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Are you anxious for professional development?  Are you so ridiculously busy that you can’t read all of your email?

STOP for one minute and hear me loud and clear:

You must schedule The Global Ed Collaborative Conference into your busy calendar.  MUST!

The 2011 Global Education Conference will be held November 14 – 18,  during international education week – and it is online and free. Sessions will take place in multiple time zones and multiple languages over the five days. The 2010 Global Education Conference had 15,028 unique logins and presentations from 62 countries.  Isn’t that incredible!

Educators from around the world will present on topics from global water issues, K-12 digital literacy, internationalizing the curriculum, connecting the global STEM classroom, service learning and more!

And Melibee’s own, Carrie Wagner, is one of the global keynote speakers! Carrie has had a phenominal career carrying forward what she learned during her six years in Africa.  (By the way, Carrie is helping Melibee Global kick off International Ed Week by being my guest on a free, online book club discussion on November 10th.  You can get more details here.)

International Education Week 2011 is going to be chock full of learning tools and inspiration!  I cannot wait to hear what you all glean from these wonderful free events!  Please be sure to share with Melibee readers, ok?

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The University of North Carolina’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication (US) and Tec de Monterrey University (Mexico) partnered together to create this outstanding educational website called “Reframing Mexico.”  The site explores various social, economic and personal stories as a way to reframe Mexico as more than a country that recalls “drug war.”  Instead, we see video storytelling of daily lives of every day people in Mexico City, one of the largest capitol cities in the world.  We hear Rogelio’s return from the US to Mexico and the loss of his son, Alonso’s desire to stay in his country while most of his wealthy friends depart for the US for college, and Tania’s struggle raising her baby son in prison. All twelve stories are available in English or Spanish, making this an excellent resource for language teachers as well as those in the Social Sciences. A section of the site is dedicated to interactive infographics.  The “migrate” interactive game illustrates the extreme danger in attempting to cross the US border illegally while the Pepandors section explains the practice of picking through garbage to find recyclable goods for sale.

Here is an example of one of the videos (with English translations): 

Click here to view the embedded video.

Be sure to pass this exciting new resource to your language and social sciences departments!  Kudos to UNC and Tec for illustrating the power of collaboration across cultures.

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Today I’m going to pose a question based on a book I’ve been reading – “Hokkaido Highway Blues: Hitchhiking Japan” by Will Ferguson.  This book documents his hitchhiking trip from the southern most point of Japan to the northern most point.  He tells witty tales about the range of people that he meets, illustrates the link between behavior and culture, and references how he is constantly assumed to be an American (he is Canadian.)

While the book is enjoyable, playful, informative and engaging, there was one page that really resonated with me. That was page 113.

Page 113 spoke of the phenomenon of realizing, for the first time in your life, that you are a visible minority abroad. This page is a terrific discussion tool for pre-departure and re-entry.  Here is the quote from Ferguson who is attending a popular public event in Japan:

“I wended my way through and the crowds parted like the sea before Moses…Schoolchildren openly gawked, jaws gaping…Men watched my every move as if I might pull out a handgun and start shooting at any moment…

“A foreigner, look!” A flock of high-school girls burst past in a flurry of nervous laughter, and boys, brave after the fact, whispered “Harro!” to the back of my head. “Ah, we have a guest from American here today,” said the disembodied voice of the P.A. system, the voice of a decidedly tinny god. Maybe he will sing a song for us later.”

…That I, so very average and unexceptional, should cause a stir among these bright crowds of costumes gives a new perspective on the idea of exotic. I remember a trip to a Japanese zoo, and how the children turned their backs on the caged wildebeest and watched me instead. ‘More interesting than a wildebeest’ became my personal motto after that.  It was oppressive at times. What I wouldn’t give to be a Japanese-American, to be able to blend in without a ripple, to attend a spectacle without becoming one, to be able to relax.  When your face doesn’t fit the national dimensions you find yourself in an observer-affected universe; your presence alters actions, and the very act of observing changes that which is observed. You cannot slip by unnoticed.  You cannot forget the pigment that you present to the world. If nothing else, Japan has taught me what it is like to be a visible minority, and it is a hard lesson to learn.”

