The Effects of a Short-Term Teacher Abroad Program on Teachers' Perceptions of Themselves and

234 Pages·2017·0.82 MB·English

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5-2009
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Raquel Cook
Utah State University
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THE EFFECTS OF A SHORT-TERM TEACHER ABROAD PROGRAM ON

TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THEMSELVES AND THEIR

RESPONSIBILITIES AS GLOBAL EDUCATORS

by

Raquel Cook

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree

of

DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

in

Education
(Curriculum and Instruction)

Approved:

____________________ ____________________
J. Nicholls Eastmond Sherry Marx
Major Professor Committee Member

___________________ ____________________
Edward Reeve Kurt Becker
Committee Member Committee Member

____________________ ____________________
Barry Franklin Byron Burnham
Committee Member Dean of Graduate Studies

UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY
Logan, Utah

2009
ii
Copyright © Raquel Cook 2009

All Rights Reserved
iii

ABSTRACT

The Effects of a Short-Term Teacher Abroad Program on Teachers’ Perceptions

of Themselves and Their Responsibilities as Global Educators

by

Raquel Cook, Doctor of Education

Utah State University, 2009

Major Professor: Dr. J. Nicholls Eastmond
Department: Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences

In October 2007, 200 American educators traveled to Japan for 3 weeks as guests
of the Japanese government under the Japanese Fulbright Memorial Fund (JFMF)
Teacher Abroad program. The purpose of the trip was to increase understanding between
the people of Japan and the United States; to enrich American and Japanese curricula
with international perspectives; to encourage appreciation for the people, culture, and
educational system of Japan; and to expand professional development opportunities for
educators.
Broadly speaking, these are the goals of global education. The question this
qualitative case study examined is whether teachers who participate in isolated, short-
term international professional development programs (such as JFMF) become more
competent global educators or if the experience remains an isolated incident, referred to
during a single, obligatory lesson presented to students each year. Questions pursued
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were how teachers incorporate such experiences into their curricula; how an isolated,
short-term experience can contribute to the development of a global educator; and how
teachers’ perceptions of themselves and their responsibilities change as a result of cross-
cultural experience.
This study examined eight K-12 teachers as they experienced Japan and then
returned to implement self-designed “follow-on plans” in their classrooms. Data were
gathered through application materials, observations, interviews, and follow-on plans and
revealed three categories: Anticipation details why the teachers applied for the JFMF
program and what they expected to gain from the experience; Direct Impact examines the
effect the experience had on teachers’ curricula, students, and selves; and Deep Impact
portrays the multiple realities experienced by the teachers through an anti-colonialist lens.
In sum, a short international sojourn can positively affect teachers’ perceptions of
themselves and their responsibilities as educators. Beyond the obvious effects on these
teachers, their curricula, and students, the experience underscored the need for more
Americans to engage in international experiences. While being privy to the voices and
perspectives of other nations and cultures can help us in our global social, political, and
economic dealings, the greatest benefit from a program such as this is that it helps us gain
a more accurate picture of ourselves, as individuals and as a nation.
(233 pages)
v

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A friend once introduced me to a Chinese character pronounced jang, for which
English bears no equivalent. She explained it like this: Imagine yourself rolling around in
a mud puddle. When you get out, most of the mud rolls off of you. But some of it
sticks—in your ears, under your toe nails, in your belly button—and even when you
bathe, the mud doesn’t completely wash away. This is jang, except with people. I have
spent time with so many people in so many places, and they have affected me in such
profound ways. I no longer associate with many of them, but they are under my nails and
in my hair.
Some of the people who are stuck to me, to whom I owe thanks, are the members
of my committee: Nick, my chair, for his patience and encouragement; Sherry, for
helping me define my theoretical perspective; Ed, for making me apply to the JFMF
program; Kurt, for introducing me to theories of international education; and Barry, for
promoting curriculum change.
I am indebted to the Japanese government for generously hosting the JFMF
Teacher Abroad program, as well as to the educators with whom I traveled and who
allowed me to pry into their lives. I further cannot forget the myriad hosts and fellow
trekkers I have associated with as I have repeatedly circled the globe.
I appreciate tremendously the support of my cohort for not letting me drop out
and to numerous teachers who kept telling my parents I had potential. Thank you Chrys,
for helping me keep things in perspective; Coral, for supplying the caffeine; Mom, Dad,
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and family for entertaining (raising) my daughter; and most of all Belle, for still calling
me mom. I love you, Toots!
Raquel Cook
vii

