The School of Education at the University of Strathclyde is my host institution through the UK-US Fulbright Commission and is the leading provider of teacher education in Scotland. Since my inquiry project uses a cross-disciplinary approach to examine how music can help develop student agency, creativity and well-being, I was excited to learn that Strathclyde School of Education focuses its research on these nine themes:
They also have three centres residing within the college: the Confucius Institute for Scotlandʼs Schools, SCIL: Scotlandʼs National Centre for Languages, and Autism Network Scotland. As part of this sponsorship, I can audit courses, help teach classes and give presentations. The two courses I am taking are Informal Learning and Positive Psychology. In the short week that Iʼve been here, I already can see how the college approaches learning through a scholar-practitioner, cross-disciplinary, international and lens. Linda Brownlow, the Head of School, has connected me with faculty across the college who might be able to help me with my inquiry project. Paul Wickham, my university host, also has been extremely helpful and is a secondary music teacher on secondment, which means he has been released from his secondary school teaching duties for two years to teach music courses for Strathclydeʼs music education teacher program. This arrangement allows school teachers to bring practical experience and application to college courses, while giving time for them to engage in scholarly work before returning to their school assignment. Through this arrangement, both institutions and their students can benefit. This video from the University of Strathclyde shares why studying in Glasgow is such a rewarding one. I have to agree!
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The University of Southampton kindly hosted the US-UK Fulbright Forum on its waterfront campus. The focus of this 3-day forum examined present and future global challenges facing coastal communities. On our first day, we were treated to a behind-the-scenes tour of The National Oceanography Centre Southampton (NOCS), one of the worldʼs leading research centers for the study of ocean and earth sciences, including rock preparation laboratories, paleomagnetism and environmental magnetism laboratory, and a multi-use aquarium and coral laboratory. At the end of our tour, the guide asked us to remember one thing: all of the work and advancements accomplished at NOCS occurred through a collaborative and cross-disciplinary spirit. NOCS is also the home of an Autosub, called Boat McBoatface (pictured below). This name won an online social media poll to name a new polar research vessel. Instead, the vessel was christened the RRS Sir David Attenborough to better align with the vesselʼs mission, but to honor the publicʼs choice in some manner a new Autosub was named Boaty McBoatface. My colleagues, Keith Thompson and Shana Ferguson, also wrote about their experiences of our Southhampton worth checking out. The second day the university organized tours of the Portsmouth dockyard where we learned about the Mary Rose shipwreck project and toured the HMS Victory, a living museum to the Georgian Navy. While walking on the docks, we stumbled upon the International Boatbuilding Training College (pictured below) which teaches the techniques of traditional wooden boatbuilding. It was housed in a beautiful space, which had a coffee house at the back of the building so that coffee goers would walk around the work and be able to look down upon it from their table. Juneau is revitalizing its docks and harbor. A space like this could be a good fit for our maritime community. The final day began with presentations from Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute (SMMI) who partners with organizations and universities across the globe to research topics related to our oceans, including climate change. During the Q&A, I shared that at least 31 Alaskan coastal communities may need to relocate as sea ice, which protected towns from erosive waves, disappears. To help prepare me for the forum, Senator Lisa Murkowskiʼs office kindly forwarded me documents related to the impact of climate change on Alaska. The Fourth National Climate Assessment Volume II: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States published by the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) dedicated one of its chapters to Alaska. In its Executive Summary, the report stated that "Ocean acidification is an emerging global problem that will intensify with continue carbon dioxide emissions and negatively affects organisms...Degradation of permafrost is expected to continue, with associated impacts to infrastructure, river and stream discharge, water quality, and fish and wildlife habitat" (2018). I greatly appreciate Senator Lisa Murkowski for drafting a letter specific to my request and desire to share Alaskaʼs story and perspective at the Fulbright Forum. Rather than a carbon tax, Senator Murkowski is in favor of developing renewable energy. She stated, "As a life-long Alaskan I certainly share your concern with the potential impacts of a changing climate on Alaska. I have certainly seen the effects of Arctic warming over the past several decades, which is why in January of last year, I joined 97 other Senators to vote in favor of an amendment affirming this fact. More recently I have been passionate in my efforts to pass comprehensive energy legislation, the Energy Policy Modernization Act, which would promote development of renewable energy." I believe the University of Alaska could be an important future partner with the University of Southampton.