I read this and stopped in my tracks. I was immediately transported back to India, to a day that I had looked forward to for my entire life. I was in Agra, taking time off during a business trip, to see the Taj Mahal.  I started my day at the Red Fort, where I caught my first glimpse of the Taj Mahal.  It took my breath away. The light was so soft, the colors so perfect, it almost appeared to be floating.  I was in awe. Speechless.  Gazing.

And then it happened.

A group of school children approached me with cameras.  They were smiling and giggling.  They pointed.  I looked around, wondering what they were pointing at.  Was I missing something? Perhaps there was someone famous here – maybe a Bollywood star or politician? I glanced to my left, to my right.  I looked in the distance, wondering if something was going on at the Taj that I had missed?  And then I realized.

They were looking. At. me. The foreigner.  The lady who wasn’t with a group of children or her husband.  The lady with the light skin and a lavender backpack.

I suddenly became more interesting than the Red Fort or the Taj Mahal.  My presence altered actions.  I could not slip by unnoticed.  It felt strange, unsettling.  And as Ferguson said, it was a hard lesson to learn.

When one is preparing to go abroad to a place where they will stand out, simply because of their skin, hair or eye color, size or shape, how does one truly prepare?  And when one returns home, how does one take that hard lesson and relate it back to the home country? How does this lesson change the lens that one sees the world through?

I hope that this discussion takes place in both pre-departure and re-entry gatherings.  Being more interesting that a wildebeest or the Taj Mahal is a challenge, to say the least.  So today, I ask Melibee readers:  How are you making these visible minority experiences teachable moments? What did you learn when it happened to you the first time?

(If you have a visible minority lesson to share – please click on “comment.” You do not need to register to comment on the blog nor will you be added to a mailing list. But if you do sign up for the Melibee newsletter in the upper right hand column of the home page, you may win a book by one of the Melibee  speakers – Ibrahim Abdul-Matin!)

Here is a link to Will Ferguson’s book about his experience in Japan:

See larger image Hokkaido Highway Blues: Hitchhiking Japan (Hardcover) By (author) Will Ferguson List Price: $25.00 USD New From: $46.44 In Stock Used from: $4.70 In Stock Release date July 1, 2003.

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Today’s guest post is by Todd Drake, a talented artist and facilitator of the“Re-entry: Using Art to Bridge the Study Abroad Experience” workshop offered through Melibee. Todd wrote this piece as he returned from a workshop in Dhahran. The invitation to teach abroad had come after his visit to Saudi Arabia at the invitation of the US State Department in May 2011. During both visits, he worked primarily with local Muslim women, to teach them photography and help them strengthen their visual voices.

Todd Drake with aspiring Saudi photographers.

A Woody Allen movie is playing on my satellite TV as I sit here and write in my Saudi hotel room. Erin Brockovich is coming on next. Earlier this week I took a coffee break with Mohammed and Miriam, my liberal Saudi friends. Mohammed had the new Galaxy Pad with him and filled me in on what was better about Google+  as compared to Facebook (circles.) Last night Mohammed took a shot of me talking to a male student, in the wings was a female student waiting to talk to me. He came up showing the photo on his LED screen saying “This is typical Saudi for you, a woman waiting to speak.” This clash of cultures, up to the minute modernity, together with practices brought along from a nomad’s tent, are what I find fills me with a sense of vertigo. (That and maybe the smelly crab I had last night with dinner.) I am meeting today with Mohammed’s family to discuss these same cultural issues. I have been asked to tape further interviews for possible use by “The Story “by Dick Gordon.  I am thinking of them as a kind of verbal self portrait.

