![]() aware of what the country and its people would be like because of their orientation at GC and the SST culture on campus. And for most of us, newness engages us, draws us out, stimulates us, makes us open and vulnerable, teachable.įor our SSTers in the Dominican Republic (D.R.), the realm of the unfamiliar came perhaps even more so in Haiti than in our primary host country. With college-age students in international education programs, or their crustier faculty leaders, much is new. Experiential learning takes us into the realm of the unfamiliar. It is how we first come to know ourselves and our worlds, and the value of such learning sticks with us. During our earliest months of life, experiential learning is woven into our being. We learn that dropping liquids on the floor results in a flurry of activity, recognizing the realities of cause and effect. As infants we gradually discover parts of our body we never knew existed, one day finding our feet and then inserting them into our mouths to see what form and texture and taste they have. Our initial insights come not in reading or rote memorization or academic discourse. Experiential learning is one of our earliest modes of development. Many years later, I want to highlight why experiential or service learning - in international settings as well as on our campuses - is essential, and why it may be effective. Revelatory experiences came each day, and I reflected on those experiences in a journal that expanded to four volumes by the end of the six weeks. In my sophomore year, a friend and I spent six weeks of the Christmas break and January interterm backpacking and train-hopping our way through Western Europe, communicating in our halting French and German and smiling and gesturing profusely when we traversed Italy and Spain. ![]() In my undergraduate years at a college with no international educational program, I intuitively recognized the need for and value of cross-culture education and experiential learning. ![]() #JULIA ALVAREZ AHA MOMENT SERIES#And in the spirit of some Dominican evangelicals, I’ll testify to a series of rebirths during my years of teaching in a small, Mennonite, liberal arts college - recommitments to graceful living as well as to international education, and to service or experiential learning. Lawrence Burkholder said he claimed only one credential for speaking at the event: He was a “born again” believer in international education.Īs one who has co-led nine Study-Service Term (SST) units - in Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Cuba, China, and Cambodia - I write today as one similarly reborn. In his opening remarks at a service-learning conference a quarter century ago, Goshen College president emeritus J. Study-Service Term: 50 years of transformational global citizenship Why international, experiential learning is so pedagogically powerful ![]()
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