Culturally Teaching Blog has moved

The interesting blog on inercultural issues  culturallyteaching.com has moved to another site:

 SmallPlanetStudio.com

 

 

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 Teachers without Borders is an organisation that aims to connects teachrs across the globe, it is free to join and has resources and training that also can be accessed free.  Thie mission states:

Teachers Without Borders connects teachers to information and each other to create local change on a global scale.

 

Thier web address is : http://teacherswithoutborders.org

Profile of Dr. Darryl Macer - guest speaker on June 1st

This wednesday, guest speaker Dr Darryl Macer will lead a discussion on peace resolution and associated issues through an intercultural lens. All Patana staff are welcome - please contact Deepa Patel (depa) for further information.

Darryl R.J. Macer is Regional Advisor on Social and Human Sciences in Asia and the Pacific, in RUSHSAP, UNESCO Bangkok, Thailand.

He is also a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies and Affiliated Professor in Philosophy at Kumamoto University, Japan; and Founding Director, Eubios Ethics Institute.

Born in 1962 in Christchurch, New Zealand, he has a B.Sc (Hons) in Biochemistry from Lincoln College, University of Canterbury, 1983; Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, and Trinity College, University of Cambridge, U.K., 1987; and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Philosophy from Kumamoto University, Japan in 2009.

He has since worked in UK, New Zealand, Italy, Japan and Thailand; and is a member of many international bioethics committees.  He taught bioethics at the University of Tsukuba, Japan from 1990-2005, prior to joining UNESCO. He has published 10 authored books, 20+ edited books, and 200+ academic papers.
Recent PublicationsA Cross-Cultural Introduction to Bioethics, 2006.
Moral Games for Teaching Bioethics, 2009

What is Intercultural Education? 10 Pointers

A group of staff at our school who are interested in exploring the significance of intercultural education has met several times this year. In a presentation which I delivered to all academic staff earlier this month, I shared 10 key ideas which have come out of those discussions and my thanks go to all who have continued to contribute to these meetings. Thanks are also extended to Michael Allan (International School of Amsterdam) for sharing some of the resources and ideas which have resulted from his valuable work in this field,
James

BaFaBaFa A Culture Simulation

This seems like a brilliant game worth considering. It could be used for example in our curriculum extension week. Check out the link... 

http://www.simulationtrainingsystems.com/schools-charities/bafa.html

Quoting from the company's marketing email:

In BaFa'BaFa' participants come to understand the powerful effects that culture plays in every person's life. It may be used to help participants prepare for living and working in another culture or to learn how to work with people from other departments, disciplines, genders, races, and ages. Here are a few of the ways BaFa'BaFa' has been used in the hundreds of thousands times it has been run around the world:

• Build awareness of how cultural differences can profoundly impact people in an organization.

• Motivate participants to rethink their behavior and attitude toward others.

• Allow participants to examine their own bias and focus on how they perceive differences.

• Examine how stereotypes are developed, barriers created, and misunderstandings magnified.

• Identify diversity issues within the organization that must be addressed. BaFa'BaFa' initiates immediate, personal change. This simulation makes participants personally aware of the issues around culture differences. Participants feel the alienation and confusion that comes from being different. BaFa'BaFa' shakes participants out of thinking in stereotypes of anyone who is different. They learn the value of all faces in the workplace in a safe, stimulating environment.

Deepa

What Symbols Represent Your Culture? A Lesson Plan

Interculturalism Session Focus - Tutorial Activity by GRRO.pdf Download this file

Matt Jones (Head of Year 10) writes:

In addition to ‘celebrating diversity’, interculturalism in an international school setting should also allow for opportunities to celebrate similarities.

Patana’s IB Psychology students understand the need to consider both ‘emic’ (culturally-specific) and ‘etic’ (universal, cross-cultural) factors when examining cultural norms, differences and similarities. With this in mind, Year 10 students had the opportunity to share ‘symbols’ - personally meaningful aspects of their own cultural identity – with their classmates. It was an opportunity to learn a little more about each other and to exhibit a bit of pride in their own backgrounds. Symbols ranged from national football shirts to soap opera theme tunes: what would you pick as a meaningful representation of your cultural identity?

 All credit to Grant Robertson, Head of Secondary English, for developing this excellent lesson. See the plan below.

Discussion on Ethics

Year 8 used the class novel The Giver as a stimulus to discuss the ethics on genetic modification / selection.

"The Giver" is a science fiction novel set in the future in which the protagonist Jonas's community and climate is controlled by the "Elders".

The hypotheses to debate were: 1) Only intelligent people should have children 
2) Intelligence is increasing

This was a great forum for students to discuss issues from their cultural perspectives and to find out that in many ways people have similar ideas and that if there are differences, those differences should be accepted and respected.

Deepa

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