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The Importance of a Smile: Creating a Culture of English in a Spanish High School

October 2, 2014

Rio Bauce, 2012-2013, Fulbright English Teaching Assistant to Spain (right, standing), observing a student delegate speak about clean water in a UN conference committee in CRIF Las Acacias in Madrid

I would like to dedicate this post to my mother, Meryl Zelda Kolevzon, who has provided me with the inspiration for this article. In August 1998, she passed away after a long battle with breast cancer. She would have been 69 on October 9th, 2014. Her ability to smile through all of her struggles has showed me the power a smile on those around you, even when they are under difficult circumstances.

The sense of wonder a student feels after a teacher pauses in the middle of a thrilling story, a high-pitched laugh at a joke told on the schoolyard, a parent admiring their child’s drawing of a goat. Curiosity, humor, and joy are emotions that make lasting imprints on a child’s education. In April 2012, I was selected to become a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) in Madrid, Spain. That September, I left California to be an ETA at IES José Luis Sampedro in Tres Cantos, Spain. On the first day of school, teachers and students at my suburban school thirty kilometers outside of Madrid were nervous to begin school and hoped that everything would function smoothly. From my experience, the last three years teaching in a classroom setting, one of the most powerful tools that teachers have in their arsenal to make students feel safe is an uncompromising smile.

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Enrichment Foreign Fulbright Fulbright-Millennial Trains Project

“Only In Boston”

August 6, 2014

As our Fulbright-MTP participants make their way to Portland for tomorrow’s launch of the MTP 2014 journey, they reflect on their Fulbright experience thus far, what they believe are the most pressing issues facing global Millennials today and how their Fulbright-MTP project is a vehicle for enhancing mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.

In the words of Anser Shaukat, a Fulbright Foreign Student from Pakistan:

It’s been two years since that bright eyed lad stepped out of Logan, on what he would later learn, is considered a particularly bright and beautiful day in New England.

As I sit now preparing for my upcoming journey in the Millennial Trains Project, excited about discovering the varying cultural landscapes of the U.S, I can’t help but think about that boy and my first experience in the landscape of Boston.

Anser Shaukat is a current Fulbright Foreign Student from Pakistan.

My plan was to take the bus-tram hybrid, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s (MBTA) Silver Line to South Station and from there transfer to the bus to New Bedford, my final destination. I thought I had done my research, looked up the times and the routes, but I was in no way prepared to handle the unique challenges offered by a new city. I huffed and puffed my three pieces of brand new luggage on the Silver Line, which right up until that moment were my trophies of readiness; Two years of life in the land of the free, packed in two pieces of checked baggage and one hand carry. A hundred and thirty pounds; barely under the weight limit. The inevitability of the situation makes me laugh at that boy and the pride he had in those bags. He had felt ready then, prepared to take on the new world and his new life.

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U.S. Fulbright

Being Open to the Unexpected: My Fulbright Year in Morocco

July 9, 2014

Jacqueline Bishop, 2008-2009, Morocco, at an exhibition of her patchwork quilts made from Moroccan djellabas and scarves in Morocco

Sometimes you go in search of one thing, and yes, you find that one thing, but you find many other things as well. That is what my Fulbright year in Morocco was like.

I went to Morocco to study the burgeoning lifestyle magazine industry that had sprung up in the country over recent years. Within a very short period of time there were several “du Maroc” (of Morocco) magazines being published in the country – Cuisine du Maroc, Architecture du Maroc, Jardins du Maroc – and I was intrigued by the phenomenon. I wondered: Why are all these magazines now being published in Morocco? In time I came to realize that this all had to do with a burgeoning middle class.

But Morocco held many surprises for me. I discovered, for example, a rich embroidery tradition rooted in the history of Morocco. In time, because I am a visual artist, I started to utilize this embroidery in the creation of a series of patchwork quilts. In these quilts, there is a central embroidery around which I used various textiles often associated with women – scarves and djellabas in particular – both to emphasize the main embroidery and to extend the quilts into patchworks. In effect I was marrying both African American and Moroccan art forms.

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Foreign Fulbright

The Global Scientist: from a Hotel Lobby to the World

June 18, 2014

Tamaki Bieri, 2010-2014, International Fulbright Science & Technology grantee from Switzerland, presented how an interdisciplinary approach to coral reef monitoring generates world-class science and art

It had been six years since the launch of the International Fulbright Science & Technology Award and we, as fellows, were sitting in a hotel lobby in Washington, DC. We’d spoken over dinner the previous night of how slick it might be to have a forum where we could write about our science with the freedom to focus only on the big picture. We worked numbers and wrote journal articles by day, but if we could share, with the public, our ideas in a way that changed how they saw the world – that, we thought, would be the ultimate presentation of our research.

