Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship

From National Geographic's Website:

"The Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship (GTF) is a professional development opportunity for pre-K–12 educators made possible through a collaboration between Lindblad Expeditions and the National Geographic Society. Through a comprehensive application process, we select exemplary educators to host aboard Lindblad Expeditions’ voyages for a life-changing, field-based experience. Grosvenor Teacher Fellows transfer their onboard experience into transformative ways to teach students, engage colleagues, and bring new geographic awareness into their learning environments and communities.

Fellows also take on a two-year ambassador commitment to support National Geographic’s education initiatives. Throughout their commitment, Fellows may be asked to conduct webinars, co-design resources, participate in meetups, collaborate with our Explorer-led programs, and serve as mentors to other educators.

The fellowship was founded by Sven-Olof Lindblad in honor of Gilbert M. Grosvenor, chairman emeritus, National Geographic Society, in recognition of his decades-long work supporting preK–12 educators and promoting geography education across the United States and Canada."

Watch here.

Scroll down on this page for how to apply.

The application process was rigorous. I had to write three essays about how I collaborated with community partners, how I designed projects for my students, and how I encouraged an explorer mindset. I also had to make a 2.5 minute video about myself. I decided to talk about how 4th-grade me had been denied the dream of becoming a paleontologist due to my mother telling me that "they had found all the dinosaurs already." You can see the video here. (Apologies to my mom, but it's just a great story.) I also had to choose dates that would work for me to take off 2 weeks in the next year - these included the one month I had off this summer and other 1-week school vacations that would not incur the "wrath" of my principal. (Not really, she's totally supportive, but with a continued lack of substitute teachers in my school district, teachers being out near holidays is a hard situation for schools.) I also had to list my 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th choices of location to travel to. I chose, in this order, Ancient Isles: A Circumnavigation of the British Isles, Passage through Egypt, Exploring Alaska's Coastal Wilderness, and A Circumnavigation of Iceland. Since part of the program involves me writing lessons from my experience, I figured that I could connect each of those choices in some way to what I do in my classroom.

I submitted everything in December, and then the waiting started. I had read that those who were selected would receive a live phone call from a National Geographic or Lindblad employee sometime in February. February was almost over, and I had given up hope when on a random afternoon at 2:30 PM during dismissal time at my school, I got a phone call from New Jersey. The caller identified herself as someone calling from National Geographic to inform me that I had been chosen as a Grosvenor Teacher Fellow. As bells were ringing in the cavernous hallway and students flooding by, I contained my excitement as she told me that I would be on the British Isles trip in early June and that I would need to go to Washington, DC, for a fellow workshop in April. I was speechless.

When I got home from work, I told my husband David first. "You suck," he said. "And congratulations, I'm so proud of you. But you really do suck." Cue the yellow rectangle pictures.

Articles

The official news release appeared shortly after we trained in Washington, DC. 

The local newspaper, the Baton Rouge Advocate, did a lovely story (or here) on me.