Students right here in the Midlands are getting some international insight thanks to a teacher exchange program.  Ridge View High School is taking part in the international exercise.

"It makes me feel like what I do is actually valuable because teaching is kind of an international profession," said exchange teacher Lydia Akullu.

Akullu's teaching career has taken her around the world.  The teacher from Uganda has spent the past three weeks in Columbia as part of a teacher exchange program at Ridge View.

"One thing I've realized is students are students, no matter where they are," said Akullu.

But one thing that differs greatly is what learning materials are available.

"There, the internet is kind of a dream to most of us," said Akullu.  "The books, we don't have many.  The few that are there, most of them are archaic. We need to update them."

"I think my students have started to understand that the facilities that we have here in school and in medicine are not what they have in Northern Uganda," said Diane Melton.

Melton is the school's Health Science Instructor and says the exchange initiative offers students like Ericka Jordan worldly knowledge.

"Be grateful and don't take things for granted, cause some people don't have the things that we have," said Jordan.

Akullu hopes she's inspired the young people to follow her lead by leaving their comfort zone.

"I want them to know the world is beyond South Carolina, and there is more to explore," said Akullu.

It's a goal that Akullu says has many rewards.