All articles filed in Travel

It’s a cliche, I know, but it will be difficult to explain my experience in Senegal to someone who has never been there, especially most Americans. I know that an American looking at my photos might see dusty roads, trash in ditches, and half-built cinder block structures, and make assumptions about the people who live…

Teachers everywhere share many of the same concerns. We have too many students and not enough time. We battle distractions. We wish there was less testing. We wonder whether there is more we could do to prepare our students for their future. On Tuesday morning, my colleague Luke and I had a roundtable discussion with…

I woke up yesterday (Sunday) morning in this “glamping” tent in the middle of a wildlife refuge to the sounds of birds, frogs, monkeys(?) and who knows what other creatures. Like many remote places around the world, there was little to no Wi-Fi signal at Fathala (https://www.fathala.com/) There was also no work to be done…

Take a minute and look at the image above. What do you see? What emotions do you sense? What movement do you think is happening? This is Aly Ndao’s class in Kaolack, Senegal, and it is filled with an energy that is too rare in American high schools, especially post-COVID, but even before. There are…

Today we left Dakar behind and traveled a few hours into the countryside to Kaolack, where six of our group will stay for the next week. It was a bit stressful, to be honest, leaving behind the now-familiar city for a whole new set of sights and sounds. Although the road was in surprisingly good…

Teaching at an elementary school in Dakar.

Gewe — pronounced “griot” — means “one who speaks” in Wolof, one of the predominant local Senegalese languages. It’s a good word for today, as our cohort of 15 teachers from around the U.S. listened to three incredible gewes and were reminded why it is so important for us to speak out as well. Our…

This picture may not look like much, but it has a good story. The chalkboard is in an English classroom in Kaolack, Senegal. My cooperating teacher there, Aly Ndao, posted these questions for his students: “What do you think is different about life in Senegal and Minnesota?” “How much homework do you have?” “What do…

I visited Amman in March of 2019 to run a two-day College Board AP Economics workshop for teachers from all over the Middle East. About half were Americans teaching abroad, and about half were from the countries where they taught. We had great conversations about culture and politics – and how to teach concepts like…

I visited the school below, in Munich, as part of my TOP program in August 2013. The school was very high-tech, and the students were very direct and well-spoken. It was interesting to learn about apprenticeship programs and meet young people who were excited about very diverse career paths, like becoming a metalsmith. It struck…