AMS teacher headed to South Africa, Middle East

By Jim Tatum
Summerville Journal Scene??

Sixth grader Sara Mueller is learning where Bahrain and Qatar are located as Woods?points to where Vasco Da Gama rounded the tip of South Africa on?the way to India.

Anyone who has sat in on a Pren Woods class project knows the man goes the extra mile to make learning fun, interesting, effective, and relevant.

This summer, the popular Alston Middle School teacher will be going the extra mile ? or more specifically, the extra thousands of miles ? to add to his already formidable array of knowledge and experience as he spends most of his summer in Africa.

Woods was recently chosen to participate in two foreign study programs, the Teachers Educating Across Cultures in Harmony (TEACH) program, with which he will spend a week in Bahrain and Quatar. He has also been selected as recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities-funded summer institute, South

Africa:?History and Culture. He will spend five weeks in South Africa following his trip to Bahrain and Quatar.

TEACH is a program aimed at cross cultural exchanges and increased knowledge between

educators in the United States and the Arab World, Woods said. Hosted by the Bilateral US-Arab Chamber of Commerce, the purpose of the symposium is to raise awareness, understanding, and cooperation between educators in the United States and the Middle East, he said.

?I think these are wonderful opportunities on so many levels,? Woods said. ?It?s an opportunity to explore the question of academic freedom, for example. There is so much I want to explore.?

Woods is no stranger to foreign junkets; indeed, his life?s journey seems to be in large part a quest for knowledge, understanding, and perspective from all over the world.

?I feel like it is incumbent upon me as a historian, educator, and human being to learn as much as possible about the Middle East from those voices themselves ? voices which have been distorted and marginalized,? he said. ?In a practical sense, I see the Bahrain and Qatar institute building upon my coursework on the Middle East at Oxford University (Exeter College) and my recent Fulbright to Turkey. I feel like I am getting better tools to combat the ill-informed and sometimes prejudicial views about this part of the world, roles of women, and Muslims.?

As to the South African trip, Woods says he is looking forward to five weeks he will spend there. That trip will involve quite a bit of travel, with stops in Capetown, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Johannesburg, and many other points of interest.

In fact, Woods is especially looking forward to this trip because it will be his second time there, he said. As a Fulbright Scholar in 2007, he traveled and studied in South Africa and said he is very interested to see what changes may have occurred since that time.

?I am excited about my return to South Africa,? he said. ??Specific areas of research for me include how sectors of South African society are dealing with the HIV crisis, immigration issues and the evolving South Africa with regards to its apartheid legacy. I am curious about emerging civil rights for black South Africans and definitions of race.?

Despite hundreds of years of Apartheid rule and a reputation for being less than hospitable to immigrants, particularly black immigrants, South Africa is nonetheless seen as a veritable cultural and economic ?Mecca? for other emerging and struggling nations, he noted.

?Many of the people seem to take the attitude that, ?it may not be the best situation right now, but it is infinitely better here than where we came from,? Woods said. ??It will be interesting to see what it?s like now ? even only a few years later.?

Woods leaves June 8 for the first leg of his journey; he returns to the U.S. at the end of July, he said.

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