Having been back from my Colombia trip for a week now, I've been trying to acclimate to my life in the states and went directly back into work. I've also been trying to wrap my mind around this really incredible experience that I had and what I learned from it. One question that many colleagues at my school have asked is what did you learn in Colombia? Is there anything that you bring back to us from your travels?
The idea that keeps coming to mind is curiosity. Whatever school we were at, whatever place we were in (in the classroom or on the basketball court or just in the hallways), Colombian students surrounded us and asked questions about our lives. Students in Colombia have curiosity about other countries in the world that they have never traveled to. They wanted to know "What are the states like?" "Do you like Obama?" "What is your school like?" "What do you know about Colombia?" and on and on. We could go into any classroom and just answer questions for an hour and still the students had more questions.
It made me wonder, if a Colombian teacher came to my classroom for a week and sat down to answer any and every question, would my students have endless questions and curiosity? I know that they might ask about drugs and drug trafficking (they brought this up to me when they found out I was going to Colombia) but when I talked to them about my trip they couldn't think of anything else they wanted to know. Do we cultivate enough global curiosity in our students in the states? Do our students have the luxury of not asking questions of other nations because we are near the top of the power structure in the world?
So, one of the big take-aways for me from this trip is how do I facilitate my student's global curiosity about the world? I think one way is going to be by using current events in my classroom but I am open to new ideas on how to do cultivate this curiosity.
The idea that keeps coming to mind is curiosity. Whatever school we were at, whatever place we were in (in the classroom or on the basketball court or just in the hallways), Colombian students surrounded us and asked questions about our lives. Students in Colombia have curiosity about other countries in the world that they have never traveled to. They wanted to know "What are the states like?" "Do you like Obama?" "What is your school like?" "What do you know about Colombia?" and on and on. We could go into any classroom and just answer questions for an hour and still the students had more questions.
It made me wonder, if a Colombian teacher came to my classroom for a week and sat down to answer any and every question, would my students have endless questions and curiosity? I know that they might ask about drugs and drug trafficking (they brought this up to me when they found out I was going to Colombia) but when I talked to them about my trip they couldn't think of anything else they wanted to know. Do we cultivate enough global curiosity in our students in the states? Do our students have the luxury of not asking questions of other nations because we are near the top of the power structure in the world?
So, one of the big take-aways for me from this trip is how do I facilitate my student's global curiosity about the world? I think one way is going to be by using current events in my classroom but I am open to new ideas on how to do cultivate this curiosity.