This February I'll be traveling with a group of K-12 educators to Thailand! The purpose of our trip is to learn about the history and culture of Thailand and to consider how our experiences can not only inform our work but help bring global learning into our own classrooms. Throughout our course, we'll explore various ways to engage elementary students with the world and follow other educators on their journey to do so.
The educators that I'm traveling with are going on the trip as a professional development experience. We spent the months before the trip learning about Thailand with a few meetings after school. Our first speaker who presented at two of our meetings worked for a few NGOs in Thailand and he gave us a basic overview of the country and its culture. Our second speaker currently lives in Boston but was born in Thailand and is active in educational issues in the country; since we plan to visit schools on our trip, it was extremely beneficial to hear about schooling from an expert. One of our final preparation experiences involves visiting a Buddhist Temple in Massachusetts, which we have planned for the end of January.
All of the teachers on this trip are expected to bring their experience into their classrooms. In the next few weeks, we'll explore some of the blogs that they have created for their students and we'll think about how you might engage your own students with global learning. I'll also be blogging from Thailand while I'm there so you'll have a chance to see the student perspective as well. I'm excited to share my travel with you!
YOUR ASSIGNMENT: In the comments section, write a brief post where you consider SOME of the following questions:
- What are some ways that you might enrich your students' learning through a travel experience?
- What do you think your students could learn?
- Have you ever used your experiences in another place (state or country) to teach students about a specific topic? Have you seen examples of this type of teaching in your pre-prac experiences or your own education?
I believe that integrating travel experience with the classroom environment is an excellent way to intrigue students and make Social Studies feel more relatable for students. Using a blog is thus a great way to connect students to teachers' international experiences. Students, in turn, gain a firsthand account of a place beyond home and beyond the United States. Another way to promote this deeper understanding is to teach students a tradition of the country upon returning. For instance, I once had a principal who taught us how to do traditional dances of Taoism after visiting China. Although this a great opportunity to teach and to learn about other countries and other cultures, I think that teachers can incorporate such international experiences without having to leave the country. For instance, a class could go on a pretend journey through Thailand, visiting the same places that the educators have visited to prepare for the journey. They could then research different aspects of the Thai lifestyle, landscape, and climate, simulating a trip without every having to leave the country.
ReplyDeleteI think this is an amazing experience: not only for those who are going to Thailand, but the students and community members who will be able to follow your journey through blog posts and the knowledge you bring back to the US. I find myself living vicariously through friends that have studied abroad, and I am excited to get to be a part of this experience as well. While traveling abroad is an amazing opportunity, it is not one that is easy or applicable to a classroom of students. I agree with Allyson in that there are many other ways that students can obtain cultural perspectives within their own communities. In one classroom I worked in, students went on a trip to Chinatown with the help of teachers and several parent chaperones. This was the culminating project to their unit on Chinese New Year. For schools that may not have the funding or personnel to do this, I would recommend that students dig deeper into their own cultural backgrounds and develop a corresponding unit. For example, in a different classroom that I had the opportunity of working in, students had recently immigrated to the states and represented over 15 countries and 6 languages. In this setting, I think it would be beneficial to conduct research and engage students in something more personal. I think any effort to expose students to different cultures and international experiences is a huge asset to any classroom environment, and is an essential skill to have as an adult in the real world.
ReplyDeleteIn this interconnected world, it has become increasingly important to not only be aware of other perspectives and cultures around the world, but to also learn to interact and work with others around the world. By traveling yourself, you as the teacher can gather and share this important information to better prepare your students for future interactions. As previously mentioned, however, every teacher may not be able to do this traveling. Instead, learning about different places should be integrated into the everyday school setting in other ways. When I was in elementary school, we would hold an "international day" where the different areas around the world were celebrated. I believe that my CT during my first pre-practicum did a much better job of integrating this information because rather than just one day of learning, my CT filled her class library with books about different places and cultures from around the world. This made this kind of learning part of an everyday experience and provides students with the information needed to better succeed in the world. This is also very important in a diverse classroom setting because students should feel their backgrounds are valued and represented in the classroom. It will be easier for students to be engaged in Social Studies if they are learning about topics that both interest them and relate to them.