Last night at the park, I was introduce to a handsome older man in traditional clothing. We sat and drank Arabic coffee together in a beautiful corner coffee shop. My students photographed us like paparazzi (their idea, not mine). I asked him what he was doing here at the summer festival and he said teaching story telling. Ha! I said that is what I am trying do with photography. Again, the mixing of old and new. We traded compliments and made peace signs for the photographers. He blessed me in Arabic, I him with a smile and hand shake, and we went on to see the Bedouin tent and falcons for more photo opportunities. In the tent, one of my students  (a women in full cover) asked for a photograph with me. We sat beneath the tent for a photo but she disappeared in the shadows. “Shucks”  she said. I noticed the good light was on the other side where two older men were seated. “They have the good light” I said. “Yes,” she said. “But we can’t ask them to move, they are men and old.” That sums up a lot things here. This society is filled with young, ever more educated men and women, while the strings of power are held by those who cannot be asked to move.

I am not sure what kinds of self portraits I will get from the women in my workshop. I gave them lots of ideas to consider that did not require showing their faces. We will see. It was interesting to see three times as many women at my workshop than men the second night. The women, in fact, filled their side of the room. I had three, maybe four, men on the other side. I pointed it out, ribbing the men for being shown up and watched one man blush as red as his head scarf.

Tonight, Donn Young comes in. I have sold his workshop and that of Zeeshawn (Bahraini photoshop professor) to everyone and hope they will be as warmly welcomed as I have been. One of the employees “handling me” commented that people were only disappointed that I was  staying for just three classes. I wanted to point out I was doing that only because they waited so long to book me that my calendar filled up, but I didn’t. “Maybe I can return,” was what I did say. I am willing to come back. I think the common language of art, and my comfort with teaching, makes these events so instantly comfortable for me. The eagerness of the students to learn is the greatest reward.  I hope the brief contact we have will give them something of value to think about. I know I am leaving with a wider vision of the world. The monolith that was Saudi Arabia has divided itself into as complex a tapestry as an Arabic carpet.

“Kick butt and take names” Erin Brockovich is coming on.  Bet some of my female  Saudi students are watching too.

About the Author: Todd Drake creates works of art that focus on building understanding between people both within the US and internationally. The US State Department has engaged Todd and his current exhibition to help build bridges between Sunni and Shia Muslims in Bahrain and to empower women in Saudi Arabia. He has authored and designed several books in collaboration with undocumented immigrants from Mexico to the United States. An experienced traveler and arts educator, Todd teaches studio art at the college level and was a 2004-2005 Rockefeller Fellow at the Center for Global Initiatives at UNC Chapel Hill. He is an artist in resident there and lives with his wife in the heartland of North Carolina.

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For many, Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” film will be about romance and comedy.  But for me, this film was about boomerangs and frisbees.

Boomerangs and frisbees?  I know, this seems very odd.  Bear with me.

The main character in this film, Gil (played by Owen Wilson), is visiting Paris, France with his fiancé Ines (played by Rachel McAdams) and her parents. Gil is a writer who is attempting his first novel.  While he walks the streets of Paris for inspiration each evening, his wife is otherwise engaged with more traditional sightseeing and other distractions. One evening, Gil stumbles into the Parisian 1920s, his favorite time period. He is so inspired by the genius of this period of time, he returns to the 1920s each evening, seeking more.

But what is his search really about?

Like so many who sojourn, we travel to learn about other ways of life, history, people, and language.  What we often don’t realize is that by leaving home, we have the ability to see “the self” in a very different light.  As an international educator, “Midnight in Paris” was much less about Woody Allen’s quirky humor and much more about Gil’s exploration of the “shift in self” that often happens when we study, live and travel abroad.

This film raised this question for me:  Why do some see study abroad in terms of what I’ll call the “boomerang effect?” (By this, I do not mean these definitions related to social psychology and marketing. Melibee Global’s version of the boomerang effect is not surprisingly related to study abroad.) The boomerang effect describes students who typically go abroad and in most cases, loop back to their country of origin.

