It doesn’t take an extensive literature review or an exhaustive tour of programs to see that dual language immersion programs exponentially improve educational outcomes when implemented correctly… So why doesn’t every district in the nation turn to dual language immersion? Why doesn’t every University have a rich Middle Eastern Studies department? One could get the wrong idea.
Category: study abroad
Pivoting
ChezWhat? is an old site. I have been writing here now for 12 years. Most of what fills this space has been an exercise of writing as a personal endeavor. Gratitude, controversy, art or talking about things that have happened recently or long ago has been the realm of ChezWhat? But I am going to…
Rarified Places: Kalmykia
The cars in the industrial grease and creosote smelling stations had names on their sides of strange places. One such place was “Dagestan”. My silly mind went to Doggystan. This Russian train is clearly marked to go to Moscow, which was the hub for nearly all this 11-time-zone spanning country. Amidst all the metal, people,…
Spot on.
One of the great failings of the American education system, in our view, is that young people can graduate from university without any understanding of poverty at home or abroad. Study-abroad programs tend to consist of herds of students visiting Oxford or Florence or Paris. We believe that universities should make it a requirement that…
Minding the Gap: In defense of the Gap Year or study abroad experience for stateside high school graduates
Because I teach high school, I see first hand struggles that students sometimes have when high school ends and the time to go to college begins. Senior year can be overwhelming, and it’s not even the beginning. Some youth transition with no big deal. Some already have their paths set out. And some are just…
El Coronel no tiene quien le escriba (Nobody writes to the Colonel)
I took a major in Spanish Lit in college and wangled my way onto a study abroad in Ecuador in 95. I could safely say that those 4 months were among the most transformative I have experienced yet. Largely it was due to a whitewater rafting trip in the Ecuadoran jungle. The water in the…