​Every culure has certain traditions that they love.  Mine is Secret Santa.  What is that you ask, it's where we select a name of a colleague and we buy them several little gifts that reflect who they are.  We have to inquire about their likes, dislikes, and passions.  This takes effort.

Pictured below are socks my secret santa bought for me.  They are so me, which is why I'm willing to show my feel.  

What is one of your favorite holiday traditions?  Why is it so special to you? 

In many countries in Europe, young children receive their Christmas presents on Dec 6th or better known as St. Nicholas Day.  This is the day that St. Nicholas brings good girls and boys presents to reward them for being good all year long.  Commonly, chidren are given little presents and sweets to eat.  

At my school, we are celebrating Halloween as a fun way to connect together.  Most of my learners are from all over the world, so they don't have this tradition.  

My school leader, Rafael Angel, is originally from Mexico, so I wanted to honor his cultural heritage.  Instead of Halloween, Mexico celebrates Dia de los Muertos in honor of their family members who have past on to the other side. Familiies create alters (or an ofrenda) of things that they enjoyed in the mortal realm to keep them close.  Here is an example of an alter. ​

Growing up in California, i was always surrounded by this rich cultural heritage and it only heightened when I moved to Texas. It's been fascinating learning more about Dia de los Muertos and so I chose this season to honor it in my Halloween celebrations.  

Here is my attempt.  Total Gringo I know, but I did it with love and in the spirit of the real thing. 

Here is what it normally looks like when you really know what you are doing.  My long-term goals. 

The last couple of months have been a roller coaster between my school’s verification visit, leaving my school district (tomorrow), becoming an independent consultant, and my father being put into the hospital to receive three heart stents. Even though it’s been happening all at once, I always believe it’s for the right reasons and there are lessons to be learned. 

In our last episodes, we were talking about the ATL Communication Skills.  Communication is about finding our voice and helping others to get more informed about the world around them.  Sometimes, we have to discuss difficult and uncomfortable subjects, to help our learners better understand the systems of inequity, justice, and accountability.  

This morning, I woke up to Juneteenth, a new federal holiday put into effect by President Joe Biden.  For many outside of the United States, this is nothing special.  Yet, it’s a day that changed everything for so many lives in my country.  It got me thinking about how do we give voice to the voiceless in our country and all around the world?   

​​On June 19, 1863, black slaves being held in Galveston, Texas were notified that they were free due to the Emancipation Proclamation. They were the last people to be set free, since the area was considered quite remote.  Juneteenth took place more than a month after the Civil War ended and 900 days after President Lincoln signed the proclamation. 

Juneteenth was a significant time in our history.  All of the racial issues we have experienced in the past year stem from it.  Yet, many children in our public school system don’t know it exists.  The existence of slavery in our history has been put under the rug and the sting still rests on the shoulders of many Black Americans. Their ancestors were the only ones who were kidnapped, sold to another, and told they were now only ⅗ of a person. 

Last year, I remember watching an interview with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaking about the Emancipation Proclamation that it “freed” the black man to a life of poverty.  They were free, but they weren’t afforded the same opportunities that were promised in the U.S. Constitution. Dr. King tried to have a second emancipation proclamation put into place to deal with segregation issues at the time. 

During the past three years, I have worked in an at-risk, predominantly Black American school in one of the poorest areas of Houston, TX.  During that time, I have learned a lot about my white privilege.  Although I am half Asian/white, I recognize now that the way I look has impacted the opportunities I have received.  In addition,  I’ve come to understand the difference of opportunities afforded to light versus dark skinned black people.  It’s a fact.  I have seen it time and time again, even within its own culture.   I’ve also seen multi-generations of people who have missed their calling to be greater, because certain systems keep them oppressed.  

As I reflected further, our nation was founded on the backs of indigenous and foreign people.  The Chinese came to our country and laid every railroad track through much back breaking work.  Through their industry and innovation, they began to flourish by creating businesses.  As they prospered, there was envy by certain populations that they were expelled from the country after 10 years and were ineligible for naturalization. The Chinese Exclusion Act was signed into law on May 6, 1882 and was in effect until 1943.  

I remember in university I truly understood the Indian Removal Act of May 28, 1830.  I cried for a couple of days after I learned the truth.  President Andrew Jackson, the same man on the $20 bill, signed an order that would remove all native tribes from their ancestral lands to snowy Oklahoma.  Based on tribal and military records, approximately 100,000 Native Americans were removed from their homes with little or no possessions. About 15,000 died during the journey west. 

