Medicine Hat College is sending one staff member and seven students to Costa Rica on Feb. 18 thanks to funding from Global Skilled Opportunities. Manager of Indigenous engagement and student support Chasity Cairns, Student services coordinator global engagement Holly Cavanagh (organizer of trip but not going) and fourth-year education students Tanisha Preston, Matthew Wass and Morgan Fishley.- NEWS PHOTO SAMANTHA JOHNSON
reporter@medicinehatnews.com
Fourth-year education students Matthew Wass, Tanisha Preston and Morgan Fishley are three of the seven from Medicine Hat College going on a much-anticipated trip to Costa Rica that leaves on Feb. 18.
Wass is “looking forward to learning about the culture. As a future teacher, it’s important to embrace different cultures within our own classrooms. Classrooms are more diverse nowadays, so I think it is a great benefit to have knowledge of other cultures and bring that back in.”
Preston is primarily looking forward to seeing the differences in Indigenous cultures.
“I’m Cree and Metis, it will be interesting to compare our cultural teachings and way of life to the BriBri community in Costa Rica,” said Preston.
Preston also feels, as someone who will be a qualified educator this April, that learning cultural responsive strategies that can be used in the classroom will be another beneficial aspect of the trip.
“By going to Costa Rica and furthering those perspectives, then coming home to pass that knowledge onto our students, it’s going to further everybody,” said Preston.
Using this experience to become a more culturally responsive educator is also important to Fishley.
“Learning about the values, practices, beliefs and culture of the BriBri community will give me valuable insight into how I can improve my teaching practice in the future for all my students,” said Fishley.
On a personal level, Fishley is looking forward to the different experiences the trip will offer.
“How often do you get to go somewhere across the world and learn about a completely different culture?”
Manager of Indigenous engagement and student support at MHC, Chasity Cairns, will be accompanying the students on the trip to Costa Rica. She says she’s looking forward to learning the similarities and differences between her culture and the BriBri culture.
“We are going to be learning about their traditional medicines. Getting to know another language, going into their community and learning from another tribe and their way of life in a different environment,” said Cairns. “It’s a powerful thing because Indigenous across the world, we have many similarities. Colonization and how that impacted our communities.”
