Today, over 150 learners from Germany, India, Scotland and Switzerland took part in the first #smallworldsummit. 🇩🇪🇮🇳🏴🇨🇭 For three hours, we were able to explore the similarities and differences between our cultures. The theme of the event was: “That’s strange! But why?”
Over the past six months, Kerry Abercrombie, Daniel Sundaram, Leo Freund and I have put our heart and soul into developing a scalable format for such an exchange. This has enabled us to break down language barriers and organise such an event with some of our participants aged just 10. Learners communicated with the help of pictures, films and drawings, among other things. Teachers helped to translate when necessary.
Why did we do this?
👉 Because we are convinced that our learners will only be ready for the major challenges of our global society if they learn to communicate, collaborate, create and critically exchange ideas across national borders at an early age. We experienced all of this today.
A few highlights from today:
🚀 Learners eating a meal together and spontaneously showing each other what the local specialities are.
🚀 Children volunteered to make and present presentations on local events, books and much more.
🚀 Learners exchanged views on local linguistic curiosities.
🚀 Several children even volunteered to speak in front of over 150 people.
and
🎶 We all tried to sing Happy Birthday together online. It wasn’t a feast for the ears, but definitely an exciting experience! 😉
Some quotes from learners:
💬 “I really enjoyed today’s summit and I hope to do it again.”
💬 “It’s a good thing to socialise with other people from all over the world. It’s really good to learn about other people’s cultures and festivals. I really enjoyed today because we were able to share all the amazing things about our countries and cultures. I really enjoyed it because we made new friends and made new contacts.”
💬 “We didn’t know each other and there were so many of us. And we talked to each other a lot. But everyone was always so nice to each other. I didn’t expect it to be like this.”
We hope that the spirit of this event will last for a long time to come. We are also very excited about the future of this project and hope that other schools and countries will join us on this journey. 🌎🌍🌏
Leave a comment or get in touch with us if you are interested in a future collaboration with your school or class.
#GlobalLearning #CulturalExchange #CollaborativeLearning #learningfromeachother #voneinanderlernen #vernetztlernen
