October 23, 2015
Challenging Education: Redefining Classrooms
What if the world could be our classroom? What if we could walk around our community to learn history or sciences? Some of these questions emerged after spending a summer as a volunteer with the Kichwa Añangu Community at the Yasuni National Park in Ecuador, one of the most biodiverse rainforests on the planet. My experience started with simple volunteering tasks such as teaching English and Computer Science, and helping with customer service; however, I was able to reconnect with my senses and to challenge the idea of how our education system is poorly fostering learning in our schools. In Ecuador, without technology, notebooks, pens, or even markers, I was able to give the best lessons of my life. I encountered the main meaning of education in every child I was able to meet. I learned how countries that are looked down on by the U.S, are capable of helping us model the way we teach in American classrooms. Pedagogies that I thought were only utopian, I have now seen in action. As a result of my position as a CBL fellow in the Holyoke Public School system, I am able to see the discrepancies between both settings, urban and rural. I left the Yasuni and the Añangu community with friends and family, but most importantly, I left with a sense of where I stand in this world regarding education. I want my students to be in a world’s classroom.
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