Changing to learn, learning from change
I’m in the middle of a career change. I graduated with a BA in Political Science with a minor in Journalism from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1998, and since then my primary occupation has been as a journalist. In 2001, the event that changed the world changed my world as well. I had been freelancing in the New York area, mostly covering international trade economics and politics. In May of that year I began teaching a couple of classes at a local language institute in the Ironbound, a predominantly Portuguese-speaking neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey, where I lived at the time. I had planned a field trip with my level II students to visit the World Trade Center and the United Nations on September 11. I thought it would be a good idea to elevate the class discussions we were having on immigration and working in the U.S. by doing a lesson on international integration and cooperation. This soon turned out to be an ironic subject as the PATH train we were on stopped just before...