Two months now and I've finally figured out how the program works enough to explain it.
Sorry I've been so MIA.
The program's certainly very different from any other study abroad program I've heard of. In my opinion, its focus is on contemplative/alternative education and activism. The first - contemplative education sounds kinda hinky, I know. Now that I think about it, it's hard to describe what exactly it might be. It's education combined with a constant sense of awareness, contemplation and perspective (says Wikipedia). For example, our group once had a reflection on education and what our definition of education was, whether we had ownership over our education, etc. It means constant reflection, discussion, evaluation and meditation - A LOT OF IT.
The second part is about active learning - taking action drawing from the things you learn or research. But it's not necessarily doing as you see fit but being interactive with those you get information from and making sure it's always in accordance with what they've said or suggested. Hence a class on Social Research Methods - I have yet to figure out what that exactly means.
The program themes that we always try to tie into are - human rights, anti-oppression, development, globalization, grassroots and community.
So with that in mind, there are 5 different units/subjects they're having us learn about. Units include a reading packet, discussions on readings, a briefing to prepare for exchanges with different people, homestays, a workshop to discuss what we've learned and Next Steps to decide what we want to do with the experiences we had. We've already completed the first two - Agriculture and Land. The next is a Collaborative Community Consultation - which basically means it's open to whatever we collaborate with the communities on. The next two are Water and Mining. For the Agriculture Unit, we learned about organic sustainable agriculture on a global and Thai context - basically the Thai government was pushing for a lot of herbicide and pesticide use but some villages are going organic and integrated. Which means their food was delicious.
For the Land Unit, we learned about national parks and land preservation in conflict with forest villages who had land taken away from the government. Long story short, the Thai government was unaware of villagers living in the forests they were attempting to preserve and the process of getting community land titles has been a struggle for the villagers. So in a lot of ways, we were seeing a lot of program theme connections - violations of human rights, communities involved in grassroots movements, etc.
Now for the roles: program facilitators, teachers (ajaans), process facilitators, and unit facilitators.
yay for facilitation. IT'S EVERYWHERE.
Program facilitators are the interns - past CIEE students who come back as part of the program and take part in how the student group participates. They're not necessarily in charge once the student group knows how the program structures work. We've got 4 female P'Facs this year - they've all already graduated from undergrad. They're awesome because they recognize much of our experiences and they get to live in their own house and drive motorcycles with an international license.
Teachers (ajaans) - We've got 3 Thai Ajaans - they're all awesome and adorable. Then we've got Ajaan Dave - the director of the program - he gives us lectures and cultural exercises on Thailand. He's awesome because he has a PhD from University of Wisconsin-Madison (right where my family used to live) and because he's lived in Thailand long enough to be rather fluent and be a monk for some time. We've also got a translator, Aj. John, who's half Thai and half Filipino. He graduated from KKU, likes wearing green shirts and plays the electric guitar LIKE A BEAST. Along with that, we have a lot of other professors come in for guest lectures from other universities or NGOs.
Process Facilitators: These are fellow students - my peers. Because group process is such a huge thing (that's gonna be explained soon), five of the students in our group have this role to basically make sure we don't kill each other in discussions or create drama like its our own Glee show. They improve on facilitation and communication skills within the group. It was quite the process to decide who these people would be. So far they've held workshops on constructive feedback and accountability. They're awesome because they're fun, honest, patient and creative - so far,they've done great jobs being process facilitators and peers.
Unit Facilitators: Again, fellow students. Everyone who isn't a ProFac has to be a UFac for one unit at some point. UFacs have the academic responsibility during units - their job is to organize all the unit-relevant activities like the reading discussions, exchanges and workshops so the student group gets the most out of each unit and has a complete understanding of the issues and themes.
I was UFac for Unit 1 - advantage: getting it over with quickly before the assignments pile up. disadvantage: going in blind - no models or examples to draw from. That experience will be left for another blog post.
Hope this made a little more sense - it's quite the unique program. :)
