Tag: Cuba

Ripple effects of transformational travel by Dr. Dolores Battle

When you drop a pebble in a bucket of water, you never really know how far the rings will spread.  I have had a professional interest in diversity in our country for a long time. More recent events have made me think about diversity and multicultural perspective in a global sense. The world is so vast yet so small. In order to understand our neighbors across the street, it is important to experience our neighbors across the globe. We need to understand who they are and where they came from in order to understand what they value and what they want to be, rather than let those decisions be ours based on our perspectives and our views of the world.

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In the last several years, I have travelled to China, Peru, South Africa and Cuba with Nanda Journeys.  As an educator and speech language pathologist, I never really thought about how enriching my life would in turn enrich the lives of generations of students that would follow me.

I recently received an email from a former colleague that talked about preparing teacher education students to be global citizens. It made me think about how one person can influence so many others for generations.  Dr. Wendy Paterson, Dean of the School of Education at SUNY Buffalo State, wrote:

 “I have been thinking of you a lot lately. As I have been reviewing some of my faculty for tenure and promotion, I remembered all that you did for me as you helped me attain the full professorship. Today I was reading the book 21st Century Skills and read two statements that immediately made me think of you: 1) “Diversity is one thing we all have in common.” 2) The skills to become socially adept, cross-culturally fluent global learners and citizens are more important than ever.”

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I wonder if you know how far-reaching your global initiative took us…we embarked on a process to emphasize the importance of global attitudes and multicultural knowledge for teachers.  In those first years, we engaged with some of our globally active faculty and were able to establish new PDS school contacts in Zambia and Chile. We are now on five continents with 6-8 active school sites where our students and faculty learn about education on a global scale. This has transformed Childhood and Exceptional Education…I just want you to see what you started.  As we say in teacher education, ‘The teacher will never know how much she (he) affects the future, only that she (he) will.’  You have most certainly had an impact on my life and on the lives of so many of our marvelous students.”

As one of her students said: “Travel is the one thing you spend money on, that actually can make you richer.” {Original author unknown}

Professional Enrichment Travels with Nanda Journeys – A leader’s perspective.

How do you spell “first rate?”  I have travelled with Nanda Journeys to Peru, Cuba, and South Africa. The trips were worry-free, so we could concentrate on the cultural global experience.

I have included some photos from my travels.  The accommodations are always first rate.  The meals and cultural experiences are also top shelf.  With qualified guides, we had ample opportunity to learn not only about the people, but also about the place.  From safaris, to jungle river exploration, to arts and architecture—the trips helped enrich my personal and professional life.

The cultural experiences in hospitals and schools for us were varying and enlightening. I visited schools in the Andes mountains where the children spoke three languages; schools for the deaf in Johannesburg where all children had cochlear implants; and schools for the deaf in Havana where sign language was used. I visited a school in a township of Cape Town where the children’s hearing and vision was being tested using blue tooth technology since there was no electricity in the school. I visited the sparse polyclinics in Cuba,  a rehabilitation center in the Andes mountains of Peru, and a state-of-the-art hospital in Johannesburg. All the visits were varied and all showed that people everywhere are doing what they can to deliver services given their circumstances.

But the best feature of the travels is the opportunity to develop professional relationships with like-minded people. The friendships and relationships have extended beyond the time of the trips themselves. The travels have also enriched my professional life. Since returning from South Africa, I have made conference presentations at national conferences with my colleagues that I met in Johannesburg.  I have consulted on a publication about speech language services in South Africa and published an article on health care in Cuba.

I am looking forward to the next planned journey to Vietnam and Cambodia in the spring of 2019.  Because of the interest in interprofessional service delivery here, and because of the mode of delivery of services in southeast Asia, the spring trip is intended to be interprofessional with rehabilitation specialists.

About Dr. Dolores Battle

Dr. Battle is Professor Emeritus of Speech Language Pathology at SUNY Buffalo State. She is the former president of both the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), and the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics (IALP).  She has received numerous awards for her work in multicultural and global issues in the profession including Honors of ASHA, Honored member of the IALP, The Diversity Incentive award from the Council of Academic Programs in Communication Science and Disorders.  She is widely published in communication disorders in culturally and linguistically diverse populations and  has traveled professionally to 37 countries on five continents including in Kenya, South Africa,  Brazil, Greece,  Switzerland, Denmark, Canada,  and Australia.