“No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive” – Mahatma Gahndi

The International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) states that intercultural awareness is concerned with “developing students’ attitudes, knowledge and skills as they learn about their own and others’ social, national and ethnic cultures. By encouraging students to consider multiple perspectives, intercultural awareness not only fosters understanding and respect, but may also lead to empathy.”  Further, the IB mission statement calls for students across the world to understand that “other people, with their differences, can also be right.”  Thus, learning about ourselves and others is clearly a vital aim of the IB Middle Years Programme.

The greatest opportunities we provide for your child to develop intercultural awareness take place during classroom experiences and during service towards others.  More succinctly, intercultural awareness is borne from the pursuit of lifelong learning and lifelong serving.  As we prepare your child for the jobs of the future, we infuse our classroom experiences with 21^st century skills like collaboration and teamwork, critical thinking, creativity, and the use of technology.

In the classroom, students engage in the study of their own culture, as well as the culture of others. In classrooms across the campus students are prompted to think internationally by drawing relationships to their neighbors throughout the world.  Learning to speak French and Spanish encourages students to think globally and enhances their awareness, acknowledgment  and acceptance of other cultures.

Trips to ethnic restaurants and stores can enhance student awareness.  Trips abroad to Europe are offered every other year to provide students an opportunity to be submerged in other cultures .