Toolbox
TEACHmi Toolbox aims to encourage the intercultural dimension of educating practices, through the creation of a set of training materials, tools and guidelines for teachers, trainers, school leaders and other professionals who undertake to support recently arrived students (aged between 12-18) with migrant background.
The Toolbox covers 6 Topics:
Topics 1-5 suggest a good practice and its upscaling in the context of TEACHmi project. Thus, a series of activities are proposed, including detailed instructions and downloadable materials, adaptable to different learning environments. At the end of the topics, users can click on “Check your knowledge!”, to test what they have learnt. References and links allow to discover more on the topic.
Topic 6 offers a collection of case studies from project partners’ countries aimed to foster reflection on sensitive topics of multicultural contexts through real-life scenarios and identify possible solutions/exercises to overcome critical situations. For each case study, users can share their insight on TEACHmi online forum.
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The core component of the Toolbox is inclusion of migrant students in secondary education, through an innovative set of resources and activities to support teachers and with special attention to Languages of schooling.
Barriers to inclusion may derive from the student’s fear of rejection, academic failure or being misunderstood, shame associated with the need to leave or escape from one’s home, undiagnosed trauma, other linguistic and cultural barriers, differences in educational systems. Sometimes, barriers may be involuntarily created by teachers, lacking time to get to know students’ personal stories.
Thus, the inclusion of migrant students inevitably requires a constant attention to many different contexts of everyday life, going beyond the school walls.
In order to foster inclusion and intercultural frameworks, we consider 5 milestones: Languages, Culture & Stereotypes, Diversity, Participation, Reflection & application.
Topic 1 introduces the concept of “language of schooling”. To foster student’s learning of the host country language, we propose the good practice of peer-to-peer mentoring, based on the good example of TANDEM NOW project. Peer mentoring will create unique opportunities for building up connections between same-age peers.
Topic 2 “Understanding the cultures – What are they?” deals with the complex concept of culture: Understanding the meaning of culture is essential to establish healthy relations with other people and to shape our identity. Storytelling can contribute to reducing biased images and stereotypes, valuing diversity and developing empathy in the class, thus developing a universal culture of human rights.
Yet, for many people, cultural diversity and intercultural learning are inevitably associated with a potential for conflict. Intercultural competences are fundamental to prevent major conflicts. Topic 3 aims to strengthen intercultural awareness and sensitivity, starting from the good practice of Cohen-Emrique’s “analysis of critical incidents”.
In order to strengthen teachers’ skills in diversity management and cultural mediation, Topic 4 proposes the use of restorative circles as a good practice to transform critical cultural differences in a chance for personal discovery, understanding of others and for general growth and development.
Thus, Τopic 5 apply a “learning by playing” approach to educate on EU values and active citizenship, in order to foster the creation of a strong feeling of common belonging.
Finally, by analysing different real-life scenarios in Topic 6, teachers will improve their capacity to identify sensitive topics of multicultural contexts and develop their own solutions to deal with them.