As I get ready to fly out tomorrow for Ecuador with my family, I see how excited my children are about going somewhere new. I am reminded just how important travel is for everyone, but especially young people.
While we intend on visiting most of the important sites in Ecuador (the Old City, Mitad del Mundo, the cloud forest in Mindo, the rain forest, Otavalo, Mount Cotopaxi and Mount Pichincha), of equal importance will the the fact that we will be immersed in the culture because of the fact that my wife has many relatives there, and we have many friends still living there. My children will have to use their Spanish. They will have to eat a lot of typical cuisine. They will have to learn and navigate local customs. They will not merely be on a bus from place to place, staying in hotels and eating gringo food.
My children have traveled with us all over the US. They have also been to Canada and Honduras. My daughter also was part of an exchange with a school in the Netherlands in 2015 that I had arranged with my last school. She benefited greatly from that experience of going to the Netherlands, staying with a host family, attending classes there and visiting the country. In fact, this exchange has been one of her highlights as a high school student.
I think there is a place for the typical EF Tour in American high schools. Students get to see so many things that they have read about or seen pictures of.
However, if you are an educator, and you have the chance to set up an exchange program with a school from another country, you should leap at the chance. The model I used with the JP Thijsse School in Castricum, the Netherlands was an ideal for me. In the fall, we hosted 20+ Dutch students at our school. (We had matched them in the spring, had them Skyping and SnapChatting with each other all summer.) They made presentations in our school about the Dutch history in America. They went to classes and practices and games with our students. We had team building games, pot luck suppers and field trips with them. They bonded. They came away with a terrific sense of what an American high schooler is like. Then, they planned for hosting us. When we went, our students presented on stereotypes, They went to classes and practices. They rode bikes and trains to school They went on fantastic field trips (Van Gogh Museum and Anne Frank House for example). They ate Dutch food and learn Dutch phrases. And, they made long term friends. Way better than a whole lot of pictures and bland hotel foods. Plus, they saved a LOT of money by being hosted.
Think about something like this for your own schools and districts for these reasons.
While we intend on visiting most of the important sites in Ecuador (the Old City, Mitad del Mundo, the cloud forest in Mindo, the rain forest, Otavalo, Mount Cotopaxi and Mount Pichincha), of equal importance will the the fact that we will be immersed in the culture because of the fact that my wife has many relatives there, and we have many friends still living there. My children will have to use their Spanish. They will have to eat a lot of typical cuisine. They will have to learn and navigate local customs. They will not merely be on a bus from place to place, staying in hotels and eating gringo food.
My children have traveled with us all over the US. They have also been to Canada and Honduras. My daughter also was part of an exchange with a school in the Netherlands in 2015 that I had arranged with my last school. She benefited greatly from that experience of going to the Netherlands, staying with a host family, attending classes there and visiting the country. In fact, this exchange has been one of her highlights as a high school student.
I think there is a place for the typical EF Tour in American high schools. Students get to see so many things that they have read about or seen pictures of.
However, if you are an educator, and you have the chance to set up an exchange program with a school from another country, you should leap at the chance. The model I used with the JP Thijsse School in Castricum, the Netherlands was an ideal for me. In the fall, we hosted 20+ Dutch students at our school. (We had matched them in the spring, had them Skyping and SnapChatting with each other all summer.) They made presentations in our school about the Dutch history in America. They went to classes and practices and games with our students. We had team building games, pot luck suppers and field trips with them. They bonded. They came away with a terrific sense of what an American high schooler is like. Then, they planned for hosting us. When we went, our students presented on stereotypes, They went to classes and practices. They rode bikes and trains to school They went on fantastic field trips (Van Gogh Museum and Anne Frank House for example). They ate Dutch food and learn Dutch phrases. And, they made long term friends. Way better than a whole lot of pictures and bland hotel foods. Plus, they saved a LOT of money by being hosted.
Think about something like this for your own schools and districts for these reasons.
- Students learn way more about a culture
- Parents are actually part of the process
- All students in your school benefit even if they do not host.
- It is cost effective
- Students connect with other students
- Host families watch over the students very carefully
- These are programs that can endure
- When the program is with a school from a country that speaks a language from your school's programs, the students can actually practice their language skills
- The adults make connections as well
- We promote time abroad in college, but time abroad earlier is also extremely valuable, especially when it is for a controlled week or so like these programs are
- This is all fairly easy to set up and manage
I am hoping my friend, Rene Wellen, has some thoughts he can share about exchange programs. He is the coordinator from the Thijsse School, and I am very curious what the Dutch perspective is about all this.
Of course I have something to say about the exchange projects from the Dutch point of view. We are a bilingual school and at a glance you might think that it is the language aspect that is most important to us. However, the exchange proved to be an incredible cultural success and that is far more important.
ReplyDeleteThe difference between being a tourist and being an exchange student is huge. They really get to know what it is like to live in New England/The Netherlands and at least three students of the first exchange are meeting each other again this summer, indeed they have become close friends.
It is of vital importance that the management of the schools believe in the importance of an exchange and actively support the idea. I have two things to add to the list of advantages. In the first place also for educators the trip is an eye-opener: we learn so much from each other. Finally: students feel really responsible for the well-being of their guest and the success of the exchange so they do much more than the programme describes, they go on family outings, visit interesting places and introduce the students to local food and customs.
Lastly, as you can read from Ray's blog, it is not only the students that bond...
Rene Wellen is from the Thijsse School. I found that working with him made setting up an exchange so easy. If you are interested in learning more from Rene's perspective respond to his comments. He could also give you solid advice on setting up an exchange at your school, maybe even with him.
DeleteI have made it to Ecuador. It is so much more modernized than last time I was here. They have really invested in infrastructure. So happy about that. .
ReplyDelete