The letter came soon though, and it was Argentina, my first choice! I just had to do a little celebrating... Malbec, my favorite wine, IS from Argentina, after all!
30 August 2009
Acceptance!
The letter came soon though, and it was Argentina, my first choice! I just had to do a little celebrating... Malbec, my favorite wine, IS from Argentina, after all!
23 August 2009
How it all began
Opening of my TEA Application Essay
Sometimes I wish I had one of those jobs where the office would send me off to exotic locations to do business with a foreign branch of the company. As a middle school social studies teacher, there are not a lot of opportunities to travel for business. Since the idea of sitting in an office all day makes me cringe, however, I probably would not last long in the business world no matter what the travel perks were. That is why I am so excited about the TEA program. Combing my two greatest passions, traveling and teaching, the TEA program is a dream come true. Given my strong background in education, experience with travel and teaching abroad, and dedication to creating global ties for my students as they study world history, I feel I am a perfect candidate for the program.
From a young age, my parents instilled in me a relentless curiosity of the world. I saw much of the United States from the backseat of the car as a child, and continued my explorations of the world as an adult. From my first tentative trip to England during college to my upcoming two-week study tour of China, I have spent most of my free time and money traveling, or planning my next trip. For me, travel is not about sitting on a beach or the deck of a cruise ship. My trips are a chance to see the world and learn about cultures both similar and different from my own. There is nothing as amazing as staggering through a dialogue with someone half a world away, trying to find that common human link.
I am lucky that my passion for travel is so beneficial to my career as a history teacher. Teaching medieval world history to eighth graders is difficult. When our curriculum changed four years ago, it was difficult to adapt from US History. From a young age students are encultured in American history, but the medieval world is far removed from their experiences. Worse, it is often distorted from films and video games. To make the connection to the historical world, I have found that the best method is to connect them first to the modern world. Dragging out my photo albums and souvenirs from trips, I began to build lessons around my travel and experiences to show students the importance of understanding the past to function in the world today.
Anecdotes and photos have enhanced my lessons significantly. Being able to show a picture taken from Spain of the Atlas Mountains across the Straits of Gibraltar and tell kids, “I took this. Europe and Africa are that close together,” drives home a lesson about Tariq’s invasion of 711 more than a map in the textbook could. I use stories from a Moroccan bazaar when teaching about trade networks and life before the supermarket. My Renaissance PowerPoint Presentations are full of my own photos taken while wandering around Florence in wonder. Teaching about the Americans in the medieval world is much more real when I can retell the legends I learned from an Incan woman at Ollyantambo after descending from Machu Picchu. I believe it is extremely important for students have this connection to the world they are studying. I anxiously look forward to creating another bridge with my teaching experience in China this month and hopefully again in another location with TEA next year.
TEA, though, is about more than just gathering stories to use in teaching. It is the opportunity to increase my students’ understanding of their place in the world. I try to create a global classroom for my students. They annually participate in a sister-city program with a town near Kyoto, Japan. They write letters and welcome exchange visits into the classroom each spring. Some of them host traveling students in their homes, and others travel to Japan over the summer to visit and learn. This fall, I coordinated a “Pennies for Peace” campaign with my students to support building schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan through the Central Asia Institute. It was so successful that we expanded it to a full-school effort this spring. I hope to add another layer to our global classroom this spring when I travel to China on a teachers’ study tour. The trip includes a day teaching in a primary school in a village near Xi’an, as well as four days teaching at the Dandelion School, a middle school for the children of migrant workers in Beijing. My students have been planning for the trip with me, helping me with everything from learning Chinese to choosing classroom gifts to bring. They have written letters I will deliver to students in China, and I hope to bring back responses to their questions. While there, we will be sharing ideas about differentiated instruction and modifying assignments with the Chinese teachers. It promises to be an incredibly rewarding experience for both the American and Chinese teachers involved in the exchange.
The TEA program is an amazing opportunity to improve my historical and cultural knowledge, as well as my teaching skills. I would love to be placed in a region that I teach about so that I can learn firsthand from the people about the history. Direct experience with another country’s history and culture is more educational than any college course or textbook in learning about the world so I can pass that information on to my students. In addition, we learn best when we teach others. Being able to work with other teachers and share my knowledge with them would improve my own skills in the classroom. I hope that the TEA program would lead to an ongoing collegial relationship with teachers and classrooms in another location, so that through technology and communication, we could continue to learn and share with each other for years to come.
Sometimes I wish I had one of those jobs where the office would send me off to exotic locations to do business with a foreign branch of the company. As a middle school social studies teacher, there are not a lot of opportunities to travel for business. Since the idea of sitting in an office all day makes me cringe, however, I probably would not last long in the business world no matter what the travel perks were. That is why I am so excited about the TEA program. Combing my two greatest passions, traveling and teaching, the TEA program is a dream come true. Given my strong background in education, experience with travel and teaching abroad, and dedication to creating global ties for my students as they study world history, I feel I am a perfect candidate for the program.
