Our Global Town
Town School for Boys
Through the Halls of Town School and Beyond
Welcome to the latest edition of Our Global Town, a quarterly newsletter that highlights how our community works with and connects to our greater global and "glocal" community. Take a moment to view our global mission statement and the wonderful stories of global education in action below.
Global Education Mission Statement:
Town School for Boys builds students' inter-cultural competencies and character through academic experiences and global and local partnerships. Beginning with an awareness of multiple perspectives, students develop respect, empathy, and kindness through authentic inquiry and engagement. By fostering non-judgmental curiosity, teachers guide students toward a rich understanding of their own identity within the tapestry of their community, the importance of belonging and including others, and the value of acting as allies and engaged global citizens.
Global Breakfast and Call for Global Leaders!
Town employees are invited to the first glocal/global breakfast of 2017-18 on October 12, 2017 at 7:30 AM in Lizzy Laidlaw's room (the Garage). This is an opportunity to talk about global hopes and dreams, current projects in the classrooms, important resources, and more. These conversations are meant to expand our thinking about what it means for our students to be globally competent and to create even more momentum in regards to our global initiative.
This is also a call for global education leaders! We hope to form a Global Education Committee among Town employees in order to continue and enhance global education at Town. Committee members will serve as advisors to global and glocal projects to increase global competence across grades and disciplines and represent Town on the global education front.
If you would like to join, please send a paragraph expressing interest to Flora Mugambi-Mutunga (mugambi@townschool.com) and Kim Stuart (stuart@townschool.com).
EJ Drevno "Exploring Purpose" in Peru
3rd grade teacher EJ Drevno was selected to participate in a Global Educator Intensive program in Peru through Town's partnership with the World Leadership School, an organization that "works with all levels of a school in order to reimagine learning and empower young leaders." EJ writes about her unique professional growth experience in this interview.
1. What led to your interest in participating in your trip?
I was looking for a transformative professional development opportunity, something that felt more rich, meaningful, and adventurous than a typical conference. When Town sent out an email invitation to apply for a World Leadership School trip last school year, I immediately knew I would apply. The trip to Peru sounded exactly like what I was looking for. Plus, I knew it would force me to expand my comfort zone.
2. What did your project entail?
Our 10-day trip was similar to a study abroad program. We were learning on-the-go in different locations in the Sacred Valley in Peru. We explored the city of Ollantaytambo, getting to know local leaders including a woman who started a school in the town. We visited Incan ruins like the Sun Temple. Three of our days and nights were spent with host families in Tancac. We had the opportunity to take the train to Macchu Pichu and spent one day/night in Cusco. Embedded in our travels was the course “Exploring Purpose.” We spent time unveiling our own purpose as individuals and educators during the first half of the trip. The second half of our course focused on creating a K-12 Purpose curriculum.
3. What impacted you the most?
The three days and nights we spent with our host families were the most impactful for me. I felt fully immersed in their unique world and way of being. It provided a huge learning experience for me in many ways. The family I stayed with was loving, kind, and so happy with the very little that they had. One day they took me to their farm. We sat by the creek that ran through their property and ate prickly pear cactus fruit together. The vibrant pink color of the fruit, smiling face of my host brother and cool mountain air will stay with me forever.
4. What do you want to bring into the classroom from your trip?
I’m excited and eager to share much of what I learned with my students and colleagues this year. Traveling to a new country and really learning about the culture there is an experience I hope each of my students is able to have. In addition, I plan on using many aspects of the K-12 curriculum we are creating as a tool to help my students connect with who they are and what their greatest gifts are for the world.
Lizzy Laidlaw and Megan Janson on Their Summer in Tanzania
5/6 math teacher Lizzy Laidlaw and 3rd grade teacher Megan Janson traveled together to The Rift Valley Children’s Village (RVCV), home and safe haven to 97 marginalized and orphaned children. They both describe the transformative and deeply impactful experience of living and working with the children of RVCV.
1. What led to your interest in participating in your trip?
Lizzy - I’ve always loved to travel and am interested in global education. Since returning to the US from teaching in Brazil, I’ve missed the international education experience, so when Megan first mentioned The Tanzanian Children’s Fund and Rift Valley Children’s Village I knew I had to go!
Megan - I first heard about the Rift Valley Children's Village from my mentor teacher when I was teaching in Boston. She told me about her time in the village with such enthusiasm that I have always felt drawn to go. I feel strongly about the importance of global education. I feel as though learning about how education is similar and different in places around the world is valuable. I have gained insight into different educational structures and strategies and have used those to improve my own teaching.