For many generations, Native Americans became wards of the state.  They had little or no hope of opportunity off their reservations.  Alcoholism and poverty became a rampant theme you would see in these remote places that native people called home.  In the past 20-30 years, some tribes have turned their protected lands into a profitable business by opening casinos.  Since this turn of fortune, I’ve heard many local politicians try to cash in on these casinos, but the lands are protected.  Just to be clear, they still pay federal income taxes, but they are declared an independent state and don’t need to pay state income taxes. Once again, someone is trying to take what is rightly theirs for their own gain. 

Every country has indigenous people who have been mistreated and oppressed.  What can we do to stop these things from happening?  I think this is where communication skills are so vital to spread our message to the greater world.  How do we get our students to act in the same way? 

In the present day, I cried the same way when I heard about the Uighurs, the Turkic people in Northwestern China.  These are peaceful followers of Islam who are being kidnapped, taken to ethnic cleansing camps, and stripped of their cultural identity.  Over 3 million have entered these camps and about 1 million are currently being detained.  Many of them are never returned and put into slave labor around China.  How is this being allowed to happen in our present day?  

I’m sorry to be so heavy this week, but this to me is the importance of building communication skills in our learners.  How are we giving them the agency to learn about these injustices and advocate for the rights of others?  

I promise to return to light programming next week and continue on our ATL journey. 

by Lu Gerlach

​We’ve already talked about how to build relationships in past blog posts.  They are paramount in building a program of inquiry.  This post, we are going to discuss the deeper connections we make when building relationships founded on international mindedness.  I feel like the smiling emoji with sweat running down its forehead.  It sounds nice on paper, but how do we execute it in a classroom. 

​When we think about building relationships that lead to international mindedness, we naturally connect to building school culture.  They support each other in building lasting relationships of trust where understanding happens.  It’s difficult to lay a strong culture when community members lack trust in each other. 

We will explore how to break down the barriers with other community members that think differently than ourselves.

​At the core of our being is our beliefs and values.  They shape how we see the world and what we believe in.  Beliefs and values are often misunderstood.  For this reason, it’s important to go below the cultural iceberg to understand the intricacies of the values that shape our school community. This simple act will build a relationship of trust. 

I’ll never forget chatting with one of my Muslim colleagues one lunch break about my beliefs and values as a Christian woman.  We were both born in the United States, but met while working in Dubai.  During our chat, we laughed at some of the common rituals that we embrace that reflect being a “religious” person.  The thing I took away from the chat is that asking questions about beliefs and values is extremely personal.  If done with love and pure intent, it can open up to a new level of understanding.  I’m proud to say that we are still in contact so many years later and I was able to teach her daughter in 4th grade. 

Understanding the various beliefs and values within our community helps to create relationships and support a strong school culture. 

​Every culture is governed by norms.  Do you know all of the cultural norms that your students follow when they are not at school?  Obtaining this information is super important, because they break down misconceptions about our differences. 
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When I worked in an all girls school in Dubai, I was taught the power of emotional intelligence in respecting cultural norms.  At a parent conference meeting, I remember extending my arm out to shake a father and mother.  The father looked at my hand, put his hands behind his back, and stepped backwards.  At that moment, I knew I had violated a social norm, but I didn’t know what it was.  Then the father explained, “In my culture, we do not touch the hand of the opposite gender outside of our immediate family.  This is to show respect to my wife and children. I hope you won’t be offended that I did not take your hand.”

When dealing with cultural norm differences, emotional intelligence plays a huge part in how we receive the message.  I had two choices: 

OPTION 1
​Become offended that a parent refused to shake my hand and look at it as a disrespect of my own cultural norms. 

OPTION 2
​Understand that all cultures have norms and to respect the difference.  I am a guest in Dubai and need to respect the heritage and ways of doing things in the country. 

​​I clearly chose option two and utilized my emotional intelligence to not replicate the mistake again in future parent conferences. This is so important in building relationships that lead towards international mindedness.  There will be times that you face situations that are radically different than our own, but the internationally minded person respects the difference.  

​Every culture has distinct roles that people take upon themselves based on age, gender, and location. In understanding roles, we can better understand how the culture is governed and how to encourage these roles in our school community. 

