INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE

NEW MEXICO EXPERIENCE

You don't have to look outside the continental United States for an international experience. I was able to experience a new way of learning and teaching while on my trip around New Mexico. I got to see the Jemez Pueblo and see the schools and culture of the area. I was able to interview and be interviewed by the students at the Jemez High School and found out the students of the pueblo have been given less, but want to achieve more in their learning. The students worked on projects that both had educational and cultural aspects to them, such as farming, cultural literacy, and maintaining their unique history. I never thought the students' culture could be so important in their learning experience in school, but the Jemez Pueblo showed me otherwise. A students background is just as important as their learning ability and sometimes is lost in the traditional classroom. It is important for teachers to help foster a classroom that is open and uses all the students' cultural background to create an enjoyable and engaging classroom.

While in New Mexico we also got to experience alternative learning strategies for schools. The elementary and high school we were able to visit were very different then the ones i have taught in and been schooled in during my life. My favorite experience was going to Camino de Paz School and Farm. It was here that I learned, not everything can be taught in a classroom. Along with a number of other USD grad students we helped clean up animal pens, catch goats, and learn about alternative learning. At the school half of the students' time is dedicated to working on the farm. However, what the practice while working is applied in the classroom as well. Instead of learning about selective breeding, crop rotation, or environmental effects on the environment, they actually go out and put those ideas into practice. Students use all five of their senses in learning, which is something that can be lost inside a classroom environment. 

This experience has shown me that all students learn differently and that for every student there is a different way to teach them. I was able to experience alternative schools for the first time and see how different some students learn. This trip has made me more aware of how much I need to create a classroom environment that allows for students of every culture, ability, and educational experience to learn. Also, that since all students learn different it is important to try to use all the students' senses, culture, and learning histories to help help foster that classroom of learning.

Some words that would sum up my experience in New Mexico would be insightful, alternative, hard work, cultural,  and of course enchanted!

GLOBAL TRAVELS

I  have been extremely blessed to have had the opportunity to travel abroad multiple times in my lifetime. In 2012, I experienced the most life-changing four months of my life by being apart of the Semester at Sea study abroad program. In four months with Semester at Sea, I traveled around the Atlantic Ocean with 400 other students to 14 different countries. Along with going to school on the ship, I was able to do a lot of onshore work while in port. Many of the pictures on my website are photographs I took while abroad.

While on Semester at Sea I was exposed to many different experiences from Galway, Ireland to Manaus, Brazil. In Cadiz, Spain I was given the opportunity to observe the practices of followers of both Islam and Christianity and how the two communities worked together in harmony. In Accra, Ghana I was able to help interact in the classroom with students and staff at a school. I was able to see the environments students who are suffering from extreme poverty are going through and the resources they need in order to give students an education. Next, I was apart of a Habitat for Humanity project in Cape Town, South Africa. It was in Cape Town where I was able to see the townships in person, instead of in a textbook.

Semester at Sea taught me how to interact, communicate, and negotiate with people from different cultures, backgrounds, and languages. It was a real eye-opener of just how large, diverse, and complex the world is, even though we are more connected than ever. I climbed Table Mountain in South Africa, learned how to survive in the Amazon Rain forest, and watched the last bull fight of the season in Seville, Spain. A lifetime of global experiences in just  four months. This semester abroad drove me to continue my travels and ever since have been to 33 different countries around the globe.