The first responsibility is not to become an expert on every culture represented in a school. That is impossible, and the attempt can easily turn students into cultural examples rather than individuals. The first responsibility is to examine the cultural lens through which I interpret behaviour, achievement, communication, participation, and 'normality.' Myles's intercultural-competence framework is useful here because it asks educators to notice the difference between describing behaviour and evaluating it through culturally learned expectations.

 

This connects directly to one of my strongest course themes: learning, unlearning, and relearning. I bring knowledge and professional experience into the classroom, but I also bring assumptions. Some are visible to me; others become visible only when a student, colleague, reading, or uncomfortable moment challenges them. Reflection therefore has to include questions such as: Whose definition of respectful participation am I using? Do I equate confidence with speaking quickly or publicly? Do I interpret silence as disengagement? Do I treat one communication style as more academic than another?

 

Paulo Freire gives this reflection a deeper educational purpose. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, he critiques education in which knowledge is treated as something deposited by the teacher into passive learners. A dialogic, problem-posing approach instead recognizes learners as participants in making meaning. For my practice, this means that intercultural competence cannot be reduced to learning facts about 'other cultures.' It requires dialogue and praxis: reflection that changes action, followed by action that produces new reflection.

 

Cultural humility is therefore more useful to me than the idea of cultural mastery. I need enough knowledge to avoid preventable harm and to understand context, but I also need the humility to ask rather than assume. In practice, I can learn and correctly pronounce students' names; invite students to explain how they prefer to participate; ask families about educational expectations instead of treating one school culture as universal; and reflect after difficult interactions on what I interpreted and why. The goal is not to know everything about the learner. It is to become more conscious of what I do not know.