Center for Christian Urban Educators
Embracing cultural difference as a strength to be leveraged, not an issue to be addressed.
Intercultural Competence Training
Dr. Christina Edmondson, who currently serves as the Dean for Intercultural Student Development at Calvin College, in Grand Rapids MI, conducted an intercultural competence training for teachers and leaders of the urban Christian schools in Chicago. Blessed by an array of academic, professional and lived experiences, Christina is committed to bringing diverse people together to promote personal and team flourishing. As a Certified Cultural Intelligence and Intercultural Development Inventory qualified administrator, public speaker, and mental health therapist, Christina is often contacted by non-profits, academic institutions, and churches to consult about both diversity and mental health issues.
The training was held at the Daystar Center on Monday, October 10, 2016.
Intercultural competence is not a naturally occurring phenomenon but a process that needs to be addressed in learning, teaching and staff development. This training was one step in the process and participants learned how effective educators leverage diversity to create classroom and school cultures that are unified and inclusive.
The training focused on key cultural competences required for fostering a environment that embraces cultural difference as a strength to be leveraged, not an issue to be addressed. As a result of the training school leaders and teachers gained a better knowledge of implicit bias and stereotype threat diversity and an understanding of the relationships between and value of personal intercultural development and education.
With the goal of creating schools that invite and embrace all children in God’s kingdom, providing teachers with the knowledge, skill, and attitude to gain intercultural competence is a priority of each school leader in the Bright Promise Fund Network.