Programs Office where we've been focusing on a program that we called the Xavier China

Experience or the XCE.

This is a study abroad program in china that is now a mandatory requirement for all of

our students to participate in before they graduate.

And I'd like to share this morning some of the lessons and insights that we've gained

from implementing the Xavier China Experience because I think that those insights and those

lessons can be relevant not just for those who might want to study abroad but for educators

everywhere.

So I'd like to go back to our theme this morning about innovation based on tradition. And I'd

like for us to think about what it means to have innovation and tradition in the educational

context.

So let's think of traditional education. For me, I think of traditional structure of having

subjects that are separate, the Chemistry and Physics and Math and English that are

entirely separate from each other.

I think of a structure in an organization where we have several periods in a day that

are usually the same amount of times. For the first 45 minutes, you're in one class.

The next 45 minutes, you're in another class, then 45 minutes after that and so on and so

forth. And everything is sort of predictable and expectations are clear.

Now, this doesn't work for everyone. We've heard speakers this morning who aren't always

so thrilled with that educational setup. But at the same time, there are some really valuable

things I think about the traditional education that are worth preserving.

One thing about an educational system that's very traditional is that it's structured and

it's clear. A student always has very clear expectations of what's expected of him or

her in the classroom, from the time that you stepped into school to the time that you leave.

You know where you're supposed to be, you know where you're supposed to sit, you know

what notes you're supposed to take, what pages you're supposed to read, what essay you're

supposed to write, what multiple-choice questions you're supposed to answer.

And while this can be at times frustrating, on the other hand, it provides very clear

structure for us to learn and acquire very difficult things.

I can't imagine studying Trigonometry or Calculus or Physics in an environment that's chaotic.

The structure and the clarity definitely helps.

In addition to this, many of the things that we learned from a traditional educational

setup are quite intellectually rigorous. It's not easy to learn to solve some of those Physics

problems, it's not easy to do a well-designed scientific experiment; it's not easy to write

a well-composed essay.

And so, to have the structure and clarity and guidance and supervision of good teachers

in a traditional classroom setup are definitely things that are worth having.

But as we've heard this morning and as we know from our own experience, that when we

think about the hours that we've spent in class, when we think about those subjects

that we maybe, we weren't so interested in, there are large portions of our own educational

system that to us can seem irrelevant and boring.

And so what we want to do is to try to think of ways that we can innovate, think of ways

to be more creative, think of ways to energize our educational system so that it can be more

engaging to us.

And so, there have been a lot of movements and a lot of efforts in the past few years

to try to do this. And one of these efforts is something that we call student-centered

learning where you give students the initiative and the choice to figure out what they want

to study and figure out how to study it.

And certainly doing this provides a kind of relevance and engagement to the students that

they wouldn't otherwise have. It allows students to choose topics of their own choice and so

they're motivated. And we all know that when you're motivated, when you have that energy

to do something out of natural curiosity, you'll accomplish much more. Not because of

a grade, not because you're going to fail but simply because you want to. So that's

a real value.

At the same time, I think this kind of student-centered learning is also quite empowering. What we're

telling the students in this setup is that you are in-charge of your education, that

learning is a life-long process and that you need to be active in it.

And what a valuable lesson rather than saying that education is about sitting in a classroom

and being passive and trying to take everything that a teacher is telling you. Now, we're

saying you are - you have the responsibility, you have the freedom, you have the privilege

to learn on your own.

But just as traditional education has its own setbacks, so too does innovation and progressive

education. If we sit in a classroom and we say, "Okay, everyone, what do you want to

study and how is it that you want to study it?" there's a real danger of the education

system becoming a bit aimless.

And let's face it. There are certain standards that we want our students to live up to. There

are certain standards of writing that we want them to be able to achieve. There are certain

standards in Mathematics and Science that they should be able to have before they graduate

and go on to college and go on to the real world.

So we don't want to be aimless in our student-centered approach. We don't want to be aimless when

we try to just come up with all of these innovations.

So what do we want? What would be ideal? I think would be really perfect for all of us

is if we could take the best of traditional education and take the best of our innovations,

if we could have a system that had the same kind of rigor and structure and clarity that

a traditional education provides but is also relevant, meaningful and empowering. But what

would that look like?

For Xavier School, one of the ways that we've tried to do this is through the Xavier China

Experience or the XCE. This happens during the third quarter. So it happens during an

academic time.

And so, in addition to having our students study Chinese language and Chinese culture,

they also have to study Physics and Math and Biology while they're there.

So it's a real challenge. We're trying to again, take the traditional subject areas

and make sure our students keep up with those subjects and at the same time innovate and

say that you can learn while being abroad, you can learn while being in a foreign environment,

you can learn outside of the classroom.

And we have three programs that we offer students. And they can choose one before they graduate.

So 7th grade students who are 13 to 14 year olds here, they have a chance to go to Southern

China and spend six weeks in Guangzhou or high school sophomores have the option to

go to South West China and study the diversity of Yunnan province.

And our seniors have the chance to go to the capital of China in Beijing where there's

a rich sense of history and a rich sense also of development.

