I began this adventure full of excitement and fear, often coming up with excuses to stay in the US rather than travel to Colombia when I let the fear dominate. I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity and very thankful I chose to board the plan on Monday. As you will notice, it is now Wednesday, therefore I have already failed in my duties to update my blog regularly. So here is an attempt at redemption. Because I am the worst, I failed to take enough pictures to fully support this post, but I was so engrossed by the experience that it seemed like taking out my camera would have detracted from my experience and I can be a very selfish person. Yesterday we hopped on the bus to Corporación Universitaria UNITEC. Attending students have to pay tuition because this is not part of the public higher education system. In the US, we would would think of their programs as professional or vocational. They have strong programs in international business/finance, film (boasting alumni that have been participants in the Cannes Film Festival), and culinary arts. We had the privilege of a presentation by Nicolas Prieto, the coordinator of the gastronomy program. He chopped up samples of all the unique Colombian fruits that would be in our meals, claiming he and his students are "cultural soldiers" in the sense that their art is meant to spread the Colombian culture and establish a sense of pride in the new Colombia (I will get to this later). We then took a tour of their classroom space and had the privilege of consuming a meal prepared by five of his students. It is hard to express the sense of pride he displayed in his work and the work of his students. It was truly inspiring. We also had the privilege of touring the film studios where students create and edit audio/visual. It is hard to express how inspiring the atmosphere was and we were able to talk to a couple of students, whom discussed how supportive their environment is and how they are encouraged to share their work beyond the school and even the country. The administrators we talked to expressed their desire to provide an education that generated a family atmosphere, produced moral graduates, and encouraged students to travel the world. I think every student we talked to shared plans to travel to other parts of Latin America or the United States. Four of their alumni have had the honor of being invited to the Cannes Film Festival. Here are some photos of the studio spaces (a photographer I am not). Remember how I said I would elaborate on the concept of the new Colombia? Today (Wednesday), we were able to visit two public schools: Aquileo Parra and I.E. Distrital Usaquen. Unfortunately, this post will not do justice to today's experience; you had to be there. But, I will do my best. We started at Aquileo Parra, an elementary school in Bogotá, arriving to a line of hundreds of students holding "Welcome to Colombia" signs and sat down to see a traditional dance performed by a group of 10 students. The students were adorable and the welcome was truly overwhelming. As many of you may know, Colombia has a history of conflict, but unlike in the US, this reality is not glossed over or ignored. Many times, people stated they know Colombia has a bad reputation abroad, but that is not the new Colombia. Many in my cohort expressed feeling a sense of hope for the future and a general happiness that often feels absent from life in the US. Peace Studies is now a mandatory subject in Colombian schools and this elementary school is a pioneer in integrating conflict resolution into its curriculum. One of the systems we saw was a structure based on clouds, where students in conflict seek out a class mediator (one of their peers assigned this role by their teacher). Starting in the orange cloud, they each state the source of the conflict then they move to blue to establish a compromise. Upon a satisfactory compromise, students move to the green cloud to express their remorse and then then hug to cement the compromise. Exiting on the white cloud means the mediation has successfully concluded. I also posted the rights posters because a sense of justice has been fully integrated into the school culture; one that embraces the conflicts of the past and seeks to build a peaceful future. The cloud process begins with first grade and stays with the students all the way through sixth grade (the last grade of elementary). The students at this school also create artwork and videos that are shared with partner schools in Spain, Argentina, Peru, Mexico, and Morocco to develop cultural understandings and give students a sense of global citizenship. Although we did not get to visit the high school side, several high school students shared their work with the Model UN. Beyond seeing their website, they also shared how, for four months, they had been putting together a proposal to host 300 students from other countries to attend a model UN event at their school. It was inspiring to see their dedication and I hope to hear good news about their proposal. As a side note, being a high school teacher, it was fun interacting with elementary schoolers: Finally, my high school visit was the most terrifying and humanizing event of the entire trip so far. It felt very raw in a way that the elementary school visit was not. Rather than watching a few student presentations and then talking to teachers and administrators, I was assigned a student guide and toured classrooms, then asked questions of a student panel. I could empathize with these teachers whose rooms I visited because none of them expected my arrival, which can disrupt everything. What was terrifying was that my student guide, Haidi, spoke very limited English and I speak even more limited Spanish. And even better, the classroom I entered had very few limited English speakers, but from what I gathered, they wanted me to run through an example problem. A student gave me her math notes, the teacher handed me a whiteboard marker, and then...he left the room. Now imagine you have no common language with a room full of 35 teenagers and your one lifeline symbolically gives you control with the passing of a whiteboard marker. I didn't pee my pants, but I was closer than at any other point in recent memory. Thankfully, I was able to understand the notation in the books and did a lovely example of a limit problem for students in English. We all had a good laugh at the absurdity of the situation, though I'm sure most of it was at my expense. When the teacher walked in, I handed back the marker and Haidi took me to another room where I essentially did the same thing, though the teacher stayed, which was unfortunate because I made a terrible math error on the board and it took me about five minutes to figure out what they were yelling at me in Spanish. Sigh... But I survived the experience and it helped me to empathize with those new to the US trying to navigate a foreign system. Haidi and I then attempted a conversation as we walked to another classroom for the student panel. She had a notebook of questions and statements written in English that she practiced on me. If I could not figure out what she was saying, she would show me the written words and I would help her pronounce them. I would also try to answer her questions in Spanish, though more often than not I was given a quizzical expression. This truly felt like one of the most human experiences of my life, trying to communicate across cultures with each person attempting to use the other person's language. I am incredibly grateful to her and I wish her the best in her travels to the US! At this point, I believe I have rambled on long enough. This blog is really just a way for me to reflect on the day-to-day, which I hope to turn into some sort of well thought out reflection at this trip's conclusion. If you have read this far, you clearly enjoy punishing yourself, but I am grateful for your dedication. I am also grateful to all of the wonderful students, teachers, and administrators that have made these first two days memorable. Many times they have let us know that there house is our house. I could not possibly feel more welcomed. Gracias.
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