There are many similarities and differences between schooling. One of the noticeable differences is how state testing is implemented. Before my trip, Springfield Middle School was just completing weeks of testing: the PSAT for 8th grade; NWEA reading and math for all grades; and the Michigan M-STEP test for all grades. It took many months of planning, scheduling and completing paperwork. These tests also take a lot of the teacher’s time away from classroom instruction.

On Tuesday, (yes two days ago) this school was told that they would need to administer a Math test to all of the middle school students today (Thursday) as would other schools across Mexico! Students are being given 2 hours to complete the exam and they’re doing it with pencil and paper.

In Michigan, most of our exams have become computerized and students really struggle to pay attention and do their best job. Here I see students who are focused and on task working to complete a test to the best of their abilities. It makes me wonder if we put too much emphasis on the test and contribute to the stress that our students feel. Yes, the students here were nervous but they didn’t have so much time to anticipate the test and to stay in a state of anxiety. After they complete this test, they’re finished.

It’s eye opening to see different methods used and think about how my own practices could be adapted. Continuous reflection is ongoing…..until next time!

• 

It finally happened….I was able to give my dear friend, Esperanza, a hug again. She and I have been talking about how the seemingly impossible has happened. I don’t think either of us thought we’d ever see each other again or that our paths would converge at this place and time! What a blessing!

And now I’m here in Puerto Vallarta and it’s as beautiful as I’d imagined. As you can see above, I was very overdressed for the warm weather that I walked into. It’s warm but there seem to be cool breezes blowing to help keep things comfortable.

Esperanza and Sarhai, her daughter, met me at the airport and whisked me away to their home where her husband was grilling a meal to welcome me. I decided that I’m going to be open to trying all of the foods offered to me so that I can fully embrace the experience and culture. After dinner, the ladies went down to the beach, El Malecon. This is a beautiful spot with many food vendors, shops, music, dancers and, of course, the beach.

I met Poncho Villa on my walk down El Malecon and the first day ended standing on the pier, watching the sun set over the Pacific Ocean. I’m also visiting the Montessori School of Puerto Vallarta and will share more about that in the future. Biendiciones!

Part of my preparation for this trip has been to study the languages of Mexico and Brazil. As a high school student, I had the opportunity to study Spanish with Mr. Terry Dolan. He was an awesome teacher and I learned so much from him. When I tested to be placed in a Spanish class in college, I went into a 2nd year class because of all the knowledge I’d attained in high school. Unfortunately, I didn’t keep up on that skill during the next three decades of my life. I’ve been assured that it will be like riding a bike…I will speak/understand the language out of necessity.

Since that is the case, I’ve spent the last 40 days learning basic Portuguese words and phrases on the Duo Lingo app. This app forces me to practice speaking and listening to words in Portuguese. In the past few days, I’ve found myself really understanding what I’m doing. I’m so looking forward to my experience but have to admit, I’ve been somewhat nervous about the language barrier.

However, that’s really beyond my control so I’ve decided to not waste any more time with that as a concern! Spanish and Portuguese have many similar words such as the title of this post: Clima Linda (beautiful climate). I’m definitely looking forward to that aspect of my trip, especially after the winter and spring that we’re coming out of in Michigan.

Additionally, I’ve been able to cross some items off of my “to-do” list in the past couple of weeks. I have a substitute teacher who will be with my class the whole time I’m gone and my team teacher is back with us full time and she’s healthy! I’ve chosen all of the lessons that will be taught while I’m gone and am currently writing the plans to implement them. Still left on the list is organizing some more items in my classroom so that they are easily packed away at the end of the school year.

Most of all, I’m so appreciative of the support of my friends and family. Your questions about my trip and words of encouragement and pieces of advice are so helpful as the time gets closer. I look forward to sharing many great adventures with you as I travel. I will not be posting on a daily basis but will try to upload material a couple of times a week. I can’t wait to have you all along for the ride!

