Cross Cultural Professional Development Talk

Photo by Armando Montano: Dr. Alvarez and Dr. Ludwig

Armando Montano
The Paw Print

Wednesday, April 25, was the last in the semester long faculty lecture series with a joint effort from Dr. Anicia Alvarez and Dr. Sheryl Ludwig with their presentation, “Cross Cultural Professional Development: Lessons from the Philippines.”
Alvarez presented on her teaching background in both the Philippines and here in the US, citing the differences in schools throughout her career in education.  Alverez and Ludwig took a trip to the Philippines last year in hopes of helping local teachers gain a standard of unified teaching practices. They shared their tour across the region through photos. They also shared their efforts in education, and some of the cultural differences between the US and the Philippines and how culture overall can have an impact on learning.
Through the photos of the trip, use of maps and the personal accounts of both professors the presentation showed the educational struggles that are happening elsewhere in the world. The growth in population in conjunction with the lack of space causes some difficulties in Pilipino schools, something that national schools are seeing develop into a growing concern. Issues of resources are also a growing concern for both national educational institutions, for nearly identical reasons. The lack of funding for maintaining a competitive school is a difficult obstacle that teachers across all grade levels in the Philippines are suffering.
From the lack of school supplies to the difficulty of getting reliable curriculum materials such as books and teaching aids, the similarities between the two different school systems are uncanny. It is with the success of programs in the US that offset the challenges in teaching nationwide, the programs and strategies were shared by both professors in the attempt to make the practices known in other nations to hopefully a high rate of success.
The whole room easily changed its focus to and found great interested in the difficulties that are very different for educators in the Philippines. Tales of cultural diversity of the people painted a clear image that the people themselves have personal struggles within the institution of education in the Philippines that prevent the most of an educational career from being seized by the growing students. Nomadic groups and substance farmers who cannot remain localized for any set period of time suffer the loss of a structured education and thus add to a complication of thorough education nationally. The differences between our country and the Philippines truly enthralled the audience and gave those without much global experience a bigger perspective of the variety of people in the world.
The presentation by Alvarez and Ludwig was an excellent finale for the whole faculty lecture series for the spring 2012 semester. With the semester coming to a close and finals coming in the following week, students returning and local community members are sure to be eager to see next semester’s faculty lectures and those who have yet to attend would benefit greatly from seeing an upcoming lecture in person.