I would definitely build up, working with my year group and start small. Starting every Monday morning with a recap of newspaper articles/ radio topics that have been read/heard over the last week. Working with KS2, I have used this in the past and it has been amazing to see how quickly students get on board with finding information to share with the class. Starting out by talking about issues in our community and widening to the world. I would be working with senior leadership (as it would take 20-30 minutes on a Monday morning) and parents (letting them know about it over classdojo or another communication device) as well as the other teachers in my year group. 

Starting by introducing newspapers and radios to students, then bringing my own articles to school to discuss. Slowly students will get involved too. It would be a long term lesson, and could be expanded into lessons when issues link. (Recently the typhoon that hit South East Asia, could be used in geography, science or even English)

Katie

Getting the groups to create:

a performance from that country (could be a dance, a song, even a play)

a hands on activity (making food, a game, making something)

information

It would be a yearly thing, but hopefully get students excited about different countries and their cultures. Learning about them as student groups, rather than a teacher focused learning will be really fun. 

Katie

I like the idea of Cultural booths for International Day as Katie introduced.  I think this is a great way to get students of different grades to work together and put their culture on the centre stage.  This would be a long term strategy if it could continue school-wide every year, but it would need approving from management.

For the younger students, I like the idea of a Mascot that Amy introduced.  It creates a school-wide character for the younger students to represent and care about.  

Currently, I use Responsive Classroom’s Morning Meeting: each week we use a different language to greet each other.  We stand in a circle and one student greets a peer with open body language and eye contact.  The first student then sits down in the place of the second student who chooses a new student to greet.  We finish when all the students have greeted someone and they are all sat on the carpet.  I am very lucky to have a class of mixed nationalities and cultures so it's a great way to foster discussions on language, traditions and personal student experience.

To build from this (if my current school allowed me to have time out of the curriculum), I would allow one lesson per week for the student to showcase their culture in a  “Show and Tell” for their peers.  
In my current class, we have such a fabulous mix of cultures: Israeli, Dutch, Chinese, Australian, Canadian to mention a few, and I encourage them to share traditions, stories and culture whenever they pop up ( e.g. Anzac/Ramadan /Lent /CNY / etc), maybe I could work big festivals into our teaching plan so it could be more structured?

These last two ideas are short-term strategies that offer the students a window of learning about other cultures.  This knowledge and open-mindedness could be easily lost if not reinforced in future grade years though.

In my current school, I am fortunate as I can make small changes in the classroom without much interference from management, but it would be hard to roll it out for the whole school to implement because in the past new ideas have been met with resistance when it comes to change.  

Luckily, my co-teacher and I are very similar in our philosophy and we can share ideas and implement them within the year group.  However, without support from the management then there would be no continuation in the grades below or above.

How will we know if it is working?  When we see /hear/ read about young students choosing the best choices to better our global community rather than acting for purely personal gain.  I guess the global consciousness takes time to change…but, perhaps we can help one class at a time?

Liz

I would start with a gallery walk with a lot of pictures on a wall/on a floor (food, ethnic groups,  peculiar animals, famous people, traditions, languages, historical event, outfits, public means of transport, etc.). We’d have a discussion about the pictures (similarities/differences between pictures and our community and between pictures themself). As a follow-up to the pictures and discussion, I’d ask students about their opinion on the following statement by Elif Shafak:

We all live in some kind of social and cultural circle. We're born into a certain family, nation, class. But if we have no connection whatsoever with the worlds beyond the one we take for granted, then we run the risk of drying up inside. Our imagination might shrink. Our hearts might dwindle. And our humanness might wither if we stay for too long inside our cultural cocoons

With relevant questions I’d try to make students find out the hidden message/term (international-mindedness). Next thing would be brainstorming about IM to create good understanding about the new concept. I’m thinking about some organizers, concept maps, maybe yes/no cards to some pre-assessment questions (e.g. Is it important? -> yes/no cards as answers). Having the concept of international-mindedness introduced, I think it’d be time for some action. Together with students I’d organise some interviews, questionnaires (in person and/or online) with people from other cities/states, and then countries, would be a good idea. I’m just thinking now… What about asking students’ families to be our guest speakers on topics, such as religions, traditions, or celebrations? I think that would work too. Students would be able to step in someone’s shoes and see some things from their perspective starting from more local areas and finishing at global ones. So, it’d be time to check what they would learn. I’d conduct another discussion with the help of some questions, for instance:

At this point international-mindedness would be a very familiar concept, so I’d create an INTERNATIONAL-MINDEDNESS CONTRACT with some rules about how to put the concept into action. One of the rules would be a fixed weekday to read newspapers, watch the news from/about various areas around the world. At ISoP, my workplace, we have two great annual events, which I would like to use with my students. These are Pink T-shirt Day and Cultures Festival. The first one would develop students’ tolerance towards other cultures. I think it’s necessary. The latter one is the great event where students can develop their international-mindedness with all their senses - there’s music, food, outfits, citizenry from many countries and many more. 

Obviously, I wouldn’t make this change alone. I would do it with students, teachers and parents. Well, essentially we would collaborate with everyone! The more people involved, the more about the concept we’d know and more international-mindedness we’d spread. I think it would be a long-term strategy, namely because the development of the concept needs time and many tools to achieve it are needed. I am not sure how to check if it works. I think I would do it through noticing some elements of international-mindedness during a lesson, reflection, recess, observing students’ action, or when monitoring the acquisition of key concepts or Central Ideas of units. I think this would work :)

~ Bartosz

I would, for instance, choose a different culture every two weeks or so (depending on the activities and ages of the students) and then I can start by introducing the culture in my morning class at the beginning of the week and I would ask the students what they know and if they know about that culture. I can either choose cultures based on my students’ nationalities if they come from different countries, or random cultures. Then I can focus on an article or a story that is related to that culture to help them learn more about it. So, here I can start by using books and pictures. I can ask them to analyse what they see in the pictures from the story and also to try to read what the story is about. Or if the country is known for its music, I can start by playing some sort of famous song/rhythm and ask them to try to know. Then throughout the week (or two weeks), we can do activities related to this culture. I can ask them to do some crafts (like I mentioned in my suggestions to Andrea) such as lanterns if we are learning about the German culture’s St. Martin’s day. Also, for instance they can learn and cook special foods from that culture. During these two weeks, we could learn a famous children song and a dance. I can also ask them to prepare a poster of what they learned from that culture, or what that country is famous for. 

Also, it does not necessarily need to be about cultures; it can be about themes or special celebrations from different countries. The main focus would be on one main topic or culture.  So, when we finish our week(s) of learning about the new culture, we can exchange posters with another class or school. So, in this way, students will start by respecting and being open to the cultures/nationalities present in their own classroom and also they will learn about other cultures present in other classrooms and schools.

I cannot make this change alone because this is about cooperation. I’ll collaborate with other teachers and students from different classes. It starts in my classroom but it has to be done in cooperation with the whole school and, if possible, other schools and countries.

This is a long-term strategy because it needs time and work. The projects and activities may be short term but the whole plan needs time; it is an on-going process that should accompany the students throughout their whole academic year(s).

I will know that it is working based on the students’ excitement and interaction, and how much they will remember and discuss based on these topics. 

Mariebelle

2.Having a tradition of telling and presenting classmates about one’s own trips to other countries and bringing souvenirs from there to the class. A student should also pin the location of their journey on the special map in the classroom to make it visible for others.

3.Making a canteen staff cook traditional food of different countries once a month for the children to taste cuisines from all over the world (e.g.Italy=pizza, pasta, American pancakes, English fish’n’chips, Japanese sushi and so on)

4.Customize or buy a new school bus for students to arrange school trips to other towns and cities. 

5.Finding pen-friends from other countries to communicate with.

I understand that I can make a difference only with my team of teachers, students parents and founders. It goes without saying that it takes much time to plan, develop and implement the steps to increase international mindedness at school. The results of our strategy will be seen in our students, in their every day communication, their inquiries and their questions.

Pavel Grishkov

o  This is a long-term strategy because language ability cannot be developed in a short amount of time. Students need constant input and output of the language they need to learn.

o   Teach them importance of communicating in English and keep emphasize the necessities of English. Give examples of situation of Usefulness of English.  When students feel the need of English and motivated students would follow well. Also, teacher and Native English Teacher should keep collaborative and pre-planned.

 

Starting with 

Our class – what diversity do we have in our own class

 

Our family – where do our families come from, in Australia we are an immigrant culture and most students can link their history to another country

 

Our LOTE class – what other language do we speak and what do we know about the people who speak this language we are learning. How does their lifestyle compare to our own. At my school our second language is Chinese so I would aim to set up a pen pal system with another school in china. I would need to discuss the possibilities of this with our Chinese teacher and discuss the issues for overcoming the language barrier. 

 

Our school – What sister/buddy schools do we have or could we implement.

 

Our community – what other cultures exist beyond our school grounds and what histories can they share with us.

 

Our Country – Look at Australian History and discuss our indigenous culture. What aspects of history link to or clash with our learner profile. What would have happened to Captain Cook if he was more globally minded. Explore the concept of famous people and being globally minded,

 

While I am able to begin making plans and taking action within my own classroom, I do believe that collaboration with many lead to the best practices. I would begin by discussing with my year level teachers and eventually once it got big and strong enough, I would take it to a school level once getting the blessing from the principal of course. In working towards a common goal with other staff what could begin as a short-term strategy would become a much larger activity that would become engrained into the school culture. At selected intervals we would need to go back and ask students a few key questions that were designed to test their understanding of being global minded citizens. By asking the same or different versions of the same idea we could assess what changes the student has undergone and if they are showing a greater development og consideration for being globally minded.

The students seem to enjoy having a different country represented but I’m wondering if it would be possible for each grade to focus on the country and relate it with the Learner Profile word of the month too. I feel the students would have a greater understanding and appreciation for what is being shown at the Global Gatherings.  

In the fourth grade we currently have a Pen Pal.  If possible, it would great if each grade level could have a Pen Pal from a different region.  Those regions would be the focus of the Global Gatherings (This would change each year).  Then in my classroom, I would utilize one of the bulletin boards to focus with the region selected for the Global Gathering. We could be making connection through images, books, articles, videos, etc.  If was great this year because the fourth grade has a Pen Pal working in Zambia and one of my students immigrated from Zambia with his family a few years ago.  We were able to connect with Zambia on a more personal note. 

We could also have the specialist also connect with the region that is the focus for the month.  Physical education teacher could teach games the kids play, art teachers could show art work and techniques, music teachers could share original music from the country, and library teachers could find books to read from the country.  

These plans would involve the help of the whole school.  It would be a long-term goal that maybe in the future our IB Coordinator could  try to implement. We would be able to see if it was working through conversations and how they express what they have learned. 

 I’m also wondering if it would be possible to put together a team of teachers, administration, and parents to take the lead in guiding the school in embedding international-mindedness. Having at least one teacher from each grade be apart of the IM team would ensure that each grade level is involved and able to help the rest of their grade level. Then with the help of parent volunteers along with school employees we could have additional events besides the Global Gatherings (dances/art shows/traditional festivities,etc).