Transformations Encouraged by Story Telling

Abstract

As an assistant professor, I reflect on the passing year during which my professional path took me from Texas to the Middle East to design, develop, facilitate, and assess adult and higher education learning at the A merican University in Dubai. One such educational opportunity allowed me to take 27 adult learners from a variety of ethnic backgrounds (Saudi, Iranian, Iraqi, Emirati, Bahraini, Jordanian, Egyptian, Lebanese, Indian, and Kazak) on a faculty-led study abroad course (International Studies: 375) to Paris and Geneva to explore the roles that international organizations--the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), International Court of Arbitration (ICA), United Nations Higher Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), World Trade Organization (WTO), and International Organization for Migration (IOM)--play in business, politics, and global affairs. Cogent testimonies of transformative learning manifested over the span of the course as well as new considerations for facilitating adult learning abroad. I begin this reflection with my own sojourn into international transformative education and finally offer considerations about the use of narrative to encourage transformative adult learning in study abroad programs. As professionals in the field of adult and higher education, we recognize the path into any learning community is riddled with complexities of life exigencies. My own journey into the field of adult and higher education was convoluted by financial hardship, personal doubt, and limited social support. Being the first of 12 siblings to pursue higher education, I found messages and meaning made about higher education to be overwhelming, conflicting, and confusing. Culminating factors, compounded with increased competition in employment, made me wonder if any of the time and money I spent was even worth it. I wrestled with this as an undergraduate adult learner in the context of a transactional, overpriced educational classroom. Toward that educative journey's completion, I found light at the end of the tunnel in an experiential, transformative study abroad course in Spanish language and culture. Moving Toward International Transformative Learning Transformative learning abroad, although not an outright given, can occur through critical reflection, questioning, and social engagement in inherently different ideologies. The result can be a cognitive re-ordering of perceptions, unlearning of stagnant truths, and acceptance of new assumptions. As an educator, one role is to create opportunities for such complex experiences, discourse, and self-reflection, so learners may begin to find inherent dubiety in often long-standing certainty (Kim & Jeris, 2009). Baumgartner (2001) further discusses the function of relationships and sharing experience in the facilitation of transformative learning. As non-Western experiences of adult and higher education learners are largely absent from the expansive pool of transformative education research (Kim & Jeris, 2009), considerations about how complex discourse and sharing experiences emerged in a short-term course abroad was of particular interest. To promote confrontation of complex issues throughout the course abroad, each international organization visit was followed by a minimum 1-hr discussion to unpack and dialogue about various sensitive and non-sensitive political, economic, cultural, and social issues. Creating spaces for critical reflection and dialogue within short-term study abroad curricula offers learners ways to collectively connect with peers and challenge thinking. Interestingly, learners' narratives served as a point of entry into the discussion. Johnson and Golombek (2011) discuss narrative as a description, explanation, analysis, interpretation and construal of one's private reality (p. 490). Sharing stories during the international studies course became a way for learners to identify shared experiences with one another. …