Having worked in higher education for almost 11 years now, I sometimes wonder what do I mean when I say “intercultural education.”  Education, to me, is very relative.  You don’t need to go to a college to be ‘educated.’  In fact, I don’t think you need to go to school to be ‘educated.’

On Wikipedia, education is defined as “a form of learning in which knowledge, skills, and habits of a group of people are transferred from one generation to the next through teaching, training, research, or simply through autodidacticism. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts.”

I sometimes feel I’ve learned the most outside of classrooms: during girl talk, extracurricular activities, people watching, or having a one-on-one meeting with a professor during lunch.

Don’t get me wrong.  I loved going to college. I even went to class on behalf of my friends when they were sick. (Apparently, I take great notes ;)).  I love studying.  I love reading.  I love learning, and I’ll always be a life long learner.

Learning comes in so many shapes and forms.  I think the best learning happens when you don’t even realize it.  Conversations to me, whether spoken out loud, through listening to music, reading, and/or visualizing through art is the start to any learning process.  What you’ve learned can’t be unlearned.  You can forget, but you can’t unlearn it.

If what I share on these posts spark something within you at any moment, I think I’ve done my part as an intercultural educator.