What drives some to return to the safety net of home after a period of time abroad while others study abroad and then never want to return to what they’ve known as “home” for decades? For those who defy the boomerang effect, home begins to feels more normal abroad. Abroad is now the new norm, requiring one to relocate, or to attempt to do so.

Ironically, the boomerang was often used in hunting. Today, perhaps the boomerang is a metaphor for crossing cultures. One is sent airborne to see a bird’s eye view of another place and its people.  And in most cases, one returns to the point of origin and shares that 30,000 foot view with friends, family and neighbors.

Over the years, I have met many international students who have come to the US and planned to return home, yet found themselves pursuing multiple degrees to remain in status so that they do not have to depart the country. I’ve also met a handful of US study abroad students who have also needed to create their home abroad. Perhaps this can be called the “frisbee effect.”  You toss a frisbee, it lands somewhere and it does not fly (depart) again unless someone throws it (or forces it from its place.)

Needless to say, I thought I’d be seeing a typical Woody Allen film, having a good laugh and moving on.  It sparked all these ideas between the humor, wisdom and great acting.  I would definitely recommend that you share Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” with your students.  It is a really playful tool for creating dialogue about Americans abroad and both the “boomerang”/”frisbee” effects.

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I’m delighted to introduce you to Dr. Sam Turner, today’s guest blogger.  Sam and I met at a local SIETAR meeting and it quickly became apparent that he was a prime candidate for a guest post.  Please enjoy his informative piece;  it challenges us to think through how we resolve conflicts.

In the summer of 1954, twenty-two 11-year-old boys from Oklahoma City headed to overnight camp. Unbeknownst to them, they were taking part in one of history’s most interesting social experiments designed by psychologist Muzafer Sherif. He was interested in discovering how conflict unfolds naturally in groups. Instead of observing competition and conflict in already established groups, the boys in the Robbers Cave Experiment, as it has come to be known, were divided into two groups—the Rattlers and the Eagles.  These boys fell instantly into their assigned roles and created psychological and physical boundaries between groups.

The Rattlers and the Eagles made references to the members of the opposing groups as “those guys” and “outsiders”.  They insistently asked the camp staff (i.e. the researchers) to arrange some sort of competition against the other. Benign activities became increasingly competitive (tent pitching, baseball, tug-of-war, cabin inspections, and a rigged treasure hunt). The competition eventually led to nighttime cabin raids that resulted in broken personal belongings and stealing. The Eagles eventually won the overall competition only to find the Rattlers stole their prizes and fistfights broke out between the groups. Is this the stuff of legendary activities of boys being boys at summer camp or an ingenious depiction of how real competition can quickly become dark and ugly between groups?

People have a natural tendency to favor their own group (ethnic, national, etc.) and engage in active ways to benefit one’s own group while demonstrating an active bias against members of other groups based on arbitrary attributes such as nationality or ethnicity or even team membership. Realistic conflict theory suggests that competition becomes antagonistic when commodities are scarce or in limited supply. Conflict can occur between groups over food, territory, wealth, power, natural resources, or energy. Even kids who compete over winning games at a summer camp can devise strategies to win that not only work against liking the competitors, becomes a win-loss campaign.

We are flush with contemporary examples of conflict, unfortunately. The Palestinians and the Israelis; the Pakistanis and the Indians; and the Russians and Chechnyans. Even ethnic tensions exist within otherwise peaceful countries such as France, Canada, Ireland, and Spain. Many of these ethnic and territorial conflicts bubble below the surface, waiting for a point where tension will burst the transient peace between the sides and make headlines.

There are two modern conflicts that illustrate where harmony and coexistence have been replaced by contempt and active conflict: the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and the Flemish and the Walloons in Belgium. Both involve deep and complex social issues; the former involved genocide and led to 800,000 deaths in only 100 days, while the other involves a dysfunctional mess that has led to hostility and disdain, and a fallen federal government. The two outcomes appear on the surface very different, but the processes that triggered these events have certain elements that are shared: scarce resources, ethnic and linguistic divides, and longstanding social traditions of isolation and resentment. What they both lack is a shared national narrative; a mental model that the collective population understands and values.