ReplyDeleteI think that students would be much more interested in learning about a specific country or region if they were to be able to see it firsthand. While traveling, especially to somewhere like Thailand, is difficult with a classroom of students, encouraging students to keep up with a travel blog is a great way to keep their attention and interest. I know that during my elementary school experience, studying geography was using a black and white map on a worksheet, and I never felt very engaged in learning about different places that way. If I had been able to watch my teacher trek through the region I was learning about, through looking at photos and reading about life there, I would have been more able to imagine different countries as being real live places as opposed to just dots on a map. Additionally, students could come up with questions about the cultures they were seeing by reading about the different traditions, customs, and lifestyles their teacher was witnessing first hand. I believe that this exercise would even encourage students to think about their own cultures, which could lead to engaging projects. While I was working in a bilingual kindergarten classroom, the students created a "classroom cookbook" where they each selected a recipe from their own cultures and compiled them into one book for the whole class. This project was able to get the students excited about sharing where their families are from, as well as showcase how many different cultures existed in that one classroom, which was something the students may not have recognized. Teaching students through travel blogs or other forms of interactive learning could be the start to something challenging, engaging, and productive in the classroom. I do hope that teachers are able to incorporate this type of learning into their classrooms, because I can see great benefits for student learning.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTravel experiences are a great way to enrich students’ learning. Using a teacher or student’s travel experience can provide a social studies unit with lessons that are based on a person’s first hand account of his or her travel experiences. Instead of students viewing social studies as stories or information in a text, they are able to either use what they have learned from the text and apply it to a real experience a student or teacher has had, or they are able to view an experience and formulate his or her own questions that will allow students to research a social studies topic driven by his or her own interest. Through a travel experience, a teacher or student is able to bring a lot of valuable information that can contribute to lessons based on many different topics. From a teacher or student’s travel experience, he or she can introduce a country’s culture (how the people from that country live, what they believe, etc.), currency (how one country’s currency might differ from another country), the history of the country (if the person traveled to historical relevant places), etc. Introducing a new country and culture through a person’s real life experiences can make social studies much more interesting and real to students. Real life experiences make the words read in a social studies text come to life and have more meaning.
ReplyDeleteAllowing students to follow along on his or her teacher’s traveling experience through a blog can be very exciting for students. Although the students are not actually traveling to Thailand, the teacher is making them feel included on that teacher’s traveling journey. As a student, I would feel excited to follow along and interact with the teacher through a blog as he or she is in Thailand. A student can learn so much from a teacher’s first hand account of his or her adventures. I am interested to see and hear how students react and respond to each of their teacher’s blog posts during this trip to Thailand.
As someone who has never traveled outside of the country before, the idea of following someone’s travel experiences through a blog is very intriguing to me. I think that it would be incredibly engaging for an elementary student to interact with her teacher and classmates through a blog because he or she will be able to use technology to hear firsthand about the teacher’s experiences in another country. I also think that students themselves could start their own blogs about traveling. Students would love to use their creativity to write and develop their own blogs, and this would also be a great way for everyone in the class to share their experiences with traveling throughout the year. Another way to enrich students’ learning through a travel experience could be to bring back pictures or artifacts from the place you traveled to, and share these with the class. As a student, it was always more interesting for me to learn about a place and its culture when I had a concrete representation of it, or a modern picture to see what the place looks like now. This can mean a lot more to students than just studying maps or seeing old pictures in a textbook, because it can make social studies seem real and relatable.
ReplyDeleteIn my pre-practicum classrooms, I have not seen my CTs use their traveling experiences to teach students about a specific topic, but I have seen them engage students in discussions about cultures in different parts of the world. Last semester, my CT would begin each day with a morning meeting, and often during these meetings, he would have the students discuss how people say hello to each other in different countries. Some days, he would have students who were from different countries, or who had traveled to different places, talk about their experiences. Small things like this really made a difference in expanding the students’ views about different parts of the world.
