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Chile & Argentina: Economic Reform, Regional Integration, and Democratization
Amy Rell
Community College of Aurora, Colorado
Globalizing Faculty: The Paramount Approach to Globalize Students
Late at night one winter evening last year, I sat on my couch with a cup of hot tea, dog by my side, soft light, music in the background and my Spanish textbook. As is customary for me, I relaxed browsing the textbook used in my Spanish course, pondering how to approach certain topics. Given the thrust to teach culture as prompted by one of the infamous “five C’s” from the National Standards for Foreign Language Education, I had come to embrace a section of the textbook that offered short explanations of cultural significance for various Spanish-speaking countries. During the term of the course, I had attempted to infuse the curriculum with bits and pieces of culture: the quinceañera tradition in Mexico, guayaberas worn in Cuba, paella and gazpacho as hallmarks of Spanish cuisine, and what I came across that fateful evening: mate yerba, the traditional drink of Argentina.
I wondered what mate yerba might taste like, having never tried it. I wondered what Argentina might be like, having never visited it. As in the tradition of many foreign language educators, I found a picture of mate on-line and copied it for my class. Later that week, I passed out the picture and students, using a cooperative learning activity, read the short passage about mate in groups. Given my fundamental lack of knowledge about Argentina in general and mate in particular, I used the target language passage more as a means to practice oral proficiency than to discuss mate or the culture of Argentina. Similar to how we suggest that our students use the strategy of circumlocution when they struggle to find all the words they need to express themselves, I had done the same. I had taken a rich, cultural topic and simplified its complexities due to my lack of knowledge. I felt like a fraud.
Ironically, within a week or so of that experience, the college I work for suggested that faculty apply for an International Faculty Development Seminar (IFDS). The seminars, specialized for faculty by the non-profit organization Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE), are offered only once a year. In general, they are organized as two to three week intensive, specialized, hands on experiences that focus on a particular theme related to a particular place in the world via a combination of lectures by world renowned academics and professionals along with field experiences. Should I be selected, my institution would provide funding that would allow me to participate.
A few days later, I decided to peruse CIEE’s options and found that, if selected, I could travel far and away. I pondered traveling to Uganda to study interdisciplinary approaches to public health or post-war development in Cambodia and Vietnam. What about new business economies in India, traveling to France to discuss Muslim communities in contemporary Europe or revolution and neo-liberal reform in Nicaragua? The choices were limitless…and then I saw it: “Economic Reform, Regional Integration and Democratization in ARGENTINA and Chile.” I immediately applied.
The thrust of my school was clear and evidenced by our new school-wide maxim: “Life-long learning in a global community.” Virtually every faculty meeting during the past year somehow included a discussion on how to “globalize” our curriculum. While the term “globalization” could be analyzed relentlessly, faculty and administration at our institution recognized that, in its most simple form, the term suggests making global or worldwide. Certainly, broadening curriculum to account for global realities and, as a result, “globalizing” our students, is not limited to my home institution. One need look no further than the recent passing in the U.S. House of Representatives of the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act that will greatly augment the number of American students studying abroad. According to Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, promoting study-abroad programs will “help provide the next generation of Americans a deeper understanding of the cultures and histories of other nations” (McMurtrie and Bollag 2007). The passing of the Study Abroad Foundation Act aims to provide better resources to allow students who want to pursue study-abroad the opportunity to do so and, as a consequence, serves as a means to globalize American students.
We need look no further than the community college for which I work to see that students do want these types of experiences. Before investing resources in developing an immersion program for our students, the World Languages Department proctored an anonymous survey posing the question about whether students would be interested in participating in an international experience. Given the exceptionally demanding and chaotic lives of community college students, most of whom work full-time and have a family, a better understanding of whether or not to even consider planning a program that would take students out of the country for two weeks to a month was essential. Of the 60 beginning Spanish students surveyed, 55, or 92%, enthusiastically responded that they would be highly interested in participating.
Government, students and faculty are not the only populations vested in globalization efforts. Non-profit organizations, such as CIEE, have seen a dramatic increase in studies on the relationship between study abroad and the globalization of students. As researchers Vande Berg, Paige and Deardorff comment, “…studies of student learning abroad date back at least as far as the 1950’s [however] interest in that research has grown at an extraordinary rate since the mid-1990’s” (13). In addition, CIEE’s noted international conference includes an array of sessions such as “Moving People, Changing Mindsets: Building Intercultural Competence Through Study Abroad” and “Like Diamonds, Study Abroad is Forever”; all of which allude to the impetus of CIEE and other likeminded organizations to globalize curriculum and students (Council on International Educational Exchange 6, 8).
