Foreign exchange: school leaders find tangible benefits in their overseas educational study missions - Cover Story

School Administrator, Jan, 2004 by Carol Brzozowski

Fulbright Teacher and Administrator Exchange

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, this program provides travel stipends for administrators' overseas trips, but has several pre-requisites that most public school leaders would easily satisfy. This includes the requirement that the applicant be in at least his or her third year of administrative work.

Named for the late Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the educator exchanges were established by Congress in 1946 as a vehicle for public officials to observe and comprehend institutions, cultures and societies of other peoples. Fulbright participants usually lodge in a home, hosted by a local educator.

The application process is competitive. Roberta Croll, outreach specialist for the Fulbright Teacher and Administrator Exchange, says administrators have a one-in-three chance of being selected.

Fulbright options include:

* The Superintendent Seminar in Germany, which is offered every other year (including 2004) for superintendents and assistant superintendents who offer German language studies in their school district. Anyone interested can be placed on a mailing list by contacting Croll at fulbright@grad.usda.gov or at 202-314-3527.

* The Argentina Administrator Program, in which participants each year shadow an administrator counterpart for three to six weeks. The Argentine administrator visits the United States for a comparable experience.

* Other administrator exchange offered annually send U.S. school leaders for six weeks to Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Mexico, Romania, Slovak Republic, Thailand, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

* Hosting programs in which school districts or schools host administrators from Oman, Jordan or Uruguay for six weeks as they study the U.S. school system.

The deadline for applications to most Fulbright programs is Oct. 15. Occasionally special programs are arranged on short notice with varying deadlines. For complete details, access www.fulbrightexchanges.org and click on "other opportunities."

--Carol Brzozowski

RELATED ARTICLE: Points for viewing and points of view.

BY CHERYL GRANADE SULLIVAN

Many of us have read and spoken about using different lenses to capture different aspects of a situation. We've emphasized taking multiple considerations into account when making decisions.

A trip to Vietnam in the fall of 2002 for the AASA Invitational International Seminar on Schooling taught a group of American educational leaders that entertaining the viewpoints of others may mean increasing our own points for viewing. Though we knew Ho Chi Minh City was on the itinerary, our group of superintendents, professors and school board members was amazed to find ourselves headed to the site we knew as Saigon. Many recalled the war there, and one in our midst had been a helicopter pilot in the Mekong Delta.

Leaving the Bus

As we rode into Ho Chi Minh City on a comfortable, air-conditioned bus, we noticed a city teeming with people, bustling with the more than three million motor scooters that hit the streets each day. We also saw with a bit of uneasiness that living conditions were rather dilapidated, and poverty was rampant. Some began to wonder what the accommodations would be like. And in what state would we find the schools and children? Others wondered about the reception that Americans would receive in a country that had suffered so during a war that was still recent in their memory and ours.