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Fulbright-Hays "Teach the Andes" Program News

July 5, 2017

Fulbright-Hays "Teach the Andes" Program News

Work Study Student Position

Teach the Andes Group Photo

In June 2017, the Center for Latin American Studies at Ohio State welcomed twelve K-12 educators and Fulbright-Hays recipients from across the nation to campus for a week-long pre-departure orientation session to prepare for their "Teach the Andes" program abroad. These outstanding educators are currently in the midst of their program which takes them to Ecuador and Peru for a one-month, intensive program abroad. Dr. Michelle Wibbelsman of the Department of Spanish & Portuguese and CLAS at Ohio State is serving as the lead faculty instructor. The participants are benefiting from a wide variety of activities that explore the history, politics, language, and culture of the Andes while developing innovative approaches to teaching and studying the region, in addition to Quechua language instruction. During their orientation session on campus, the participants were able to learn about the importance of music in the indigenous Andes by visiting the Más Allá summer camp for high school students. There, the teachers became the students and the students became the teachers as the high schoolers instructed the fellows on how to play traditional instruments of the Andes.

In participating in the month-long seminar project abroad, the participants learn to approach Andean cultures from a multidisciplinary perspective, centered on the notion of the common good in the public square. The project equips the teachers with integrative content, curricular resources, and methods of inquiry for deploying that approach themselves in their K-12 classrooms, creating a model that is generative of innovative approaches to K-12 education more broadly. 

Some of participants are documenting their experiences through blogs. One of them, Becky Searls, recently posted the following in regard to studying Ecuadorian Kichwa, “Almost immediately, during our first lesson, I was reminded of just how challenging it is to learn another language. Our first lesson was packed full of sounds I had no experience forming and expressions I just knew I would never be able to tell apart (or so I told myself)… All of this made me realize a couple of (very important) things for my own teaching; things that I need to do or that you need from me as your teacher.”

If you would like to folllow the participants' blogs, please visit:

Aryn Johnson  --  srajohnsonblog.wordpress.com

Becky Searls -- https://medium.com/teachingtheandes

Diane – shantimaya1957.weebly.com

Kerri  -- Kerripackwood.wordpress.com

Zach – jfwaspanish.com/blog

Mabi  --  http://u.osu.edu/poncedeleon.1/