Travel

I chose this guiding question because I am deeply curious about how education can empower students to take ownership of their communities and the broader world. In my classroom, I focus on cultivating student voice, agency, and curiosity through exploration, storytelling, and meaningful engagement with real-world issues. By examining how Senegalese schools prepare students to shape the world they are inheriting, I hope to learn how cultural traditions, literacy practices, and attention to local and global challenges support student empowerment. Ultimately, this guiding question aims to inform my own practice as I seek to inspire students to become thoughtful, engaged, and globally aware changemakers. 

Across the schools I visited in Senegal, I observed students developing global competence in meaningful and authentic ways. Students demonstrated a strong ability to communicate ideas across languages and cultures. All students were multilingual, speaking Wolof, French, English, Arabic, and sometimes other local languages. This allowed them to express ideas not just in different languages but in different contexts and showed how communication is deeply connected to both cultural identity and global connection in Senegal. As a monolingual English speaker, this was humbling. It pushed me to reflect on what I model for my own students about linguistic curiosity, and how I can better honor multilingualism as an asset and a form of intelligence in my classroom.

I also noticed how art, music, and tradition were valued and honored within school and home settings alongside modern perspectives, giving students multiple frameworks for understanding and expressing their place in the world. Senegalese schools appeared to treat cultural identity not as something separate from global awareness, but as the very foundation for which students could engage with the wider world confidently and critically.

Students were also actively encouraged to investigate the world, particularly through learning about environmental challenges. Topics like climate change, sea level rise, and air pollution were discussed in classrooms, along with the notion of "freedom" and what that means in different contexts. All of this is helping students connect global issues to their local context in Senegal. 

I also saw students recognizing perspectives through a strong emphasis on empathy and relationships. Schools welcomed outside educators, including us Fulbright educators, and created opportunities for cultural exchange. There was a clear culture of respect, curiosity, and openness to different viewpoints, as well as excitement to share their culture.

Finally, students were taking action through leadership opportunities and clubs. English clubs, student government, and other groups provided spaces for students to identify issues in their communities and start thinking about their local impact. These experiences helped students see themselves as contributors and emerging leaders. One of the most inspiring parts of this was seeing girls hold these leadership roles. 

I am left wondering how these strong foundations in global competence can be further supported to help students translate their learning into meaningful action, particularly around environmental challenges. Specifically, I wonder how educators and schools in Senegal can continue to empower students as changemakers in ways that are rooted in their own cultural context, values, and community priorities, without imposing outside or Western perspectives on what “action” should look like. I am also curious about what systems, resources, or partnerships might support students in moving from awareness to sustained, locally-driven impact, especially in addressing issues like waste management, climate change, and environmental sustainability.