| INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS
Faculty Travel Report Name Faculty/Rank Department College Office phone E mail address Proposal title Country/ies visited Institution visited Dates of travel Number of student participants: Previous IP proposals submitted and grants awarded Other funding for this activity available/applied for: Proposal Abstract (75 word maximum):
II. In preparation for the trip abroad Instituto Normal Mixto “Juan de León” is a recognized teacher’s college with the equivalent of a ministry of education. Although this is a small teacher’s college (about 1,500 students enrolled), they, like San Diego State University, prepare the most teachers of any teacher’s college in their region. Xeabaj Primary School is a small institution in a rural environment in the mountains of Guatemala. They enroll about 240 students.
The Xeabaj primary School hosted an elaborate celebration to welcome me to the school to investigate the possibility of collaborating with them to bring students their to study and assist in the school. I met with the director of the Xeabaj Primary School and all of the teachers to investigate the possibility of our teacher education students assisting in the teaching of the children in the primary grades while observing and implementing multicultural education concepts taught in our course, “Introduction to Multicultural Education” (ED 451). I met with both of these directors at their respective schools and toured their facilities. I also visited the four hotels at which our students would be housed while participating in the study tour. I made sure they could accommodate us at the agreed upon time in July and I made preliminary reservations for our students. These hotels are in the capitol, Guatemala City, as well as Antigua, Chichicastenango, and Panajachel. I also investigated a number of cultural sites that our students would visit, including the Mira Flores Museum and the Children’s Museum in Guatemala City, Casa Del Arte in Antigua, and the lake communities around Atitlan in Sololá. I met personally with the restaurant owners to tell them of our evolving intentions and to make sure their establishments were suitable for our schedules. I also contacted tour bus owner/operators to inquire about their availability to provide transportation for our study tour. IV. Conclusion, recommendation, and next step? A travel study program in Guatemala is valuable to San Diego State University because it increases the university’s ability to provide a world class education to its students. Latin American cultures and languages have been a part of the San Diego community for many generations and increasingly those cultures and languages are becoming a part of United States society. This proposed study tour will provide teacher preparation students with the opportunities to interact with the indigenous people of Guatemala—whose culture is shared by great numbers of students in United States cities generally and in San Diego public schools particularly. The course I am proposing for this travel study program is Introduction to Multicultural Education (ED 451). All Liberal Studies students are required to take ED 451. Introduction to Multicultural Education is a required pre-requisite course in at least three departments in the College of Education. Multiple sections of this course are offered each semester, including summer sessions. Moreover, ED 451 is an elective course taken by students enrolled in various majors at the university. Thus, there is the likelihood that both education majors and non-majors will take advantage of this international travel study program. As the program will include travel to Guatemala, Latin America, students in the Latin American Studies program will be particularly interested in this international project. As principal investigator of the grant and director of the Multicultural Education Study Tour, I will be responsible for marketing the program in the United States, screening and enrolling students, and implementation of the day to day operations while in Guatemala. Specifically, I will be responsible for the design and dissemination of a brochure and web site to advertise the Multicultural Education Study Tour. In April 2006, I will host informational meetings and conduct interviews for interested students. I will teach the Introduction to Multicultural Education course (ED 451) in which students will enroll during the summer of 2006, and provide all the pre-departure information for international travel and study in Guatemala. The next steps are to get the course listed in the summer course catalog and begin marketing the program to the university community.
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