Last Monday we posted a blog noting the work happening in Proctor’s Social Entrepreneurship class and the visit of Freedom in Creation’s CEO Andrew Briggs and University of Gulu Economics Department Chair Peter Oduch. Their presentation to the community Wednesday night did not disappoint as they shared personal stories of the Ugandan civil war and its impact on the country over the past three decades.



Students left the meeting undoubtedly impacted by the horrors of war, but also by the excitement and pride Freedom in Creation has brought to children who have taken part in their art therapy and interdisciplinary education program. Many faculty left with a few takeaways from the presentation:

1) Non profits, like Freedom in Creation, are doing amazing educational work around the world.
2) Relationships with these types of organizations significantly broadens the exposure to world cultures.
3) Proctor’s deeply rooted foundation in experiential learning syncs incredibly well with the development of ongoing relationships with educational communities around the world.

The following video made by alum John Pellet ‘05 shares the experience of two Proctor students and a service/learning trip they took last September to Honduras - exactly the type of transformational educational experience we hope every student experiences while at Proctor. 

 

This educational model is not new to Proctor, as our off-campus programs in Spain, France and Mountain Classroom have long nurtured relationships with communities and organizations around the world, including the Rosebud Sioux community. Any alum of those programs over the past forty years can attest to the impact of place-based experiential learning. 



Andrew Briggs and Peter Oduch shared that their work with Freedom in Creation quickly evolved from art therapy to art education, and eventually to the development of an entirely sustainable farming operation that teaches entrepreneurship to young people in their village. Their ultimate goal is to empower the Ugandan community in which they live to share their culture, skills, and knowledge with the world; to offer an interdisciplinary curriculum to schools around the world designed and taught by the Ugandan community itself. Proctor’s Social Entrepreneurship class, along with Economics students this spring, will continue to develop an academic relationship with Freedom in Creation and the Ugandan community in which the program operates, which will undoubtedly spawn significant hands-on problem solving opportunities for both classes. 



Similarly, Proctor’s service trips over the past two years have worked to connect students and faculty with learning opportunities in Guatemala and Thailand. Social Science teacher and community program director Adam Jones, who helped organize those summer trips, notes, “The possibility for these trips to integrate directly into our academic curriculum is tremendous. Entire curriculum cycles could be designed around these opportunities in the field, as the field opportunities can be the focus from which content and problems then flow. They are exciting and real, and the humanness of the experience grabs students in a way that promotes learning unseen in the typical sit-down model. Developing a global curriculum based on global issues, and then connecting with and traveling to these places to address them, exchange with people and work collaboratively to solve problems is where I hope all of our classrooms can evolve.”



This type of evolution in programming would be incredibly exciting for Proctor. It would not be a new philosophy, rather an expansion of what we already seek to do: expose our students to ‘real’ issues around the world and work alongside communities experiencing those issues to understand them, learn about and appreciate the culture of that community, and work collaboratively toward a solution.