If you look on the Beyond Borders website, you will find on the Program Requirements page the term Intellectual Training. This portion of the program is where “Participants receive academic and practical training to prepare them for their immersion experience, to facilitate mutual relations locally, and to help participants reflect on their term abroad”. Probably due to lack of space and time, this description doesn’t come CLOSE to describing what this component is all about. I will try to sum up the strengths and benefits that come with our intellectual training in a list of things I have learned from/I am thankful for/I loved about – my “intellectual training”:
1. Diversity is sweet! Through BB, I had the chance to meet people from a wide variety of backgrounds and interests. Since the courses were designed in an “open-mic” manner where everyone was encouraged to speak their mind, share their doubts, mention concerns and discuss world issues, class was just as much about learning the ‘material’ as it was about bonding with each other. UW is a huge school with hundreds of different programs and it is so easy to stick to the faculty and friends you already have. Without BB, my path would have never crossed with many of the others in the class. With our differences, I feel like our discussions were that much more relevant. We all have a goal of putting our education to a responsible use, however our reasons, opinions, challenges, fears, etc are shaped by our individual interests, experiences and more, making the opportunity to learn something that much more available.
1. Diversity is sweet! Through BB, I had the chance to meet people from a wide variety of backgrounds and interests. Since the courses were designed in an “open-mic” manner where everyone was encouraged to speak their mind, share their doubts, mention concerns and discuss world issues, class was just as much about learning the ‘material’ as it was about bonding with each other. UW is a huge school with hundreds of different programs and it is so easy to stick to the faculty and friends you already have. Without BB, my path would have never crossed with many of the others in the class. With our differences, I feel like our discussions were that much more relevant. We all have a goal of putting our education to a responsible use, however our reasons, opinions, challenges, fears, etc are shaped by our individual interests, experiences and more, making the opportunity to learn something that much more available.
2. Authentic approach to Education. Being introduced to Paulo Freire, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed and his philosophies on education has been life changing. Reading this novel has had an impact on many of the other participants in the Beyond Borders program as well; we often joke about our new-found ability to connect everything back to Freire. The more significant part, though, is that I feel both Scott and Joanne worked hard to implement Freire’s “authentic approach” to education in how the BB courses were structured. In the Fall 2008 course, I recall talking about Freire and not grasping its significance. Once I began to compare my BB class to some of my other courses, however, the consequence of Friere’s teachings continued to shine week after week. From this, I have learned the value of a professor who is dedicated to three things: their field of expertise, sharing their knowledge, and most importantly, helping students (through dialogue and demonstrating an appreciation for the student) get excited and motivated to actively understand the material. Out of ANY course I have taken, including a “Math in Education” course, the lessons I have learned from Scott and Joanne have taught me more about the teacher I want to be in the future and the way I want to run my classes. They have taught me the importance of dialogue and communication between the teacher and student. I have applied Friere’s methodologies while tutoring this term and the results have been amazing for both my students and me. I have learned that Freire is relevant to all subjects including math, and it has re-ignited my desire for a future in education!
3. Service Learning at its Best. The second course in the BB program is structured very differently from any other university class that I know of. Its main premise was for us to take the theory and material that we had learned in the previous course and be able to see it in the works in our community. It not only taught me the importance of taking responsibility for my community and how I can play a part in the development of social programs, but I also learned about reflection, which is an important skill I lacked previously.To be honest, at the beginning of this course, I was more than sceptical of the design. While I was excited to volunteer at TWC, I didn’t expect to see our ‘ethics teachings’ in practice. Also, I was definitely dreading this whole blogging thing. Now, three months later, I have found a new appreciation for reflection and critical analysis of the world around me. Besides the fact that I hate my writing abilities and even find my self dosing off while trying to edit my posts, blogging has really encouraged me to think about things and draw connections between theory, reality, my opinions, things I read and see and hear. At the beginning of the term, I was looking for things to blog about, but soon I found things coming to me to be analyzed... things I might otherwise have just looked over and quickly dismissed. In my opinion, this is exactly what service-learning is all about and what makes it such an effective tool in education. It forces you to actively learn as well as question/challenge theory and “the way it really is”. I am grateful for being a part of this program as it has challenged me to think outside the mathematical mindset where everything has a solution, relationships can be formulated and the future can be predicted. While I haven’t perfected it yet, I am now realizing that not everything is cause --> effect --> solution --> solved.
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