Subject:
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Re: Educational value of travel (was: More Orwell, for everyone!)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 11 Jun 2004 10:49:32 GMT
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Viewed:
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1988 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richard Parsons wrote:
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The other thing I have long advocated is giving every Australian who
completes a tertiary course of studies a round the world airline ticket,
so that they can actually go to a few other and far flung countries, and
see how things are different there. Its powerful mojo for getting
people past the mindset that thinks that ‘everyone does/should/must
think like me’. And it creates a deeper respect for how we do things at
home. There’s a bunch of other cool outcomes
too
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...it costs a lot of money to do that. Who is going to pay for it?
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...there’s no reason one could not means test it, loan the money and
suspend repayment (as we do with our Higher Education Charges already) and
do any number of things to reduce the cost if we were of a mind to do so.
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You know, I’m not immediately opposed to the idea of including a two year
stint abroad in every undergraduate education.
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A year abroad is already a mandatory part of many courses in EU countries. Even
where it is not, the
erasmus makes it easy.
A year studying overseas forces students to be more independent and take
ownership of their own learning (rather than being passive learners). Generally,
students mature a great deal whilst away.
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I don’t know about an
around-world-tour, but two years in another nation -- half study and half
peace corps like service (amounting to a year-long senior synthesis project)
would probably be tremendously valuable for helping to dash the insularism
that we suffer.
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Good point. How many Americans even own a passport?
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And if it were laid out right it could at least partially be paid for
by our foreign aid budget.
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What foreign aid budget? ;)
Scott A
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Sounds like a win-win to me. After their time away,
the soon to graduate student would prepare for and then take the comprehensive
finals that we also should implement.
A round-trip or two to Vietnam, Spain, Algeria, Russia, Madagascar, or
wherever isn’t that expensive. The military seems to manage. And so to
missionaries. When an inexpensive undergraduate education is costing US$50K
already, what’s another two thousand?
Chris
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