If you read my “Headlines” in the summer bulletin (click here to read the full text http://www.emmawillard.org/about/head_of_school/messages/summer08.php), you know that I am thinking about some big ideas. Emma Willard’s landscape has changed over the years. For many years, we claimed diversity because our students came from as far as California and we boasted an international population you could count on one hand. Today, we have girls from 22 states, China, the European Union, Viet Nam, Bolivia, Croatia, and many places in between. As we venture forth to educate girls from all over the world, how do our responsibilities change and what does an education that embraces the world look like?
I ask you to consider how we can best ensure that our students develop a deeper understanding of other ways of life and other viewpoints. What is the right balance between classroom and experiential learning? What should a “global curriculum” look like? How can we better engage and utilize our alumnae around the world?
I look forward to your comments. Rest assured if I do not reply to each one, I am reading them with great interest. This is our chance to connect on this issue, but equally important to me is watching you exchange ideas with each other. I am eager to see what unfolds. Thank you for your thoughts. TEH
Emma Willard’s alumnae will benefit from global experience, including travel.
Before students travel anywhere, they should learn the language of their host country. Unless the website omits something, the school currently requires French, Latin, or Spanish, and offers ASL as a practicum. (If the school offers more languages, perhaps they could be added to the website. Otherwise the school looks insular.)
The present curriculum looks like a dialect of English plus two living languages. No Mandarin, no Bengali nor Hindi, no Portuguese, Russian, Japanese nor German.
If I were planning the curriculum, I would make more of the world’s ten major languages available to the students. Maybe it’s uneconomical to hire an instructor to teach a handful of girls a non-romance language. And maybe no one would want to commit to a year-long course in Wu.
How about offering little chunks, though? Practica? Or even electronic learning? I taught myself satisfactory Spanish with CDs, and basic Nepali with a cassette. You could allow students to substitute the Rosetta Stone program in any language for one of their summer reading books.
This would give them a lifelong skill, and the confidence that wherever they go, they can learn to converse, however rudimentarily, with the natives.
Language teachers, please note, I do not think that I could have absorbed so much electronically, had I not already had excellent language instruction at Emma Willard. I recommend electronic learning as a supplement to, not a replacement for, live teaching.
I agree with Katharine that global experience would benefit the students of Emma Willard; however, in thinking about cost, we must also consider that a majority of students’ families do not have the funds to assist in their daughter’s study abroad. Is there perhaps an interested donor willing to establish a study abroad fund? Or perhaps such a thing already exists?
When I examined the website I noticed that Mandarin Chinese is indeed an option, which I think is excellent. Given the current state of world politics, perhaps adding Arabic is a possibility?
Finally, although I would never wish to underestimate the importance of global awareness, there is a lot to learn in the United States alone, even in Troy itself, about community awareness and involvement. I wonder if EWS might get Habitat for Humanity, Americorps, and other like-minded organizations involved. If the students are of age (I don’t know if one has to be 18 to participate in such a program) could they earn credit for spending a summer with one?
I just checked with Julie Fontana, Emma Willard’s registrar. She told me that in addition to the languages on the website, the school offers Mandarin Chinese, with 10 students this past year and 18 for the 2008-2009 year.
The school also offers German and Italian. In practica, students teach classmates Japanese and Korean.
I’m glad to see that the curriculum is a little broader than I thought.
Well this blog is a good start.
There is an established network of alumnae out there, active in such diverse fields and I’m sure many of us would be interested in getting more involved with current students or other grads from a mentoring/collegial standpoint. Technology certainly helps.
In the midst of my ER night shift last night, when the unfortunate theme was pregnant women assaulted by their boyfriends, and I took a short mental break to check the internet news, and the lead story was on female acid-burn victims in Pakistan, thank goodness for the EW bulletin to temper my anger/rechannel my thoughts into the thinking globally and acting locally mindset.
In preparation for my 15 year reunion this fall and catching up on what my friends have been up to I was struck by how many of us run our own business or have other independent aspects to our work/life. I think we may view the solicitation for money to the school (certainly important) as another charitable request to be answered or not…but sharing some wisdom/giving a reference to open the door to an internship for a student/young alum would be quite satisfying (and engage the alums further).
Two cents from the insomniac ER doc.