Social Justice Curriculum (Absolute School of Leadership)

So far Mexico has been a blast, but it hasn’t been all play and no work, I assure you.  Although we haven’t yet had a Hero Holiday group come down, we have kept busy with our social justice curriculum. We have class for three hours in the morning everyday, where we look at the outlined curriculum, which so far has been pretty cool. First there were tips  on surviving culture shock, understanding new cultures and the differences between them. We looked at worldview and discussed our own personal values, which got a little heated at times and pretty deep.  We’ve also covered different religions of the world. Sometimes its a discussion, sometimes we research and present to the group, but never has it felt like a massive load of work because it is all information that I am really interested in (its usually never a really huge assignment, and we get a lot of free time to do it).  We’ve only been at it for a few weeks now and so far I feel I will definitely have a greater understanding of poverty and the world when I am through. I’m very excited to get into all the aspects of it.  It is a big look at poverty, as well as looking into NGO’s and what the government is doing for aid.  This should significantly help me next year when I plan to head to university to study International Development.  This course will give me what I put into it so I am making a large effort to really understand everything that is going on in class.  In high school, I learned to pass a test. Every once and awhile there came a long an interesting subject or class that I really enjoyed, but for lots of it I finished my homework to get a good grade, how much I actually retained…well I think back to what I learned and lots of it is very foggy:)  This class doesn’t have a grade point average, but I’m working harder to do a better job and learn more because it is all something I really want to know more about.  (Tara)