Teachers learn through world travels
Three Columbia County teachers are showing that they will go to the ends of the earth to improve their craft.
Greenbrier High School art teacher Carrie Brady was selected from a national pool of more than 2,500 applicants to attend the Fulbright Memorial Fund Teacher Program in Tokyo.
She left for her three-week trip Nov. 16. While in Japan, she had the opportunity to study Japanese life and culture, meet with Japanese government officials and educators and visit primary and secondary schools and colleges.
Stevens Creek Elementary School counselor Carolyn Williams recently traveled to New Zealand and Australia as a delegate in the People to People Ambassador Program.
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"We exchanged ideas, and it was interesting to see what their counselors are doing," Williams said. "Many of the issues are global issues the same issues they have, we have such as harassment, substance abuse, eating disorders."
Stevens Creek Elementary School teacher Robin Smith (left) took a trip to Germany and counselor Carolyn Williams recently traveled to New Zealand.
Photo by Jim Blaylock
One of the major differences is the career focus the schools there have, she said. They also don't have the same grade-level system. Instead, there is a course of study, and when pupils meet certain requirements, they move on. Pupils also learn several foreign languages during their school careers.
Stevens Creek Elementary fourth-grade teacher Robin Smith recently traveled to Dusseldorf, Germany, as part of a research team from Argosy University, an international university system where she is fulfilling her requirements for a doctorate degree.
Smith's concentration is in curriculum and instruction.
"We want to compare and contrast our schools with theirs see where we can find improvement," Smith said. "We're so comfortable inour environment. We have to have much more of a global perspective and have more ideas on how to meet individual needs. You can't haveone size fits all.
"With No Child Left Behind, we have to be willing to integrate new ideas based on our own research and the research of others, and the only way to do that is to look at what the world is doing."