A lot of what inspires me to want to write and failing that, create assignments or approaches to teaching in my own classroom, are podcasts, articles read or other obliquely related bits of information. It seems to be the way that my brain works. I get a spark from hearing information outside of my own field of understanding and immediately make some connection to my own life. Perhaps it’s an only child thing.
While teaching abroad, the classroom extends outside of the walls that usually help define boundaries of roles and behavior for both students and faculty. There is no “home: that takes someone outside of the school or class experience while one is abroad. This applies equally to students and to faculty and is something that, I would argue, is not something one can prepare for without having experienced it first hand. There’s no way to predict how a group of otherwise unfamiliar students will react as they have to become room or housemates, how the pressure cooker of every stress of new languages, environments, and transportation will work as a catalyst for the usual quirks that can result in behavioral issues in the dorms or in the classroom.
As the faculty in charge of that classroom, I’ve been experiencing a lot of push back - not to whether or not I have the authority and expertise to teach the subject matter (which is what I’m used to) - but rather the overall role of the instructor in the context of study abroad.
Throughout this class I’ve been challenged to provide structure to an itinerary that has, from the beginning, been tentative, given COVID, Summer holidays in Central Europe and the fact that when one travels, everything is a tentative itinerary - especially right now with post COVID shortages of labor and supply chain issues. It has been a challenge and ultimately, freeing, to have the structure clearly layed out for the course - posted on our institution’s class website - and then left alone (seriously, only one or two students have even logged on since the beginning of class). The course has been a day by day improvisational response to what the students need to know along the timeline of technical paired with aesthetic, etc. developed through experiential learning - hands-on, in person, with an emphasis on process. I’m using prompts to keep them focused on making images and to practice the technical skills we’re building and for the more advanced students, we’re meeting outside of class or as sidebars in class or on our activities to discuss and work on the process of building their body of work and focusing on an artifact that reflects their time and growth here as a artist, not just a photographer.
I know that I can explain what ‘experiential learning’ is to the students but just as teaching abroad for the first time, I’ve found that I need to throw my original plans out the window. This whole trip has been a learning experience - for everyone.