The Young Leader

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Learn Spanish in an Immersive Way with GLA Spanish Summer Programs for High School Students

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I’ve taken part in a Spanish summer program for high school students. It can be an eye-opening learning experience, and on programs like GLA’s Costa Rica: Spanish Service Adventure.

Unlike most students who spend the majority of their time in classrooms during Spanish summer programs, on the Costa Rica: Spanish Service Adventure program, you only spend some of your dedicated language learning time in the classroom, you but also get outside to help on projects benefiting your local host population. It’s an immersive summer Spanish program for high school students where sharing conversation on a volunteer project site, at the local town market, or over dinner is as profound to your language learning as the classroom portion of your program.

From experience, I can tell you the best way to learn a new language is to be surrounded by it – so surrounded that there are very few speakers of your native language. Working alongside those in your host community, you can learn Spanish much more quickly and the projects can open your eyes to cultural differences and important social issues. Some issues don’t translate the same way between languages, so learning new aspects of a second language can open your mind up to understand different issues in ways you may not have conceived of before.

Adventure can consist of traveling to another country, and being a friendly new face in an unknown community. Adventure can also consist of sharing a part of yourself with your host community, and taking something of that community with you when you go. Language – the great connector – is a powerful way to achieve the latter. Learning a new language is a path to adventure where there hadn’t been a bridge before.

So what are you waiting for? Take the adventure.

Contributed by William Pate

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Bridging the Gap: Unity in a Youth Choir

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The people:

  • Avital Maeir-Epstein, 16 and Israeli
  • Muhammad Murtada Shweiki, 15 and Palestinian

The place:

  • Jerusalem International YMCA in West Jerusalem

The activity:

  • Singing

The feat:

  • Singing together, in a choir

This past summer, the New York Times featured these two teens in an article about unity in a time of escalating violence. Through all this violence, one of the few places to remain safe and, in fact, designed to facilitate mutual understanding and empathy, was their choir meeting space.

What Maier-Epstein and Shweiki did there was much more than sing. Along with other students and organizers, they contributed to dialogue sessions designed to allow conversation about differences, instead of just glossing them over or placating them with standard prepared remarks.

25-year-old American Micah Hendler founded the youth chorus, and has been instrumental in its success. When we think about how an American from thousands of miles away – and even more importantly, worlds away from these kids’ upbringings and day-to-day lives – contributed to a new era of cooperation between these teens, it’s understandable to be awed. It may be a small feat in the scope of the Israel-Palestine conflict, but in the lives of these young people, it is so much more.

Like our mission at GLA, which is to inspire the next generation of teens to change the world and their role in it, being the change isn’t just about big victories, but small ones. And when fomenting change, the small ones matter most.

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Three Ways to Get a Study Abroad Experience Outside the Classroom with GLA

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There are ways to study abroad without having to take classes at an international high school or follow your typical overseas program setup. The opportunity begins the moment you realize that the world becomes the classroom. Sitting behind a desk isn’t the only way to learn.

Here are 3 ways you can study abroad without a classroom component:

  1. Volunteer abroad. Programs like Global Leadership Adventures are teen study abroad experiences meshed together with leadership training and volunteering. This program for high school students offers you the chance to hang out with the locals and see how they do life; an average day for them is sure to look a lot different. Perhaps a new passion will be found that can change life as you know it, or a new artistic ability discovered like painting! Not to mention new skills acquired like playing sports, basket weaving, or cooking and the life skills that are acquired from few run-of-the-mill programs that offer study abroad for teens.
  2. Take photos. Be sure to have your camera ready to document all of the incredible times that you are about to have. Photos are an intimate way to connect with a community and a culture, and they don’t require sitting behind a desk – in fact, it’s exactly the opposite: photography forces you to adapt to the outside world, to meet people, and to capture the world around you in a way that is sensible to those who view your photographs afterward.
  3. Join hands-on workshops. Learn a trade that is integral to the community or culture that you’re visiting. You’d be surprised at how powerful working with your own hands can be in telling you the story of a place and its people. Whether you’re learning the art of chocolate-making or the proper way to build foundations, you’ll take home a useful skill and a new understanding.

Original article contributed by Samantha Watkins

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Disconnecting from Technology on GLA’s Peru: Amazon Service Adventure Program

Why the Remoteness of the Amazon and the Challenges There Present the Perfect Opportunity to Explore for a Bold High School Student, on GLA’s Peru: Amazon Service Adventure Program

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If you’re anything like me, you spend a lot of time with your eyes staring at a screen – computer, TV, smartphone, tablet, e-reader, what-have-you. We’ve come to expect that always-on connectedness. We become impatient when a friend doesn’t immediately reply to our text message. We, maybe not always consciously, avoid talking to people in favor of messaging, Facebooking or Snapchatting them. If we get a little bored, there’s always a device nearby with which we can distract ourselves. We expect this ease of communication to always be there – think about the panic you experienced the last time your Internet went down or the cell towers became overloaded near your house.

Spend a little time in the Amazon, though, and you’ll learn to expect something a bit different from the world.

While technology may not necessarily be lacking in Peru, on a GLA Peru: Amazon Service Adventure Program, you can be assured there will be more than enough other activities to divert your attention. You won’t be needing that smartphone – except to use GPS to find your way around.

To get around, you’ll also have to focus and interact with the local population, especially if you’re taking on a service project while in-country. No more hiding behind a text message. Your personal communication skills will be tested to their limits as you attempt to converse with the native population – and your fellow travelers from all over.

You’ll experience the slower life of the jungle. A life where your usual impatience is rarely useful. By working together consistently and building bonds with those around you, the (probably lifelong) friendships you form will become strong and personal, unlike in chat windows.

You’ll realize you really can live without a screen within three feet even when asleep.

Contributed by William Pate

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