Upper School's Carrera Focuses on Cross-Cultural Communication

“When I was growing up in the Patagonia region of Argentina,” recalls Gustavo Carrera, Shore’s new Head of Upper School, “we had to walk down to the telephone company’s local office whenever we wanted to make a call to Buenos Aires. There was an operator there, a real person, who literally had to connect the wires so we could talk to grandma in the city.”

But today, Carrera continues, he can share pictures with his brother there by e-mail, or Skype with relatives on the beach; a budding entrepreneur anywhere in the world can design a high-tech product on his or her mobile device and have it instantly assembled in a factory in China. “It’s striking,” he observes, “that in just the span of my lifetime, I have witnessed a complete technological transformation, perhaps more so than many. The new experiences it enables, the complexity of the global connections it requires—these truly stand out for me.” They are also extraordinarily significant for students, Carrera adds. “We often think of ‘21st century learning’ as something that’s in the future; but in reality it’s already here.”

Carrera relishes the opportunity to talk about his students’ experiences. “Spending time with young people is what I do,” he emphasizes. “Enabling students and faculty to have experiences together is what my job is all about.” He may talk a lot about technology, he admits, but he views technology as “a tool that allows us to communicate with each other, to know each other better, to break down barriers.” After all, students’ experiences in school aren’t that radically different than in the past, he explains. “One of the things I really appreciate about Shore is the continued emphasis on traditional pedagogical approaches like the Harkness method. The grounding in collaboration, a team approach to the world—these are very important for the century in which we are living.”

At the same time, Carrera says, when you consider the global economy, while these foundational skills may be the same, a new emphasis is needed on seeing things through a greater variety of perspectives and media than ever before. “It’s going from collaborating across the Harkness table,” he elaborates, “to collaborating across continents, manipulating and synthesizing a world of instantly accessible information, and creating something new.”

The child of immigrant parents, and a product of the multi-lingual, multi-ethnic culture of Buenos Aires, where he attended school, Carrera has made cross-cultural communication an area of special focus. “One of the things I learned very early was the value of speaking many languages,” he observes, “not just as something that is impressive in restaurants, but as an essential component of cultural proficiency. Especially in schools such as Shore, where we are really part of the greater Boston urban area, we can be sure we’ll have students whose parents have come, or will soon be coming, from all over the world.” The technology economy of the Route 128 corridor, he suggests, will continue to attract ever more culturally and linguistically diverse populations to the area. “Our students must be able to interact with people from all over the world.”

Carrera’s long engagement with and scholarly work around ideas of cross-cultural interaction and influence recently received notice by the World History Association, a major professional association of scholars, teachers, and students, which presented him with its 2018 Teaching Prize for a middle school curriculum he designed, “The Struggle for Freedom & Equality is World Wide: The Cold War, Civil Rights & Decolonization.” The broadly conceived lesson plan and supporting materials examine the intersection between the Civil Rights movement, U.S. foreign policy, and decolonization in Africa. It looks at how African independence movements were central to the Civil Rights movement, and vice versa; and it considers how both of these were shaped in the environment of the Cold War. “Social justice and international relations have always been areas of passion for me,” Carrera admits. “At the same time, this curriculum asks students to approach history from multiple perspectives, which is key.”

Looking ahead, he sees the related field of urban studies as increasingly important in any curriculum. Carrera explains that today, 50% of the world’s population lives in cities, but by 2050, it’s projected that the percentage will grow to almost 70%. Another statistic to watch: cities today already consumer over 75% of the world’s resources and produce nearly the same percentage of carbon emissions—all while occupying just 2% of the landmass of the planet. “When you look at the world through the lens of cities,” he says, “understanding where we live, understanding the globe as a network of cities, becomes critically important.” That understanding, Carrera continues, translates into thinking about global issues such as sustainability, transportation, equity, and consumption. “The global is indeed local.”

Still, he acknowledges, “Thinking about global challenges can be overwhelming for anyone. This is why I encourage my students to focus on local needs and actions, even while thinking globally. Looking at global problems through a local perspective can be incredibly empowering for young people; we want them to gain a sense of ‘civic agency,’ the feeling that they can make a positive impact in their community and the world.”

Carrera speaks often of his role as facilitator, someone who sparks conversations that lead to action. “Anybody who has been part of a Harkness discussion in a thoughtful way,” he elaborates, “knows that at the core of that approach is helping students experience a work of literature or a source text for themselves. This is one of the things that excites me most about teaching—being able to create those situations in which people are able to talk to each other and learn from each other, and where my voice is not the most prominent one in the room.” In the 19th century model of education, Carrera explains, students were often trained away from any sense that they could participate or lead the conversation; this model lingers well into the current century. “But what is wonderful about Shore is that the voice of the student is elevated and respected, in ways you don’t see elsewhere. It’s something you can feel in the bones of the school.”

Like the concept of character, says Carrera. “Character is not a thing that you have or don’t have,” he argues. “It’s something you develop, by experiencing things like Shore’s overnight trips or the House system.” Sometimes, he says, we tend to think of character in terms of following the rules; but character is much broader than that. “It’s about leadership, but also about the ability to collaborate. When you’re backpacking, sometimes you are the leader, and sometimes you are the person bringing up the rear. Sometimes, you don’t have all the skills that are needed, and you ask for help from others. Personally,” he admits, “when I have to put together a tent, I usually turn to somebody else to tell me where those poles are supposed to go.” It’s all part of developing character, says Carrera.

So, too, is that sense of civic agency he describes. “We need to help our students realize that we live in a world that is intertwined, teaching them competencies that will help them do well in the world, but don’t preclude them doing good.” There is a mythology that doing well and doing good are two separate things, he acknowledges. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I think you can do both. In fact, the skills that you need to do one of these are the same as those you need for the other.”

Patagonia, the region where Carrera spent so much time as a child, is incredibly empty. It’s possible to drive for hours and not see another human being; road signs warn drivers when they’re about to pass their last chance for gas. Perhaps it’s surprising, then, that the Head of Upper School claims, “I’m a city guy at heart; the writer Jonathan Rose, the author of The Well-Tempered City, said that cities are humankind’s greatest invention, and in many ways I think that’s true. I love everything cities add to life.” Yet Carrera, along with his wife and two daughters, has just as much appreciation for the wilderness. “We love to go hiking. We like the mountains, and the cold. Our favorite escape is the Berkshires.” His youngest daughter, six-year-old Camila, is now a veteran of these adventures. “She often has a better idea of how to do things—like assembling a tent—than I do.”

This fall, Carrera looks forward to bringing his lifetime’s worth of experience reaching across landscapes and cultures and, of course, his innate trust in the good sense of children, to Shore’s Upper School. “The kids are so wonderful, so open, so welcoming, so bright and bubbly. I want to know them better, to know their families, and to know my colleagues.” His job, he says, is to empower them all for the information revolution, the globally connected future, that has already arrived. He will have help in this endeavor. Preparing for this moment of change, says Carrera, is something our school has been doing for many years.

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Upper School's Carrera Focuses on Cross-Cultural Communication

Shore Country Day School