It seems hardly reasonable to draw conclusions from a summer camp experience that happened in the 1950ies as a potential guideline to settle national and international conflicts. Yet, the story of the Robbers Cave might lay the foundation to understanding how to approach modern conflict in the future.

Intuitively, the first inclination people have to solve problems is to simply bring people together to get to know one another. The contact hypothesis would suggest that just being around one another allows for connections to form from the shared values of human experience to bridge our differences. The boys should “get to know one another” and the Belgians should learn to solve “their differences”.

In Austin, Texas in the early 70ies, psychologist Elliot Aronson was asked to come in to help solve hostility between kids of different ethnic backgrounds in the newly desegregated school system. The school discovered that just putting kids together didn’t lead to them getting along—the students naturally drew social distinctions and reinforced them as frustrated educators stood by unable to cope with the situation.

A technique named the “Jigsaw Classroom” was developed as a result. It involved students taking parts of the lesson that was required to be learned, mastering it individually, and then teaching the remaining members of the group their part of the lesson. This caused something unique to happen—the autonomous individuals were suddenly reliant on one another and cooperation melted away the indignity of differences.

The Eagles and the Rattlers eventually were forced to work together in successive stages toward what are known as “superordinate goals”—goals that required collaboration. A rigged broken water line stopped the flow of water in the camp. The kids worked together to find a solution that involved everyone. Then the idea of a Movie night led the boys to pool their money to pay collectively for a movie to watch. Individually they would have been unable to accomplish what had to be done, but together they were successful.

This isn’t entirely different from the “Jigsaw Classroom” method. Collective groups are forced to work together in order to accomplish a bigger goal. As Aronson and Sherif both discovered in different groups, we quickly form boundaries that can prevent us from getting along and understanding one another. Environmental tensions cause us to “dig in our heals”; to be intractable and uncooperative.

Coexistence isn’t enough in of itself; people have to be forced to pool their efforts and work together for the greater good.

It is true that competition has created innovation in medicine, business, science, and just about every domain in contemporary society. Yet, subjugating the growth and development of others is too often a temptation. Creating categories is a natural part of the human understanding of the social world. But when we begin to foment ideas of “we are better than them” or “us versus them” competition becomes exclusionary. Our attempts at gain are accompanied by win-loss strategies—winning at the loss of all others.

How is it possible to compete and excel, yet allow for healthy competition and even cooperation? There is perhaps another way to approach gain while allowing others to flourish. Benign or enlightened self-interest allows us to strive to be the best we can while not doing so at the detriment of others.

The lessons of playing fairly seem to fade as we age, yet the value of working with others endures and is perhaps more essential later in life. The stakes are much greater than finding harmony in the sandbox. Countries or societies that are comprised of people who are multinational, multilinguisitic, and multicultural must strive to find superordinate goals to connect its citizens together.

Coexistence is difficult; yet, forced to work together, we can find unique and creative solutions that benefit all and emphasize our similarities while taking the focus away from our differences. The challenge in contemporary conflict is to find that “Jigsaw” intervention; to create obstacles to individual gain over losses to others; to create “superordinate” goals for people of various backgrounds to work together to attain.

Sam Turner, Ph.D. is a social psychologist, an educator, trainer, consultant, and interculturalist. He holds a bachelors degree in communications and French literature. He began his career in sales and management and then returned to school to pursue a masters and doctorate in social psychology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He spent a year as a youth exchange student in Belgium and has traveled in over twenty countries.

