This paper reports on an international experience designed, within a sociocultural frame, for teacher education students to examine theoretical knowledge and make visible local knowledge on diversity issues, and the interrelatedness and complexity of language, literacy and culture and its impact on educational practices. It examines the context of international education, as part of a graduate program of studies, as a promising way for teacher education students to gain knowledge of communities' funds of knowledge and situated cultural and literacy practices, use knowledge and engage in action as learners in an uncommon, out-of-the-ordinary context, and act on personal, professional and instructional implications. This international experience, which involved a course taught in the U.S. and Brazil, was designed to engage American graduate students, with different levels of teaching experience, in active exploration of their assumptions about the nature of literacy and culture, and communities' funds of knowledge. The purpose of this situated learning experience was to deepen teacher education students' understanding of self, cultural identities and deficit beliefs, and its impact on their curriculum design and instructional process, and interactions with their own students and their families. This paper also examines the American students' explorations and cultural clashes, what became visible about their invisible assumptions that turned into "rich points" and led to transformed understandings and actions. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)