Jeff Mucha ’17 – I have been to Chicago many times throughout my life. Most of which have been day trips, or mini-vacations with my family, to the stereotypical tourist areas. However, after being here for a short time I have experiences Chicago in a completely different way.<\/p>\n
I was exposed to Chinatown and ate traditional Chinese cuisine for the first time and have been staying in a hostel, which is a completely new thing for me as well. Despite the incredible experiences outside of the classroom, I would say the most interesting aspect about this trip is actually being in a school, and experiencing a different culture by being immersed in it.<\/p>\n
As I walked into the school, I was greeted by the principal at the door. As soon as I stepped into the building, a huge number of security guards hit me with a barrage of questions, but as soon as they realized why I was in the building, they were incredibly nice to me, and wished me a wonderful day in Wendell Phillips Academy. That really struck me as a unique component of this school, but I was even more shocked at how receptive the students were of me.<\/p>\n
This was the first time that I have been a complete outsider in a room, but many students greeted me with hellos, handshakes, or fist-bumps. The most shocking aspect so far has come from a few brief conversations with my host teacher about her students. Many come from broken homes, and have experienced tremendous loss. These are things I cannot completely relate to, but it is something that has already made this trip so meaningful. I have been given the chance to interact with some of these students, and can hopefully make an impact on them, despite my short time here. Simply being there with a smile on my face, and a willingness to work with them, has made this trip unique, and I look forward to the rest of my time in Chicago, and especially the time spent with these students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jeff Mucha ’17 – I have been to Chicago many times throughout my life. Most of which have been day trips, or mini-vacations with my family, to the stereotypical tourist areas. However, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teaching-in-chicago-2016"],"w_featured_image_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/immersionlearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/immersionlearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/immersionlearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/immersionlearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/immersionlearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1267"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/immersionlearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1269,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/immersionlearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1267\/revisions\/1269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/immersionlearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/immersionlearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/immersionlearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}