The link below is to a podcast that is worth listening to. It’s not directly about international education or exchange students, but indirectly I think it’s relevant. It’s certainly food for thought.
There have been so many debates over the past weeks about why some of the U.S. high school exchange programs chose to return students to their home countries. Many host families, students, and even some coordinators have argued “it’s safer here in the U.S., we don’t have the virus like they do in China/Italy/Spain.” The “it’s not in my town” syndrome has transferred internally as well, as people in the middle of the U.S. where the virus made its way later argued that “we’re not Seattle/New York/San Francisco, it’s not happening here.”
Until it did.
I urge you to listen to the personal story of a husband and wife from Lombardy and Wuhan respectively as they experience the coronavirus path around the world from their home in the U.S. — together, but separated by the timing of how it hits home.
The reporter asks himself and his audience at one point how we can better move from “this can happen to people” to “this can happen to me.” That’s the question, I think, for many things beyond the pandemic.
