EDU 2-260: Policy to Practice: Comparative Educational Systems, the U.S. and Southern Africa
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The Berry Center sponsored scholarships for three students traveling with the EDU 2-260: Policy to Practice: Comparative Educational Systems, the U.S. and Southern Africa to South Africa and Namibia during October of 2008. Students awarded scholarships were Sarah McNutt '10, Emma Reicks '09, and Lauren Wuchte '10. The participants learned the factors that have led to the current educational system and the status of society in southern Africa; made comparisons of US educational policy and those of southern Africa particularly exploration related to language, lower primary curricular policy, and special education policy; and determined how official policies actually work on a daily basis in southern African schools. |
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| Says Wuchte, "This experience really helped me realize my life needs to involve education and making a difference with it. I believe that down the road I would love to go to work for the government in educational policy and help make sure the policies are implemented. There are numerous policies in Southern Africa and in the United States that are wonderful policies they just are struggling to actually implement the policy. I also feel as though there is a lot I can do to help people and I really want to do it. I know I would love to go back to South Africa and Namibia and help out there, but I do not know if it is necessarily my place. It also made me realize how much there is to do in our own country I can find plenty of ways to help. I am forever grateful for this trip and will never forget the impact it has had on my life." |  |
| McNutt reflects, "Although our trip provided an excellent opportunity to analyze language policy within the educational systems of South Africa and Namibia, my learning opportunities did not end there. There are obviously numerous differences between learning about Southern African educational policy in Mt. Vernon and learning about it in Southern Africa. Personally, I found that the most shocking reality was having the opportunity to incorporate my book learning with personal interactions and experiences. I found that a travel seminar allows statistics to transform into faces. I discovered that I was face-to-face, quite literally, with many of Namibia’s current challenges. When a travel seminar brought me, a twenty-year-old, white, American, female face-to-face with children starving in the informal settlements of Windhoek, I did not know how to react. I found myself forced into situations so foreign and uncomfortable that I wanted to withdraw into the safety of my own environment. When that happened, I tried to remind myself not only that I signed up for this class, but also why I felt that it was important." |  |
