Strand1_Interntational

 MSAP Grant Strand #1 – International Mindedness A key component of the International Baccalaureate and its member schools is the understanding and practice of international-mindedness. The concept is summed up as suggesting that students and teachers must come to an understanding that they live in a global community where individuals who live on different continents and speak different languages, who live under different systems of government and engage unique cultural practice will impact our community in myriad ways. To better understand their global neighbors is critical to the interests of our school community. This notion corresponds with the IB mission statement that states as a primary objective to “develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.” It goes on to state its objective to “encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.” In order to promote international mindedness at Millbrook High School we have developed a number of areas of global engagement and learning practice.

Critical to the practice of international mindedness is the ability to communicate. At the MYP programme level and the DP programme level, the IB places emphasis and rigorous expectations on the student’s foreign language fluency, striving to ensure both cultural and literary fluency in a non-native language. In order to facilitate those demands and the need for communication at an international level, Millbrook will develop a more extensive Language B (foreign language) program. While we currently offer Spanish, French, and German, we will expand our offering to include such languages as Chinese, Japanese, and Hebrew. To do so will require three key areas of expansion and expenditure – teachers, training, and resources.

Teachers – The MYP demands that all students at the 9th and 10th grade levels take a foreign language, and expanded Language B (foreign language) instruction is key to the DP, where students will take external exams to demonstrate mastery of a second language. Currently approximately 20% of that population at Millbrook takes a foreign language course. A primary reason for the relatively low number is resource allocation. In order to accommodate an increased enrollment in foreign language courses, an increase approaching 500%, we will need to hire more teachers and offer them the highest level of training and support. Initially, Millbrook will hire a teacher to teach Chinese in both the MYP and DP, and hire additional teachers to support increased enrollment in second languages as we transition from the model currently in place to the IB model. As enthusiasm for languages grows, it will be necessary to staff additional positions in Chinese, or other languages that have been incorporated into Language B offerings. As Language B enrollment increases, student enrollment in other, less academically challenging courses, will decrease and so over time, positions formerly allocated for elective courses will be repurposed into Language B, thereby ensuring that positions intially funded with the MSAP grant can be sustained at the conclusion of the grant.

Training of the foreign language teachers will be critical to their success within the IB programme. They will need to be trained not only to deliver the basics of language fluency, but also the concept of cultural fluency. For what they will impart to the students will be an ability that goes beyond speaking the language, but includes communicating with their foreign counterparts.

The training demands will begin with official IB training. In MYP training, Language B teachers will develop an understanding of how to use the MYP Unit Planner to design and deliver effective interdisiplicnary instruction for students. They will learn how to use the Areas of Interaction (AoI) to frame instruction so that students see the purposeful connections between Language B and their other subjects. For example, Language B MYP teachers will work with visual and performing arts teachers to connect Spanigh language acquisition to specific aspects of Latino art. The dance teacher and the Language B teachers will use the MYP Unit Planner to design lessons where the dance teacher teaches the 6 forms of Spanish dance: Flamenco, Classical Spanish Dance (“Estilización”), Folklore, Eighteenth Century Dances, Ballet (Classical Dance), and Castanets, while the Language B teachers will teach the vocabularly needed for students to be able to write and converse about the Spanish forms of dance in both Language A and Language B. Students will write a review of a dance performance in Language B, providing them with opportunities to express their literary fluency in Language B and to discover how the nuances of Language B are not always replicable in Language A. In the Diploma Programme, teachers will need to understand the expectations of the programme and the differences between Language 2A, Language B, and Ab Initio. Since DP courses offer a specialized curriculum, Language B teachers will need to attend both Level I and Level II training to ensure that they understand the curriculum and develop the pedagogical knowledge and instructional strategies to effectively deliver this rigorous and specialized curriculum. During Level I training, DP teachers will develop an understanding of the constructs of the curriculum and an overview of delivery methods. Then, after teaching DP courses for 1 - 2 years, they will attend Level II training, where they will refine their They will need to understand the curricular and assessment expectations of the programme.

