Third and Final Pre-Tour Class!

Third and Final Pre-Tour Class!

What really inspired me about our third class was that a teacher who has been on several educator tours spoke with us about how these tours have framed her life and her teaching.  She said something that I have also experienced.  Many people have told her (and me) how lucky she is to go on these trips.  First of all, they are really not vacation trips at all.  These trips are jam-packed with learning, travel, on and off busses, in and out of tours, from the first daylight or earlier, until well into the night.  We can only plan on about 6 hours of sleep a night on these tours.  We take in as much as we possibly can throughout the entire 9 days of travel.  Anyway, what she said to us was, "It's not luck at all that leads us to these educator tours. We work hard to get to these trips, we find all sorts of ways to fund these trips, and we bring them back to our students, our teachers, and for me, my administrator colleagues.  Our world continues to get smaller and smaller.  Learning as much as we can about other cultures and bringing those cultural experience back to home and school to share, is priceless.

So, what have I done to bring Costa Rica to all students and staff at DWS before I even leave on this trip?  I have talked about Costa Rica at all school assemblies.  I assigned an all school homework for students to write to me about what "Costa Rica" means in english (rich coast), and where it is located.  I set up a "Costa Rica" bulletin board near our main lobby.  I decorated a "rainforest" mailbox where students were asked to write a question they may have about Costa Rica.  I ended up spending hours of research to answer each and every question in writing.  They are posted by the bulletin board.

Each day for the last month at morning announcements I (or Ms. Brady or Ms. White - both going along on this trip) have announced a "Costa Rica Fact of the Day" for all school to hear.  One day I even announced the entire morning announcement in Spanish!

I found out yesterday that I am to plan a lesson to teach to a group of spanish speaking elementary school students at one of the schools we will visit on this trip.  How exciting!  I'm going to ask some of our students what I should teach!

Next blog post, I'll be at the airport on my way to San Jose, Costa Rica.  We will stay there the first and the last night of the trip.

See the mountains in the background of San Jose!

 

I love walking through the local market places.  Can't wait!