Travel experience is a valuable tool that should be used in classrooms, especially since it is an engaging medium that can present new information to students. I think travel experiences can be used in teaching in various ways, such as through blog posts, pictures and videos from traveling, bringing back and sharing souvenirs from the trip while telling the story behind each souvenir etc. Perhaps what is the best way for students to learn through a travel experience is for them to be the ones traveling themselves! This includes local field trips or class trips to different cities/states/even countries. I think that travel experience enriches students learning as it provides a new way to gain knowledge about the world. Instead of just reading a textbook or watching a documentary, with travel experiences, students will be able to directly (i.e. by traveling to a new place by themselves) or indirectly (i.e. by reading about someone's travels) engage with what they are learning. Students would be able to get a first/second-hand account of what they are learning about. From reading about the travels of another, they will be able to see the world through the other person's perspective. In addition, students will also be able to formulate their own opinions and questions about the world after reading someone else's stories. This does not only help students to learn about the world, but I also think it teaches them the critical skill of being able to assess a secondary source and form their own ideas about it. Lastly, I believe that travel experience can prove to be a very useful tool in the classroom because it helps students to learn about the world outside of their own personal lives/communities/towns and cities etc. This teaches them to learn about the unique differences of something that they are not accustomed to, but it can also serve as an opportunity to seek out the similarities that the student may share with the new place/people/culture etc. that they are learning about. Essentially, I think that travel experiences is one way to help create open-minded and well-informed global citizens who are educated about the world that they live in.
ReplyDeleteHaving grown up abroad and attended an international school, I think a good chunk of my education experience has been heavily influenced by travel experience. From elementary to high school, the administration and teachers also made it a point to integrate our travel experiences into what we were learning. We were taught about the geography, histories, and culture from all around the world. There were international fairs where everyone shared food from their native cuisines, celebrations of different holidays and customs, and presentation and projects where classmates would talk about their heritage backgrounds. In essence, it was like an entire community bringing together their travel experiences and sharing it with one another. On the other hand, I have no really seen my pre-prac cooperating teachers use their own travel experience (or those of another) to teach their students. I find it to be a little different from how I learned about the world because my pre-prac students are not really as engaged or "involved" in the lesson when they are learning about it from watching a video. However, I have had one opportunity to share my experiences about living in China when my second grade students from P2 were learning a unit about China.
Travel has always fascinated me since I was a small child, and this probably comes from my family's ability to travel to different states and countries while I was growing up. These experiences always helped me picture more vividly what places, countries, and events looked like while they were happening and while I was learning about them in elementary school. Even though many families and students do not have the opportunity to travel extensively like I did, other people's accounts from their travels are a way to liven up the classroom when talking about past and current events, people, and other countries and cultures. Students can learn from others' travels and experiences that these places are not stuck in history, that they are very much alive today, but these travel experiences are also ways for students to develop critical thinking about how events and situations from the past may have affected the current situation of a country or group of people. These travels that educators and others take can also be used to pose a "bigger question" to students, potentially even one that is highly debated and students could learn the art of debate and critical thinking amongst other things to form their own opinions and support it with facts that they learned about. While I have traveled to various states and countries, I have never been able to incorporate it in to my teaching, and this comes primarily from the lack of social studies in the schools where I have prac-ed. I have also rarely seen my CTs incorporate travels into teaching students about a specific topic in social studies though I have seen CTs use their trips and travels as a prompt or an example for descriptive writing.
ReplyDeleteI have not seen this type of social studies teaching in my pre-practicum experiences; however, my volunteer placement in East Boston did something similar in the 4th grade. The fourth grade students were studying citizenships and immigrant rights so they created their own passports. Then for the next several months they learned about countries online, through virtual tours and vidoes. Then they would stamp their passports to show that they learned about that country. While this isn't exactly like this experience, I think it is a great way to help students learn about the world even if they or their teacher cannot actually travel to these places. This offers the students the opportunity to learn about culture, people, food and natural wonders and give them a personal recount of experiences as if they could travel their themselves.
ReplyDelete-- Caroline Kupfer
Discussing travel experiences with students is a great way to enrich their learning and expand their thinking. Students could learn all about different cultures and how other people live, without having ever stepped foot outside the classrooms themselves. One way that I might enrich my students’ learning through a travel experience is to create a poster or bulletin board with photographs and mementos from my travels. In addition to photographs, I think that other multimedia such as videos would make new places feel more tangible for my students. I have seen a great example of this type of teaching in a pre-practicum that I completed when I studied in London last fall. I taught in an international school, and my cooperating teacher showed her students pictures of her experiences when she lived in Africa. The students were learning about how people in other countries live their daily lives, and they were very engaged in learning about African culture. Since this was an international school, the students were very well traveled themselves. They shared their experiences with each other, which made for a culturally diverse and tolerant learning environment. I really enjoyed this experience, and I think that discussing foreign places is a great way to give students a unique perspective about their place in the world.