Here is a book about the Robbers Cave Experiment:

See larger image The Robbers Cave Experiment: Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation. [Orig. pub. as Intergroup Conflict and Group Relations] (Paperback) By (author) Muzafer Sherif List Price: $19.95 USD New From: $13.68 In Stock Used from: $13.56 In Stock

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Budrus is a find!  It is one of those documentaries that needs to be talked about and it will leave you thinking about your role as a bridge builder to peace for days. Why? Because it shares a story that is not commonly told: It documents a Palestinian village’s non-violent response to a wall being built on their land by the Israelis. It is the winner of numerous awards and was called “A Must See Documentary” by The New York Times.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This film is a gold mine of countless lesson plans. Conveniently, Budrus just released the free forty page discussion guide that offers countless approaches to dialogue about subjects such as non-violent activism and the role of women.

We must continue to share stories about our world that promote a message that is not commonly shared in our media:  we CAN and MUST work together to build bridges to peace.  It is possible.  I firmly believe this.  And Budrus is a SHINING example of this.

You can purchase the film below.

See larger image Budrus (DVD) Director: Julia Bacha Starring: Ayed Morrar, Iltezam Morrar, Kobi Snitz, Yasmine Levy, Ahmed Awwad Rating: NR (Not Rated) List Price: $24.99 USD New From: $19.15 In Stock Used from: $19.98 In Stock Release date May 10, 2011.

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What is Marketing? According to the American Marketing Association it is: “The activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

Whether we are study abroad offices, faculty, 3rd party providers or consultants, we have an interest in marketing the study abroad experience.  Clearly, we think it has value.

I recently presented about some of the missteps in short term study abroad programming - and one of the top 5 was the lack of creativity in marketing.  Simply put: We forget to think like the students.  Yes, they’re on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube/Vimeo. But where ELSE are they?

They’re at 8tracks.com. And now, so am I!

Check out my first study abroad/international music mix:

8tracks.com is a music website that allows you to create your own music mixes.  You create a profile, add your photo and link to your website and then you can create music mixes from your own (legally purchased) music collection.  You pick your tracks, upload them to the site, describe them with a tag like “world music”,” chill”, “instrumental”, “study”, etc and then you make your mix “live.”  I created my first mix this weekend – selecting music from different cultures (American, Germany, Algeria, England, Egypt, Jamaica, Ireland and Native American.) I described the mix by artist but also mentioned that it is great mix for those interested in study abroad.  People will select my mix through a category search, but they can also search study abroad and find my mix.  Regardless of how they find my mix, they find Melibee Global.

I searched study abroad on 8tracks.com and two mixes quickly appeared. Both were loaded, not surprisingly, by students. One had studied abroad and shared her ipod mix, the other is preparing to study abroad this fall in Rome and describes her mix as music she knows she will be listening to when she steps off the plane in Italy.

You can also embed your mix into your website (as I did above), which allows students to listen to enticing music while perusing over the facts and figures of your study abroad program.

8tracks.com is a relatively new site. Twitter and Facebook were too, once.  Last fall, 8tracks.com has over 130K unique visitors per day.  Yes, you heard me correctly  – per DAY. And the number is growing, daily.

We know that music is very tied to memories.  We hear a song, we think of a place, person or experience.  Songs “get stuck” in our heads for hours.  Music is a very powerful marketing tool and we should be thinking about how often our students are walking across campus listening to ipods.  If we’re thinking like our students and marketing our programs well, they’ll be listening to our program specific mixes.  If you have a program in Spain – create a mix of songs by the Gipsy Kings and Alejandro Sanz. If you want to have students connect with your program in Kenya – create a mix that includes Kenge Kenge and Suzanna Owiyo.  And if you’re promoting your program in Brazil, you must include music by the legendary Caetano Veloso .

Just hearing Caetano Veloso makes me want to jump on a plane and return to Brazil. I was particularly inspired to visit Brazil after hearing him perform in the U.S. with some Brazilian friends. At that performance, I could feel Brazil all around me. When I listen to my own mix on 8tracks.com, I am inspired to pack my bags again, especially while grooving to DiDi by Cheb Khaled!

On that note, I’ll leave you with the brilliant Mr. Veloso, one of my all time favorites:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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The Oprah Winfrey show is winding up a legendary twenty-five year run in the United States.  Today, she named Dr. Tererai Trent as her favorite all time guest.  I wrote about Dr. Trent in this post and because she inspired me so deeply.

