Traveling and venturing to other parts of our vast world is a delicacy in some people’s minds. Learning new languages, experiencing new cultures, the feeling of new and the curiosity of adventure often gets our population up and moving. For someone who hasn’t left the United States, the thought of travel fills me with imagination and excitement. My desire was never higher than during my freshman year of high school. Some students of the U.S. are out living my dream. Those lucky few are all over the world, but one program sticks out when it comes to educational exchange. America and Germany’s collaborated exchange student program called Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange (CBYX) has been bringing American students and German students back and forth between the countries since 1983. Since then, 26,000 students have venture to the opposing country for a school year’s time.

So what makes this program better than the education the children would receive if they stayed in their regular program?

Really? Is that really a question I have to persuade you with?

The children who apply for this program are given cultural and language lessons prior to their travel to Germany or the United States. They are informed of rules and regulations that are essential or that may be different. Culture shock is typical, but after the program they are typically acclimated. The children get a month or so of language training so they aren’t language blocked. Upon arrival, they are placed in a volunteer foster home. The foster home is responsible for housing and feeding the child. The children are given health and medical benefits for during their trip as well.

The program is for the highly motivated students that have a desire to learn a new language and experience a new culture. They want to see a whole new world, essentially, where nothing is the same. They are placed out of their comfort zone far from home, but the gain new experiences that their peers back home won’t gain.

I had a CBYX exchange student in my school my senior year. To accredit this program, he absolutely loved his stay and told us how much different it was compared to home. A small detail that was different was how we dressed, he said. He wore track suits and Adidas shoes with no socks every day. He had different approaches to conversations, and shook every male teachers hand when he walked into class. But there was plenty of aspects that were the same he said as well. Sports were the same, though we had a much larger school. He was shocked by the size of our school and how many students could be packed into the halls between classes.

I wish I could have been part of this program in high school, and I still debate studying abroad. Seeing the world and developing a better understanding of other cultures is something I’d like to accomplish with age.

During this recent COVID-19 pandemic, every facet of learning took turns. But before schooling turned to online and hybrid methods, issues of quality of equity were already in question, and equity being the distribution of learning, and how equality and fairly it is distributed. The article by Getting Smart explains how the switch to online formats led students and parents to search for other methods of learning to atop their previous education. The online switch prioritized technology as the main form of education, and the distribution of education visualized. The learning progress was similar to when the students had returned from month breaks. The lacking progress was observable by parents, as schooling from home was the new normal. Change was needed, and change came.

So what paths did these students take? They choose microschools. Microschools emerged in tailwind of the COVID-19 outbreak as programs emphasizing what was to be taught to these students. Simply put, microschools added another layer to students’ education, it didn’t replace it. A company named SchoolHouse saw immense amounts of funding in late 2020 as it stepped into the online education spotlight. Websites like Khan Academy saw record numbers of digital traffic throughout the pandemic. To no ones surprise, right? This surge of online education and other learning mediums seems to favor the transition to a fully online format, but it’s really benefitting the traditional system. It’s challenging the traditional system to do better, to incorporate trust, add more to the old system, and infuse more technology so that equity becomes the priority. The addition of technology will impact the generations to come by enabling students to help themselves rather than be only helped by those who’s job it is to teach.

By Tiffany Imparato

While searching twitter I came across an article that was hash tagged #EdTech that caught my eye. From Hybrid to Blended Learning: Using Tech to Improve Students’ Experience, by Douglas Konopelko that explores how the classroom has changed to embrace technology. Previously K-12 education did not include hybrid learning and advanced forms of technology however going forward most classrooms will be forever changed. The pandemic changed the way teachers could deliver resources and information to their students and brought technology into virtually every subject being taught. With students and teachers being introduced to various digital tools many are embracing blended learning styles to stay. According to Konopelko, “the surge in educational technology pushed blended learning forward, making it an integral component in many classrooms,” as a future educator I encourage this journey. The idea of blended learning and giving students greater access to digital tools is one of the few positive impacts that has arose due to this global pandemic. We are seeing students at very young ages utilizing zoom, chrome books, google classroom, and multiple other technology based learning tools. Giving our students the accessibility and knowledge to utilize technology in their day to day lives help prepare them for their futures.

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