“What does it mean to have a mind that is open? A heart that is giving?” The Year 7 Mandarin class I was visiting at St Andrews Cathedral School had been asked to consider these questions and discuss. In the middle of the tables were tantalising “party bags” full of pictures and realia, waiting to be emptied and explored. It was an introductory lesson to the topic Celebrations, to be taught across the three languages offered at the school. First, however, their teacher Dominique Haynes was guiding her students to explore the underlying learning attitudes that she would be encouraging them to bring to this inquiry unit. These reflected the IB Learner Profile and MYP Key Concepts, along with the Teaching Christianly rationale that the Languages faculty has developed this year, which embodies the school motto - Heart, Mind, Life - and is partly outlined below:
During this lesson, at the very beginning of the unit, I observed students engaging in deep thinking about how they would approach their inquiry. With minds that were open, what might they learn from the ways Chinese people celebrate, not just about the celebrations themselves? How do Chinese people show a heart that is giving? What is important to them? In what ways could they, as a community of language learners, demonstrate hearts that are giving? It is easy for an end of year unit on Celebrations to give a mere tokenistic nod to culture within our language programs. Or paradoxically, we can go quite overboard in a frenzy of cultural display which may serve only to affirm stereotypes or further distance students as they focus on the ‘strangeness’ of others. By laying a carefully considered foundation, this Celebrations inquiry has instead become an opportunity for students to look more closely, to explore what it means for people to celebrate and how, in doing so, they can respectfully learn from the ways of others. Libby Colla
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