Where are the lost stories of Global Ed?
Each year, dozens upon dozens students embark on a journey outside of the U.S. through St. Louis U. High’s Global Education programming. In 2023-24, 159 Jr. Bills visited 15 countries. Another 14 groups came to SLUH from countries like Taiwan, Chile, and Ireland, giving many Jr. Bills the opportunity to host a student.
You shouldn’t be very surprised to hear this—SLUH does its duty advertising (again and again) its unique success in Global Ed. Director of Global Ed Rob Chura and Assistant Director Maria-Paz Erker are keenly aware of the Jesuit educational value of these trips, and make sure that students get an experience that is unique, challenging, and eye-opening.
But the success of the trips seems to continuously be measured in numbers: Global Ed is thriving if more and more countries are visited by SLUH students … and the longer and farther these trips, or the more iconic places visited, the better. But the real success is not these numbers: it’s the stories.
In Nogales, Mexico, that’s playing basketball with little kids in a makeshift gym space. Sitting down to talk with migrants from Guatemala after serving them food, and hearing about the threats of gang violence in their home country that pushed them to travel north. Waking up at 5 a.m. to scramble up to a plateau in the middle of the city, watching the sun rise over the U.S./Mexico border wall that splits the city starkly in half.
In Pamplona, Spain, sharing a bunk bed in an unairconditioned apartment and waking up to homemade orange juice. Biking through the bustling city center to sports practices. Walking the cobblestone streets at night to visit open-air bars and eat tapas.
In Yoro, Honduras, meeting Honduran teens in a park after a long night of exploring. Clogging toilets. Talking to a local apartment owner and taking a trip up to the building’s rooftop overlook. Holding little kids in my arms and soaring them around like Superman.
Being in another country for the purpose of immersion, rather than tourism, brings with it a rush of new experiences. When you are constantly surrounded by an entirely different culture and language, time seems to move faster: each day is a waterfall of unique, beautiful, odd, and most of all, hilarious moments. There are almost too many to count.
Unfortunately, most of these stories are lost to time. Those lucky enough to have these experiences often return on a late night flight and wake up for school at 7 a.m. the next morning; they find themselves far behind on schoolwork and socializing, and thus, never get much time to really reflect on or share their experiences. Only about one percent of what they came to know, feel, and do in that trip gets out, usually just confirming or denying stereotypical banter to a few close friends or family.
“I’ve heard Spain is such a safe country to live in.”
“Was it hard living among all that poverty?”
High school is a key time in your life to be learning, and that’s not just in the classroom. Every conversation you have should teach you something about the world or about life that you didn’t realize before. And being abroad, talking to people with much different lives and stories than your own, you are bound to learn drastically more. The mothers visiting their kids staying at the nutrition center in Honduras taught me the depth of familial love that God makes humans miraculously capable of. The kids in Matamoros, Mexico taught me to live in the moment and to not shy away from asking questions and making new friends.
The lessons may also help you to humanize well-known international crises, like poverty and political corruption in Honduras or immigration overfill at the U.S. Mexico border. You are able to put a face to these issues.
However, there’s a caveat; as former math teacher Stephen Deves often said: “You don’t learn from experience, you learn from reflecting on experience.” By the fast-paced nature of the SLUH social and academic environment, the average SLUH student who went on an immersion trip may miss out on all the lessons he could’ve learned.
The SLUH community also doesn’t get the benefit of hearing these stories. Without them being told, many Jr. Bills may never go on an immersion trip. They will continue to opt for the comfort of their homes and the marginal thrills of the St. Louis high school party scene, and will thus learn relatively little about the world they are about to grow into as adults. And SLUH as a whole won’t know what the students really got out of it, other than assuming that they “developed their awareness of the world” (whatever that means). So for those of you who have not been on a Global Ed trip, ask your friends about them. Learn about the good and the bad, come to know the country and its people.
Jr. Bills who go abroad are incredibly lucky to have these semi-affordable and fun experiences. But SLUH must be a space where we can share these lost stories of Global Ed. Reflect on your trips or hosting experiences. Write letters to the Prep News. Flood Sisyphus. If you had a personal or emotionally-charged experience with someone affected by an international or national crisis, advocate for policy change or present to a club.
Most importantly, though, when you are asked about a trip you went on (or even when not asked), don’t simply promote or reject stereotypes about the country you visited. Tell a story. Whether funny or sad, you may inspire others to travel or give them a way to attach names and experiences to foreign countries and foreign crises. Or maybe you’ll become just a little more interesting to them. Humans are made to share our experiences. You lived it. Now live it out.