“What are your country’s stereotypes of Mexicans?” my Spanish teacher asked.
I was attending a Spanish immersion school in Mexico, learning irregular verb tenses and trying to figure out exactly what was meant by the pluperfect when this question came up. I was a bit surprised and at a loss for an immediate answer. Thinking about the many Mexicans I had met, nothing came close to the vitriol and slander so often heard on the airways (and Twittersphere) at home.
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I found myself laughing as I described common American attitudes and preconceptions of Mexicans and Mexico. No one I had met was a violent drug dealer or a lazy mooch or talked like Speedy Gonzales. She laughed too and then described Mexican stereotypes of Americans. By then end of the conversation we were both laughing. Having met enough people from each other’s countries we knew the ridiculousness of these all-too-common prejudices.
As teachers we have the power and responsibility to disabuse our students of stereotypes. As travelers we have the experience and opportunity to discover how.
As teachers we have the power to disabuse our students of stereotypes. As travelers we have the experience to discover how.
Mark Twain wrote in his travel narrative The Innocents Abroad that “travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”
I tend to agree with this conclusion, but only to a point. For someone to change their outlook through travel they must be willing to receive it and approach travel with an open mind and with a willingness to learn. You need to abandon your sense of ethnocentricity and welcome humbling and transformative experiences.
The sad truth is that I have met travelers who react to travel with a sense of cultural superiority that conflicts with what I used to accept as the ability of travel to universally break down misconceptions. The Canadian in Costa Rica who implied that the only reason to learn Spanish is so the locals can’t rip you off or the American in Israel who insisted a shopkeeper accept dollars as the “world’s best currency” made me rethink the ability of travel to serve as a balm for prejudice.
What they lacked, I suppose, is self-awareness and a flexible worldview.
I think as teachers though, we have the opportunity and ability to travel with an open mind. Indeed, these are qualities we use every day in the classroom. If we allow the experience to reshape our worldviews in the direction of more open-mindedness and share that with our students, we just might be able to make the incremental changes necessary for a better world.
As teachers we challenge our students to grow as independent thinkers. We can use our experiences of travel to that end as well. You can use your travels to help your students break down preconceived notions of others.
For instance, people often ask me if I’m scared of violence when traveling in a place like Mexico. The news in the US focuses on drug cartels, riots, and murders. However, I have never experienced anything remotely approaching what the media portrays. I get it though. A headline like “Everyone had a Lovely and Safe Afternoon in the Puebla Zocalo” doesn’t make for a compelling story. But the focus on violence that only occurs in a certain areas does a disservice by painting an entire nation with a broad brush. This only serves to reinforce incorrect notions of a country and its people. The mere act of traveling to a place that others might consider dangerous, and sharing my positive experiences in the classroom will help my students to understand the nuanced truth of things.
This all goes to how we teach our students to have an open-mind. As travelers we need to have an open mind too. Without one, we are not fully traveling and learning from our experiences. We need to travel deeply. You can’t simply go abroad and not interact with the local culture and expect your perceptions to change. Staying at an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica and never meeting any Jamaicans who don’t work there will not likely change your cultural outlook. Staying with a Jamaican family, on the other hand, likely will.
As teachers we challenge our students to grow as independent thinkers.
Meeting and interacting with people from other cultures highlights common threads of humanity. This builds an increased faith in people. By getting out of your comfort zone and the familiar through travel, you will no longer take your cultural norms for granted. You will start to see others’ cultures for what they are: not better or worse, but similar and different.
As a traveler you have the opportunity to change your own mindset for the better. A paper by Julia Zimmermann and Franz Neyer in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology examines how extended travel influences personality development. It found that extended travel increases open-mindedness since travelers come into contact with new ideas and customs when they travel among other cultures and meet new people with different experiences than their own.
Perhaps, travel writer Rick Steves puts it best in his guide to Austria. "Globe-trotting destroys ethnocentricity. It helps you understand and appreciate different cultures ... Travel changes people. It broadens perspectives and teaches new ways to measure quality of life. Rather than fear the diversity on this planet, travelers celebrate it.”
Again, I am not saying that jumping on a plane will make you a better human being. However, if you can be open to personal growth, meeting new people, and having new experiences when you travel, you may just come home with a new outlook to share with your students.
These are great lessons to impart upon your young learners. As a teacher, you are a powerful influencer. If your students can see the value of appreciating diversity through what you share from your travels, they might challenge other preconceived ideas about race and other cultures.
I’ll close with this quote from former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, “Perhaps more than ever, international understanding is essential to world peace… globalization, migration, economic integration, communication, and travel are bringing different races, cultures, and ethnicities into ever closer contact with each other… combining the familiar with the foreign can be a source of powerful knowledge and insight.”
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