It took me 10 years

I finished my biology degree in december 1997 in UPCH in Lima, Peru. A few months later, I started working as an Embryologist in a local fertility clinic. I might have somebody from the other world with a good soul overseeing me, because I’ve felt that in more than occasion that “at the right time and at the right place” situations were there for me.

After a couple months as an apprentice, I was sent to Santiago-Chile to be trained in a top practice by the best people in South america. I was certainly fortunate, and I learned a lot. In the following two years I went on a training tour that took me to places like: La Serena, Viña del Mar, Cartagena de Indias, Buenos Aires, Mexico DF, and Caracas.

After working 3 years in Peru, I decided to move the USA, I was hired by the largest Pennsylvania Health System, and spent 4 years working there as an Embryologist for 4 years.

Working in an IVF lab gives you ann incredible vision of reproductive health and all its low- and high-complexity procedures. Even though is just an expression, sometimes I felt the power of creating life with my hands. It was a very rewarding experience, to help thousands of people achieve the purpose of life, to create new life.

Before I finished working as a lab rat, I started turning my eyes and my interest to a new activity. Medical Interpreting captured my attention and I began training. After a 30-day class, I was invited to participate in the first 2nd stage training provided for Medical Interpreters in Philadelphia, and I was certainly the youngest and, by far the least experienced. I hadn’t been in the field yet. But I felt deeply challenged and I rose to the occasion.

After finishing my job as an Embryologist, I started volunteering in a company that provided training and experience in the interpreting and cultural competence fields, as well as participating in the training of new Medical Interpreters.

I gotta say that it might have been the most challenging and rewarding experience of life, learning astounding life and death experiences in the best children’s hospital in the US, and one of the top three in the world, perhaps the best place a person can work in.

It was during that time when I started experiencing Education. I had to come back to my country because I didn’t want to put me and my family in an unsafe situation remaining in the US after my H1B had expired.

That gave me the opportunity to rethink my professional activity, and started working as an educator in a bilingual school in Lima, Peru. After 6 months working there I decided to work in a another bilingual school, from there on a turn in my career had occurred.

Being part of the Education System brought new challenges that I’m trying to accomplish now by preparing myself in a Teacher Certification Program to obtain a Teaching License, and a Masters in Higher Education.

It took me 10 years to trace some of traveling steps back. In November 2008, I was invited to offer a workshop in the “ICT for Teaching & Learning Creatively” in Rio de Janeiro. From there, I was also invited to Bogota, Colombia to launch the first social network from the LAHC at their 13th Annual Meeting, it was in that meeting that I received an invitation to participate as a trainer and lecturer in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from where I just came back today.

All these experiences made me think of my professional career so far. In 10 years, I have managed to help babies be born (Embryologist), then I helped them with their health care (Interpreter), and now I’m educating them (bilingual teacher). I guess the natural progression is to continue in the post-secondary education, perhaps the post-graduate degree will help me in that unplanned progression.

Global Communication

Several months ago I recieved an email from somebody, the message included a link to a geek test. I took it, out of curiosity. It turns out I didn’t qualify as a real geek, even though I spend several hours a day in front of a computer. But I guess being a computer geek is more a lifestyle that a job description. Although if we watch the british sitcom The IT Crowd, everything mingles into a crazy success on unreal events and situations, funny for sure.

I mention this because I get many comments from people expressing their concern for how “youth is becoming less and less communicative and deepened in computers”. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I can accept that over the last decades most people tend to work out less or even walk, but less communicative, I don’t think that is true.

I can say this because it seems to me that lots of people are very reluctant to big changes, and considering the fact that global changes can happen in a matter of minutes via YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and many more internet resources.

Since I started working very actively in my school’s ICT Area, I have met lots of people online. Ok, I know, that’s one of the major criticisms and jokes from people with over 10,000 friends in Facebook; but the important part of this is that getting to know my professional contacts online has allowed to meet some of them personally, even though I’m on the opposite side of the continent, bringing new possibilities of collaborative projects, exchange of learning experiences and sharing culturally-competent activities.

My contacts, besides family and friends, are almost all professional contacts. These people help me get information, process it and discuss it so I’m able to learn many new things.

Anyway, I’m glad that distances, are virtual, and virtually tiny, because VOIP, video conferences and else, help us reduce distances, time and costs. Important ingredients in any professional stting or business area.

How could I teach my students about technological impact on education if I am not a clear example that learning through global connections is not possible, but necessary nowadays.

Let’s take a look at an interesting journey to technological possibilities in the future, the merchantilistic view is impressive, although hollow.