Another component of foreign language training is foreign language travel. Whether a French teacher travels to Montreal or to Nice, the experience she brings back to the school and the students will be invaluable in her ability to effectively teach the course. First and foremost the teacher will immerse herself in the vernacular of the particular language. She will learn and practice at a level that will not be available in textbooks and at local trainings. At the diploma programme level, Language A2 courses go well beyond language acquisition and focus on refinement of language skills, with an articulated expectation that the student will make connections between languages and cultures. They will be able to discuss, learn, and argue in this second language. For a teacher to train students at this level, the teacher must have native experience. Such travel opportunities are made available through partnership with local universities and affiliated international organizations. One such organization is World View, a program sponsored by The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). Every year World View sponsors international study visits to foreign nations such as Costa Rica, Turkey, Senegal, and a host of other nations throughtout the world. The goal of these visits is, to paraphrase World View, to broaden teachers' perspectives, challenge their understanding of themselves, and understand those whose cultures are different from their own. These trips are specifically for educators and are in complete alignment with the IB philosophy of international mindedness. Such experiences will be invaluable resources to bring to the classroom not only to share, but to model for students who might also consider the benefits and opportunities of global travel.

Programs and opportunities presented by World View and others will not, of course, be restricted to Language B teachers. To be an IB World School and to best serve a population such as Millbrook's, all teachers must have an understanding of and appreciation for international mindedness and global perspective. This is why travel abroad on such sponsored trips will be made available to the entire staff of Millbrook, including teachers, administrators, councelors, and support staff. Given the large population of immigrant students, especially the Hispanic population, programs that include increased understanding of the varying Hispanic cultures and attitudes is critical to all staff. The World View seminars offer perspectives on Latin American culture that will allow teachers and other staff members to better work with these students, a group that is historically underrepresented in college prep programs and over represented in suspension, retention, and dropouts, and help them to be successful.

The added value of travel to destinations of native speakers is the acquisition of personal contacts and resource acquisitions. A key component of the Millbrook Language program is the development of language labs (articulated in another strand of this grant). In that lab students and teachers will have the opportunity to communicate on a regular basis with native speaking students and teachers. The establishment of relationships with those native speakers through travel will be essential to classroom experience. Also essential to the classroom experience will be the resources that a teacher can bring back from foreign travels. These resources will increase student interest in and understanding of foreign cultures and will increase their motivations to pursue and excel in their language studies. The opportunity for teachers to bring back the resources and the experiences surrounding these resources is a unique and compelling classroom tool, one that cannot be replicated online or in a local/domestic training environment.
 * come back to language program*

An essential component to the MYP is vision that all eight subject areas are essential and of equal value. This includes the study of physical education. Since each student in the 9th and 10th grades will be required to take PE, Millbrook will need to increase their program to accommodate the increased numbers. Combining PE with the objective of international mindedness creates new opportunities for Millbrook to expand their PE department and their course offerings. By aligning the language programme, the Arts programme, and the PE programme we can create a course of study that will address the MYP objective of cross-curricular education and understanding. By adding such PE classes as Tai Chi, Cricket, and other internationally practiced activities, we can combine the physical component, the language component, and the artistic component to promote the goal of international understanding.

The two essential requirements for such an expansion and interconnection to take place are training and resources. Teachers who have, for years, taught the mainstream activities in the domestic classroom will now be asked to teach sports that they are unfamiliar with. They will need to work with other educators who can teach them the rules of the activity, but go beyond that to teach the cultural value of the activity and its connection to the countries where it is played. To get such training in activities that might be popular internationally, but relatively obscure domestically, teachers will likely have to travel greater distances. To find an expert in the physical and cultural art of Tai Chi, for example, our PE teacher(s) might need to travel out of state, or even out of country. At the same time these activities will require significant expenditures of resources. To introduce Cricket, for example, into a school, the PE department would need to purchase an amount of equipment that would rival a small football program. From the requisite bats, balls, gloves and wickets, to the safety helmets and padding, the expenditure for this or any new athletic/physical activity will be required and significant. Millbrook High School will need to promote and practice international mindedness. All staff, including teachers, clerical and support staff, will have a hand in promoting international mindedness on a daily basis. To promote international mindedness, into a school, all staff must be trained in what it means to be internationally minded. Staff development training sessions would allow staff members to understand how international mindedness fits into the IB programme and to understand what exactly it means to be internationally minded. The international mindedness part of IB is a philosophy and the students at Millbrook need to understand this way of thinking so they can carry with them for the rest of their lives. Besides the need for training for staff members, Millbrook will also need to hire additional staff members. Teachers to add details, meat, expand the current written work
 * consider and discuss the deficit/ what is millbrook missing?