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Empowering Educators: Cross-Cultural Insights on Teaching and Learning
November 19, 2024
This past October, Global Ties Detroit teamed up with Cultural Vistas and welcomed an International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) delegation of seven teachers and school administrators from Switzerland for an exciting program focused on Promoting Teaching and Learning in Diverse Classrooms. During their five days in Detroit, the delegation met with their professional counterparts in various schools, universities, and education associations across Southeast Michigan. Their conversations highlighted how, as instructors, they can create learning environments inclusive and appreciative of their students’ various cultures, languages, and socioeconomic standings.
Metro Detroit is a multicultural melting pot, which the delegates got to observe in visits to Fordson High School and the Academy of the Americas (AoA). Fordson is in Dearborn, Michigan, a city with a population that is over 50 percent Arab American. This is heavily reflected in the school’s Arab-ancestry student majority. AoA is a bilingual K-12 school with a Spanish-English dual immersion curriculum, beneficially located in the Hispanic-centric neighborhood of Southwest Detroit, which primarily serves students of the many Spanish-speaking immigrant families. The visitors left in awe of the schools’ majority-minority student bodies, and their discussions with administrators allowed them to observe the schools’ best practices for integrating the students’ identities into the curriculum in a way that respects and honors them.
The delegation also got to stop by an American college and met with Oakland University’s English Language Institute (ELI), which supports the school’s English-learning students in their academic studies, demonstrating the role educational institutions play in establishing meaningful connections through learning across linguistic and cultural variations. The meeting was not only a learning opportunity for the Swiss teachers, but Oakland faculty identically enjoyed the connection: “We mutually gain so much from these campus visits,” the ELI’s ESL Coordinator Elizabeth Adams shares. “It was such a pleasure to meet everyone and to spend such quality time together.” Through the exchange of their ideas and experiences, both parties gained new perspectives on how to be more equitable educators – as well as new friendships.
Bridging the Swiss teachers to Detroit’s educators was an honor for Global Ties Detroit and was a valuable way to illustrate how classrooms across the world can be pivotal to uplift young learners, while celebrating who they are.
By Charlotte Little, Program Coordinator
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