My Global Scholar Application

What experiences have awakened your interest and will help you contribute to the Global Initiatives Program at Poly? In what ways do you hope that the Global Scholars program will expand and deepen your global perspectives?

My experience as an English teacher in France combined with my experience at an international camp called Seeds of Peace allowed me to find an interest in being a Global Scholar. This past summer, I was fortunate enough to travel to France with a group of Poly students to not only immerse myself in authentic French culture, but also to see firsthand the drastic difference in the quality of education that the French government offers to its youth. My first encounter with the French education system was in a rural town in the rolling hills of southern France where kids would take long commutes just to get to a school which did not actively encourage learning. In fact, many French students claimed that English (the hardest subject), was monotonous and the teachers did not incorporate a desire to learn it. However, once our class implemented the “Rassias Method,” an interactive method of learning that we use to learn French at Poly, the kids were more than happy to learn English. For me, nothing was more rewarding than seeing children the next day eager to be in our class; to them, we were a breakaway from their lackluster school days. It was gratifying to see them find a love for learning, but also saddening that most students would end up residing in the south of France where career opportunities were limited to that of farming and small business. After a week or so of teaching kids in the South of France, we traveled to Paris to visit one of the best educational institutions in France, Victor DuRuy. Here, we saw an education much more comparable to Poly but with students who were not as passionate as those from southern France. Thus, students who were passionate to learn were limited based on their environment while students living in an environment tailored for success continued to be successful. This cyclical academic injustice motivated me to take a look at the disparity in my community’s education system especially for people from Latino/Hispanic communities and analyze just how insufficient some schools are for tailoring success. Because I transitioned from public education to private after discovering Poly’s Partnership for Success program (PFS), I am very familiar with how much of a disadvantage public school students are and how unaware families are of the opportunities they miss to improve their child’s learning.

After attending Seeds of Peace that very same summer, I was able to understand how dialogue could effectively bring people together in communities with people of different race, religion, socioeconomic class, etc. Essentially, by providing high school students from all around the world with communication skills, interpersonal conflict management, and strategic team or group-building, a new generation of leaders could encounter global conflicts that have existed for years.

Because the representation of Hispanics and Latinos at Poly is very minimal, I am hoping the Global Scholars program will expand my global perspectives by allowing me to connect with people who deal with similar issues of inequality in education and opportunity. Larger issues like immigration and refugees from underdeveloped countries are yet to be solved in our current political environment. Ultimately, it is up to the next generation of leaders to cultivate a world in which injustice and ignorance will be held to a minimum if not, removed completely. I hope to gain the resources and knowledge to help a community that has been underrepresented and deprived of its opportunities.