Around the District: International Education Day
On December 3, 2008, Los Angeles Southwest College held its fifth annual International Education Day. Twenty six countries and cultures were celebrated with flags flying, native dances demonstrated and food enjoyed by approximately 700 students, faculty and staff.
When Dr. Earnestine Robertson conceptualized International Education Day at Los Angeles Southwest College, she wanted to ensure that it was (1) a positive learning experience where students embrace their own culture and those of other students and residents; (2) a day when students would learn the benefit of having a broad knowledge of the world and how such knowledge makes them more competitive in the domestic job market as well as the international market; (3) an occasion where everyone grows to value the art of negotiation, not obliteration because the reality is that we can’t go to other countries of the world taking resources without consultation and negotiation; and (4) another fun opportunity to learn more geography. This is a collective presentation of faculty, staff, students and administrators.
Martin Luther King once said “before you finish breakfast in the morning you have depended on half the world.” For example, if your drink coffee or cocoa, it probably came from Guatemala, Kenya, Columbia and Spain; If you enjoy bananas, there is a good chance they came from Chile or Nicaragua; Tea, toys and silk from China, and long staple cotton from Ethiopia. When you put on leather shoes, they might have arrived from France, Brazil or Haiti; your phones, computers and technology parts may have come from India and Japan; the tungsten in your light bulbs from Viet Na, and petroleum by way of Saudi Arabia and Russia. The point is that much of what the average American thinks is home grown in America is not. The fact is that we live in a very interdependent world and we are far more dependent on others than we know. International Education Day at Los Angeles Southwest helps to teach such a lesson.
**Remember… “A man’s feet must be planted in his country, but his eyes must glimpse the world.” |
