Learning Outside the Classroom

Often, there will be chances to elevate your learning through hands-on experiences and learning taking place outside the classroom. Over the course of my degree I’ve had the opportunity to participate in a few field trips that have allowed me to connect my learning in the classroom to concrete, real-world scenarios.

Most recently, my SPAN 304 class (Indigenous Latin America, Social Justice, and Environment) had the opportunity to explore the Royal BC Museum’s current spotlight exhibition: Maya: The Great Jaguar Rises.

A RBCM curator led our class on a tour of the exhibit giving us highlights about the process of curating the pieces and was also available while we explored to answer any questions we had. It was incredible to see artifacts and replicas from before the Classic Era all the way up to modern day textiles made by Maya-descendants. The focus of the exhibition was to emphasize that Maya is not a dead culture and that the indigeneity of the peoples in Guatemala and surrounding regions is still incredibly salient.

I’ve included some pictures from the exhibition in hopes that it will prompt others to take this opportunity to learn outside the classroom and support Guatemala in its goal to highlight the importance of indigenous culture. The Maya exhibition will continue to be showing at the RBCM until Dec. 31st of 2019.