PREFACE

On September 11, 2001, I stepped off the train at the World Trade Center and was
met with a not-so-typical workday. The platform was in chaos—people running up and
down the stairs screaming, pushing to get on and off the train; a disoriented, middle-aged
blind man with outstretched arms; and panicked outbursts of “Bomb! Another bomb!”
Before I could orient myself, or get a grip on what was happening, the doors of
the train had closed, and I had no other option but to move up the stairs into the unknown.
Those who decided to wait on the platform for another train were disappointed, because
that train never came. We herded ourselves, instead, up to the underground mall and the
Trade Center concourses, where lights were flickering and random sprinklers were
spraying for a fire an hour away.
I will not go into detail as far as the next 7 or 8 hours of my life (squatting in a
basement with coworkers, the sound of 100 plus stories of collapsing concrete and glass,
or the 12-mile walk home) or the next few months, for that matter (the smell of concrete
ash, burnt jet fuel, and decaying flesh that hung over southern Manhattan for months; the
incessant bag-piping of “Amazing Grace” that makes me hate that song to this day; or the
collective patrons of an outdoor café who spontaneously burst into panic and tears when a
host dropped a tray of silverware and glasses, the sound of which reminded us of a
collapsing building). No, this is not the appropriate venue for that discussion.
However, I will say this: September 11 changed my life.
That sounds cliché, almost to the point that I am embarrassed to say it, so let me
explain. Shortly after the terrorist attacks that killed my friends, I came to terms with the
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idea of airplanes crashing into buildings. What I have not come to terms with—yet—is
America’s collective reaction in the days and months (and years) following. I spent
enough time backpacking around Asia, the Middle East, and Europe between degrees to
recognize an ugly American when I see one—and hence to cringe every time I hear an
overweight, mid-western woman with star-spangled earrings say, “Them Ay-rabs just did
it ‘cause they’re jealous.”
I am convinced that increasing airport security and building big walls between
ourselves and our neighbors is not going to solve America’s woes. I do not feel safer
because the guy in front of me takes off his shoes before he boards. The answer as far as I
am concerned lies in education—in teaching our young people to embrace the differences
between our diverse neighbors, at home and abroad—to communicate, to listen, and to
empathize. To recognize, as Faulkner did, that the same heart beats in every human
breast.
Therefore, in the wake of 9/11, in an attempt to come to terms with the collective
reaction, I moved out West and became a public school teacher—specifically, of
secondary Language Arts and ironically, at the same high school I had graduated from
over a decade and a half earlier. What I found when I entered the classroom absolutely
horrified me. I found the exact same curriculum (plus a few standardized tests) that had
been crammed down my throat when I was a student. A curriculum that did nothing for
us then and is certainly doing nothing for us now. The epitome of that curriculum—the
theoretical justification, perhaps—was embodied in a class I took as a high school junior
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in the very same room I was assigned to teach in. The class was called American
Problems, and my teacher was Mr. Hoggard.
The focus of American Problems was—you guessed it—American social
problems, like teen pregnancy, suicide, and a newly identified plague called AIDS. But
the crux of the semester was spent memorizing types of missiles, their ranges and
obliterating effects, what countries manufactured them, and what types of missile defense
systems were most effective. We even watched a movie called The Day After, a
fictionalized account of nuclear war in suburban America.
One of the most popular movies at the time was Red Dawn, about a group of
teenagers who avenge their fathers against the invading Russians; and the theme of our
Junior Prom was “Forever Young,” by Alphaville (“Are you going to drop the bomb or
not?”)
I did not realize it then, because I am not sure if it had a name yet, but I was living
during a time of war. I did not realize that Russian children did, in fact, go to school and
did not stand in bread lines all day every day with their parents. I thought that diving
under my desk and covering my head with my arms at the sound of three elongated siren
bursts would somehow save me from nuclear fallout. In addition, I was completely
stupefied when Sting released a song that suggested, against the common conception, that
Russians might actually “love their children, too.”
Through the books I read in English, to the way and what I was taught about
history, to what I was never taught (John Hancock was a smuggler!), I feel like my mind
was colonized into believing in the superiority of my race, my class, my religion, and,