Teach Abroad! Stepping Stones Keep on Rolling

This Blog Post first appeared on the GeoVisions site June 2007 as a "Monthly Letter From Our Exec."  It is being recycled here on this Blog.

At St. John's University in Queens, NY today, AFS is doing a re-entry orientation for 40 teachers returning to Thailand and China who have been here in the U.S. for an academic year.  They depart this weekend for home and family...and to pick up where they left off in their old school.

Re-entry orientation assists visiting teachers prepare for their return home by providing them an opportunity to discuss with other visiting teachers the differences in culture, education, and students they encountered over the course of the school year.  Going home after teaching in the U.S. one year is as stressful as the day they arrived in the U.S., about a year ago.

Many teachers I spoke to from China have learned to be more assertive.  Impolite in China, it is almost a rite of passage in the U.S. and they had to learn how to stand their ground in the U.S. schools.  But in this orientation they are reminded that they probably want to tone that down when they meet with their Principal!  And that is actually a topic during the orientation-how to bring home the new ideas, creativity, excitement and new teaching methods, then implement them in a way that meets cultural norms and expectations back home, blending the best of both worlds.

At one of the tables I met 3 teachers from China.  One left a 4-year-old daughter and a husband.  Another left her 15-year-old daughter and husband.  Grandpa has been taking care of the 15 year old this entire academic year.  The third teacher left her husband and 18-year-old son behind for the year.  All 3 of these children celebrated birthdays since their mothers left China to teach here in the U.S.

At another table I met 2 teachers from Thailand.  One left a fiancé and the other a very ill mother, who had to be taken care of by this teacher's 3 sisters.  The two teachers from Thailand will arrive home on Sunday and will take up their full time teaching duties at their home school on Monday.  Unbelievable.

I was caught unawares with my emotions.  I was in a room of 40 teachers who had traveled here a year ago.  Could I have been able to leave my children for a year, like many of these teachers?  Technology helps with Skype phones and web cams.  But I cannot imagine not feeling my six-year-old's skin, the softness of his hair, his arms around my neck, helping with his homework, putting a band aid on his knee, watching him play with his friends, washing his clothes.  But many of these 40 teachers did that, and more.  I was in awe.

One of the volunteers who started volunteering with AFS in 1960 uses an exercise when the teachers first come to the U.S.  She and her grandchildren collect stones.  They clean them and lacquer them.  She places the stones in a basket.  At orientation she asks the teachers to find a stone they like and to then study it.  A bit later she asks the teachers to return their stone to the basket.  Adele explains to the teachers, using metaphors, that each stone is different in texture, color, and size.

A bit later, each teacher is blindfolded and asked to dig in the basket to retrieve their original stone.  They feel all of the stones and try to pull out the stone they originally had picked.

I mention this only because 90% of the teachers today brought their stones with them to the re-entry orientation.  They had kept these stones for 10-months.  As they spent the year living with families, teaching, learning about different communities, teaching far-different students than they were used to, they used the stones as their own metaphor.  Today they told Adele about how the stones had (realistically and metaphorically) pulled them through difficult times and gave them strength.

I came back to my office at the end of the day so energized.  I sat down at my desk and ironically; I noticed a stone that I keep on my desk.  It's a flat stone, about 3 inches by 2 inches.  It's grey with a white stripe through the middle.  There is a red heart drawn on one side and a yellow flower on the flip side.  When my oldest daughter was 7 she gave me that stone when she visited me in New Hampshire.  14 years later, it is still with me and never leaves my desk.

And so now it is my turn:

Dear Adele.  I am safely home after a remarkable day.  I am changed in the last 12 hours.  Again.  I am holding my own stone, which I have held for 14 years.  As a former teacher, and having spent 31 years doing this work, I wanted to write to you and underscore what you already know so well.  Teachers who inspire realize there will always be rocks in the road ahead of us.  They will be stumbling blocks or stepping-stones; it all depends on how we use them.  Stepping-stones allow us to keep going.  I spent a day with 40 stepping-stones, and I am better for it.  Thank you.

Closing with an old adage about stones, I hope each of you gathers no moss.  Here's to keep on rolling...

Randy LeGrant
GeoVisions