The students are here!

Off we went with our 150 or so students on board (we will pick up some more when we get to China), and almost immediately hit rough seas :( Not a great introduction to life on the ship for many of them... The lines at the doctor's office were pretty long that first day.
But with all that, we managed to have a "circle of global friendship" ceremony on the deck (pictues to come) and found out all the different countries people came from. It turns out that with the crew members on board, we have over 50 countries represented here!
We have all learned to speak slower and look into a person's face when we talk to make sure they understand us!

The students have brought lots of excitement into our fold. Many of them it is the first time they are on a boat like this and/or traveling so far from home. Many seem very young to me, so they remind me of my kids every day :)

Here is a part of the speech our executvie director made as we welcomes the students:

“The buzz word in a lot of campuses nowadays us the internationalization of education, essentially through study abroad programs. If you go on a semester abroad, you experience mostly a certain university, a certain country, a certain culture. On this voyage, The Scholar Ship, you experience several of the above in one…Moreover, the intensity of the program and life on the Scholar Ship campus provides a total immersion type of environment with an abundance of learning opportunities. The program we are in is a unique project that is fully international in the constitution of its faculty and student body, transnational in scope, vision, and a combination of theory and field study.
While this environment offers so many opportunities, it also imposes some constraints on our freedom of action, of movement, because others need to enjoy their freedom as well. Therefore, the respect of others’ freedom us not only desirable but necessary for the physical, emotional, and intellectual comfort and integrity of all of us…this environment provides countless opportunities for learning and experiencing different ways of seeing and doing things; from classes taught by different faculty from various schools and traditions around the world, to classmates and shipmates from very remote parts of the globe, to the challenges of a closely knit community the members of which come in with different values and habits.
I invite all of us not only to seize the opportunities that present themselves to us, but to be entrepreneurial and take initiatives to help create other opportunities in the very fertile environment we have been fortunate to find ourselves in. You are the young men and women of today, future leaders of tomorrow. As the world is getting smaller and smaller, this is a wonderful and one of the best simulations of the study and work environments many of you are likely to find yourselves evolving in.
You have chosen the Scholar Ship for its richness, its diversity, its mobility, its multi-institutional courses and its program based on standard classroom education as well as experiential learning, its perspective and mission, in which intercultural communication skills and the awareness of global issues hold highly privileged places. ..
Let us open our eyes, our minds, and our hearts, and start the most exciting journey together as a multicultural learning community. With our collective will and effort, nothing can stop us from reaching the goals of our voyage and beyond!"

I had a chance to meet some of the students I will start teaching tomorrow. I have students from the US, Germany, Spain, Finland, Denmark, Ghana, Russia, Mexico and Bermuda so far. They are all trying hard to mingle with other not from their home country and the staff is working hard to initiate many such encounters. It is amazing to see that already on the second day of the drip, the breakfast tables are mixed and convesations are flowing freeily between people from very different backgrounds.

Today I met one of the few "adult learners" on board. She is my age and comes from Montreal. She is haring a room with a girl from Finland who is her daughter's age. She confessed that they both feel a bit out of place, but she is trying to connect with others while her rommate is somewhat reserved and shy. We have a wonderful psychologist on the ship (an Egyptian woman) who, I am sure, will be very busy in the weeks to come...

I am off to a planning session for our "learning circles" which are the equivalent to an academic department and will govern our port programs. I will help lead at least 4 of those programs in different countries, which will be a challenge, I am sure. We will need to make sure students are learning not only in the classroom but also as they visit each country. My students will be keeping a video journal to document their experiences. I plan on posting them all to YouTube once we are done, so everyone can share in this unique learning experience.

What is a Learning Circle?
A Learning Circle is an academic “home” in The Scholar Ship program, similar to a university department or division, which organizes the exploration of themes in an interdisciplinary area of study.
A Learning Circle is also a group of students, professors and other staff who explore a set of related themes through classroom study, planned activities onboard, port programs, and informal interaction.
A Learning Circle is a set of related subjects (classes) addressing themes that meet the programmatic objectives of The Scholar Ship.
Throughout the voyage, members of each learning circle participate in academic field study during port calls to explore themes belonging to their learning circle. Members also gather in small groups to share how their knowledge and perspectives gained through study and experiences relate to the themes of their particular learning circle. Through these interactions, students attain a broader understanding of the material they are studying, and from a more practical and holistic perspective.