A little background...

It's only April, a little early to be starting a blog about my summer travels, but my excitement is keeping me from waiting!  I am currently working the the greatest job I could imagine.  I am the AIG Math Facilitator at a middle school in Durham, and part of that job description includes being the advanced math teacher.  I teach 9th and 10th grade level math courses to gifted 7th and 8th graders.  Basically, I get paid to be a giant math nerd with kids who are still impressionable enough to think it's cool.  I also work with math teachers throughout the school to support their ability to meet the needs of gifted students.  Not only is this year already in the books as the best of my career thus far, I'm also looking forward to my first "free" summer since finishing grad school.  So, I'm taking advantage of that time to travel and partake in professional development!  I thought I'd start with a little bit of background on how each of these trips came to fruition.  The three big places my educational travel will take me this summer are Costa Rica, Cincinnati, and India.

First is Costa Rica.  I graduated from the M.Ed. program in Gifted Education last summer at Elon University.  Elon has a satellite campus in Costa Rica, and their strong partnerships in that country lead many Elon students there to study each year.  Previously, there has been an elective course offering in the M.Ed. program that involved travel to Costa Rica.  During my cohort's time at Elon, we did not have enough students enrolled in the course to make it cost effective.  Since our graduation, the study abroad component has become a required part of the program.  Because our cohort missed out on this opportunity, we've been invited to participate this summer!  We will travel to Costa Rica for about a week where we will observe and work in local schools and educational organizations. I don't have many details about this trip's itinerary yet, but I'll share them when I have them!

Next, I head to Cincinnati.  The middle school I now work in is a public Montessori middle school.  Let that sink in.  It's just as unique as you think it is.  All of the core community teachers go through extensive Montessori training at CMSTEP in Cincinnati (basically the equivalent of a Masters program, and many of them do actually get a Masters in Montessori teaching).  This training is paid for by our school district (again, surprising) but as a "support staff" member, I only have the option to go to one week of training in Montessori philosophy.  Regardless, this will give me lots of insight into why this school works the way it does.  I'm really looking forward to connecting some dots on many of the vastly different components of this school and a traditional school.

The third trip of the summer is to India.  The Center for International Understanding at the University of North Carolina takes NC public educators abroad to study educational, economic, and political systems in different nation and the impact they have on schools.  The goal is to not only bring cultural understanding back to NC public schools, but also lessons learned from these school systems different than our own.  The program in India will focus on educational technology and cultural understanding.  I will be traveling with this program on a grant from SAS that was awarded to one middle and one high school math teacher in my school district.  I have to say, I'm most excited for this trip, as I never would have imagined having an opportunity to travel to this part of the world!  I aslo have the most info (so far) about this excursion.  Below is an interactive map (press "play" in the top right corner) of my India travel itinerary from goprotravelling.com.  Throughout my excursions, I will be able to upload photos at each destination and you will eventually be able to "watch" my trip in its entirety!  Pretty cool!