From "Who Am I?" to "How Do We Belong?": Renewing an Identity Unit Through Multiple Perspectives
Where it’s all headed: Peers, parents and other educators were visibly engaged with the remarkable displays created so students could share their perspectives on Belonging. (image supplied)
When educators Michelle Lee and Kelly Bacak examined the fourth-grade identity unit at Korea International School on Jeju Island, they recognized an opportunity hiding within its simplicity. The existing unit asked students to explore themselves in isolation—favorite colors, family members, personal preferences. But for a community of learners navigating complex identities in one of the world's most internationally concentrated educational environments, this felt insufficient.
"The old unit was very focused on who am I? and just exploring the self in a very general way," Michelle explains. What emerged from their collaboration with Aaron Moniz of Inspire Citizens was something far more ambitious: a six-week journey that would challenge students to see themselves not just as individuals, but as part of an interconnected tapestry of human experience.
Building Bridges Beyond the Bubble
Jeju Island hosts four international schools in close proximity, yet Kelly recognized a troubling pattern. "It's just very sheltered in the sense of community interconnectedness. There's not a lot of getting out of your circle," she observes. This realization became the catalyst for transformation. "We wanted just to plant that seed for them—you are one day going to leave this bubble."
Where it begins: Surveying an ever-widening landscape of belonging, students started their journey with a safe and easy self-portrait expressed through a quilt motif. Paired with continuum walks – and eventually with “meeting” peers through a teacher-facilitated connection with a school in The Netherlands, students reached remarkable levels of understandings by the time the exhibition happened. (image supplied)
The redesigned unit deliberately expanded students' horizons through carefully scaffolded experiences. Students began with personal reflection through quilt-making, each creating a piece that represented their individual identity. But rather than stopping with this safe and easy exploration, the teachers introduced continuum walks—physical exercises where students positioned themselves along a spectrum in response to thought-provoking questions. "It's more important to work by myself or work with others," Kelly describes one prompt, watching as fourth-graders began to see connections and differences among their peers.
Michelle leveraged her international connections to add another dimension, partnering with her former school in the Netherlands. "We wanted to take it beyond one individual's perspective and explore diverse perspectives," she notes. Through Padlet exchanges, KIS students discovered what fourth grade looked like across the world, engaging with questions that transcended any specific curriculum.
Exploring the Power of Student-Led Discovery
Working with Inspire Citizens facilitator Aaron Moniz proved instrumental in helping the teachers navigate their ambitious vision. "Aaron does such a great job with helping us untangle all of the ideas that are swimming in our heads," Michelle reflects. His role as thought partner helped them transform scattered inspiration into coherent learning experiences.
The really big ideas: Parsing acceptance vs tolerance isn’t something that one might readily think that a 4th grader is capable of. But educators Kelly and Michelle were successful in unlocking this conceptual level of thinking in their students by building out a careful and creative plan that included a thought partnership with Inspire Citizens.
The shift from surface-level exploration to deep inquiry manifested most powerfully in the questions students began tackling. "How do they show acceptance versus tolerance? How do they show that they're including a range of other people?" Michelle describes the new focus areas. "Why does it matter to care about diverse perspectives?"
These weren't questions with simple answers. Kelly and Michelle deliberately created space for complexity, encouraging students to grapple with real challenges of inclusion and belonging. The previous unit's simple portfolio approach—one page on family, another on religion—gave way to something far more sophisticated.
Creating Evidence with Impact: The Belonging Projects
The transformation culminated in student-created "Belonging Projects" that left parents and administrators stunned. Given choice in format—from Canva slideshows to chapter books, from videos to comic books—students crafted narratives that explored identity challenges with remarkable sophistication.
Parent Pride: One student’s parent engaged educator Michelle in a conversation about the depth of her child’s thoughts as expressed through the exhibition displays. “I’m so proud of my daughter,” said the parent.
"A parent in my class actually came up to me after reading her daughter's project and said, ‘I am so proud of my daughter. I can't believe she thought of that,’” Michelle recalls. She emphasized to the parent that "this is all student-led. The character and the identity challenge that she was facing was made up by the student."
The impact reached beyond proud parents. When the school's Director of Teaching and Learning reviewed the student work, Michelle remembers, "She said she was trying not to cry when she was reading the poems, seeing fourth graders write such powerful messages."
This year, the teachers added another layer—a learning celebration where students presented their Belonging Projects to the school community. "That was really nice for different members of the community, other teachers, students, and parents to come in and see all the work they have done," Michelle shares.
Looking Forward: Expanding the Circle
The success of the revamped unit has Kelly and Michelle dreaming bigger. “We’re considering how students could take these ideas and add a meaningful action," Michelle envisions, considering connections to service learning. She hopes to invite more community members to speak during lessons and potentially share finished student projects with their partner school in the Netherlands.
Kelly emphasizes the deeper mission driving their work: "We both firmly believe in implementing social justice in our curriculum and in our lessons and in our classrooms. We saw this unit as a great opportunity."
Their collaboration with Inspire Citizens demonstrates how thoughtful partnership can help educators transform well-intentioned but limited curricula into powerful learning experiences. By moving from "Who am I?" to "How do we belong?", Michelle and Kelly gave their students tools not just for self-understanding, but for building inclusive communities wherever their international journeys take them.