Last summer, I was fortunate to attend a friend’s wedding on a Navajo Indian reservation.  One of the unique things most people don’t understand is that it's a matriarchal society.  All of the financial and family decisions are determined by the female leaders.  Growing up in a society traditionally governed by men, I was fascinated by the uniqueness of this culture.  

Our roles determine a lot of our place in society and where we fit in the world.  It wasn’t very long ago that women were stay at home mothers or spinsters who were allowed to be teachers, secretaries, or nurses.  Since that time, our roles within the workplace have greatly expanded to allow for a lot of choice.  

Just like western culture has shifted, we need to be mindful that indigenous cultures have also changed over time.  By sharing our cultural roles, we are able to compare and contrast our many similarities and slight differences 

This is the end of our international mindedness series.  Be sure to check out confessions ​#32-34 to apply our learning of agency, action, the learner profile, and international mindedness!

by Lu Gerlach

​It took me a long time to understand the importance of a school’s mission statement.  I guess this has a lot to do with my prior experiences with a mission statement and how it guided a school’s vision of the learning and teaching.  On some campuses, I wondered if there was a mission at all, because my day felt like I was winging it all the time.  At others, the mission was so fixed that there was very little flexibility to add your own flavor.  With these far extremes, I tended to zone out the school’s vision of what learning should look like and focused on my own.  

​There are three main issues for running our classrooms on our own:

It diminishes the collaborative process 
It undermines the whole school approach to learning
It creates a division within grade levels

We can eliminate the divisiveness by co-creating a school mission statement with staff, students, and parents.  This will provide an anchor of academic, behavioral, and social expectations.  More importantly, it will reflect our goal to become more internationally minded.

​As a PYP school, we need to create a mission statement that is aligned with the philosophy of the IB.  This requires us to become familiar with the IB mission statement, so we can interpret and apply it to our own.  Here is the IB mission statement: 

“The International Baccalaureate® aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.

To this end the organization works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programmes of international education and rigorous assessment.

These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.” (IBO, 2020)

We use the IB mission statement as a model and inspiration for our own to reflect our students, our community, and our learning needs. One way to examine the IB mission statement is to pull out any words that resonate with you or that make you ponder.  Use synonyms for these words in your own mission statement.  

Do we see examples of international mindedness in the IB mission statement? 

​When crafting our mission statement, we need to first reflect on our school values.  

• What is our school culture? 
• What are some non-negotiables in how we operate? 
• How are our values reflective of international mindedness? 

Once you have brainstormed ideas by answering the questions above, you are ready to move forward to craft your mission statement.  Remember, this is a highly collaborative process, because we want all school members to have ownership of the statement.  If the staff derives it solely, the students and parents won’t have as much buy in.  

How do we manage this process successfully? Here are some possible steps: 

• In ad hoc groups, create a portion of the mission statement
• Bring the pieces together and have everyone evaluate it before it become published
• Make adjustments and place in a prominent place at the front of the school and within classrooms

Here is an example of my school mission statement.  It reflects the big ideas from the IB mission statement, but also reflects the culture of my campus. The teachers each took a beginning letter from our school name and crafted a line of the mission statement.  It was presented to the PTA and students for review.  Now, it is showcased in the front office and we say it aloud each day during our morning announcements. 

​At Foster Elementary, we…

• Form a more peaceful world,
• Overcome obstacles that hinder global learning,
• Strengthen our minds to explore beyond our everyday experiences,
• Train thinkers
• Empower each other to become leaders, and
• Redefine ourselves as resilient risk-takers
  
• ​

I am a leader, you are a leader, we are global leaders.  We are Foster Elementary. 

​As our school grows and our demographics change, we will need to modify the mission statement to reflect it.  Our campus went from being predominantly Black American to a mix with Mexican families moving into the neighborhood.  As the numbers have grown, we’ve had to consider if our mission statement still fits the needs of all members. 

This process of reflection and revision is normal and is strongly encouraged.  The school mission statement showcases the beliefs, hopes, and values of a campus.  It shouldn’t be taken lightly, but should be stated from the heart.  

One thing to consider, if our school mission reflects the IB, then it will naturally promote international mindedness.  Whew, doesn’t this make you relax a bit more? See you in our next episode. 

