The Fulbright Fellowship is a cultural exchange program that emphasizes the importance of intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the United States and various other countries across the world through educational grants. The Fulbright Fellowship is considered to be one of the most competitive and prestigious fellowships, with competitively-selected citizens—including students, scholars, teachers, professionals, scientists and artists—traveling abroad to learn about new cultures to refine their own skills and expand their talents. The program provides 8,000 grants annually, and one of the 2018-2019 Fulbright Scholars is IHS social studies teacher Keith Thompson. Thompson will be traveling to Belfast, Ireland for one semester through the Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching program, where he will be conducting research on the role of education in a community. I sat down with Mr. Thompson to discuss this remarkable opportunity and what he hopes to gain from the experience.
Asha Duhan ‘19: Why did you apply for the Fulbright fellowship?
Mr. Thompson: I’ve been teaching US History and politics for eighteen years, and psychology for five. Over time I’ve noticed that students are generally less knowledgeable about political ideologies and how they influence current events, trends, and impact the future. Students and adults also seem to be less comfortable talking to people who don’t necessarily have the same beliefs. While some of this may be due to technological and other dramatic changes since I came to IHS, it is pretty troubling when you think of how important dialogue, empathy, and compromise is going to be in the next few decades. I was trying to find a way to look outside of my classroom and outside of Ithaca to explore how other people were approaching this issue.
AD: What was the application process like?
KT: Think about applying for college. Then think about trying to include everything important you may have done or thought about for the past 40 years. Then try to fit it all in a 20 page or so application process that included 11 separate essays, each limited to a specific number of characters. Then there were further rounds of questions, an international skype interview, a review by the State Department, a review by the US-UK Fulbright committee, and a background check. It was pretty intense.
AD: What will you be doing specifically in the Fulbright program?
KT: It’s funny, when I talk to a lot of people, their first response is, “it must be exciting to be able to teach abroad!” Actually, the Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program is a research grant, so I’m heading to Belfast, Northern Ireland to conduct research. Between the late 1960s and 1990s, Belfast was the center of a massive conflict—military crackdowns, car bombings, and over 3,600 people were killed and tens of thousands injured. Despite this, people have been working for decades to bring together the divided communities and start the healing process. Schools played a huge role in this, bringing together students and schools to share experiences, education, and ideas in order to bridge the gaps and create a lasting peace. Through Fulbright, I’m lucky enough to be working with the Centre on Shared Education through the Queen’s University in Belfast. They helped to pioneer this process, and I’m going to investigate how it works by meeting with educational and community leaders, visiting schools, and taking classes in conflict resolution processes at Queen’s.
AD: What do you hope to gain from this experience?
KT: Professionally, the simplest answer is that if the people of Belfast can use education to help heal after decades of armed conflict, I think they have something important to teach us about how to work through some of the divisions we have in the US, and even in Tompkins County. Personally, while I spend most of my time outside of teaching traveling around the world, I haven’t had the opportunity to settle in one place outside the US and live as a local. I’m incredibly excited to live in Belfast and soak up as much as I can of the local history and culture. Also, much of Game of Thrones is filmed there. So I may be spending a good deal of time hiking in the Dothraki grasslands and Winterfell!
AD: How will you use your Fulbright experience to enrich your teaching?
KT: Besides the general goals of my project, it really is hard to say. Every time I’ve visited another part of the world, it’s changed the way I viewed US History and psychology, and provided plenty of new ideas to share with my classes. As for Northern Ireland, it will definitely give me a different perspective on politics! Why don’t you talk to me next year and I’ll let you know!