We are Ronan and André, S&T Fulbrighters from the 2010 cohort. Ronan comes from Ireland and is doing a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at MIT, focusing on desalination. André comes from Brazil and is doing a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at Stanford, focusing on computer vision.

The Fulbright experience has led us to many parts of the United States — California, Colorado, Florida, DC, Pennsylvania, Louisiana — exposing us to the spectacular diversity this country is made of. The best part of all is the chance to interact with locals, understanding the challenges they face in their day-to-day lives. We remember vividly the efforts of scientists in New Orleans to avoid future situations like the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, for example.

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Foreign Fulbright Fulbright in Motion U.S. Fulbright

Fulbright Program in Motion

June 2, 2014

Here is our first “Fulbright in Motion” weekly recap blog post! To highlight your Fulbright activities in next week’s recap tweet using #Fulbrightinmotion or e-mail Jennifer Connor, Fulbright Social Media Program Officer, at jconnor@iie.org.

Where was Fulbright last week?

San Diego, California:

Representatives of the Fulbright Program, including both the U.S. Student and Scholar Programs, attended the Association of International Educators’ (NAFSA) annual conference in San Diego.

Check out more photos of Fulbright alumni and international exchange partners who attended #NAFSA14!

Miami, Florida:

Fulbright Program staff member Lee Rivers, along with Fulbrigth Alumni Ambassador Sam Gordon Gilman Alumni Ambassador Silvina Di Pietro, presented on Fulbright and Gilman opportunities to The Posse Foundation scholars and at the University of Miami.

The Posse Foundation is a non-profit organization that identifies, recruits and trains public high school students with outstanding academic and leadership potential — many of them who have been overlooked in traditional college selection processes — and then arranges for full-tuition scholarships for four years at college. Since 1989, some 5,540 public high school students have been through the Posse program and 90 percent of them graduate from college. In 2010, President Obama named the foundation as one of 10 to receive a portion — $125,000 — of the $1.4 million he won with his Nobel Peace Prize. Many Posse Foundation scholars have gone on to receive Fulbright and Gilman grants and scholarships.

Seattle, Washington:

The U.S. Department of State, through the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), welcomed 75 first-year Fulbright foreign students form 42 countries to Seattle for the Lab to Market seminar focused on exploring solutions to challenges facing global energy and the environment. The seminar included discussions with experts, visits to industry-leading companies and research institutions, and interactive workshops.

We are saddened to hear of the passing of Dr. Maya Angelou.

Dr. Maya Angelou, a beloved American poet, author, actor, and Civil Rights activist, has died at the age of 86. She became a member of our #ExchangeAlumni community following her #Fulbright 40th Anniversary Distinguished Lecturer grant in 1986, during which she lectured in Liberia.

Dr. Angelou, author of “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and “And Still I Rise”, was a Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. At President Bill Clinton’s 1993 inauguration ceremony, she read her poem “On the Pulse of Morning.” She was the second poet to present at a presidential inauguration; her recording of the poem later won a Grammy in the “Best Spoken Word” category. You can watch a clip of that momentous occasion here: http://goo.gl/Usd6Go

She was awarded the Presidential Medal for the Arts in 2000 and the Lincoln Medal in 2008. In 2010, pictured here, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama http://goo.gl/hvt1NS

Through her illustrious career, life, and legacy, she inspires our passion for lifelong education and the arts.

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U.S. Fulbright

A Fulbrighter in Montréal: From Historical Fiction to Contemporary Reality

December 18, 2013

Cam Terwilliger, 2013-2014, Canada (right), with Cultural Liaison Thomas Deer (right) from the Kanien’kehá:ka Onkwawén:na Raotitióhkwa Language and Cultural Center

Ever since I graduated from my MFA in creative writing, I’ve been plugging away on a historical novel titled, Yet Wilderness Grew in My Heart. Set in colonial New York and Québec during the Seven Years War (1756-1763), it focuses on the experience of the Mohawk, the indigenous people that compose the eastern nation of the Iroquois League, a sophisticated confederacy that played a decisive role in the war. From the very start, I loved reading about Mohawk culture, as well as how this complicated people clashed and combined with Europeans on both sides of the Canadian border. However, I must admit: when it came to writing the novel itself, it was no picnic. In fact, it was quite a struggle.

As any writer will tell you, working on a long project can make you feel disconnected from life—particularly when you’re fitting it around your day job. Throughout the late nights or early mornings, you spend so much time hunched over your computer that you start to wonder why you’re doing it at all. What relevance might your writing possibly have to the world carrying on outside your window? Well—thanks to my Fulbright grant to Canada—I’m happy to say that I now have resounding answers to these questions.

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