ReplyDeleteI really think that is extremely beneficial for students to be given an opportunity to learn about places that a person has been to first hand. It is so easy for a child to look up "Italy", browse a few websites and assume that he or she is now an expert. But it could completely change that child's point of view if you were to add your own experiences into the mix. It would be so enriching and fulfilling for a child to be able to gain first hand experience without having to leave. There are so many times I have heard about countries and only know what their relative shape and color looks like on a map; to be able to give a child an experience and a story and a new knowledge of that culture would be so beneficial. I have never seen this kind of teaching before but I have learned so much in traveling that I can only imagine all of the great possibilities that children would have by seeing the pictures of these places. Similarly, all people have traveled to different places so students too could contribute some hands on experiences that would be so beneficial for their classmates.
ReplyDelete^^^^^ Candice Lavien (sorry!!!)
DeleteI think the incorporation of different countries and cultures in the classroom is an extremely important aspect of learning. Students who are not generally exposed to different cultures could really benefit from learning about the different ways people live across the world. Experiences relayed from their teacher or peers who have traveled there could be even more interesting than just learning about the different cultures through research.
ReplyDeleteIn my first pre-practicum, the second grade class I was in had a Social Studies unit on Africa. A section of this unit focused on the country of Ghana. While working on Ghana, the students were introduced to several aspects of the culture. They made cloth patterns the way people of Ghana do, they played their native games, and read books written by people from Ghana. At the end of this section, the entire second grade had a "trip to Ghana". The teachers had made them fake passports and airplane tickets, and then had set up different stations that incorporated Ghana's culture. The students all loved it, and I would definitely say it was the highlight of their school year. I think this unit is a great example of how cultures can be taught in a way that excites the students!
I think using this travel experience is an amazing way of enriching students’ social studies learning. By giving first-hand experiences and accounts as the backbone to social studies education makes what is being learned so much more interesting and meaningful. I think by providing information through this type of exploration is so much more captivating than reading about places out of a textbook! It just makes the culture and histories and other interesting things about the specific place of study more authentic and real, in a sense. This reminds me of something my second grade teacher did with us. Whenever someone would travel, whether it was out of state or out of the country, she would have us take a picture at something we did or saw and bring it into class. She then would put the picture on one of the maps she had around the classroom and she would spend a little time during social studies giving us some information about the culture, environment and history of that particular place. I remember one of my classmates was from China and went back to visit over winter break, so we got to learn all about China. I always thought it was really cool that my classmate was able to teach us about a specific culture and that it was not just the teacher giving us everything we needed to know. In this way, we were motivated to learn about these different environments that we were in/visiting/hearing about so that we could contribute to the interesting facts and such during the class discussion as well as share with others what we learned.
ReplyDeleteTravel experience gives the students an opportunity to learn about another part of the world in a very real way. It can bring something to life that may be confusing on paper. Using pictures or things from travelling can really help the children gain some firsthand experience without stepping outside the classroom. Travelling can also provide a better-rounded story, since textbooks often have some sort of bias. Students can learn about other cultures and ideas. Something like this experience also gives students a chance to “ask the experts,” which might make them more engaged in the answers.
ReplyDeleteAs other people have mentioned, travelling is not always an option. When I was in 4th grade, we learned about all the states. A part of my class worked on a “State Box,” which we sent to another school in a mystery part of the country. They sent a box to us as well, and we had to figure out what town and state they were from based on the clues in their box. By working on our own box, and on the mystery box, we learned a lot about both states that I would not have know or remembered as well without this activity.
Another very common activity is sending a “Flat Stanley” to someone. I did this in 2nd grade, and my 3rd grade pre-practicum class last year did this as well. They were allowed to send it anywhere, as long as it was out of state, and about half the class sent their Stanley’s over sea. When Stanley came back, they put together a presentation on his travels and some facts about the places he went. Activities like these can bring travelling into the classroom without ever leaving.
As many have already said, travel experiences are ways to bring social studies, specifically history and the study of different cultures, to life. In school, learning about different historical events, places, and people was always difficult for me because it always seemed like I was reading about fictional things and looking at fictional photos. A few paragraphs and a couple of black and white photos did little to bring the “stories” of history to life. That being said, seeing current photos of historical places would have been very helpful in comprehending the events that took place there; they would feel more real and grounded. I believe it would also help students feel more connected to history and start to see its relevance in their own lives.
