May 10 - Departure (Cont.)

As we were waiting in the airport, we began our course discussions. The topics that were thrown out to the group were as follows:

• Time
• Money
• Expectations for the Trip

It was truly amazing to me what came out of this discussion. We commented on the fact that in the U.S., for the most part, "time is money," and that we often find ourselves working ourselves to death just to get by or as a means of "keeping up with the Jones." In the U.S. there is a perception that being "early" is considered "on time," whereas being "on time" is considered being late. What I found most interesting was the comment made by one of our group members about the concept of "African-American Time," which, I learned, is a much more fluid concept of time - no one really seems to get angry if someone is late because time is not seen as a commodity that can be "wasted."

We discussed the fact that, at least in our limited understanding about Italian culture, they, too, consider time as a fluid concept and money as not being the primary means of acheiving happiness. It was our estimation that in Italy, family and friends - interpersonal relationships - were the key concept that drives life. Therefore, we attempted to align our expectations to the realities that the Italian systems/concepts of both Time and Money were not like ours in the U.S. and, as such, we would have to adapt accordingly. Further discussions for the group were as follows:

• What is "Dialogue?"
• "-isms"
• What is an "American?"
• What is "Education?"

We are all very excited about the upcoming departure!

May 10, 2008: Departure

On May 10, 2008, we set out from the Birmingham International Airport to embark upon our educational journey. I have led several of these types of program in the past, but am always unsure of how the group is going to interact with each other, and more importantly, with their new surroundings. We were a group of five students - undergraduate and graduate - led by Dr. Loucrecia Collins from the University of Alabama at Birmingham department of Educational Leadership. Our mission: to visit as many educational and cultural sites as possible in an attempt to glean any kind of meaning from what we observed and experienced. We gleaned an enormous amount!

To begin with, in study abroad, one is continuously learning - and not just about the subject matter at hand. If you have never flown before, you must learn how to navigate that system: what to pack, what NOT to pack, how to pack, what a passport is, why you need one, how to get through security without that beeper going off, how to get to your departure gate, how to get to the departure gate of your connecting flights when all the signs are in a DIFFERENT LANGUAGE and people keep glaring at you as though you're an idiot for not understanding their system.....

Once you arrive, you're still learning! If the country is non-English speaking, your ears will always be bombarded with the sounds from the unfamiliar language. You'll be walking a LOT and your body is making new neuro-muscular connections to all those muscles you haven't used in so long because you never have to walk anywhere in the U.S. You'll be using your mathmatical skills constantly as you attempt to figure out just how much money in U.S. dollars you are spending in this "funny money" currency that just seems to be spent so darned quickly. You'll be using your entire arsenal of communicative strategies to both convey and understand what is being presented to you. And on top of all of these issues, you are still expected to understand and gain mastery of the topics being presented to you in the formal classroom setting (if there is such a thing as a formal class in study abroad - your class may be a roving classroom, a living laboratory!).

Most importantly, however, you learn about yourself! How resilient are you? How adaptable are you? Do you communicate effectively? Do you get along well with others? Can you handle change? Can you multitask? Do you have the fortitude of character to navigate a new system, learn its ways, integrate fully into it as though you were a native, and ultimately return home to share your newfound knowledge? Does your home country have something to learn from the host country?