Hi everyone! A just thought I would post a recent article that really did a wonderful job capturing many of the cultural experiences I had while traveling to Saudi Arabia. The writer of the article below is Steve Bodnar and he did an excellent job researching the topic of my trip before going to print. I was very pleased to read that he had contacted both Josh Beatty from the IIE in Washington DC who helped to coordinate and lead this trip to Saudi, but also to contact Monirah Al-Qahatini, the coordinator for Aramco's public relations, to get additional viewpoints of why this trip was so valuable. Enjoy the reading and be sure to check out the Telegraphs site to see the article there as well.
Shukran
Debbie Hinrichs
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070506/STYLE/70505009
Amherst teacher travels to Saudi Arabia
By STEVE BODNAR, Telegraph Staff sbodnar@nashuatelegraph.com
Published: Sunday, May. 6, 2007
Only a very small number of American teachers have traveled to Saudi Arabia. An even smaller percentage of those educators have been allowed to step foot in a Saudi public school.
Debbie Hinrichs is the first American educator from New Hampshire to do both.Hinrichs, a seventh-grade world cultures teacher from Amherst, was given the rare opportunity to view Saudi public schools in early April as part of a 10-day professional development program called “Educators to Saudi Arabia.”
Hinrichs said she found out about the program through a link on the social studies curriculum page of the New Hampshire Educators Online Web site (www.nheon.org).
She said she decided to apply because she realized visiting Saudi Arabia would be the perfect way to help expand her knowledge and bring that information to her students with more expertise.
“I’ve traveled to France, England, Ireland, Barbados, even to the Canary Islands, but this trip was so different from any other trip I’ve taken,” Hinrichs said amid a variety of Saudi books, clothing and toys she brought from overseas to her classroom at Amherst Middle School. “It’s really once in a lifetime.”
Hinrichs said the trip provided her with a more intimate look at a culture that can often appear quite different from the United States.
But through her experience as an American citizen in Saudi Arabia, Hinrichs said she hopes she will be able to dispel preconceived notions about the Middle Eastern country and deliver a more objective teaching approach when discussing Saudi Arabia to her students.
Traveling with a tour group of 23 other social studies teachers and library media specialists from across the U.S., Hinrichs visited the cities of Dhahran, Jeddah and Riyadh, to explore aspects of Saudi education, history, culture, industry and global relations. The program’s overall intent was to help build stronger relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia.
Aramco Services Co., a wholly owned affiliate of the Saudi Arabian oil company Saudi Aramco, sponsored the program. The Institute of International Education partnered with Aramco to help find qualified teachers to represent the United States on the trip. The educators that visited Saudi Arabia in April were the fifth group to travel there since May 2005.
Joshua Beatty, the assistant director of professional exchanges for IIE who also went on the trip, said the “Educators to Saudi Arabia” is the only program in the United States that offers teachers the opportunity to travel to Saudi Arabia.
“We have been working very hard for educators to experience Saudi Arabia firsthand – not through a lens – but with their own eyes,” Beatty said.
Bridging the gap
Hinrichs said despite going into the program with an open mind, there were still a number of instances on the trip when she would fall back to a Western way of thinking.
“I kept running into my own ethnocentric cultural viewpoints when I was there,” she said.
However, Hinrichs cited the open dialogue with Saudis throughout the trip as a critical way in establishing a better understanding of a Saudi perspective on life.
One aspect of Saudi culture that Hinrichs has continually been asked about regards the mode of dress for Saudi women, which often includes an abaya and hajab, a head covering and dress that together cover the entire body.
“I think I was a very typical westerner, feeling that women were restricted by wearing these garments in a hot climate,” Hinrichs said.
Hinrichs said while she was in Saudi Arabia, she was able to break free from the Western notions about dress, when she observed a mother hold her infant.
“It dawned on me that since birth this child looks up and sees his mom’s eyes,” said Hinrichs with a smile regarding the enlightening moment. “The child could recognize what their mother thinks, as Westerns can with a smile, grin or wink.”
Hinrichs said despite immediately noticeable variations from typical American dress, she was eventually able to see how dynamic and “liberal-minded” many of the women who decide to wear the traditional Saudi garments were.
“The clothing doesn’t speak to who they are,” Hinrichs said. “It’s an interesting part of who they are, but it’s not all of it.”
Hinrichs emphasized that there is no law designed to make women wear the garments, but that many do wear the clothes out of tradition.
Monirah Al-Qahtani, the coordinator of international public relations for Aramco who also met with Hinrichs and other U.S. teachers, said she realizes that there can often be preconceived notions about a culture, thus building a relationship of understanding is vital for two nations to work together.
“As a result of this experience, I am well aware of how people arrive in a new place with concerns and trepidation,” Al-Qahtani wrote in an e-mail to The Telegraph. “I always try to do my best to make them feel at home and secure.”
Al-Qahtani also wrote that Saudi Aramco believes that “open dialogue, transparent communications and meeting face-to-face whenever possible is the only way that people of the world get to truly know one another.”
Hinrichs said her experience will help to bring that understanding to her students.Most of her experience has already been detailed in a blog that was updated almost every day during her trip.
“The blog was an immediate way to give back to the community and to have people follow my trip in small doses,” said Hinrichs of her blog at www.amstosaudiarabia.blogspot.com.
As for now, Hinrichs said she will have to correspond with those she met through e-mails and hope that future relationships grow stronger between the United States and Saudi Arabia.
“I’d love to go back in five to 10 years to see if the changes I saw brewing could take hold,” Hinrichs said.
Steve Bodnar can be reached at 594-6481 or sbodnar@nashuatelegraph.com.
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