The whole opportunity that’s ahead of me wouldn’t be possible without the generosity of Delia and Dora DeMaso. They are both retired Battle Creek Public Schools educators who have recognized the importance of broadening the educational opportunities of other local teachers. However, they are more than “retired teachers.”–they are also Philanthropists who have worked hard to meet needs in our community.

Last week, during Spring Break, I had the privilege of meeting Delia and Dora DeMaso in person. I felt honored to sit with them and share stories about education and life. They are both in their late 80’s, full of knowledge and love for their community. We discovered many connections in our lives…they grew up near and went to school with my Aunt Judy; they also fondly remembered my Uncle Tom; and more.

I ended up spending over three hours with them, sharing plans for my international study and hearing about their amazing adventures as educators. I felt a kinship with them in the fact that both of our families have highly valued education and giving back to our communities. Current generations of both of our families are educators in our respective cities.

I am now less than 5 weeks from take-off and continue to “pinch” myself in awe and wonder that I’m really about to take this grand adventure. I am humbled to have been chosen to represent the DeMasos and look forward to many more conversations with them. I can’t wait to share the new knowledge that I’ll gain and the connections I can bring back to my students when I return from my trip. I’m blessed!

It’s been a few weeks since I added anything because there’s not been much going on. I’ve spent some time looking up flights for my travel and it led me to the conclusion that I wanted to go through a travel agency. I was able to do that this past week and will be going in tomorrow to purchase my tickets.

I plan to fly out of Detroit to Puerto Vallarta on May 12th. I will stay there until June 15th. I will then fly from Puerto Vallarta via Mexico City and Panama City to Belo Horizonte, Brazil. I will spend three weeks there and return to Detroit on July 9th. It’s getting real!

Yesterday, I used Messenger to video call Esperanza in Puerto Vallarta! We haven’t seen or spoken in almost 40 years….where has that time gone?!? The good news is that the video worked very well and we’re actually going to test it at school tomorrow with one of my classes. Esperanza will call me from her school and introduce my students to some of her students. When we find out that this works, it will help move the mission full speed ahead! One of the requirements of my fellowship is that I teach from my travel location. I’m not extremely tech savvy so am thrilled that this seems to be so easy.

Esperanza also gave me a tour of her lovely home and neighborhood. I met her husband, Alejandro, and daughter, Sarhai too. They are just as nice as I knew they would be. She keeps reminding me to practice my Spanish!!! When she knew me long ago, my Spanish was very good, not so much now. I can still understand but the speaking isn’t so understandable. Esperanza assured me that her students will be more than happy to help me and that I’ll be fine!

Small steps but progressing! There’s still so much planning to take place but, God willing, I’ll be on the ground in Puerto Vallarta 9 weeks from today! Woohoo!!!!

Destinations: Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
In 1979, when I was a senior in high school, my family had the opportunity to host an exchange student from Puruandiro, Michoacan, Mexico. Her name was Esperanza and she quickly became another sister to my sisters and me.
       
In reflection, Esperanza was the beginning of my education that there were others in the world who weren’t as privileged as I had been in my life. Her family was so poor that, in order to be able to attend school, she lived with and worked for the teacher and his family. She was only a teenager when she did this. These circumstances also afforded her the opportunity to come and study in the United States for a school year and this is when she came to my house.

Our family loved Esperanza and she loved us too. She taught us many lessons about being content with little just as we taught her to speak better English. The thing that stands out the most, though, is how much fun we had and the LAUGHTER! It was a sad day when the year was up and she returned to Mexico. It was not easy, in those days, to keep in touch. We wrote back and forth but after about five years, all of our lives became busy and we lost track of each other.

This past spring, Esperanza’s daughter called the funeral home where I grew up and found out the last names of my sister, Kris, and me. She found both of us on social media and, by the end of the day, we both had sent a message to her mom. I can’t even imagine Esperanza’s surprise when she found these in her in box! With her first response, I knew that she hadn’t changed much and that we’d still have laughter in our future.

