Travel

“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try to understand each other, we may even become friends.” --Maya Angelou

Travel & Education Salamanca, Spain July 2023 --Two weeks of dynamic professional development to help us inspire our students.

Curso: Herramientas de tecnología para la comunicación,

creación y colaboración sobre el desarrollo sostenible

Jumping with excitement with ways to bring global education and the SDGs to our students!

Affordable ways for teachers to open the world to themselves and their students

June 2022--Travel has always been an important part of my personal and professional journey. I have been fortunate to have lived in Chile, Madrid, and Argentina throughout my adult life through work and study opportunities. As a Spanish teacher and Global Program Coordinator, I have also found such joy and meaning in creating travel programs for students abroad. It can be easy for us to stay in place, to find comfort in our typical surroundings, to find our ways of living as the norm. If I can be a push for anyone out there who happens to be reading these words on this page at this moment--take the plunge, buy that plane ticket, apply for that grant, or research student travel for yourself, students, or children. Travel holds a key to self-discovery and empathy building that one cannot replicate. Travel is the best educator.

For this reason, I was elated that my 2020 Fulbright international field experience, delayed for two years due to the pandemic, was able to take place in June of 2022. Unfortunately, after all of that time anxiously awaiting this experience, when I arrived to the hotel in Tornonto for the first leg of of our group's journey, I needed to quarantine in the hotel with Covid. Here is a blog post leading up to that. But this Travel Section is inspired by my opportunity through the Fulbright TGC to keep finding ways to experience the people and places of communities outside of my own, to expand my world views and help share those perspectdives with my students. This will be a living document and will be updated each year.

June 2022

I took this photo outside of the pharmacy in Toronto, after receiving a positive covid test, resulting in my International Field Experience in Canada, what I had been dreaming of for more than two years, ending sadly before it really began.

This moment is a reminder to me, to not let setbacks deter me from seeing beauty in the unexpected, gaining strength in difficult times, and being inspired to keep exploring and connecting to people, places, and rainbows near and far.

Below are some resources to help inspire travel:

Travel Experiences with My Students

My top recommendations for third-party student travel companies

Free Travel Opportunites for Educators (a dynamic teacher in NY compiled these resources and I am grateful to her and have used this site to expand my own travel.)

Organization that helps educators partner with schools in Spain or France for virtual or physical exchanges