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1 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Nut roasting causes hopper fire ... Ashland man used girl to make sex videos ... Fringe Festival underway at SOU ... Nut roasting causes hopper fire ... Ashland man used girl to make sex videos ... Fringe Festival underway at SOU ... Fulbright exchange sends AHS teacher to Peru for a year By Jennifer Squires,Ashland Daily Tidings DailyTidings.com By Jennifer Squires,Ashland Daily Tidings Posted Jul. 28, 2005 at 2:00 AM Updated Jan 4, 2011 at 5:17 PM By Jennifer Squires,Ashland Daily Tidings Posted Jul. 28, 2005 at 2:00 AM Updated Jan 4, 2011 at 5:17 PM » RELATED CONTENT • AHS alumna wins prestigous Fulbright grant » Social News While preparing for her yearlong teaching assignment in Iquitos, Peru, Ashland High School Spanish teacher Dana checked in with locals to see what types of materials she could bring with her. asked if there were overhead projectors in classrooms. & Uh, no,& was told. So she double-checked to make sure there was electricity in the building. & If you ask them to turn it on,& she was told, & but that& s in public schools.& plans to truck along a laptop and boxes of books, but wanted to see what other learning methods she could employ at the all-girl private school where she will be teaching English to students ages 12 to 16. & I& ve never taught English, but I& m a native speaker and I& m highly trained,& said . She will spend a year in Peru through the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program teaching five levels of conversational English, giving English lessons to other teachers at her school and instructing the highest level of English grammar. Important exchanges is one of approximately 170 U.S. citizens who will participate in the teacher exchange during the 2005-06 academic year. The program, which is sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs under the U.S. Department of State, sends American instructors to more than 150 countries worldwide to increase mutual understanding between the United States and the rest of the world. & Anybody who& s been on a Fulbright who returns will tell you ... it& s not a vacation, it& s a lot of work and it& s a difficult assignment because you& re having to adapt to a new culture,& said Arnold Bleicher, a Spanish teacher at North Medford High School who was a Fulbright teacher at a public school in a small town just south of Santiago, Chile, during 1991-92. & But it& s wonderfully worthwhile.& He was one of the first & if not the first & Fulbright teacher to enter the country after Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet left power. Bleicher taught 340 students at the school, which had no computers and no textbooks. & It was really an eye-opener to what can be done with little resources,& Bleicher said. & I came back more fluent and better prepared.& The experience made Bleicher a better citizen, he believes, because it taught him to be more grateful for all of the benefits American citizens have. The year also helped him bring culture into his classroom in Medford because he had insights and stories to share with students. The impact a Fulbright teacher reaches beyond the students in the classrooms abroad and back home, though. Luisa Rodriguez, a teacher from Spain, traded places with Ashland High foreign language teacher Abram Ditman through the Fulbright program during the 2002-03 academic year. & It was really hard because I& m not a specialist in teaching Spanish,& Rodriguez said. & It was new, but it was really, really good.& It was especially good for , who met Rodriguez during her one-year tenure at AHS and became interested in the Fulbright program. & I didn& t realize it was going to affect me,& said. & I& m the one who gained the friend.& Abroad again With 25 years& teaching experience, has studied and worked at the Universidad de Guanajuato and spent a year at the Universidad de Puerto Rico. The opportunities to live abroad strengthen her language skills and give her more stories to bring back to her students in Ashland. Iquitos, considered the gateway to the Peruvian Amazon, is the largest city in the world that is accessible only by air or water. & I& ve been at Ashland High School six years,& said. & I need to renew my skills.& Carmen Perez-Murro, a 29-year-old Peruvian teacher with a background in acting and dancing, will take over & s classroom at AHS for the upcoming school year and teach second- and third-year Spanish students. Perez-Murro has lived and taught in England, and believes the woman was selected for the position in Ashland because of her artistic interests. & My school is letting me go and supporting me,& said. & And they& ll gain from this a woman who can dance. Maybe she& ll do food. Maybe she& ll do songs.& Trained as a media specialist, or librarian, plans to do projects involving the environment, food and cultural sharing while in Peru. She set up a Web cam in an environmental science classroom at AHS and hopes her students in Iquitos will be able to interact with Ashland students through cooperative blogs or other methods, depending on her access to computers and the Internet. The Fulbright program has exchanged more than a quarter million people since its inception & 100,900 Americans have studied, taught or researched abroad, and 166,600 students, scholars and teachers from other nations have done similar work in the U.S. Staff writer can be reached at 482-3456 x 3019 or [email protected]. By Jennifer Squires,Ashland Daily Tidings DailyTidings.com By Jennifer Squires,Ashland Daily Tidings Posted Jul. 28, 2005 at 2:00 AM Updated Jan 4, 2011 at 5:17 PM » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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