Essential Question and Guiding Questions for International Travel

Essential Question and Guiding Questions for International Travel:  The following appeared on my Travel Blog: http://beyondbordersblackboard.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-essential-question-or-another-kind.html

One of the ways that my program, Teachers for Global Classrooms, guided our Russian experience is to require that we draft an "essential question".  I like to think of it as a "goal" for travel.  I've done this before but my goals have always been dictated by food.

I am not proud of this.

For example: I traveled to New York many years ago and was guided by cupcakes.  This was in the thick of the cupcake craze and my travel partner and I journeyed all over Manhattan in pursuit of the best little iced tower of perfection.  In case you're wondering, nothing compared with Sprinkles in Beverly Hills.  Last summer, in New Orleans the girls from Duke and I were guided by our treasure hunt for the quintessential beignet or donut.  The winner was, hands down, a run down looking hole in the wall called the Buttermilk Bakery.  The Buttermilk Drop Donut was so freakishly good that even a year later I can still recall the sense memory of the perfect scoop of fried dough.

Alas, Teachers for Global Classrooms will not have our stomachs lead us on this trip.  They expect us to be a bit more thoughtful about our travel than I have been in the past. After a workshop at the Washington Symposium on drafting the Essential Question, I came up with the following: What are the factors that determine the education of the Russian student? As I travel through schools, I will examine my assumptions and ask the following questions including:

·      How are families supportive of the students' education?

·      How much of the education is dictated by the state?

·      How much freedom do teachers have to determine their own instruction?

·      What is the relationship of teachers and students?

·      What is the relationship of teachers and administration?  

·      Is there a  Board of Education and do they set policy or is the policy set locally, at the school?

·      What is teacher training like?

Students eat a healthy, free lunch in Moscow.

My tool for research will not be Google searches or data bases.  Rather, they will come from observation: conversations with host teachers; home visits (I hope to have some of these); faculty meetings; conversations with students and participation in school activities.