Be sure to check out confessions #32-34 to apply our learning of agency, action, the learner profile, and international mindedness!

by Lu Gerlach

Now that we’ve received some ways to incorporate international mindedness into our daily practice, how will we use them?  Let’s go back to our agency continuum to gauge where we are in the process

As a reminder, the agency continuum has four phases: 
​

• Teacher-driven:  teacher is doing all the work and thinking
• Modeled:  teacher provides all of the activities and the students do it
• Guided:  the teacher provides the topic and the students design the process and product
• Learner-driven:  the learner chooses the topic and decides on the process and product

Let’s take a moment to think where you are and where you’d like to be with international mindedness. We will examine different ways we can demonstrate agency when developing international mindedness.  Make a goal for where you’d like to be and what you plan to work on. 

Here are the criteria for demonstrating agency with international mindedness. ​

​One of the ways we develop our own understanding of international mindedness is through opportunities to tinker with ideas and reflect.  This takes time.  I know that many of us worry about covering all of the content.  I think you’ll find as you advance in your PYP journey that teaching through a transdisciplinary and conceptual lens, the content will get covered in greater detail and with more meaning.  

Giving time to tinker with ideas will pay off in the end.  When we use the inquiry table and stations that were mentioned in our learner profile section, you will find students are able to ask more questions and connect to prior experiences.  This is important in building international mindedness.  Students need to tinker with the ideas of gender roles, cultural norms, beliefs and values, and so much more. 

Where are you on the agency continuum in allowing these experiences to unfold in your classroom? 

​Not everyone is going to resonate to the same activities based on learning styles, life experiences, and exposure to the outside world.  We need to provide multiple options, so students can make connections to the engagement that is most connected to their real-life experience. 

​When providing choice, we want to be mindful of how it is bringing about a connection to international mindedness.  Are we providing examples related to other cultures?  Are we allowing students to make connections between what they do and how they do it with other ways from around the world? Are students asked to reflect on how their beliefs and values influence the choices they make?  

Where are you on the agency continuum in allowing these experiences to unfold in your classroom? 

​As we know, when we get students to define language into kid-friendly terms, it makes a greater impact on their learning and transfers to future learning situations.  This is true for international mindedness.  How can we get students to define this big idea?  Here are some possible activities that will support all of your learners: 

• Use the Headlines visible thinking routine to capture the big idea of international mindedness.  Ask students in a small group to write a 5-8 word headline to describe what international mindedness means to them.

 

• Use the Bundling strategy where students create a list of words that are synonyms to international mindedness.  Have them write out the list and create a picture of what international mindedness looks and feels like. 

 

• Create a Visual Harvesting poster with a combination of words and pictures (drawn or printed) that captures the heart of what international mindedness looks and feels like.  
  

These strategies can be used with any topic, but I think they help students to capture the heart of international mindedness in a low-stress situation, which will help to get the most out of your students.  

One of the best experiences with visual harvesting was with a student with high-functioning autism.  He was able to lead his group into connecting the big ideas of the unit with a character in a Japanese myth story.  This was the first time I saw this student demonstrate strong leadership skills. 

Where are you on the agency continuum in allowing these experiences to unfold in your classroom? 

​​Agency is at the heart of international mindedness.  It’s the small moments that allow students to make choices and connections beyond their personal experiences and expose them to the outside world.  I know time is always a factor, but you will see greater connections to the learning in your classroom, because of it. 

by Lu Gerlach

The second layer of the foundation in our PYP house is international mindedness. It helps to cement our school culture with building relationships with each other and others around the world.  How do we do this in a practical way on a daily basis?  I believe it is about how you lay out the physical space and intentionally planning international mindedness into our unit.  Here are some examples of how to do this.
​​

A missed opportunity in many schools is using the wisdom and experience of families in our community to present on a variety of topics.  This allows for a wider perspective of the world, while building stronger bonds. Here are some ways to incorporate our families more into the learning process. 
​

• How We Organize Ourselves - have parents from around the school community present on their role in supporting the community (teacher, police officer, fireman, engineer, construction worker, entrepreneur, etc.)​  

​

• Where We are in Place and Time - have migrant parents share their experiences of coming to our country and share the challenges and opportunities that came with the major change. 

 

• How the World Works - have parents who work in any of the sciences share their role as a scientist. 

 

• Who We Are - have parents who work in health, building relationships, life management share ways to build up self-efficacy. 

 

• How We Express Ourselves - have parents showcase their various talents and demonstrate the process. 

