Looking behind the curtain

Have you ever asked yourself what goes on behind a curtain on a stage at theatre after a performance? You get the experience of looking behind the curtain with a little more extra effort than by merely consuming the show — namely by being curious in general, asking critical questions and by not being satisfied with the show itself as everyone else. Why is the look behind the curtain so worthwhile? Isn’t the show itself the reason you come to the theatre in the first place?

This look behind the curtain is what we aspired to at our seminar on New Zealand. I’ll try to answer the aforementioned questions as I go along.

Instead of merely looking at what most tourists are attracted to, namely New Zealand’s unique nature and culture — and there’s no need to argue about the reasons for that, we also looked at aspects of New Zealand such as its language, its educational system, the earthquakes, or New Zealand’s foreign policy and asked critical questions for example about the importance of second language teaching, the responsibility of New Zealand’s educational system and teachers for caring for low-performing pupils, New Zealand’s flag debate, the housing crisis, or about New Zealand’s relationship with the USA. We did that in discussions during the seminar, and additionally, by writing whole blogs on some of the issue that interested us. Writing these blogs is an effective way to form your own opinion because you have more time to think about an issue and to view it critically from different angles.

So the look behind the curtain was not only helpful in terms of getting a first, but wide impression of New Zealand, but also in terms of forming your own opinion, and of course, getting more exercise in improving your writing skills.

Visiting the country is visually more impressive, of course. You form a personal connection because you experience its nature and culture live but you don’t necessarily deal with the critical aspects of the country.

Maybe having this inside knowledge and your personal opinion, gained by the look behind the curtain, you learn to appreciate New Zealand’s nature and culture even more, because you know the struggles that have led to what presents itself before you.