What a pleasant surprise it was to find out that Esperanza is also a middle grade English teacher! Due to our similar careers, Esperanza and I have been working on starting a pen pal experience for our students. After a couple of letters are exchanged, we hope to be able to set up some type of Skype or Facetime call too.

I would now like to become part of Esperanza’s world for a short time to learn about her culture and bring some of that back to Battle Creek to share with my students. As I work to be a trauma informed practitioner at Battle Creek Public Schools, I remember into my past and the relationship that I had with Esperanza which has helped me discover just how important building those bridges can be. Esperanza is a great example of rising out of the poverty of your surroundings to do something great for your world. She has been an encouragement to me and I’m sure will be to my students too.

Some local areas of interest to visit are El Malecón; Museo of El Río Cuale; Museo of La Marina; visit the flea market of El Río Cuale; the main church in Vallarta is the “Señora de Guadalupe Church;” the Botanical Garden; we can talk with the local “Huicholes” (a tribe in Jalisco and Nayarit) and get some information about their traditions and also visit the multiple beaches in the area (by walking, car and boat depending on the distance).  I will have the opportunity to share visits to these areas with my students through virtual field trips that I’ll build for them during my visit. I hope and pray that this will be life changing for all of us.

My second stop, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, also involves a relationship that I have made with an exchange student. This young lady, Marina Toledo, came to live with my sister’s family in the year 2000. I became her Aunt Kathy and that still holds true to this day. Marina is not from an impoverished background but she has demonstrated the importance of relationships and shown the effort it takes to help them continue. She has been able to do that through social media and traveling to visit as often as possible.

Over the past eighteen years, Marina has remained part of our family. She did a college internship at Disney World in Orlando and used this opportunity to attend one of her “siblings” high school graduation. She has come for two weddings and other important events. This summer, she surprised my brother-in-law by showing up for his surprise 60^th birthday party. Marina has taught me so much about how important family, whether biological or not, is in her culture.

Marina is currently the director of SESI Museu se Artes e Oficios which regularly hosts many school groups. This has afforded her the opportunity to connect with several local educators. Marina’s museum has many interesting, educational exhibits for young people. (more information can be found at https://www7.fiemg.com.br/sesi/produto/mao—sesi  and https://www.facebook.com/museudearteseoficiossesi/ )

Belo Horizonte (Beautiful Horizon”) is the sixth-largest city in Brazil, the thirteenth-largest in South America and the eighteenth-largest in the Americas. The metropolis is anchor to the Belo Horizonte metropolitan area, ranked as the third most populous metropolitan area in Brazil and the seventeenth most populous in the Americas. Belo Horizonte is the capital of the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil’s second most populous state. It is the first planned modern city in Brazil. (Wikipedia) The city provides many opportunities to learn more about the local culture through theatre and dance; music; museums; architecture and sports.

I’ve selected both of these locations in order to further already developed relationships. This experience would assist me in broadening the horizons of my Battle Creek students by introducing them to educational cultures that are vastly different than their own.  Immersion in the culture of my hosts would enable me to bring back a much richer experience for my students. The correspondence that my students have already begun will give them the chance to acquaint themselves with the students and this should pique their interest even more. Altogether, everyone involved will be enriched through my ability to make this trip.

**Most of this is taken from the DeMaso application that ask me to give my destination and explain why it was chosen.

At the end of the interview, I was told that the selection committee would be making a decision that day and applicants would be notified by the next week.

Friday, December 21st was my last day of school before Winter Break. It was a dress up day, Flannel Friday, and my classes were playing an educational game on Kahoot. It was a great day to just relax after my nervousness from the previous week.

Just after lunch time, I received an email notice that I had won an Amazon gift card in a Twitter contest that I had entered. That was pretty exciting and a nice way to start my break…so I thought!

I don’t usually answer my cell phone during the school day however when a Battle Creek number popped up during 6th hour, something told me that I should answer. I sure am glad that I did. It was Joann from the Battle Creek Community Foundation. She reminded me who she was and said that she was calling about my interview the previous day. In my mind I was thinking, “It’s O.K. You did your best and it’s nice of her to call.” Her next words took me by complete surprise:

“I want to inform you that you have been selected as the 2019 DeMaso Fellowship recipient!”