2. What did your project entail?
Lizzy and Megan - Monday through Saturday each week and were actively involved in daily life of the Rift Valley Children’s Village. We stayed in a house with twelve girls (Pre-K-Standard 7) and took on a big-sister type role which included making breakfast in the morning, walking them to school, helping with afternoon snacks, providing homework help in the evenings, etc. Additionally, the village offered a day care program for students too young to go to school or students who were in Kindergarten, Standard 1 and Standard 2, since public school for those grades are only half day. Monday through Friday, I [Lizzy] taught a Standard 1 class in the morning and we all did a combined toddler/PK/K class in the afternoon. On Saturdays, only Standards 1, 4, and 7 go to school, so we got to teach different grades. We also got to help with an after-school writing club once per week at Gytegihi Primary School. When we weren’t teaching classes, we were planning activities and monitoring play times.
3. What impacted you the most?
Lizzy - It’s hard to put into words the impact that RVCV has had on me. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about the children, the village, the staff, and the other volunteers. As cliche as it may sound, my experience there has given me new perspective, both in and out of the classroom. Each day, the stark differences of life there as compared to my life in SF were obvious: from solar powered lanterns illuminating late night homework and study sessions at the kitchen table to eating meals without silverware and trying to explain and answer questions about a washing machine to people who have spent their whole lives doing laundry by hand in tubs.
However, despite all of the ways in which life was so different, it has never been more clear to me that kids are kids, no matter where in the world they are, and that compassion, love, laughter, and kindness are universal. While gathered around the table with my Standard 1 students, a jamba (Swahili for fart) would send the class into fits of giggles, just like in my classroom at Town. Playing parachute games elicited the same expressions of delight as they do for kids here. Seeing the older kids in the village walk the little ones home for snack or bath time evoked images of older Town boys picking up their younger buddies for families.
Megan - I was so amazed to see the universal human experience - how much kids are kids are kids, no matter where they are in the world. Laughter ensues from bathroom talk in the exact same way whether spoken in English in the hallways of Town School or in Swahili in the classrooms of the Rift Valley Children's Village. The children that we lived with were creative, silly, fun-loving, cautious, intuitive, inventive, loving, bright, outgoing, kind and so much more. Despite growing up differently from the students in my classroom at Town, these children shared so many similarities in their nature and approach to the world. I was amazed at the number of commonalities the children in my classroom shared with the children I have worked with at Town.
Before my travels, I was cautioned about programs that involve Americans going to Tanzania to "save" Tanzania and who end up doing more damage. So often volunteers go to spend their time in another country, offer their services and build programs that are not sustainable by the people around them. I was so impressed by how the RVCV is able to support the people of the Rift Valley by creating infrastructures that are beneficial as well as sustainable. They have improved access to health care by establishing a medical clinic as well as a hospital where Tanzanian medical staff is trained and employed. They have paired with the local government to improve public education. The RVCV is training and motivating Tanzanian teachers to improve their teaching strategies and methods. They have created a Student Teacher program that gives high school graduates a year of student teaching and pays for their further education in college or university. The RVCV has also set up a micro-finance program to support local business to get off the ground. The impact and changes being made are clearly very effective and sustainable long term.
4. What do you want to bring into the classroom from your trip?
Lizzy - I can’t wait to connect my experiences to our KIVA work in sixth grade. Having a personal connection to seeing how people have used microloans will hopefully help me be able to connect the boys to Kiva in personal and impactful ways. During my time at RVCV, I think I became more self aware, globally aware and flexible. These areas of growth will support us as we aim to become more dynamic teachers. I can’t wait to go back to RVCV next summer!
Megan - In education we talk about students learning different stories. So often, children know only one story - the family structure they were raised in, for example. It is important for children to learn from other children and other people that their family structure is not the only possibility. They need to hear multiple stories to gain a broader understanding of the world. Otherwise, they only know one way of being and assume there is only one. I hope to share my stories from my time at the Rift Valley Children's Village with my Town students to broaden their understanding of children in Tanzania, children in Africa and children from countries different from their own. I hope that my stories about the laughter, silliness, creativity, and curiosity that I saw in Tanzania help to provide another perspective to what they might already have.
Global Education Leader and Former Town Teacher Featured in 2017 NAIS Bulletin
Kristen Goggin, former Town School 5/6 math teacher and current Math Department Head at Cathedral School for Boys, was featured in a 2015 video on the difficulties of measuring success in global education. This video, which mentions her work at Town, was highlighted again in a recent National Association of Independent Schools Bulletin. You can follow Kristen's teaching adventures on http://www.kristengoggin.com/ or Twitter at @gogogoggin.
Global Links and Resources
We have $22,000 in lending as a school to date.
Town School for Boys
Website: www.townschool.com
Location: San Francisco, CA, United States
Phone: 415 921 3747
Twitter: @TownTigerAlumni