Appendix 3

Julia Middleton: Cultural intelligence: the competitive edge for leaders. TedX talk.

I found the representation (left), used to illustrate cultural intelligence, a useful tool in considering professional identity. The core is your fundamental values, beliefs, behaviours etc. that are core to who you are, as Julia Middleton expresses it "without them, you ain't you". The more inflexible you are about your core, the more confidence you inspire. The flex represents everything else, the things you are willing to compromise and adapt. According to Middleton, the line that separates these is where your cultural intelligence lies. It moves as you grow in knowledge and wisdom. In this continuous process of testing your core, you confront truths about yourself, your beliefs and values (represented by the knot). Middleton uses this to refer to cultural intolerances and discusses the importance of unpicking these knots. She states that cultural intelligence is not only understanding other's culture but also understanding your own.

My core

As a teacher, I believe in constructivism. Theorists I lean towards include Vygotsky, Bandura and Bronfenbrenner. I prefer to use project based learning as a pedagogical approach, to improve engagement and provide authentic learning contexts. The determining factors of student agency is the degree of engagement and empowerment students feel (Sanders, Boss, Boss and McConkie (date?) and if, as teachers, we can excite students as well as ensure they experience learning as empowering, they are more likely to produce high-quality work and develop student agency. I also believe that we should be teaching skills for the 21st Century, developing metacognition. According to the results of the Innovative Teaching and Learning (ITL) research, a good learning task will require students to make important decisions together and to be able to work independently. It should require each member of the team to complete their part for the team as a whole to succeed. “These features help students learn the important collaboration skills of negotiation, conflict resolution, agreement on what must be done, distribution of tasks, listening to the ideas of others, and integration of ideas into a coherent whole” (21CDL). It also suggests that rich learning activities require students to work on finding solutions for real-world problems that will be presented to audiences outside the classroom. Consequently, I feel that we over assess for the wrong reasons, assess the wrong things - knowledge rather than competencies and assess in the wrong way. We should be focused on what students can do and build on these skills. A strengths based practice paradigm.

Some particularly influential role models that have changed my thinking include Bobby Hunter, Jo Boaler, and Anne Milne.

I value life long, life wide and life deep education and believe that it not only enriches life experiences, it leads to greater life choice and better life outcomes. Consequently, inclusion (equality of presence, participation and learning for all students) and equity (equal access to opportunities and privileges that education bestows) are paramount and non-negotiable (Alison Kearney, 2017). Definitely part of my core. Needs more work but I'm out of time!

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