From a young age, my parents instilled in me a relentless curiosity of the world. I saw much of the United States from the backseat of the car as a child, and continued my explorations of the world as an adult. From my first tentative trip to England during college to my upcoming two-week study tour of China, I have spent most of my free time and money traveling, or planning my next trip. For me, travel is not about sitting on a beach or the deck of a cruise ship. My trips are a chance to see the world and learn about cultures both similar and different from my own. There is nothing as amazing as staggering through a dialogue with someone half a world away, trying to find that common human link.
I am lucky that my passion for travel is so beneficial to my career as a history teacher. Teaching medieval world history to eighth graders is difficult. When our curriculum changed four years ago, it was difficult to adapt from US History. From a young age students are encultured in American history, but the medieval world is far removed from their experiences. Worse, it is often distorted from films and video games. To make the connection to the historical world, I have found that the best method is to connect them first to the modern world. Dragging out my photo albums and souvenirs from trips, I began to build lessons around my travel and experiences to show students the importance of understanding the past to function in the world today.
Anecdotes and photos have enhanced my lessons significantly. Being able to show a picture taken from Spain of the Atlas Mountains across the Straits of Gibraltar and tell kids, “I took this. Europe and Africa are that close together,” drives home a lesson about Tariq’s invasion of 711 more than a map in the textbook could. I use stories from a Moroccan bazaar when teaching about trade networks and life before the supermarket. My Renaissance PowerPoint Presentations are full of my own photos taken while wandering around Florence in wonder. Teaching about the Americans in the medieval world is much more real when I can retell the legends I learned from an Incan woman at Ollyantambo after descending from Machu Picchu. I believe it is extremely important for students have this connection to the world they are studying. I anxiously look forward to creating another bridge with my teaching experience in China this month and hopefully again in another location with TEA next year.
TEA, though, is about more than just gathering stories to use in teaching. It is the opportunity to increase my students’ understanding of their place in the world. I try to create a global classroom for my students. They annually participate in a sister-city program with a town near Kyoto, Japan. They write letters and welcome exchange visits into the classroom each spring. Some of them host traveling students in their homes, and others travel to Japan over the summer to visit and learn. This fall, I coordinated a “Pennies for Peace” campaign with my students to support building schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan through the Central Asia Institute. It was so successful that we expanded it to a full-school effort this spring. I hope to add another layer to our global classroom this spring when I travel to China on a teachers’ study tour. The trip includes a day teaching in a primary school in a village near Xi’an, as well as four days teaching at the Dandelion School, a middle school for the children of migrant workers in Beijing. My students have been planning for the trip with me, helping me with everything from learning Chinese to choosing classroom gifts to bring. They have written letters I will deliver to students in China, and I hope to bring back responses to their questions. While there, we will be sharing ideas about differentiated instruction and modifying assignments with the Chinese teachers. It promises to be an incredibly rewarding experience for both the American and Chinese teachers involved in the exchange.
The TEA program is an amazing opportunity to improve my historical and cultural knowledge, as well as my teaching skills. I would love to be placed in a region that I teach about so that I can learn firsthand from the people about the history. Direct experience with another country’s history and culture is more educational than any college course or textbook in learning about the world so I can pass that information on to my students. In addition, we learn best when we teach others. Being able to work with other teachers and share my knowledge with them would improve my own skills in the classroom. I hope that the TEA program would lead to an ongoing collegial relationship with teachers and classrooms in another location, so that through technology and communication, we could continue to learn and share with each other for years to come.
01 August 2009
PDP Summary, Fall 2009
Last April’s trip to China has greatly enhanced my teaching. I’ve never seen students as excited to get back from vacation as they were coming into my classroom that Monday. They begged to look at pictures and passed around artifacts reverently. Their questions were endless, about the food, the clothing, the students at Dandelion and everything else you could imagine. Getting to give them a first-hand count of Chinese culture was such a treat and I hope that future classes will be as interested. I feel that many stereotypes were broken down as I talked with the students about schools in China. Most importantly, many spoke of their own desire to visit someday, fulfilling my goal of inspiring students to explore the world.
Historically, the trip was a goldmine of information. The day after returning, I removed many of the internet stock photos from my Chinese history PowerPoint notes and replaced them with ones I had taken. The students are always so much more interested when I can say to them “I took this!” I also enhanced what had been a boring couple of slides about culture with video clips of Chinese Opera and calligraphy, things I learned about while traveling there. I have worked with the other two 8th grade history teachers to incorporate some of my experiences and photos into grade-wide lessons.
Historically, the trip was a goldmine of information. The day after returning, I removed many of the internet stock photos from my Chinese history PowerPoint notes and replaced them with ones I had taken. The students are always so much more interested when I can say to them “I took this!” I also enhanced what had been a boring couple of slides about culture with video clips of Chinese Opera and calligraphy, things I learned about while traveling there. I have worked with the other two 8th grade history teachers to incorporate some of my experiences and photos into grade-wide lessons.
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