CHP Connect
Community as Classroom
April 01, 2024
Like fish that navigate bodies of water, educators live in the invisible waves of learning environments in an academic landscape and navigate through different cultures, requiring both knowledge and experience. As an educator and lifelong learner and a person from Bangladesh living and teaching in the US, I sometimes feel like I am swimming in unfamiliar waters, yet I learn from the valleys and develop strategies to improve my teaching. The experiences and knowledge I have gained have uniquely equipped me with helping students explore new cultures and practices from the public health landscape.
The learning environment should not be within four walls, yet university learning should include social, physical, and cultural landscapes. Examples include taking PH students to community-based organizations, such as EHD, Annis Water Resources Institute (AWRI), and Seeds of Promise and likewise bringing communities like the Myanmar Refugees living in Grand Rapids into the classroom. I instruct students on how to use hands-on tools to assess the social and physical environments of our local community, and learning is reinforced by these hands-on activities and then documented and evaluated as part of assignments.