Lifelong Learning through Travel
2011; Volume: 78; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0011-8044
Autores Tópico(s)Adult and Continuing Education Topics
ResumoLifelong learning through travel means that, instead of a campus, the world is one's school. Each country excites the senses; every language challenges the brain. Academic subjects are not just read about-they are experienced. Adventure through 51 foreign countries with the author, viewing her souvenirs and experiences. The acquired objects and memories teach about each nation's culture. Self-directed learning expands one's horizons and contributes to new insights and learning about the world and oneself. Travel is more than the seeing ofsigbtsi it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living. ~ Miriam Beard If the art on my walls could talk, it would instruct you about fishing on the Mekong Delta, rice harvesting on Bali terraces, drying potatoes in Peruvian Mountains, hunting tigers in 17th century India, and horse racing at the Palio in Siena, Italy A picture drawn in chalk of pink, yellow, and purple flowers from Russia, an image of red roses embroidered on silk from China, and a watercolor of pink gladiolas from England show various artistic media and delight the eye. Travel teaches language, geography, history, architecture, crafting, religion, and food. Journeys through five continents lasting from 2 weeks to 2 years made learning more real, exciting, and vivid for me than if I had read about the places or viewed them on TV. Two years in the Peace Corps in Peru and frequent visits to Mexico - and I was fluent in Spanish. Four visits to Italy, lasting from 2 weeks to 3 months, resulted in semifluency in Italian. Knowing the language of a country allows for a more genuine experience and a connection to its people. Learning about a country's geography has a similar effect. Setting foot on the soil of another country results in recognition when that place is mentioned in a book or the media. Feelings emerge for the citizens when there is civil strife or a natural disaster. Knowledge is advanced by seeing the world s terrain. I know that Istanbul, Turkey, is divided by the Bosporus waterway, with the east side in Asia and the west side in Europe; both cultures are represented there. San Marino, on the northeast coast of Italy, is a tiny country at the top of a mountain. Macau, an island off the coast of China, shows off hundreds of shiny new gambling casinos - but also a quaint Portuguese center. The Samaria Gorge on Crete, an island between Italy and Greece, has a steep and rocky 10-mile trail that is a challenge to hike. Fraser Island, off the east coast of Australia, is made completely of sand. Museums in Australia, Spain, and Italy explain the theory of the Pangaea, one large super- continent that existed 250 million years ago and drifted apart into the continental configuration of today Each continents bird, animal, and human populations developed in distinct ways. Tibetan farmers physically resemble those of the Peruvian Andes - perhaps because both live at an altitude of 13,000 feet. Australia has the oldest and smallest mountains, worn down by the elements. Chiles mountains are relatively new and high and thus are unstable, with frequent landslides. Amazing land formations abound: the solitary red rock, Uluru, six miles around, in outback Australia; the green, vertical islands in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam; and the other-worldly tufa rocks in Cappadocia, Turkey, Tons of water per second plummet 250 feet across the 1.6 mile width of Iguassu Falls, Brazil. Onlookers are showered by natures 275 most powerful spouts. Contrast the thunder of the waterfalls with the quiet of rice terraces in Bali. I learn about the land from stepping on it, not by looking at a map hanging on a wall. Walking through museums and churches in Italy is a more entertaining way to study medieval history and appreciate Roman engineering skills than studying these topics in books. The gravity- defying Roman arches dot lands of the old Roman Empire and are admired in the two-story amphitheaters in Tarragona, Spain, and Taromina, Sicily. …
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