Through the vision of this project, striving for global unity does not mean that people have to compromise their identities to merge into a convergent global culture. It doesn't mean that people have to exercise tolerance in order to co-exist without violence. Tolerance tends to imply reluctant acceptance of differences, without actually understanding and relating to the foreign other. Rather, realization of global unity ensues from an evolving awareness and ongoing support of universal values and issues amid appreciation of diversity. These values and issues include peace, compassion, respect, justice, equality, social responsibility, human rights, and environmental preservation. Educators in all disciplines have direct opportunities to initiate dialogue and critical reflection on these topics in the classroom, and to plant seeds that may eventually have a cumulative effect in forming a world where justice and peace are everyday realities experienced by all, regardless of ethnicity or economic status, from local communities to the international community.

In the educational environment of foreign language classrooms, three vehicles may be used to assist learners with language acquisition as well as create a common ground on which to explore their cultural identities, values, and beliefs in relation to others. The culture and history of a people are preserved in language through proverbs, metaphors, and storytelling, and these means of conveying knowledge and wisdom can be powerful tools for generating authentic communication between language learners. Proverbs and metaphors abound in our language and everyday consciousness; they affect our perceptions and how we behave, which in turn influence the way we think. The way we perceive and make meaning from our experience often draws from the nuggets of wisdom that have been passed down through storytelling and the oral tradition. The effectiveness of using proverbs and metaphors in fostering intercultural communication draws from the frequency in which a proverb from one culture will have an equivalent in another culture. Understanding and affinity between international students increase when they discover similar values, parallel metaphors, and common meaning expressed in proverbs from their various cultural backgrounds.

Our culture evolves along with our changing environment while also remaining linked to the past. We find ourselves unable to leave behind not only our traditions but also our attraction to stories. We may not sit around campfires listening to stories from the elders of our tribes, stories that mixed fact and fiction. Clearly, we no longer live in an age of oral tradition. Mass literacy, education, the computer revolution and the Internet - these seem to signify that we are in a new age. Nevertheless, storytelling continues to maintain a strong hold on us, albeit in a different form. The massively successful movie and music industry can readily attest to this. As prime examples, in terms of storytelling, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Star Trek - fantasies based on science fiction and a mythical past - embed powerful metaphors and continue to have a very strong impact on modern culture. They remain as significant cultural icons for decades, spanning several generations. Shifting metaphors and timeless maxims continue to influence us in the way we make meaning from our outwardly evolving world, yet internally our existence as members of the human species remain apparently familiar, perpetual, and unchanging. Perhaps it is through acute recognition of the unchanging elements of human nature that life can truly evolve to higher states of consciousness.