The culmination of our time in Southampton ended with presentations by every Fulbrighter. We were divided into groups, and I was fortunate to be in sessions related to public health, the arts and humanities. As part of my presentation, I expressed my shared my goal of learning in more depth how the number of Gaelic speakers has increased so that I can help efforts back in Juneau to revitalize the Tlingit language, which has fewer than 200 fluent speakers. I ended the presentation singing a song in Tlingit from the Sealaska Heritage Educational Resources so that people from all over the US can hear and speak some of this beautiful language.
A sincere thank you to the entire team at University of Southampton for hosting this Fulbright Forum, which organized intellectual and interactive presentations, on-site tours of Southampton and Portsmouth, and opportunities for Fulbriyhters to connect and keep in touch. Next stop, Glasgow! I leave the United States for Glasgow, Scotland, in three days and am excited to share my experiences as a Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching scholar through this blog, which is a personal blog representing my viewpoint only and not those of the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State. I leave one island for another: Douglas, AK to the UK (thus the title of this blog). The Fulbright DAT program gives teachers the opportunity to investigate an area of interest that supports international best practices in teaching and/or cultural understanding. My host institution in Glasgow is the School of Education at the University of Strathclyde, the leading provider of teacher education in Scotland. The topic of my inquiry project is Musical Futures and El Sistema: Bridging Two Global Music Education Models to Effect Social Change. I will research and observe Lucy Green’s (2005) informal learning approach at Musical Futures Champion Schools, alongside well-established programs in the global Sistema network. The UK is the only participating country in the Fulbright program which operates two innovative music education programs focused on the transformative power of music for social change: El Sistema and Musical Futures. Though these programs share a similar goal they use different approaches to promote student agency, positive youth development and musical excellence. Sistema England and Sistema Scotland emphasize performance through instrumental ensembles with more formalized training while Musical Futures focuses on improvisation and creative-music making ensembles through informal learning. As a school music teacher, director of JAMM (a Sistema-inspired program) and teacher trainer, the United Kingdom offers the ideal opportunity to observe best international practices within these global music education models, which combined help students navigate both classical and popular music worlds. For anyone interested in applying for the Fulbright DAT program, it is never too early to begin the application process. In fact, I highly recommend that you do. I found Annie Brandtʼs blog, Finnish My Thoughts, very useful in preparing for each step of the application process, especially with the online interview. An important note: make sure that the topic and essential questions of your inquiry project can only be addressed and answered outside the US and by the country you request. I would like to thank the incredible team from the International Institution of Education (IIE) and the US-UK Fulbright Commission for all of the support they have given to help ensure that I make the most of my 5-month Fulbright tenure in the UK. The orientation held in Washington, DC last August by IIE was such a rewarding experience from beginning to end. Fulbright alumni were there to share their international experiences, resources, tips and lessons. Three of the 38 teachers selected for this yearʼs cohort are hosted by universities in the UK: Shana Ferguson will be in Edinburgh and Keith Thompson in Belfast (check out his blog, DAT Teacher in NI). The other 35 awardees will be hosted by universities in Botswana, Columbia, Finland, Greece, India, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam. At the Fulbright orientation, I was first met by Cristi Marchetti whose positive energy and enthusiasm are infectious and her knowledge and expertise as a Fulbrighter living in the UK, invaluable. She prepared and walked us through a detailed packet of information that carefully outlined the ins and outs of living in the UK as a Fulbright teacher. Cathy Kazio and Josh Benjamin, Fulbright alum who also lived in the UK, scheduled monthly Google chats to field any questions we had in preparing for our US departure. My next post will document my first week in the UK at the Fulbright Forum in Southampton, England, hosted by the University of Southampton and the UK-US Fulbright Commission. The theme is Connected by Oceans, which provides opportunities to learn about Southamptonʼs heritage as a port city and explore global challenges facing coastal communities. Photos Below: Cristi Marchetti greets me at the first evening of the Fulbright Orientation in DC with flags and Fulbright swag. Top Right: Fulbright alumni who shared their international experiences and words of wisdom. Bottom Right: Posing with my Fulbright in the UK colleagues, Shana and Keith.
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Lorrie HeagyThis is a personal blog, sharing my experiences living in the UK from January - June 2019 as a Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching scholar. This blog is not an official site of the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State. The views expressed on this site are entirely my own and do not represent the views of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State, or any of its partner organizations. Archives
July 2019
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