PROMOTING INTERNATIONAL MINDEDNESS IN SCHOOL

1. PROMOTING INTERNATIONAL MINDEDNESS IN SCHOOL In today’s 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)

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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

6. 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

7. Stimulates curiosity about the world By organizing the curriculum around stimulating questions or themes about real-world issues and problems. By encouraging the pursuit of student’s own inquiry. In science, social sciences and mathematics, literature, language (as windows to culture). A curriculum that fosters international mindedness

8. Provides opportunities for developing cultural self-confidence By a study of the student’s own language and literature. By a study of the student’s own history and society By using the student’s own cultural knowledge By studying the above in a global context. A curriculum that fosters international mindedness

9. 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)

10. Builds awareness and respect for human dignity and diversity 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. A curriculum that fosters international mindedness

11. Encourages the exploration of human universals All disciplines afford opportunities for exploring the unity underlying human diversity. An internationally minded curriculum is built around a few of these opportunities. A curriculum that fosters international mindedness

12. 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

13. What kind of teaching fosters international mindedness? This process is about planting seeds —as in authentic education—and 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 Teacher’s Life 1998

14. KNOWLEDGE is not only Propositional (justified, true belief) Analytic (“conceptual molecules”) Discursive BUT ALSO* Constructed for human purposes Embodied in artifacts Embodied in performance What kind of teaching fosters international mindedness? TEACHING THAT RECOGNIZES THAT *Cf. Allen, Barry Knowledge and Civilization (Westview, Colorado, 2004)

15. 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

16. What kind of teaching fosters international mindedness? 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 andskills to make sense of new situations. • DEMONSTRATE the understanding through performances and artifacts. With regard to concepts and understanding

17. 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.

18. What kind of teaching fosters international mindedness? Teaching that provides opportunities for reflection on the learning process • To evaluate one’s learning • To discuss one’s learning with other learners • To collaborate in build learning communities within the school

19. What kind of teaching fosters international mindedness? • Passion • Inquiry • Insight • Open-mindedness • Judgement • Creativity • Integrity Adapted from Sörman and Laurinolli, Dresden, October 2003

20. 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." (Reşit Galip, Minister of Education, 1933, in address at Istanbul University)

21. Thanks for comments and criticisms to Jerry Lovett Koray Özsaraç Michael Michell Corinna Hasbach