Please be inspired by Dr. Trent’s latest achievement, with a tad of help from Oprah:

http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Oprahs-Surprise-For-Tererai-Video/topic/oprahshow

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Jessie Little Doe Baird

Language can come home again.  This is the tremendous lesson that I witnessed in the remarkable documentary, “We Still Live Here – Âs Nutayuneânby,” by Director/Producer Anne Makepeace.  The true story of how the Wampanoag language came home recently earned the Full Frame Inspiration Award at the Full Frame Documentary Festival, and it was so very well deserved. Makepeace hands us a gift of an educational tool also;  this film drops lesson after lesson about how culture, language, history and community are deeply intertwined. Here is the trailer (which, in my humble opinion, doesn’t even begin to do the film justice:)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Makepeace documents the story of Jessie Little Doe Baird, a Wampanoag Indian whose dream of her ancestors sparked her to explore her tribe’s native language. The challenge was that no one actually spoke Wampanoag; there was simply no one left to ask. The language had been dead for a century, yet Jessie’s visions of her ancestors trying to tell her something (arriving in her dream with a large book and speaking in a language that she didn’t understand) moved her to seek out what was left of her ancestral language.

The Wampanoag Indians were the first to greet the Pilgrims in 1620 in what is now Massachusetts.  At the time Jessie had her dream about her ancestors, the Wampanoag remaining only spoke English. A determined Jessie sought out documents that had been written in Wampanoag, trying to piece together the language as best she could. Her quest led her to MIT, where she worked with some of the world’s finest linguists, despite never having attended college. (She ultimately went on to earn a master’s degree in Linguistics from MIT – what an inspiration!) Through researching documents, including the Bible – which had been translated into Wampanoag, Jessie began to develop the first Wampanoag dictionary.  When words didn’t exist in historical texts, she pulled words from other native languages and used a formula to develop what the original Wampanoag words may have been. She created new words to define modern items such as backpack and computer.  Her community rallied around her to support her efforts, illustrating that it truly does ‘take a village.’  We experience Jessie’s leadership and also the strength and passion of the Wampanoag community.  Without them, her work would not have been possible.

Jessie’s and her community’s passion for their culture moved them to teach Wampanoag to a new generation. Jessie’s young daughter, Mae, is the first native Wampanoag speaker in SEVEN generations! I literally had chills watching Jessie and Mae speak in Wampanoag and while writing notes during the film, I kept writing MUST BLOG, MUST BLOG. It was the first film that I saw at the festival that moved me to my core and made me feel incredibly empowered!  After all, if a busy mother can resurrect a language and a little girl can learn a completely new language, perhaps we can learn one too.

This film is an exciting new educational tool. It illustrates the power of language and how we can learn about a people’s culture and history through it. For example, the Wampanoag word used to describe how they were losing their land literally can be translated to “fall off your feet.” There are a variety of words to describe water in this language:  lake water, river water, drinking water, etc.  There is plenty of evidence that the Wampanoag people prayed using the Bible simply because they knew it would provide the right to stay on their land, which was vital to their culture.

It is a film that should be shown to students studying languages – any of them – because it shows the power of language and the gift of learning one. I challenge you not to want to pick up a language class after seeing this film.

International students will benefit from this documentary, as it serves as a meaningful history lesson on the realities of what happened to the native peoples when the settlers came to the United States.  Clearly, it is a film that can easily be included in anthropology and history curricula.

The Wampanoag Language Reclamation Project offers information about where language lessons are taught, the status of the project and more.  The film is for sale through Anne Makepeace’s website.  The fee for educational screening rights is incredibly affordable.

Jessie Little Doe Baird was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2010. The Fellowship is a $500,000, no-strings-attached grant for individuals who have shown exceptional creativity in their work and the promise to do more. Here is more information about her work:

Click here to view the embedded video.