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Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Washington, D.C. - Training

I went to Washington, D.C. to discuss global education and meet my Georgia cohort. This experience was amazing on three accounts: 1) Meeting all the awesome teachers who will accompanying me in Georgia. 2) Discussing education with teachers from across the country. 3) Spending an extra day and exploring D.C.




This is Wendy Morales (left), she will be traveling partner from New Jersey. She and I will be traveling to a town called Akhalthiskhe. We will be go teaching with Lela Tsagerishvili (right).

I will be traveling with 11 other teachers from across the country, including Michigan, Alabama, Louisiana, Nevada, South Carolina, Texas, Kansas, Massachusetts, Illinois, New Jersey, and North Carolina.


On Saturday afternoon, I walked around the Washington, D.C. mall and I was saw the Capitol, Washington Monument, White House, Viet Nam Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Korean War Memorial, Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, FDR memorial, and the Jefferson Memorial. As I walked around it gave me a moment to reflect on my life and living in the United States. In particular the FDR memorial spoke to me as it talked about the need to be a global citizen and care for humans.





On Sunday, I went to the Holocaust Museum. This was on of the most moving museums I have ever visited. It proved to me that humans can be cruel, brave, caring, and resilient. I was able to hold my composure throughout the museum until one of the last sections where they show the video telling first hand accounts of holocaust. I think this should be a required museum for all citizens of the world to visit, so that it may never happen again. The only picture I was at the end of the museum:





Afterwards, I visited the Hirsch Museum, a modern art museum, at lunch at the Native American Museum, and then visited the Air and Space Museum. 






Visting Washington, D.C. made me reconsider the 8th Grade Boston trip and made me wonder if we should visit our nation's capitol instead.


Monday, February 22, 2016

Why I Go

In the Spring of 2015, I was one of 82 teachers selected out of 400+ applications to participate in the Teachers for Global Classroom. This program is 100% funded by the U.S. State Department  and is designed to help teach global citizenship and bring the world into the classroom. In the fall, I participated in an eight week long, graduate level web course on creating a global classroom. I just returned from Washington, D.C. for a two day long conference on Global Education. The third part of the program is to have an international travel experience. Finally, I need to bring back all of the information that I have learned to my home community.

Teachers from this program will be traveling to Morocco, Georgia, Senegal, Philippines, India, and Columbia. I was fortunate to be selected to travel to the Republic of Georgia.

My reasons for participating in the program:

1) Go on an adventure.
2) Lead my students and my own family on a virtual field trip.
3) Encourage and inspire others to travel.
4) Improve my teaching and help my students get connected to the world.