The world is a patchwork of histories, cultures and customs that vary at every few latitudes. Having a classroom that is welcoming and safe is the foundation for better learning. Keeping this in mind, a three days online workshop, starting from
27th of January, for teacher's training was organized, by
AFS India curator
Ms Sarita Badhwar. As organizations become more global, intercultural understanding becomes more crucial. In addition, technology is connecting people and cultures like never before. In order to be an effective leader, business traveller and global citizen, students must learn the right skills. A positive classroom culture empowers students to be a part of their own learning experience and to take responsibility. Thus making it essential for teachers to provide a suitable classroom environment for students to understand cultural sensitivity and practice empathy, the sessions witnessed talks of the need to make the classrooms culturally acceptable for the students. Some of the major strategies discussed by the instructors to make a classroom culturally acceptable involved the following:
- Express interest in the ethnic background of the students and ask them to research and share information about their ethnic background as a means to foster healthy relationship with other students
- Maintain an “inclusive” curriculum that remains respectful of cultural differences amongst people. Tips were provided to choose a curriculum so it doesn't affect the minorities.
- Take an active role in developing a true partnership between school and family by adapting the learning environment to be more reflective of the rapidly changing demographics of the county's population and school community. The session was made fun to stay and learn in, by the friendly curator. A number of interactive activities were planned including, games, group discussion, group task, roleplay and team presentations. The well planned presentation videos shown to describe the situations kept it professional while still being informal.
