As Georgetown students, we’re constantly pushing ourselves to learn new languages. We’ve all walked into the Intercultural Center Galleria at some point and heard at least three different languages by the time we reach the line for More Uncommon Grounds. From Spanish and Arabic to Ancient Greek and Ukrainian, learning a new language at Georgetown can be a way to make friends, get into a study abroad program, graduate from the School of Foreign Service or simply feel a bit more worldly when pulling off a correct pronunciation of the latest deposed foreign dictator. The drive to improve our communication skills with people from other cultures is part of what gives Georgetown its unique international outlook.
Rarely, however, do we reflect on the value of our English skills. For most of us, English is a given, a jumping-off point from which to shoot for the higher goal of attaining fluency in another language. But for much of the rest of the world, English fluency is the higher goal — it’s a path toward greater mobility as well as wider employment and educational opportunities. And for Georgetown students, our English skills can serve as an incredible resource to those areas of the world where education, especially in English, illuminates a path out of poverty.
This was the world that Tim Worm (SFS ’10) entered in this summer when he joined Teach for China. Having never studied Chinese in school, he made the gutsy decision to pursue a two-year teaching fellowship in rural China and now spends time in the classroom with roughly 180 children each week, most of whose parents are farmers. The economic change was originally shocking for Worm, when, as the temperature started to drop, many of the kids showed up to school without jackets. Worm finds that there are good days and bad days, but that the good days, when the kids are engaged, never cease to be amazing.
Kimberly Fernandes (SFS-Q ’11) found herself in a similar world several months ago when she began her two-year fellowship with Teach for India. For her 40 fourth-graders living in one of Mumbai’s poorest neighborhoods, learning English is a constant struggle but one with uncountable benefits. It’s a hard road to success for these children, who sit three to a desk in crowded classrooms and are often as many as four years behind their grade-level standards in multiple subjects. Fernandes, who speaks Hindi, makes a conscious effort to speak only in English to the kids, despite the temptation to revert back to their native language in order to discipline them.
Along with many other Georgetown graduates now placed throughout the world, Worm and Fernandes have taken their English skills abroad with the goal of improving educational opportunity internationally. Teach for China and Teach for India are both a part of Teach for All, a global network of social enterprises serving underprivileged schools in 22 countries. Founded by Wendy Kopp, the CEO of Teach for America, Teach for All provides knowledge, experience and occasional financial help to the separate teaching organizations in each of its 22 countries.
Teach for China, in particular, employs a creative model where foreign fellows are paired with fellows of Chinese origin. These fellows — over 150 in the 2011-2012 school year — work together to teach a host of different subjects at over 40 middle and elementary schools in two Chinese provinces, Yunnan and Guangdong. Education in China is compulsory until eighth grade, at which point students take the gaokao, a nationally-administered exam that determines whether they will go on to higher education or not. Teach for China targets middle school-level children in particular because of the importance of the upcoming gaokao in determining their future. Although about 40 percent of Chinese students go on to higher education nationally, less than 2 percent of children in the schools Teach for China serves pass the gaokao.
Although China is booming economically around its cities, the country’s rural areas still lag behind in development. While Guangdong contains economically powerful cities such as Guangzhou, this new affluence has not yet reached many other parts of the state. Yunnan remains primarily an agricultural province, with ethnic minorities comprising about one-third of the population. Teach for China is the only alternative teaching group that places teachers in Chinese public schools, and it will certainly take the expansion of Teach for China, or the creation of other such programs, for China to achieve truly universal educational opportunity.
Knowledge of English opens doors — and not just for kids in rural China or crowded urban India. For an intrepid Georgetown student looking for adventure (as most of us are), English fluency can mean a ticket to two challenging yet rewarding years as a teacher to students who need it the most.
Sarah Stodder is a senior in the School of Foreign Service. AN INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT appears every other Friday.
