The Lakeside School 4-week long global service learning summer trips are staffed by a combination of school faculty/ staff and outside hires. The external hires have a diverse background; some are returned Peace Corps volunteers, some experienced outdoor educators, and others may have country or service specific expertise. It’s a job expectation that all the trip leaders contribute to the facilitation of cross-cultural learning and support the students as they navigate their new though temporary cultural environments. The question is how we ensure that the trip leaders possess intercultural competence and are able to support and in some cases mediate difficult intercultural interactions?
A step back: two years ago, I became a qualified administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI)[i]. The 2-day training required that I took the IDI and debriefed my intercultural competence profile. Despite my years of education and work around cross-cultural competence, I was a bit anxious as I waited for my profile. I knew that it’s not possible to ‘fail’ the IDI. Intercultural competence, defined as “the capability to shift cultural perspective and appropriately adapt behavior to cultural differences and commonalities”[ii] is measured as a continuum. But what if it turned out that I was not as advanced on the continuum as I liked to believe I was? Those moments of doubt were unsettling.
Fast forward: Last year, 27 trip leaders took the IDI shortly after they were contracted for the global summer trips. I emphasized with their discomfort and uncertainty in taking the inventory, but no one resisted. I guaranteed that the IDI results were for their personal development and could not be used an evaluative performance tool. Many trip leaders reported that they had expected their intercultural competence to be more advanced, that it had been helpful to be asked to reflect on past experiences in dealing with cultural differences. Several trip leaders, now that they had been made aware of some gaps in their cultural self-awareness, requested resources to prepare them for the cultural and linguistic contexts they were taking students to. Because the IDI profile includes a development plan, I could guide the leaders to how to work toward advancing their intercultural competence by, for example, seeking out particular local multicultural groups and events. Reflection, of course, was highly encouraged as an important tool in their learning process.
So how did the global summer trips go? The trip leaders reported greater confidence and success with facilitating difficult discussions with students around race and cultural differences and among themselves as a leadership team. Students also seemed to report greater understanding and appreciation of their cross-cultural experiences. Of course, the student outcome is my speculation based on their self-reported evaluations and reflections. Will the 2016 trip leaders take the IDI? Yes, absolutely. If the responsible adults have a deeper awareness of their own intercultural competence, they are better prepared to facilitate cross-cultural learning and help the students unpack if not all, some of the culture and value differences they will experience during four week e.g. in rural Thailand or wherever they are. It’s important that we prepare students for their global immersion trips, and it’s equally important that we prepare the trip leaders so they feel enabled to facilitate cross-cultural exploration, understanding and awareness during these educational trips.
Here are some questions I'd love to hear more about from readers:
How does your school train trip leaders so they are/feel prepared to facilitate cross-cultural learning? Is this aspect of global programming often overlooked at schools? What if there is resistance to taking an assessment tool such as the IDI?
Please post your responses to the entire list.