And what we want to do is make sure that this is relevant and engaging and at the same time

rigorous and difficult, challenging. And one of the ways that we do this is providing certain

themes to our educational process rather than subject areas.

So what do I mean? What I mean is that when our students go to Beijing as a good example,

they aren't taking courses in English or Social Science or Filipino. They're taking classes

in a theme.

One theme that we see in China is all of the societal and cultural change. So we have a

course entitled Societal and Cultural Change. Because if you go to Beijing, you might go

see a place like the Great Wall of China, 500 years old or 600 years old. You'll be

able to appreciate the richness of China's history and China's past.

But at the same time, maybe the same day, you can go see the Olympic venues and see

how China is modernizing and developing at a very rapid pace.

And so, there are a lot of discussions to be had about how does China deal with all

of that societal change and how should we as Filipinos or anywhere in the world deal

with rapid cultural and societal change. So we feel that's quite relevant and quite engaging.

Something similar occurs in our Yunnan program for High 2 Students. They go to South West

China. I mentioned, it's an ecology rich and diverse environment. They're taking Biology

in their sophomore year. And during the third quarter, they focus specifically on ecology.

So what better place to study ecological diversity than Yunnan province? Early in the trip, they

get to go up North to a town called Lijiang and they get to see and experience the wetlands

just by Lasher Lake. But a few weeks later, they go down to Southern Yunnan province where

it's quite tropical and they can walk around the tropical rain forest park and see the

biodiversity there.

So now, we've moved beyond just real life themes, but we've also have a real life setting,

we have real life activities, we have real life instruction. And these courses end up

being some of the most highly rated programs that we have based on our post-program evaluations.

But it's not just fun and engaging. Our students on those same evaluations also say that these

programs are some of the more difficult programs that they've had, that they do more work in

the XCE than they would do in a typical third quarter at Xavier.

And the reason is that the assignments that we give and the projects that we give cannot

be solved simply by reading a book and they cannot be solved simply by listening to a

lecture.

In the Beijing program, we have a course called Local and Global Citizenship. And our students

are tasked to go out into Chinese universities and interview university students about their

opinions on Chinese citizenship. They then come back to the classroom and have a dialogue

about what it means to be a Filipino citizen and what it means to be a global citizen.

And they collate all of their ideas and then we go to the Philippine Embassy in Beijing

and present our ideas to the Ambassador and to the Consuls there.

And it's a wonderful dialogue because we also get to hear the perspectives of professionals,

of public servants who are also talking about their experiences with citizenship on a national

level and on a global level.

So now we have real life themes, real life instruction and now real life assessments

and real life projects. These things are not easy, they're difficult. But probably the

most difficult thing of living in China, whether it's in Beijing or in Yunnan or Guangzhou,

is just being away from home and being in a foreign environment.

This is especially true for our Grade 7 students, again, only 13 or 14 years old. For many of

them, they're away from home for the first time in their lives, away from their family,

away from their friends, away from their support system.

And this comes out, the anxiety and disorientation, that that causes comes out in different ways

when they're there.

This is a picture of some students that I was with. And we took them to local restaurants.

So we went out of the dorm, away from the canteen. And we went to the restaurant and

I gave the guys the menu and I said, "Order away." And the problem is they don't read

Chinese characters very well.

So they sort of opened the menu and randomly selected dishes, some based off pictures,

some just sort of random. And so, you have a boy there on the left who's looking very

curiously at what he originally thought was a plate full of fried potatoes but in fact

is a plateful of cold tofu. And so, he's trying to decide whether or not he really wants to

eat it.

So this kind of disorientation happens all the time. It happens when they're doing laundry

and they pull out pink underwear because they threw in a red t-shirt along with the mix.

And so, they're trying to figure these things out for themselves and there is anxiety, there

is fear, there is frustration. But by the end of the program, there's also a sense of

responsibility, of accountability, of real achievement.

And many of our students much later into high school and even after high school point back

to the Grade 7 experience as one of the most transformative and meaningful programs that

they had in their Xavier education.

And I think it was this experience of being lost, of being out of your element, of being

confused that was so educational. And this is what we try to do even for our older students.

For example, those in Beijing. For someone who studied abroad in Beijing, I know what

it's like to have to go on a lot of tours, to get on a tour bus, to get off the tour

bus and follow a tour guide who tells you where to go, what to see and what's worth

knowing.

And I have to say that this, just like some of the lectures and textbooks that I read

in a traditional classroom setup, this is a traditional tour setup. And it can also

seem boring.

And so, we wanted to provide some of that empowerment to the students. And so, what

we say is that once a week or twice a week, the students get to design their own itinerary.

They break into small groups of 11 or 12 accompanied by a faculty mentor and we tell them that

you can go anywhere in the city that you wish. You can do whatever you want.

We just have a few conditions. One, you stay with your group. Number two, you make an effort

to accomplish those academic projects that you have assigned to you. And number three,

that you only take public transportation. So you can't cheat and take a taxi and show

them where you want to go and get there. You have to ride the buses. You have to ride the

subways. You have to figure it out for yourself.

And inevitably, the groups get lost. My first group in Beijing in 2008 decided they wanted