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Welcome to The Seed Pod: The Bridge Gap Community Podcast. The symbol of The Bridge program is a tree to represent the students as they grow; the seeds are the gifts that they give back to the world as they progress. This podcast is a small representation of that. Every week at The Bridge we have conversations about interesting topics and through The Seed Pod we want to share those with you and make you a part of the conversations. What you will hear are students perspectives on fascinating and controversial issues related on personal growth as they relate to their own lives.
Episode #4. Masculinity: Today the question is; what effect does the title of masculinity have in our society? The Bridge students went into a discussion about what it means to be male in this world and the different perspectives on masculinity, both positive and negative.
Episode #4. Masculinity: Today the question is; what effect does the title of masculinity have in our society? The Bridge students went into a discussion about what it means to be male in this world and the different perspectives on masculinity, both positive and negative.
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Seed Pod - Episode # 4: Masculinity
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Welcome to The Seed Pod: The Bridge Gap Community Podcast. The symbol of The Bridge program is a tree to represent the students as they grow; the seeds are the gifts that they give back to the world as they progress. This podcast is a small representation of that. Every week at The Bridge we have conversations about interesting topics and through The Seed Pod we want to share those with you and make you a part of the conversations. What you will hear are students perspectives on fascinating and controversial issues related on personal growth as they relate to their own lives.
Episode # 3. Consumerism: This week, The Bridge Gap Community students shared their thoughts and feelings about consumerism through various perspectives of culture, generation, social class.
We invite you to listen and keep the conversation going with comments below.
Episode # 3. Consumerism: This week, The Bridge Gap Community students shared their thoughts and feelings about consumerism through various perspectives of culture, generation, social class.
We invite you to listen and keep the conversation going with comments below.
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The Seed Pod - Episode # 3: Consumerism
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Welcome to The Seed Pod: The Bridge Gap Community Podcast. The symbol of The Bridge program is a tree to represent the students as they grow; the seeds are the gifts that they give back to the world as they progress. This podcast is a small representation of that. Every week at The Bridge we have conversations about interesting topics and through The Seed Pod we want to share those with you and make you a part of the conversations. What you will hear are students perspectives on fascinating and controversial issues related on personal growth as they relate to their own lives.
Episode#2. Growing up Nowadays: For this episode we wanted to evaluate the popular presumption that youth today are struggling to grow up more than previous generations, and if there is truth to this, how are they struggling and why are they struggling more?
Episode#2. Growing up Nowadays: For this episode we wanted to evaluate the popular presumption that youth today are struggling to grow up more than previous generations, and if there is truth to this, how are they struggling and why are they struggling more?
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Episode #2 - The Seed Pod
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Welcome to The Seed Pod: The Bridge Gap Community Podcast. The symbol of The Bridge program is a tree to represent the students as they grow; the seeds are the gifts that they give back to the world as they progress. This podcast is a small representation of that. Every week at The Bridge we have conversations about interesting topics and through The Seed Pod we want to share those with you and make you a part of the conversations. What you will hear are students perspectives on fascinating and controversial issues related on personal growth as they relate to their own lives.
Episode # 1: Mental Illness. Today we asked ourselves, is mental illness a thing? How much of it is socially made up? How much of it is rooted in actual facts? In other words: Is mental illness real?
Episode # 1: Mental Illness. Today we asked ourselves, is mental illness a thing? How much of it is socially made up? How much of it is rooted in actual facts? In other words: Is mental illness real?
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by Dr. Danny Recio, PhD, Program Director of The Bridge
Cultural immersions have been historically perceived and studied as a negative, kind of shocking experience (aka “culture shock”), but research now tells us quite the opposite: that these experiences can help us grow beyond what we ever imagined! Intercultural encounters can help us shift and restructure our mental structures, allowing us to make significant growth and life changes.
In our brain, learning happens through the creation of mental structures called schemas. These structures are very useful because they allow us to be more efficient in processing and making meaning of the world around us, which in turn allows us to respond more efficiently to life’s challenges. On the other hand, schemas create blindspots. As we use existing schemas to assess new situations, our brains may ignore or overlook important incoming information and misjudge it, thus behaving in ways that ignore or overlook more beneficial alternatives.
We reinforce schemas through a process called “assimilation”, but can morph or add new schemas through a process called “accommodation”.Accommodative learning contributes more to personal development, as it allows us to change our cognitive structures to adapt to new life conditions and keep on growing. If you want to learn more about schemas, assimilation and accommodation, watch this short video by ByPass Publishing:
As people make more and more accommodative leaps, their schemas grow, and the connection between these structures does too, leading to the development of a highly useful cognitive skill called integrative complexity. Those who possess this skill can take in many perspectives on a situation, collect information from all those perspectives, and come up with efficient and effective solutions to life problems. Research has recently revealed that cross-cultural immersions can lead to the development of higher levels of integrative complexity, because when you interact with people with different schemas, traditions, lifestyles, and worldview, these challenge you to expand and adjust your own. Watch our students reflecting on their cultural immersions, and how they have changed their worldview:
With regards to psychological and emotional growth, the skill of integrative complexity can be very useful, as when people are struggling in these areas, they are often stuck repeating unhealthy patterns, are failing to see or act on other alternatives and thus their solutions to life problems end up being inefficient. However,when they are deliberately exposed to other cultures through a person-centered therapeutic experiential learning approach such as our supportive immersion model, they discover new ways of being that break through old schemas, and build new and more efficient ones.
Through our experience with our students in conjunction with the literature available, we have found four main benefits that come from cross-cultural supportive immersions:
- a clearer sense of self and future orientation,
- an ability to function out of the comfort zone and to deal with adversity,
- an expansion of perspective taking skills, and
- an increase of authentic self-confidence.
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Check out Danny's presentation (along with Andy Myers) at YATA conference (October 2016)!
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Every week our group is given a fixed amount of money to manage and organize weekly events. The role of activity manager rotates between members in the community, giving everyone a chance to learn about the process of budgeting, time management, and organization.
After several months of planning and saving, our guys were able to take advantage of their activity surplus and spend the weekend surfing and relaxing in Cahuita.
The guys utilized public transportation and cooking their own meals so they'd be able to pay for their cabina and recreational time.
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Our recent Aventura found us in San Jerónimo de San Pedro, a small coffee growing community nestled near the new entrance to Chirripó National Park.
The trip's focus was building and reinforcing two bridges along the newest trail to Cerro Chirripó (the tallest peak in Costa Rica). We worked side by side with the community carrying wood, clearing the ground, and hammering nails to complete the project.
This experience strengthened the bond both within our group and with those that we helped.
We aslo taught English classes, completed a hike with seven waterfalls, and made the summit to Cerro Ena, which boasts an altitude of 3126 meters.
This experience strengthened the bond both within our group and with those that we helped.
We aslo taught English classes, completed a hike with seven waterfalls, and made the summit to Cerro Ena, which boasts an altitude of 3126 meters.
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We all had cajuelas (baskets used for harvesting coffee) to fill, which quickly turned into a friendly competition.
This experience gave us insight into the daily life of a coffee farmer in Costa Rica and the effort required to produce one of the country's main exports.
The Bridge participates in weekly cultural activities, and we were fortunate enough to recently visit a coffee farming family in Los Altos de Naranjo, a highland community here in Atenas.
The family led our group through the harvesting process that occurs two to three months out of the year; in addition, they shared some of their family cultivation techniques with the plant.
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