This week, teachers from Korea, Guatemala, Ukraine, Brazil, the USA, and China all gathered to discuss their successes this spring semester with IVECA and how they will apply their students’ research and hard work to their upcoming Live Class presentations. Whether it was their first semester with IVECA or they were a returning teacher well-versed in intercultural competence and global citizenship, everyone was smiling and ebullient on the video conference.
IVECA’s team assisted teachers as they reviewed their students’ progress over the past semester and helped them seamlessly integrate their research into presentations dealing with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Although the material was wide-ranging and interdisciplinary, through the assistance from IVECA’s team, teachers were capable of recognizing key intercultural components and applying their work to address the complex issues presented in the UN SDGs.
Teachers from Korea and Guatemala collaborated to uncover the relationships between globalization and climate change, offered their students solutions, and brainstormed on how the Live Class session could be an activity of celebration and cooperation amongst countries across the globe. Teachers in Korea, Brazil, China, and Ukraine discussed how their community problems related to SDG 8, 10, 13 and 16 respectively and shared solutions investigated by their students, using this unique opportunity to find commonalities and differences, and exchanged best practices across borders and cultures.
Ultimately, this week was an incredible success and a fantastic demonstration of the power of intercultural communication and competence. Not only were IVECA Teachers left better prepared and more informed about the core tenets of intercultural competence, they also developed tangible solutions to local problems and larger international issues. In a true affirmation of global citizenship, IVECA partners go into the Live Class season as members of a larger global community, more capable of effecting meaningful and sustainable change as individuals who identify as global citizens with shared challenges and equal responsibility for making a more peaceful and understanding world.