One of our family goals is to really go deeper to be involved in the culture that is outside this expatriate lifestyle. This sometimes isn’t so easy with language and cultural barriers. Some expatriate families put their children in local schools for a time period and find programs outside the international school activities for their children to participate in.

I bring this topic up after listening to another excellent podcast by Tom Ashbrook with his On Point radio program where he discussed the nature of global students. His guests on the show were Maya and Tom Frost who shared their experiences sending their four daughters overseas from the USA for high school and university studies. Their children attended local high schools becoming fully immersed in the language and culture of their new homes.

Maya recently wrote a “how to” for parents looking to give their children similar experiences in the book entitled The New Global Student: Skip the SAT, Save Thousands on Tuition and Get a Truly International Education. Much of the conversation in the show was about life changing experiences for their children and those of callers to the program. It really struck home for me thinking about my sons and where they might attend university one day.

On a similar note, international educators Brent Loken and Sheryl Gruber recently made the decision to pursue their dream of providing global citizenship and cultural immersion opportunities by creating an educational program called Ethical Expeditions. They will start their expeditions next year taking students to Borneo and Zambia to do community and ecological work.

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The NPR Technology program does a segment on the use of clickers in higher education. Listen to the podcast. A follow up comment by one of the newscasters caught my attention. She asked how do clickers support critical thinking skills.