ASHBURNHAM
A small group of Cushing Academy students embarked on a 21-day educational expedition last month to the Buddhist nation of Bhutan. The experience brought about a paradigm shift in each that they say will alter the rest of their lives.
The students lived with Bhutanese families, attended Bhutanese schools, explored the culture and met with representatives of the Bhutanese government, including King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck — also a 1999 Cushing graduate — who established a constitutional democracy in Bhutan.
The expedition’s mastermind was history teacher Peter A. Clarke, director of Cushing’s Center on Leadership and Ethics.
Mr. Clarke said he was looking for a country that was dealing with issues of modernization to build a relationship with to share knowledge and ideas.
There is a struggle emerging in the developing world to deal with globalization through the Internet and modernization that is creating cultural tension, he said.
“As a member of the history department, I started to look around for a case study of a country attempting to modernize and deal with those issues,” he said. “Bhutan is going about the process internationally. Ten years ago, Bhutan basically had closed borders and not much contact with the world, except for India and what came in by foot.
“You cannot get in and out of Bhutan unless you are invited,” Mr. Clarke continued. “And I did not want to go as tourists. I wanted an in-depth study and I created a course around it: Dreams of Bhutan. I wanted a long-term relationship between students and faculty to exchange ideas and to learn best practices from one another.”
Two teachers from Bhutan will be visiting Cushing next month.
A lot has changed in Bhutan with airlines, electricity and the Internet, he said, but the country’s leaders are keeping to core values.
“They said, ‘If we are going to modernize, let’s modernize in a way that is consistent with our core values,’ ” Mr. Clarke said. “ ‘Let’s keep this Buddhist principle of well-being at the center of what we are doing while raising the standard of living and education and do it in a purposeful way congruent with Buddhist values.’ ”
Cushing sophomores Shaylah K. O’Connor, 15, of Princeton, Taylor S. Greene, 15, of Hollis, N.H., Jordan T. Comeau, 16, of Winchendon, and Carl A. Jost, 15, of Berlin, Germany, and chaperone Gisele L. Zangari, a math instructor, accompanied Mr. Clarke on the trip.
Bhutan is a country that measures its success by “Gross National Happiness” and not by the acquisition of power, money or land, the students explained this week, very eager to talk about what they had encountered on their journey.
Bhutanese people don’t focus on achieving materialistic goals, they said, but rather on overall quality of life, seeing social progress in more spiritual and psychological terms.
The king, who met with them for almost three hours, is in the process of making his way on foot in the country the size of Switzerland to every one of the homes to personally meet all 7,000 residents.
Several years ago, the residents didn’t have computers, electricity or cellphones, they said.
The children are all very giving and have maintained a certain innocence not seen in Western society, they said, nor do they have the materialistic desires that are seen as a hindrance in their society.
Ms. Zangari said that at every school the group visited, the students and teachers were always willing to offer what they had.
“They said, ‘Please join us in our humble meal.’ It was beautiful,” she said. “Meeting them was a kind, unbelievable experience. Bhutan is a country in transition and we would like to help people become empowered so they can help themselves.”
For Shaylah, who has “never traveled much before,” meeting new people and exploring a new culture was fascinating. She took more than 30,000 photographs while in Bhutan.
“It was a great experience for me to break out of my shell and do something I never thought I would do,” she said. “As we progressed, I felt changed in a way. You’ve never met people like this anywhere else. They may be small, but they have their sights set high. They want to be doctors and engineers, writers and lawyers … Just because the country is in the Himalayas, it’s not going to stop them.”
Taylor said the experience led into her changing career paths.
“It was a personal thing for me, too,” she said. “It changed what I want to do with my life after school. I have always been really into athletics, but now my interest is more in foreign affairs and politics. After going there, I appreciated it more and I’m more drawn to it. I want to set an example for my younger sister and cousins: Don’t just venture into what is expected of you.”
Jordan said he learned more about himself in Bhutan.
“Speaking with so many people there I learned more about who I am and what I want and want to do,” he said. “I’m realizing more what can be changed in the world. There are new winners and losers and the industrial revolution is still going on in different places. I think more about how that affects other places.”
Carl, who contracted food poisoning early in the trip, said he had an epiphany in Bhutan, and he pondered whether Buddhist equanimity is possible in the Western context.
“They often contradict one another — contentment of what you have, no desires and no fear,” Carl said. “Westernization contradicts the equanimity. It is really about detachment from materialistic desires and doing what makes you happy, spending your days doing what you want to do in a productive manner. My idol is Warren Buffet — he personifies the whole Buddhist philosophy. He doesn’t really care about money, success or being famous. I want to strive for that. I want to be able to do what makes me happy so that my activities have some kind of meaning to others.”
For more information on the trip, visit http://bhutan.cushing.org/.
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Article source: http://www.telegram.com/article/20120428/NEWS/104289907/1101/rss01&source=rss
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