Harrison, a student from Everdeen, disagrees with Amelia’s viewpoint about the school lacking a focus on global citizenship. Harrison says he would not define himself as a global citizen based on his experience at Everdeen. Therefore, this raises the question of whether Everdeen is creating global citizens or providing experiences where students fail to retain the crucial aspects of being global citizens.
Regarding global citizenship in the curriculum, students are required to take a foreign language such as French or Japanese. Along with learning the language, each class would have a cultural day where students would spend time at a restaurant with the traditional cuisine of their studied language. For example, students taking French would go to a French restaurant to eat crepes, and students taking Japanese would go to a Japanese restaurant to order bento boxes. While this event does promote learning about other cultures, this is not a reoccurring experience throughout a student’s time at Everdeen.
Another way Everdeen promotes celebrating other cultures is through schoolwide events. A student describes events promoting different cultures, such as a lunar new year dinner celebration. These events aim to promote multiculturalism, but students say they hardly fulfill that purpose. Instead of making multiculturalism a vital topic, students felt as if it was something they happened to come across if they happened to talk to someone about it.
Although students mentioned multiple events each year, this was the only all-campus multicultural event worth mentioning. The assemblies focus on respecting different cultures and religions, but students said there was no lesson or discussion on implementing these practices. Instead, these assemblies were made by the administration.
Everdeen prides itself on having international students, of which plenty are from China. Although Everdeen promotes acceptance and interaction with other cultures, students mention a strong divide between international and local students. Harrison said this divide tends to happen due to discomfort from being around a group that’s a different nationality. If Everdeen’s goal of creating acceptance and global citizens through cultural events, assemblies, and campus expansion were working, the divide between native Australians and international students would not be so strong. Daily, students do not feel the promotion of global citizenship, and teaching global citizenship through the business perspective may be contributing to the failure of breaking down cultural barriers within their school.
