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(Grades 1 & 2) - Middle Circle
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(Grades 5 & 6) - Art
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- Service Learning and Partnerships
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Service Learning and Partnerships
Intercultural Partnerships
Why Intercultural Partnership at SRV?
“It is limiting and inaccurate to only educate our children provincially when they must live their lives in a global context, facing vast differences and awesome similarities.”
--Emily Style Co-director, National S.E.E.D. Project on Inclusive Curriculum: Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity
SRV has created a wonderfully protective environment for our students to thoroughly
enjoy their childhood, and it is sometimes tempting to keep our children in
this gentle bubble. But to remain in our lovely cocoon is to do a disservice
to them and to the broader community. Most of us live in racially, economically,
and culturally segregated communities--a reality that contradicts every value
we seek to instill in our students. It is important for our students--and teachers--to
begin to make connections beyond our campus, especially with children and adults
who live and work in the cities that are nearby – Chester and Philadelphia. We
have so much to learn from each other. So much to give and receive. By creating
partnerships that expand our notion of community while recognizing, respecting,
and celebrating our differences, our students build intercultural communication
skills and explore more deeply what it means to be human.
Intercultural Competence
The term "intercultural competence" is gaining traction in the human service fields and is working its way into the realm of education. While it may sound like jargon, it is shorthand for a set of common-sense social skills that are increasingly important in our multicultural nation--and world. A child's education at The School in Rose Valley would be incomplete without providing experiences and guidance that lead in the direction of intercultural competence. Here is what it encompasses for young people, as defined by the Penn PARTNERS program (now the Greater Philadelphia High School Partners Program sponsored by the Center for Greater Philadelphia):
Intercultural Competence includes the ability to:
- Interact and communicate effectively with people from diverse backgrounds;
- Consider and reflect on an issue or topic from multiple perspectives;
- Challenge oneself to "walk in another's shoes"--to feel empathy
- Develop appreciation and knowledge about one's own cultural identity as well as about people from diverse backgrounds
- Seek and find out what's on the "inside" of a person, without making pre-judgments based on the person's race, culture, or language;
- Refrain from dismissing a person's racial or cultural identity in an effort to seek similarities;
- Value each person as an individual, as well as a member of a cultural group, who brings unique contributions to our society;
- Work effectively with others as a team member;
- Listen actively to others' opinions and personal history with patience and an open mind.
Our intercultural partnerships:
