College of Education, Bolivian educators agreement may lead to international internships

Secondary education majors had an opportunity to ask visitors from Educadores para la Democracia about life in in Bolivian schools during the group's visit to Laramie this fall.

   Providing undergraduate students preparing for teaching careers in secondary education with an opportunity to experience classroom life in an international setting, with the recent signing of a memorandum of agreement to fund internship opportunities in Bolivia.
   Representatives from the UW College of Education and Educadores para la Democracia signed the agreement when a delegation from the latter group visited Laramie in November. Other organizations joining the partnership are the Wyoming/Bolivia Partnership, under the auspices of the Wyoming Partnership for Civic Engagement, and the Instituto Normal Superior Simn Bolivar.
   The agreement's purpose is "to collaborate in efforts to identify additional sources of funding for collaborative activities," including internships, exchanges for faculty members,pre-service and in-service teachers; extended classroom implementation of Project Citizen, service learning opportunities, and research resulting from these activities.
    "It gives us opportunities to partner with people in different ways," Secondary Education Department Chairperson Linda Hutchison says.
   Expanding access for students to experience cultures and classroom settings different from their own is a major motivator for the department and college.
   "Students benefit from hearing alternative perspectives to the lives they lead," Hutchison notes. "What also was exciting to us was that it offered another way of thinking about education's role in democracy."
   While the official linkages set up by the memorandum are new, the relationships are not. Through the Wyoming/ Bolivia Partnership, which included associate professor of secondary education Carol Bryant, connections were made that have resulted so far in educator exchange visits to both sites, a visit by two Bolivian students to Laramie in spring 2008, and videoconferencing interactions between students facilitated by the U.S. embassy in La Paz.
   "Dr. Bryant has worked very hard to collaborate with a variety of people to help the department establish these relationships," Hutchison says of Bryant's leadership role in creating and building the partnership.
   During the most recent Laramie visit, Bolivian educators met with students enrolled in math, social studies, English, science and modern languages education programs. They responded to questions developed by social studies education students, on a range of topics related to the school experience in Bolivia. Modern language education students assisted with translation during the event.
 

Posted on Friday, December 19, 2008