Yet, one piece seems missing, particularly for the foreign language instructor: globalizing faculty. In order to globalize our curriculum and our students, we need to first globalize ourselves. In the 21st century, language educators are required to teach much more than language. We teach study skills (“How do I memorize all of that vocabulary?”), academic skills (“I never even learned what an adverb was in English.”), semantic skills (“Let’s use the informal pronoun to address her in this case.”), life skills (“Yes, tardies count; punctuality is a part of life beyond this classroom.”) and a plethora of other skill sets. One additional component to our teaching that has recently reached heightened awareness and vanguard is the teaching of culture. Without directly experiencing the culture(s) of the language we teach, how can we effectively teach it? How can we expect our curriculum and our students to become more global if we are not? Quite simply, we cannot.
I had to drink mate to be able to describe it to my students in a way they would remember and in a way that would entice them to try it for themselves. I had to live Argentina firsthand before I could attempt to take an artificial setting, such as a foreign language classroom, and replicate a cultural nuance the vast majority of students were most likely not familiar with. I had to experience Argentina’s customs and traditions myself to avoid taking a cultural reading from the textbook and converting it to a pronunciation lesson, or even skipping over it entirely, due to my lack of familiarity. In essence, I had to globalize myself. Only then could I seriously attempt to do the same with my students. Consequently, globalizing faculty is a prerequisite to globalizing students and curriculum.
I have since returned from my life-changing seminar to Chile and Argentina. I drank mate each and every opportunity I had. Above and beyond the many cups of mate I consumed, I learned more about Chilean and Argentine history, customs, politics, economics, linguistics, and culture than I could have ever imagined in a two and a half week time span. Just to name a few highlights:
- Mate in a traditional Argentine café where internationally recognized Jorge Luis Borges wrote some of his masterpieces surrounded by the sounds of the enchanting dialect of Buenos Aires.
- Descending a dark industrial elevator hundreds of feet down and three miles deep into a mountain in the Andes at the largest and oldest active copper mine in the world.
- Listening intently to every word of an intimate lecture by Judge Juan Guzmán, who indicted former Chilean dictator, General Augusto Pinochet, for human rights abuses under the Chilean military dictatorship.
- Sitting in a room at the headquarters of the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo as one mother described the disappearance of her son some thirty years ago in the middle of the night and her group’s unprecedented efforts to find the estimated 30,000 who disappeared alongside her son.
- Visiting a former clandestine detention facility in Santiago, Chile where former medical student and inmate, Pedro Matta, described in detail the horrific torture he endured for months prior to be exiled for over a decade.
- Dancing the night away to a local Chilean folk singer while drinking pisco and eating local favorites.
- Strolling the jam-packed streets of Buenos Aires on an architectural tour that connected the city’s regal architecture of the past with its economically troubled present.
- Walking the hallways of Nobel Prize winning poet Pablo Neruda’s home named La Chascona and witnessing his eccentric, creative mind through his remarkable former residence.
- Exploring one of Buenos Aires many dismal, stray-dog infested shantytowns inhabited by many former middle-class, educated citizens who lost everything in the economic crash of 2001.
In contrast with my pre-departure knowledge, I could now teach an entire seminar about Chile and Argentina. While I acknowledge that after a two-week stay, I am far from an expert, in contrast with my familiarity prior to the seminar, I am infinitely more globalized. As a result, I am substantially more qualified in our national endeavor to globalize curriculum and students. Indeed, the current problem I envision is quite contrary to my prior dilemma: to infuse each lesson with culture without neglecting the primary goal of my courses: second language acquisition. In conclusion, globalizing faculty promotes global students. If faculty are not globalized, how can we teach students from a global perspective? Faculty, in particular foreign language faculty whose daily work is global in nature, require these experiences to teach culture, bring classrooms to life and inspire our students to globalize their own lives outside of our classes.
Reference:
Vande Berg, Michael, Michael Paige, and Darla Deardorff. “The Research Results Are In: Now What Do We Do With Them.” Rpt. in Challenging Assumptions: Evaluating Study Abroad’s Past, Fashioning Its Future. Council on International Educational Exchange. Maine: 2007. 13.
Council on International Educational Exchange. Challenging Assumptions: Evaluating Study Abroad’s Past, Fashioning Its Future. Maine: 2007. 6, 8.
McMurtrie, Beth and Burton Bollag. “U.S. House Votes to Help Colleges Expand Study-Abroad Efforts.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 6 June 2007.
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