ReplyDeleteTravel experiences would also be very helpful for students learning about other cultures. As a student, I was sent to the computer lab many times to click through photos and fill out worksheets about other cultures. It was very trite and boring, and I gained very little from it. Using a teacher travel blog like this one is much more interesting. Not only because students can say, “Hey! That’s our teacher talking to us and sending us pictures from across the world!” But because the students are in more control of what they learn. They can ask the questions they want to ask and, hopefully, receive thoughtful and genuine responses. Responses that will further generate discussion and understanding about different cultures. Overall, using travel experiences, whether they be the teacher’s, the students’, or others’, to help students learn about history, different cultures, and other aspects of social studies, seems like a relatively easy way to create an active learning experience.
- Jen Gilligan
I think this is a wonderful experience for students of all ages. To see their teachers travel to a place (close or far away) and then being reported/blogged to is awesome. I would definitely use this experience to fuel my students’ curiosity and inquiry of other cultures, governments, geographic features, etc. I would definitely have my students pose questions or thoughts they had about the destination I would be traveling to. Then, while I was there, I would report whatever I saw, heard, felt, smelt, and tasted (making sure to appeal to the five senses). I would include answers to their questions, more information to fuel new questions, and even questions of my own. Students do not always have the opportunity to travel to new locations, so having them embark on the journey with you is such a fantastic idea. The ideas the students could learn are truly endless. You could really discuss any topic while traveling. If students are working on governmental structures, you could talk about that. If they are currently working on different foods or traditions of cultures, a teacher could talk about that also. However, I do think it is important to not only talk about what they are currently learning, but also of topics they have already learned or will learn. This way, the traveling experience can be applied in multiple contexts, and provides a familiar background for each topic. I hope to do this same adventure one day, and perhaps even have my students blog when they travel to places, helping our class develop a multi-cultural sense of the world, rather than focusing only on their knowledge of the local area.
ReplyDeleteHaving engaged in a service learning experience abroad as a student myself, I definitely understand the inherent value in learning through travel as I believe that such an opportunity promotes understanding among cultures and consequently serves to build a foundation for a responsible, loving, justice-seeking citizen. After traveling to Santiago, Chile to both serve in a men’s shelter and take a class that touched on Chile’s political and religious history and their current-day applications, I was more passionate than ever before about learning what role I would be able to play in the human rights sector on a global scale. However, more importantly, because my experience in Chile had been personal and rooted in emotion, I was able to actively recall what I had learned. The material had become so inextricably intertwined with my growth as an individual. I was forced to construct knowledge about culture and people based on my surroundings, rather than passively receiving it and over time, became passionate about seeking out knowledge from the environment around me. I tried every street vendor’s fare, learned to bachata, and heard stories about the dictatorship from people who had lived through it. This kind of firsthand experience is unique and many students, especially at the elementary school level, will not have the opportunity to engage with history and culture in this way. As teachers, we are able to construct meaning and identify patterns while grappling with the material in a hands on way, serving as the cultural broker for our students, sifting through what we learn from our travel experience and illuminating that which we feel characterizes a people. I also believe it is extremely important to allow students to emotionally connect with what the teacher describes, inspiring them to seek out more information and almost insert themselves into the experience as well. This type of teaching will hopefully allow students to see the importance of travel in not only understanding the world, but understanding ourselves in a more holistic context and will provide them with an unquenchable curiosity for learning about the way other people live around them.
ReplyDeleteI think traveling to a different place in the world and allowing students to participate in it in some way is a great way to learn new things and bring the bigger world to light. I think being able to recognize at a young age that there are so many different cultures that are much different from your own is really important. I think traveling would be an effective way to do this because at least one person gets a direct experience of what life is like in a different place, and can bring that knowledge back. I spent a majority of my last summer volunteer teaching in Ghana and I came in with so many ideas of what it would be like (maybe somewhat stereotypical), and I left having had all these ideas changed. The kids I worked with wanted to know all about the United States and where I lived, and in turn, they wanted to teach me everything they could about Ghana. I think I probably learned the most from just listening to them talk about their daily lives and what they learn in school. When I was their age, I really had no idea what someone's life might be like in Ghana, so I was happy to share with them pieces of what life is like in the United States. I know some schools do pen pals with different countries, and I think this could be a great way to bring another culture to life for students. Of course it does not have to be as far as Africa, but I think just realizing that life is different all over the world is important; and it could be a great way to learn about a place that is a bit far from home.
