Colloquia CONTE NT S 38 International practice
a lynch school supplement to boston college magazine
Undergrads look farther abroad 41 A ROAD best traveled
Steering clear of depression 42 The bully problem
Paul Poteat on bully group-think 44 Unconventional wisdom
School reform narratives get it wrong 45 Explorations
Science education research flourishes
International practice By Jane Whitehead
Undergrads look farther abroad
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ynch school undergraduates have been living overseas and learning to teach in foreign countries since the early 1980s, when small numbers started spending a semester in Dublin and London each year. As the world has seemingly gotten smaller, horizons have expanded, and 24 students will study and practice-teach in classrooms on four continents during the current academic year. Spending time in non-English-speaking cultures can improve future teachers’ effectiveness, according to Fran Loftus, LSOE director of Practicum Experience. “In the U.S., the fastest-growing segment of school-age children is English language learners,” she points out. Student teachers who challenge themselves to learn foreign cultures and languages are likely to become more effective teachers of non-native speakers. “The best thing that
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comes out of it is self-knowledge,” adds Loftus. “You’re put to the test when you walk into a foreign classroom and you become ‘the other.’” Three students who put themselves to that test recently in China, South America, and South Africa found their experiences daunting but ultimately enriching. Elizabeth Roe ’11 had never traveled outside North America before she left in January 2010 to spend the spring semester in Beijing. Though she had taken a semester-long course in basic Mandarin, “I couldn’t really communicate with anybody,” said Roe. On the first day of her teaching practice, she found herself lost in a park on the outskirts of Beijing, looking in vain for the Yew Chung International School. Desperate, she handed her Blackberry to a passing stranger, who helped her contact someone at the school.