“This partnership has already demonstrated the tremendous potential of authentic, school-based ‘immersion’ experiences to develop participants’ intercultural skillset and expanded worldview,” said Stachowski. “Not only the German preservice teachers and Clara benefitted from their school placements in Bloomington and Hamburg, respectively, but also the pupils in their elementary and secondary classrooms who had the opportunity to learn from their visitors about other cultures, languages and ways of living, examining the differences while discovering how many commonalities we all share.”
Upon invitation from UHH, School of Education Dean Stacy Morrone and Stachowski undertook a return visit and presented at UHH’s Internationalization of Teacher Education Conference in March.
“Participating in the conference provided an opportunity for an exciting exchange of research and pedagogical practices from colleagues around the world,” said Dean Morrone. “Being able to visit Brecht Schule Hamburg on Clara’s first day also made clear the powerful learning experiences that are possible through the Global Gateway for Teachers program.”
In early June, three School of Education faculty members were at the Faculty of Education at UHH. Maurice Shirley, Tina O’Neal and Marcus Croom engaged in presentations and dialogues with UHH’s colleagues on topics of diversity, equity and inclusion. Shirley focused on equity for critical student populations in higher education while O’Neal and Croom, respectively, focused on culturally responsive pedagogy, trauma-informed and racial literacies in teacher education. Croom also gave a lecture based on his book entitled, “Real Talk in Higher Education, Too? How to discuss race, racism, and politics in the 21st century American Schools.”
“This renewed university partnership between IU and UHH has become a new pathway for my work to engage PK-12 and higher education issues internationally. My experiences in Germany have begun to suggest that my contributions here in the U.S. would also add value there, even after considering the important contextual differences between the U.S. and Germany,” Croom said. “As I said in my book and in my UHH lecture, human beings living in racialized societies and learning in racialized schooling deserve real talk about this ongoing, interinfluencing, consequential reality. Do we expect primary and secondary education, whether in America or Germany, to rise to this challenge without higher education? I hope not. My conclusion is that public issues and curricular issues should be addressed with veracity in higher education as well as PK-12, to the benefit of both and for the advancement of all at this point in racialized human history.”
The professors were part of the “Meeting of the Minds” series organized jointly by Faridah Pawan, Professor and Faculty Fellow in Global and International Engagement, and Myriam Hummel, Head of the International Office at UHH’s Faculty of Education.
"Both of our institutions see internationalization as an important part of preparing teachers to develop intercultural competence as part of their readiness to teach in diverse classrooms,” said Pawan. “It’s anticipated that there will be more engagements in the near future, given the shared interests and collaborative possibilities emerging from the visits.”
