What better way to spend a Saturday sick with a sick daughter than to lounge on the couch all day and watch 3 Ice Road Truckers on a perilous journey! They had to drive a truck and make deliveries along the roads of Delhi, India and the Himalayas. Now that part of alone was completely captivating, but that's not what caught my attention.
Yes, I know there are shows that have taken place in other countries, but in this episode, the trucker had a spotter. A spotter is a man from India who drives in the truck and offers his assistance and knowledge about the roads. A camera was placed in the truck that captured everything, body language, conversations, conflicts, facial expressions, and commentary from the truckers point of view.
What a clash of cultures! At first, I thought it was going to show how the two cultures would come to an understanding, work together and learn from each other when meeting the challenges of the journey. And there were times where that occurred, but more openly was the obvious misunderstanding of how each culture functioned.
I wonder if more shows are going to start diving into this opportunity and model for us Americans that it is important to have an understanding and respect of other cultures because we have some challenging global challenges to meet along the way with the economy, environment and health.
Working globally in schools has been a challenge. I'm not sure if it's the safety provided within the walls of the classroom or the understanding that children can learn from more than one expert, but when I have seen teachers work with others around the world, the impact on the student learning has been positive for everyone. This has to be a good experience for helping our children understand how to solve global problems in their future, right?
You wrote: when I have seen teachers work with others around the world, the impact on the student learning has been positive for everyone.
ReplyDeleteYes, yes! How true it is.
This impacts different students in different ways, also. Some Title 1 children who get ePals in Africa go from "I'm so poor and everyone is against me" attitude to "I have so many opportunities in America and I'm so lucky to live here." Teachers tell us all the time about how seeing the work of other students inspires students to set higher personal goals, too.
If anyone reading this is interested, I do weekly webinars about the free tools of ePals for K12 students and teachers. Anyone can sign up at: http://epals.101.sgizmo.com.
Browse through the ePals Global Community, which averages about 2500 new profiles a month (almost 100 a day). www.epals.com
Today the newest ones were from Argentina, Canada, Denmark, France, Ghana, Israel, New Zealand, Russia, Turkey, UK and USA. What a powerful and engaging way to learn about other places and people, starting with a connection through ePals.
- Rita Oates, VP, ePals Inc.
I love ePals - we have been using it for almost 5 years - ePals and In2Books - it's been growing, too : )
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