My 6th hour students might tell a little different story at this point but what I remember is jumping up and down, cheering and running out of the room! Joann had some more information for me (which I’m not sure I completely got) and then we hung up. I continued to jump up and down with excitement. I went through the hallways of my school, all the way to the office, cheering! Students were hugging and congratulating me and they didn’t even know what I’d won. It was an amazing last hour of school AND a great way to start my break!

One of the requirements of the fellowship is that I share my experiences with my community during my trip. I’ve decided to share my story from the beginning application process and will continue to update during my preparation as well as when I actually make the trip.

There have been numerous people who have supported me to even get to this point of the process. My friends and family, my students, my co-workers at Springfield Middle School, my building administrators and my superintendent have all been integral in making this happen. I couldn’t have gotten to this point without any of them. I look forward to sharing the ups and downs of this experience as I move forward into the next step of planning. Thanks!

I won’t lie…from the time I was notified that I was going to have the opportunity to share my dream with others… I went through a myriad of emotions. When I received the email, during my 4th hour class, I got a bit excited. My students jumped around with me and said it was meant to be that I received it then since they were my favorite class! There were days that I was so excited about everything and others where I was scared to death that I might actually be chosen.

Being chosen would actually be one of the greatest honors of my life. I am a very proud Battle Creek Public School employee and no other teacher from my district had ever been chosen. I was really just happy to be sharing my passion for my students and their potential with the selection committee.

FAST FORWARD…. to December 20th at 4:00 p.m. I had been so nervous but once I was able to start sharing about my amazing students, the nerves went away. I shared the story of Esperanza and my former student’s dream of expanding BCPS students’ horizons. My words here cannot even begin to express how important “MY kids” are to me. They were in on each step of the process and cheering me on! I completely shared my passion and left the interview feeling content. Whatever the outcome, I’d given it my all!

Where to start?…During the summer of 2016, I came across information about the DeMaso International Study Fellowship offered to Calhoun County, Michigan educators. I collected all of the information needed and made an application that included travel to South Korea and Bulgaria focusing on Philanthropy Education. Gathering what was needed for that application was time intensive but also forced me to review my educational history. I was able to inventory all of my educational training and review grants I had received to aid classroom instruction. This application didn’t make it to the next stage, the interview, however I was happy to now have all of my experience organized and available for future possibilities.

FAST FORWARD to 2018…During the Spring of 2018, I reunited with a former exchange student who lived with my family when I was in high school. I hadn’t had contact with her in over 30 years until her daughter found my sister and me on social media. It’s been a wonderful time of rediscovering each other and learning about our lives. Esperanza (my Mexican sister) and I found that we are both middle school English teachers. What a surprise!

During the summer, I had the chance to speak with a former student. When I was his 5th grade teacher, he got into some trouble and ended up in an alternative classroom setting. It would have been very easy for him to just give up but he didn’t! He persevered and graduated from high school. He then registered for classes at Kellogg Community College and got a job. His job gave him the opportunity to complete an internship with a large auto dealer and he now travels all over the country for his work. He’s still the boy who got in trouble and went through an alternative program to graduate however he’s also now very successful. He said to me, with tears in his eyes, “We need to show the kids in Battle Creek that there are opportunities for them rather than the streets!”

Finding Esperanza and this conversation with my former student spearheaded me into deciding that I needed to build an itinerary and complete another DeMaso application for travel in 2019.

My proposal included spending a month with Esperanza in her middle school in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and another month with Marina (my sister’s former exchange student), working with her at a museum in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Both locations would include my immersion into the culture and customs of my hosts. My application was submitted in November, 2018.

In early December, 2018, I was notified that I was being invited to interview with the selection committee at the Battle Creek Community Foundation. I hadn’t even gotten to this stage with my previous application so I was very excited. My interview was scheduled for Thursday, December 20, 2018 at 4:00 p.m.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton