Curriculum, teaching and learning should include a component of Comparative, International and Development Education. It is increasingly important for teachers to foster global citizenship, international cooperation and cross-cultural understanding, within the dialectic of the global and the local. By reaching beyond the four walls of classrooms, teachers can gain broader, international perspectives and a deeper sociocultural understanding of curriculum, teaching and learning. Thus, enriching student experience and substantially improving teacher professional development. While there are many potentially significant cross-cultural lessons in teaching pedagogy, teachers have few opportunities. However, through educational exchanges and shared experience, teachers can become introduced to alternative forms of schooling and can learn to think more critically about traditional approaches to education. In this paper, I propose using Comparative, International and Development Education to enhance teacher education and situate my own cross-cultural experiences in curriculum, teaching and learning in Canada and Japan within this context.
