INTERNATIONAL MINDEDNESS at MESC 

INTERNATIONAL MINDEDNESS @ MESC

As an International Baccalaureate World School, MESC is connected to learners and educators from across the globe. We are dedicated to fostering a vibrant and inclusive learning environment where every student is educated for excellence, prepared for life, and empowered to contribute to a better and more peaceful world. It is therefore important that we are explicit with our young people about what it means to be internationally minded and how we can develop an attitude of intercultural understanding. So what does this look like in our classrooms?

Global Engagements: Through inquiry units, students explore facts and changes in the circumstances of the world around us and reflect that, as individuals or as a society, we might need to change the way we do things. These changes include seeing ourselves not only as members of the MESC school community, or residents of the Mornington Peninsula, but also as citizens of the world. By reflecting on who we are, we can consider how we can contribute our skills and strengths to help others. Towards the end of Term 2, our Year 9 Students will begin their Community Project where they explore ways in which they can take action in local and globally communities, making a positive difference in those communities.

Multilingualism: Learning a second language can be difficult and living on the Mornington Peninsula, the value in learning a language other than English is sometimes difficult for our young people to appreciate. There is often a perception that ‘the rest of the world speaks English anyway’. Whilst there may be some truth to this, our Language Acquisition classes use the study of Indonesian language to support students in seeing connections between language, to understand the explicit rules for language that are present in both English and Indonesian and to develop and understanding that language is only one part of communicating and getting to know the world. At the end of their language acquisition journey, we hope that our students have an appreciation for how challenging it can be to learn another language, and therefore an appreciation for others who have taken the time to learn ours.

Intercultural Understanding: How as a community do we show respect for others? At MESC, one of the ways we demonstrate intercultural understanding is by teaching of diverse cultural perspectives through inquiry units. The benefit of teaching through concepts means that learning about the sustainability of the Great Barrier Reef can also occur in Visual Art classes, or that comparing cultural characteristics of New Zealand residents can occur whilst we create different representations of statistics in maths. Our teachers commit to working with the Mount Eliza Community and include community knowledge in the curriculum and instruction. Student openly discuss challenges and benefits of living in an interconnected and culturally diverse world and evaluate how intercultural relationships and experiences influence attitudes, beliefs and behaviours in different contexts.

If you have questions about our programs, please reach out.

Celeste Lombardi

Assistant Principal

Middle Years Program