weaker
  members, and to tend to the environment in which
  we all live.
• (The Dalai Lama)

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How can we recognize international mindedness?

• INTERNATIONAL MINDEDNESS IS CAUGHT, NOT TAUGHT
  (Jerry Lovett, personal communication 8.11.05)
• BY BUILDING AN ETHOS THAT ENCOURAGES
• CERTAIN HABITS OF THE MIND AND THE HEART, AND
• CERTAIN ACTIONS AND PRACTICES.

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How can we recognize international mindedness?

• International mindedness in the school is like
  the flavours in food
• - There are many flavours
• - It is distinguished more by its absence
  than by its presence.
• Our academic program does not entirely lack the
  flavours of internationalism
• But there are gaps between our public commitments
  and our actual practices.

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A curriculum that fosters international
mindedness

• Is based on PRINCIPLES
• Fosters VALUES
• Inculcates ATTITUDES
• Develops ABILITIES
• Encourages PRACTICES
• that underlie or facilitate the bridging of
  social and cultural differences.

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A curriculum that fosters international
mindedness

• Provides a BALANCE between
• local and global knowledge
• different ways of knowing, judging and
  understanding (scientific, mathematical,
  interpretative, ethical and aesthetic)
• Feeling, knowing, doing and being
• Action ?reflection?evaluation?further action

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A curriculum that fosters international
mindedness

• Stimulates curiosity about the world
• Provides opportunities for developing cultural
  self-confidence
• Builds awareness and respect for human dignity
  and diversity
• Encourages the exploration of human universals

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A curriculum that fosters international
mindedness

1. By organizing the curriculum around stimulating
   questions or themes about real-world issues and
   problems.
2. By encouraging the pursuit of students own
   inquiry.
3. In science, social sciences and mathematics,
   literature, language (as windows to culture).

• Stimulates curiosity about the world

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A curriculum that fosters international
mindedness

1. By a study of the students own language and
   literature.
2. By a study of the students own history and
   society
3. By using the students own cultural knowledge
4. By studying the above in a global context.

• Provides opportunities for developing cultural
  self-confidence

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A curriculum that fosters international
mindedness

• I do not want my house to be walled in on all
  sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the
  cultures of all the lands to be blown about my
  house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be
  blown off my feet by any of them.
• (M. K. Gandhi)

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A curriculum that fosters international
mindedness

• For instance
• By studying different ways in which humans have
  expressed themselves in different situations.
• By exploring ways in which humans have accepted
  or transcended the limitations imposed by their
  own history, geography, biology or culture.

• Builds awareness and respect for human dignity
  and diversity

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A curriculum that fosters international
mindedness

1. All disciplines afford opportunities for
   exploring the unity underlying human diversity.
2. An internationally minded curriculum is built
   around a few of these opportunities.

• Encourages the exploration of human universals

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A curriculum that fosters international mindedness

• Will include throughout the school
• Opportunities to reflect about the nature of
  learning
• Activities of trans-disciplinary inquiry
• Community service activities that create
  opportunities for experiential learning

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What kind of teaching fosters international
mindedness?

• This process is about planting seeds as in
  authentic educationand there is no way of
  knowing when, where or how those seeds will
  flower.
• Palmer, Parker The Courage to Teach Exploring
  the Inner Landscape of a Teachers Life 1998

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What kind of teaching fosters international
mindedness?

• TEACHING THAT RECOGNIZES THAT

• KNOWLEDGE is not only
• Propositional (justified, true belief)
• Analytic (conceptual molecules)
• Discursive

• BUT ALSO
• Constructed for human purposes
• Embodied in artifacts
• Embodied in performance

Cf. Allen, Barry Knowledge and Civilization
(Westview, Colorado, 2004)
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What kind of teaching fosters international
mindedness?
With regard to knowledge

• TEACHING that
• Draws on a balanced selection of local and global
  knowledge from the real world
• Organizes the knowledge around significant themes
  and issues

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What kind of teaching fosters international
mindedness?
With regard to concepts and understanding

• TEACHING that helps students to
• Choose appropriate concepts, metaphors and
  theories to BUILD understanding
• APPLY and TEST understanding on a real problem
• CORRECT and IMPROVE ON current understanding
  through reflective evaluation of the results of
  testing
• FLEXIBLY apply RELEVANT knowledge and skills to
  make sense of new situations.
• DEMONSTRATE the understanding through
  performances and artifacts.

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What kind of teaching fosters international
mindedness?

• Teaching
• that creates a range of activities allowing
  learners scope for individual as well as
  collaborative inquiry
• that allows some scope for inquiry that is
  trans-disciplinary, to enable students to
  experience concurrency of learning and the
  different perspectives of each discipline.

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What kind of teaching fosters international
mindedness?

• Teaching that provides opportunities for
  reflection on the learning process
• To evaluate ones learning
• To discuss ones learning with other learners
• To collaborate in build learning communities
  within the school

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What kind of teaching fosters international
mindedness?

• Passion
• Inquiry
• Insight
• Open-mindedness
• Judgement
• Creativity
• Integrity

Adapted from Sörman and Laurinolli, Dresden,
October 2003
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What kind of teacher fosters international
mindedness?

• The teacher is not a machine for giving
  lectures, but is a resource to the students - one
  who inspires them to investigate and question,
  one who guides them and one who is able to
  sustain their enthusiasm for study and research.
  The real teacher is himself a life-long student."
  
• (Resit Galip, Minister of Education, 1933, in
  address at Istanbul University)

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Thanks for comments and criticisms to

• Jerry Lovett
• Koray Özsaraç
• Michael Michell
• Corinna Hasbach