ReplyDeleteI think that discussing travel experiences or allowing students to travel can enrich students learning. I believe that giving them first hand accounts of certain experiences or having them experiencing a specific location on their own will allow them to connect what they are learning in the classroom to their everyday lives. In my senior year of high school, my French class went on a trip to Nantes, France where we stayed with a family for a week and then explored Paris for a second week. This allowed us to be fully immersed in the French culture and practice our French skills with native speakers. This allowed us to truly understand how the French live and gave us a different perspective that we found in textbooks. From a travel experience, providing students with resources like pictures and mementos may help the student to enrich and improve their social studies learning. They will learn about a different culture in depth and form new knowledge that they may not have been able to experience from reading a textbook. I think that in a smaller scale bringing students on local field trips is important and have them visit specific landmarks that students may be learning about. In my last pre-practicum experience, many of the students came from different cultures and spoke multiple languages. My teacher had the students bring in a box that was special to them and bring in mementos and artifacts that that represented their culture. This allowed students to see their students as part of another culture and learn about their customs and beliefs. This provided better understanding amongst the class and allowed students to open their eyes to places they may never have seen before. I think that providing a new perspective to students will enrich and benefit their learning.
ReplyDelete-Kirsten Gervais
Megan Mountzoure's Reply:
ReplyDeleteI personally believe that reading about something in a book and going
out and actually doing it are two extremely different experiences.
Sometimes when students read something in a book, the information
slips right out of their brain. For me at least, getting the hands on
experience and seeing things firsthand ensures that I'll remember the
information. Similarly, while one can be interested in reading about
Thailand, going there and getting the personal experiences while there
is a much more enriching experience. For example, by seeing cultural
aspects in use, like the bartering system, one is more likely to
remember from that experience than just reading about it in a book.
Teachers who travel have such a great opportunity to bring back parts
of the country to teach students about it. While abroad, teachers can
collect magazine, postcards, food, clothes, toys, etc. When the
teacher returns, he/she can have a "show-and-tell" and bring in all
these physical objects to create student interest in the subject.
Having these objects out on the table and having students touch them
is much more interesting than reading about the object or watching a
video about it. Furthermore, because the teacher has personal
experiences from being in the country, he/she can share these with the
students, thus giving students a personal stake in the information.
Sometimes learning about history and social studies can be dry and
boring, but by incorporating travel experiences into the classroom,
teachers have he chance to share their own experiences and get
students involved in the subject as well.
I agree with the the idea that travel is a good, concrete way for students to learn social studies. I especially love the perspective of Brittany and Kerry. Usually, when we think of travel, we think of traveling for enjoyment, to immerse oneself in the culture, and to visit the important historical sites of the area. This is generally the approach taken by textbooks as well--history, geography, maybe some information about the culture. However, I think that a service-immersion trip is an amazing way for students to learn about a place and become a part of a global community. We want our students to know about things, but we also want them to become active members of society. It is important that students are exposed to the not-so-ideal parts of countries. Teachers coming back from such trips can talk about their experiences with the culture, the people (something you experience more in service-immersion trips, in my opinion), and the way of life of these people. It is important that students develop a compassionate, empathetic perspective on the world as well. A cool project as a follow-up or lead to this trip would be to raise money/supplies for a specific cause or research an issue and create literature to raise awareness. This would show students that it is important to understand what is going on in the world around us and to do something about it. This, combined with the travel experiences that we normally think of, would create a good balance when we teach students social studies.
ReplyDeleteI also think that the integration of technology could help students travel without leaving the classroom. For example, email or instant messaging students around the world would be engaging a fun for kids. Recently, more and more people are using Skype to make international video calls--for free! A class could video chat a classroom in a different country or a student's family member from a foreign country. Additionally, it would be fun for the students to collect information from their/their teacher's travel experience combined with research to create their own "travel guide" website or brochure on a word processing program. These kinds of products can be a great extension of travel experience that allow children to become a part of a global community.
-Katie Fabian