Building Bridges Across Cultures through Global Inquiry with Children

An online workshop presented by Kathy G. Short and Dorea Kleker (University of Arizona). 

Workshop handouts:

CERCLL Workshop Booklist_Short_Kleker

Comparing to Understand_Short

In our interconnected world, an understanding of global cultures has become a necessity as children are challenged to think and act globally. Our inquiry as educators is on creating instructional strategies that encourage children to develop open-minded perspectives toward ways of living that differ from their own. We invite children to engage in inquiries around specific cultures, while trying to avoid the pitfalls of only exploring surface aspects of a culture and not the deeper values and beliefs that underlie easily observable traditions and actions. Our goal is that children develop an orientation on the world that balances reflection on the known through identifying their loyalties with reflection on the new through developing open-minded perspectives.

In this workshop, we share the instructional strategies and frameworks we have developed in working with elementary children to explore their cultural identities and to engage them in inquiries on specific global cultures, such as Korea and India. These inquiries are supported through global children’s literature and a range of interactive experiences. We will provide examples of children’s use of thinking routines, instructional strategies, and children’s books as well as engage participants in trying out several strategies.

Bios:

Kathy G. Short is a professor and endowed chair of global children’s literature in the College of Education at the University of Arizona with a focus on dialogue and inquiry and is Director of Worlds of Words: Center of Global Literacies and Literatures (wowlit.org). She has worked extensively with teachers all over the world on literature-based approaches and has authored many books and articles, including Creating Classrooms for Authors and Inquirers and Teaching Globally: Reading the World through Literature. She served as President of the National Council of Teachers of English and the US Board of Books for Young People.

Dorea Kleker is an early childhood teacher, educator and lecturer at the University of Arizona. Working with students and teachers across a wide variety of educational contexts in both the U.S. and Latin America, her work focuses on global and multicultural children’s literature, literacy and play to develop intercultural understanding, and the use of literature to actively engage children as inquirers across all content areas.

Registration closed at midnight on November 5, 2021.