TU faculty work on bringing back lesson plans from Peru

For fifth time, CLA professors receive $100,000 Fulbright-Hays Grant to take U.S. educators to Peru for six-week immersion experience

By Kyle Hobstetter on July 28, 2017

Towson University faculty members Ronn Pineo and Colleen Ebacher (front) received a near $100,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad programs. Through the grant, Pineo and Ebacher are leading 15 educators from across the U.S. on a learning experience through Peru.
Towson University faculty members Ronn Pineo and Colleen Ebacher (front) received a near $100,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad programs. Through the grant, Pineo and Ebacher are leading 15 educators from across the U.S. on a learning experience through Peru.

For 150 years Towson University has provided first-class training to future and current educators. This summer was no different — except there was a little bit of traveling involved. 

For the fifth time, faculty members from the College of Liberal Arts were awarded a near $100,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad program. The TU faculty used this grant to develop the “Partners in Education: Working Together to Enhance the Teaching of Latin America — Peru, 2017.”

TU faculty members Ronn Pineo — chair of the department of history — and Colleen Ebacher — associate professor in the foreign languages department — have been leading the experience in Peru for 15 in-service educators from different states and subjects and grade levels — including Spanish, social studies, English as a second language, and even kindergarten.

For Pineo and Ebacher, the goal of the program is not only to help participants become better teachers but also to enhance educators’ Spanish language competence and develop intercultural competence and knowledge of Latin American cultures.

“The idea isn’t just to develop the participants as teachers,” Pineo said. “I believe it will, but we’re pouring a lot resources into this for them to develop a curriculum that’s really culturally aware of the situation in Latin America — the history and cultures — and disseminate it across the U.S.”

After the trip, participants must follow up with Ebacher and Pineo to report on and assess the curriculum they designed during the trip for engagement and ease of use. The curriculum can be used as a whole unit (example being a week of classes) or just part of one.

“I think the impact has been tremendous,” Ebacher said. “There are thousands of students who have been impacted through our teachers because really the objective is not to take unique teachers and give them lifetime experiences. The objective is dissemination.

“We have gotten much better at getting them to actually develop their curriculum, have it nearly in place when we depart Peru, and then disseminated when they return. We’ve estimated between 6-8,000 students have been impacted directly, and many more beyond that.”

While it’s the fifth time TU has participated in the Fulbright-Hays program, it’s only the second time the group has traveled to Peru. For the first three grants, the group traveled to Mexico. The group was prohibited from returning this year because the U.S. Department of Education travel warnings for parts of the country.

When looking for a replacement location, Pineo and Ebacher wanted to find strong pre-Columbian presence and ruins as well as modern issues. Heading to Peru checked all those boxes and even more. 

Throughout his professional experiences Pineo has witnessed stereotypic notions of Latin America, including people who don’t understand why people are fleeing Honduras or El Salvador to come to the U.S. They don’t really understand the cultures of what Pineo is calling the largest growing minority in this country.  

“To not understand other people and their background is to not only to disrespect them, but it’s also dangerous,” Pineo said. “It’s toxic to democracy. People have a lack of understanding of other folks, and they may be fearful of them or misunderstand their intentions. Diversity is not just being politically correct. We’re stronger as a democracy, as people and as an economy for the diversity that we bring.”

And these ideas have followed the group’s former participants into their classroom. Ebacher remembers visiting a former participant’s classroom to view an exercise developed during a trip. The exercise explained the principles of economic geography to students through the form of a game. 

Ebacher watched the students play a game where one group was the U.S., one group was Mexico and another Bolivia — who in real life has no water access and has one of the lowest economic performance measurements in all of Latin America.  

During the game, the U.S. group always had a free pass, and if they had an answer they could go and grab a piece of candy from the teacher. The Mexico group had to go through circuitous round of desks, but could eventually make it to the teacher and get some candy. The Bolivia group had to ask other people to let them go when they had an answer, and then had to go through the circuitous round of desks before getting candy. At the end of the game, and the students were dismissed, the students who were representing Bolivia had little or no candy. 

Ebacher remembers one of the students from the Bolivia group went to the teacher and said that they didn’t get any candy, and then asked if they can have some more. The teacher just replied with “Oh, I see you understood. See you tomorrow.”

“That student understood economic geography has a profound impact,” Ebacher said.  “And that’s a lecture or an experience that the participant had at a very academic level, that they then brought to their classroom to translate into something that was a very engaging lesson to their students.

“So I would say that the fact that we have received five grants means this program is working and our participants have an impact and meet their goals, and we’re able to demonstrate that.”

Learn more about Towson University’s “Partners in Education: Working Together to Enhance the Teaching of Latin America — Peru, 2017.”[BROKEN LINK]