Every Moment, a Learning Moment: 

Make the World Your School!

For the month of November, I have the opportunity to travel to south India to assist a friend here on a Fulbright Scholarship, who is teaching at a women's college in south India. I'm seeing it not just as a chance to travel, but to get immerse myself in another culture and educational system.

The trip is twofold, consisting of actual touring of various parts of the country, then stay at Lady Doak College in Madurai, where I will be involved an entirely different approach to education.  I am learning first-hand about Indian foods (spicy!), very different cultures living side-by-side, the environment both lush and ravaged, multiple languages, terrifying traffic in an international adventure. I'm very excited, since I have a passion for knowledge and international understanding. 

There is so much we can gain from living life outside a school, noticing details, tapping into our natural curiosity. And in case you were wondering from the last blog--and didn't look it up:

autodidact |ˌôtōˈdīˌdakt|

noun

a self-taught person.

Each experience, sight, sound, discussion, meal, person that I interact with expands my mind and fascination with all things new. I always take the opportunity to learn more about anything that piques my interest to go deeper in understanding. 

For example, I am exploring the Hindu holiday Diwali--a festival of light in November/December. It is a celebration of Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, end of the monsoon season, and the beginning of the Indian fiscal year. And as any good, traditional capitalist holiday, there are...STOREWIDE SALES!! GREETING CARDS!!

I've learned to tutor many subjects--statistics, physics, classical literature--that I hadn't learned in a thorough way, if at all, when I was younger. Sometimes I had no interest in them at the time, but over time I explore more and happily share/ learn it with my students (or anyone else who will listen!) 

“The greatest adventure is what lies ahead.
Today and tomorrow are yet to be said.
The chances, the changes are all yours to make.
The mold of your life is in your hands to break.” --J.R.R. Tolkien