Teaching Study Abroad at the End of the World
Dispatches from a month of global education in Rome, Italy
You can hear the ubiquitous coughing. The sort of cough that has a raspy, almost wet sound to it. You can see it on people’s foreheads as beads of sweat gather into drips and on the damp backs of shirts. You can smell it in the air. It smells like a wood burning stove, but the smoke is mixed with plastics and metal. The tar that covers some of the sidewalks melts as you step on it, leaving an impression of your shoe. All these details sound like the setting of an end of the world story. But now imagine you are actually there guiding twenty students on an immersive, study abroad experience throughout all these events. What can you do to encourage active learning while facing these increasingly existential threats?
I spent June 2022 teaching a university study abroad course in Rome, Italy as well as other parts of the country. The day my students and I arrived in Rome was the day Italy removed the mask mandate for public transportation and coincided with the beginning of a record heatwave that spread from Italy to most of Europe. The pandemic and heat concerns were compounded by wildfires that burned uncontrollably during the month which caused ash to occasionally fall from the sky like warm snow.
