CULTURAL SENSITIVITY TRAINING

We live in a society where migrations, different raced people, women, transgender  persons, persons with disabilities, and religious minorities the consequent encounter and clash among different cultures has become extremely relevant and shall be at the top of public stakeholders’ priorities.

One of the biggest challenges for teachers and the education system is to be equipped to face newly arrived students, who may have experienced great distress and confront obstacles in adjusting to a new cultural environment. Promoting intercultural education and training intercultural competences becomes therefore crucial to manage the encounter and possible conflicts arising from cultural differences.

Modelling empathic, critically-thinking and open minds contributes to shape welcoming school environments, where cultural diversity is promoted and celebrated, and the first step towards bringing social change and inclusive societies. Participating in this course teachers and education staff will share and discuss challenges, best practices and strategies to facing, acknowledging and celebrating interculturality in the education system.

Main Objectives

This course aims to help teachers to develop their cultural awareness and social inclusion while giving them the tools and new approaches to cater to a multicultural diverse  group of students and their parents.

Thanks to this course, the participants will:

– Confront and understand the mechanisms behind head-on stereotypes and personal prejudices;

– What is the Microaggressions.

– Improve their cultural awareness and intercultural competences;

– Explore and value different points of view through simulation exercises and storytelling;

– Learn new approaches to education that can be applied to culturally diverse education system;

– Know more about teachers’ role in the Social Inclusion process of students and their parents.

– Exchange good practices and discuss challenges with fellow colleagues and the course trainers.

Target Audience

This course is open to: teachers, trainers, headmasters, school and education managers, educational counsellors, career counsellors, other school staff, other adult education staff, other higher education staff, other non-governmental organization staff, public servants, policy makers.

Daily Programme
Please find below the standard indicative daily programme that will be personalized on participants needs and professional profiles.

Our standard programme comprises 8 days, of which the first one is dedicated to networking, preparation and cultural immersion and the last one to follow up, specific needs and cultural activities. Please note that we always do our best to accommodate the specific needs of our participants in a flexible way, including but not limited to budget restrictions and travel arrangements.

Participants can choose to arrive 1 day before the start of the course and/or leave 1 day after the end of it in order to enjoy a deeper cultural immersion. Upon specific request we can organize longer or shorter version of this course.

Day 1
– Participants arrival
– Individual orientation and information about the venue and the city
– Networking activities
– Guided visit in Belgium

Day 2
– Course introduction
– Teambuilding exercises
– Needs and expectations evaluation
– An everyday more multicultural and diverse class: new challenges in a changing and globalized society
– Exploring concepts of Identity and Culture and discovering how they affect the learning process
– Sharing experiences and challenges in working in multicultural schools

Day 3
– Morning wrap-up
– Becoming aware of cultural patterns and taking them into consideration when planning the lessons
– Stereotypes and prejudices and their role in the perception process

– What do Microaggressions Look Like; Microassaults, Microinsults, Microinvalidations

Day 4

– Morning wrap-up

– Be awaring of own Microaggressions

– Racial Microaggressions, Ableist Microaggression,  Gender Microaggressions, Religonal Microaggressions, Sexual Orientation Microaggressions.

– Practical activities and hands-on experiences to improve cultural awareness and confront personal prejudices

Day 5
– Morning wrap-up

-Awaring of own multiculturistik backraound
– Storytelling and simulation exercises: a concrete way to fight stereotypes and to develop Social Inclusion abilities
– Practicing, designing and delivering storytelling and simulation exercises

Day 6

–Ethnocentric stages and languages: Denial, Defense, Minimization

-Ethnorelative stages and languages: Acceptance, Adaptation, Integration

-Inclusive Language Persons with Disabilities

-Updateing Our Language to PWD: Language we should use and shouldn’t use

Day 7
– Morning wrap-up
– Exploring concepts of membership and relationships
– The importance of discovering Empathy and its role shaping human relationships
– Visit to a local institution active in the field of social Inclusion, imigrations, people of color, women, transgender  persons, persons with disabilities, and religious minorities offering intercultural educational paths

Day 8
– Morning wrap-up
– The extra benefit of using non-formal education methods in a multicultural environment
– How to foster students’ inclusion, tolerance and intercultural awareness through non-formal, informal and experiential learning activities
– Practicing, designing and delivering non-formal activities and tools

Day 9
– Space for discussion of future cooperation and planning follow up activities
– Course roundup and final evaluation
– Validation of learning outcomes and certification ceremony
– Additional training session tailored to specific needs (optional)
– Cultural activities or additional guided visit in another major Belgium city (optional)
– Participants departure

Methodology

We tailor the working methods based upon participants’ needs, attitudes and professional profiles in order to ensure high productivity, effectiveness and transferability into practice.

The standard methodology is highly practical and participative with hands-on approach that comprises real-job examples, case studies examination and simulations. We embrace collaboratively working methods that foster mutual learning and cooperation among participants. Our focus is on learning in an interactive and international environment knowledge applicable to the real contexts and in the classroom. The pedagogical methods that we use are based upon experiential training, group and peer activities, learning-by-doing and best practices’ exchange. They include visits with local schools and institutions allowing the participants to better understand the local education system as well as exchange ideas and contacts.

Morning Wrap-up and brief daily evaluations are foreseen to ensure quality of education and to adapt the learning programme to participants’ needs better tailoring the education.
We organize optional social, networking and cultural activities in order to give participants the opportunity to know Belgium as well as to exchange best-practice and establish professional cooperation and links.

The training and staff team is multinational thus giving a full European dimension to the course.
The class-based course is completed by the support of an E-learning portal that is a great support both before and after the course.