​

• Sharing the Planet - have parents who are passionate about sharing the planet through recycling, reusing, upcycling, reducing give practical tips to the class

These are some ideas on how to incorporate the wealth of resources at your school.  If you live in a school that does not have access to all of these resources within your parent body, consider reaching out to the leaders within the community to support your efforts.  ​

​Something we can do daily to build respect, open-mindedness, and empathy is through regular reflection scenarios.  This can be an oral experience where students buddy up, whole-class discussion, role-play scenarios where students act it out, written reflections or a combination. 
​
​Present a situation that requires some thought and may pull on the emotions. Ask students how they might respond if they were in the scenario thinking through the lens of the learner profile.  This is a tangible tool that students can use to demonstrate international mindedness. 

How might this look? Here’s a possible reflection and reaction.

Scenario:  A new student from Pakistan is trying to join the soccer/football game.  He has limited English ability, but understands the rules of the game.  Because he is unable to express himself, some of the students start making fun of him.  What will you do? 

You can process it by: 

• Working on your own
• Talking it out with a partner
• Meeting in a small group of four

You can show us your thinking by: 

• Making Role-play the situation
• Creating a storyboard to illustrate your ideas
• Writing a letter to the student
• Coming up with your own idea

Through regular reflection scenarios, you can assess student understanding of the unit ideas while building up international mindedness.  There are endless ways to bring about international mindedness in your school.  It’s about what resonates with you and your learners.  Just start the process of talking and thinking.

by Lu Gerlach

Many moons ago, I received a one year Rotary Cultural Ambassadorial Scholarship to study abroad for one year in Melbourne, Australia.  This was one of the best gifts I’ve ever received, because I found myself in Melbourne and began the process of discovering the wonder of international mindedness.

​I was fortunate to finish my bachelor’s degree at Melbourne Uni and I had an internship/work experience in St Kilda 2-3 days a week.  On the way to my internship, I passed the most amazing place called Wesley College.  I was fascinated by the grounds and buildings and imagined what it’d be like to go there instead of Melbourne Uni.  The thing that perplexed me every day as we stopped, tons of children would get on in purplish blue and white gingham uniforms.  I must have kept my head down in winter, because I don't remember it, but I knew a blazer was involved somehow. 

Each day, the fascination with the place grew to the point that I began researching Wesley College.  I quickly learned that it wasn’t an American version of college, but a preparatory academy for college.  It was private and IB.  At that time, I wasn’t remotely interested in education, but I heard of the IB through my many foreign exchange friends through high school. 

Wesley College is an example of building international mindedness. I don’t think of it as a singular action, but an openness to the ways that people do things differently around the world. International mindedness is seeing differences and responding through wonder, respect, and questions.  We are so curious about this new thing that we want to explore every nuisance to compare and contrast to our own experience.  Then, look at the merits of it on its own.  Finally, we make connections how this difference influences the beliefs and values of another. Wow, imagine if everyone in the world lived like this and how it would change the way we look at power, freedom, and equity. 

​This was definitely not my first experience with international mindedness, but merely an aha moment.  My entire life was built on internationally minded experiences from my South Korean mother who learned to speak English by watching American television and my American father who explored the world to find himself. 

We become more internationally minded by the little things we engage with during the day and how we choose to react.  It builds over time to create a disposition about how we think and how we react to the world around us. Living abroad will not make you internationally minded, but being open to other cultures and ways of doing things will. We will explore more about how we do this in our next podcast and blog. 

​The learner profile has a magical relationship with international mindedness.  It is through the language of the learner profile that we are able to express our feelings and ideas about international mindedness. 

Here are some possibilities of how to use the learner profile to build more connection with international mindedness. 

• Open-minded:  “Thank you so much for comparing between Islamic and Christian ideologies.  It has definitely opened my mind to many of the similarities, rather than, the differences.”

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• Caring:  “How do community helpers show caring behavior by doing their jobs?”

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• Knowledgeable:  “We are going to expand our knowledge by learning about the commonalities of revolutions and why people risk so much for change.” 

Using the language of the learner profile to discuss deeper issues about cultures and values will help your students to see beyond the superficial level of food, music, the arts, and traditions.  Culture has been compared to an iceberg, where we must go beyond the superficial level to discover some of the richer components such as beliefs and values, norms, roles, relationships, and so much more.  It takes intentional planning to scratch beyond what we can see. 

The learner profile helps us to explore the richer characteristics and systems of most concepts and ideas.  What are ways you can embed the language of the learner profile to build up international mindedness in your classroom or school?