Crossing Borders with Students 4: Involve Cultural Guides

Cultural guides are essential in crossing borders with students. This has become increasingly more apparent through my research of cross-cultural trips and through my personal experiences in leading teams. Often, the cultural guides (in addition to the team leaders) "make or break" the trip ... at least, in regards to student learning. Here is how I described this point in the introductory post to this "Crossing Borders with Students" series.

Involve Cultural Guides.  An ideal cultural guide is someone from the country (or one who has spent significant time in the country), who knows the local language, who also knows American culture, and has an educator mindset. It is best for the cultural guide to be a part of the entire trip, as cultural interpretation can be needed at any time, but an initial orientation and frequent check-ins may also work well.

My Research
In my dissertation research, I studied a college short-term mission (STM) trip to Vietnam. Unfortunately, this trip had inexperienced team leaders without a cultural guide in the country. The main task of this STM trip was to work at an orphanage for children with disabilities, definitely a powerful learning experience. Unfortunately, the director of the orphanage left shortly after the students arrived, leaving them without a cultural guide for their 6 week stay.

I realized the powerful impact of a cultural guide when speaking to the students after the trip. Many of them mentioned how relieved that they were when they met an American professor who was spending the summer in Vietnam as a Buddhist nun. She spent time with the students talking to them about the culture and religion of Vietnam, how it differs from America and the West, and what they should be looking for during their time in Vietnam. This short conversation made such an impact on the students and how they viewed the rest of their trip. She embodied an excellent cultural guide and helped to facilitate learning on the trip; she knew both the Vietnamese and American culture, she spoke the language, and she was an educator. These are the characteristics of effective cultural guides.

My Experience
I have been fortunate to have excellent cultural guides on the trips that I have led.  Here are three examples of effective cultural guides.

• Dominican Republic -- The organization that I use for these trips, Students International, has an excellent model for student trips, especially in regard to cultural guides. They have full time staff members (both American and Dominican) who stay with the team to educate students on culture and help navigate the visit. The students spend time working with local Dominican staff members in their occupation.  Additionally each work site has an intern who is a college student to help the STM team members at the work sites.
• Cambodia -- My trip to Cambodia was not with an organization, but we had an amazing cultural guide, one of my graduate school professors who was living and researching in Cambodia for two years. He was able to arrange housing for our team next door to his family and accompanied us to most of our educational site visits.
• Tijuana, Mexico -- Mexico doesn't seem too foreign to most people living in America, but one of my trips was to Tijuana. It was just a weekend trip, but what made it unique and an amazing learning experience is that we had a student who grew up in Tijuana serve as our cultural guide. Instead of staying on the "tourist track," we were able to go behind the scenes because of our cultural guide.  What a different learning experience as we were able to see what life in Tijuana, Mexico is really like.

The above examples demonstrate the variety of cultural guides; they can look differently ... people from the country or from America, college professors or college students.  However, they should all have the following characteristics.

Characteristics of a Cultural Guide
As I alluded to above, an effective cultural guide needs to have the following characteristics:

1. Experience Living in the Country -- While the cultural guide does not have to be from the country, he/she must have spent considerable time living in the country.
2. Knowledge of the Local Language -- In order to be able to truly navigate the culture, a guide must have a working knowledge of the local language.
3. Knowledge of American Culture -- Although guides can be from the country, effective cultural guides should have lived in American and have a strong knowledge of American culture. In order to understand what visiting students are experiencing, the guide must understand the American mindset.
4. Learning-Centric Mentality -- The best cultural guides are educators (or at least someone who thinks like an educator). A guide must keep learning as the main objective, and look for teachable moments to pause, share, and reflect on an experience.

College Profs Make Great Cultural Guides -- You probably guessed that I would think college professors (and K-12 teachers) can be great cultural guides for all of the reasons listed above ... as long as they have experience living in the country. Many colleges run their study abroad programs with this mindset; they will pay a professor to live overseas the entire year and host semester-long programs for their students. Additionally, these professors can teach online classes for the college when not hosting students in the country.

• American missionaries living in the foreign country would also be great cultural guides as many have support networks ... and they would love to meet with students to share their experiences and ministry.

Team Leaders Do NOT Make Great Cultural Guide -- It is true that team leaders, especially those who are educators, can also serve as a cultural guide for their trip; however, I would not recommend it. Team leaders need to deal with the trip logistics and group dynamics, and these aspects will suffer if the team leaders try to do too much. Ideally, cultural guides and team leaders are two different individuals ... now, experienced team leaders (as I will discuss in the next post) are equally important to the success of the trip.

Problems will arise. In addition to capitalizing on the teachable moments, cultural guides can help to adjust productively to problems because they have local knowledge to problem solve. For example, in Cambodia, our shuttle bus did not arrive to pick us up from the airport. Thankfully, our cultural guide was there to meet us and arranged, within minutes, alternate transportation on tuk-tuks (another cultural learning experience). Without a cultural guide, we would have spent hours figuring out an alternate plan. Things like this happen all the time on cross cultural trips ... transportation breaks down, a wallet is stolen, a student gets sick, weather changes plans, a tourist site is closed, etc. I have heard and experienced numerous stories of teams losing an entire day because of logistical problems. When you only have a few weeks in the country, and you've spent a lot of money for the trip, you don't want to sit in your room for the day when something comes up (as it inevitably will); you need a cultural guide to problem solve on the spot.

Cultural guides enhance learning and allow the trip to run smoothly. If you don't have a cultural guide, it would be worth the money to hire someone (with the above characteristics) to accompany the trip. Be intentional about involving effective cultural guide throughout the trip ... it will make the trip more meaningful.