Educational Travel Fellowship

After a two-year pause on travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Curtis is excited to share that the Educational Travel Grant Program has resumed and the school has made grants to two outstanding faculty members, who will be traveling, studying, and bringing back their experiences to our learning community in the coming months.

2022 Educational Travel Program Fellows

Kendal Copeland, Associate Library and Media Specialist, will join in an archeological dig in Tuscany, Italy, and will explore the importance of curiosity and exploration in the research process. She will also travel to London and Paris where she will study storytellers, artists, activists, and museums. Her goal is to bring back new ideas, concepts, and ways of thinking to better foster curiosity, exploration, and creativity in her students.

Kat Patterson, Kindergarten Teacher, will be traveling to Finland, Sweden, and the Baltics to connect with educators to better understand their education systems and adopt innovative strategies that ensure a child-centered focus in her own kindergarten classroom. Finland’s education system is internationally renowned. Kat is particularly interested to explore how Sweden integrates some of Finland’s approaches to education and to understand how Finland has mastered shorter school days while maintaining a high rate of success in preparing students at a young age to truly love learning by always being an active participant. 

2019 Educational Travel Program Fellows

Debra Cohen, 4th Grade Teacher, will travel to Italy and Greece to explore how people living daily where ancient history is still a part of modern life tell stories of the past and present through artifacts, tradition, and personal experience. Ms. Cohen believes that storytelling, or sharing one’s own history, helps to bring about a deeper understanding of those different from ourselves. She plans to teach students how learning about the ancient past and different cultures can help shape our understanding, tolerance and appreciation of differences.

Karen Nguyen, Associate Librarian, will travel to New Zealand and Australia, visiting five cities— Auckland, Dunedin, Christchurch, Adelaide, and Melbourne—two of which are designated by UNESCO as “Cities of Literature.” She will attend the New Librarians’ Symposium and explore with her peers from across Oceania how librarianship is evolving globally and what skills are needed to serve 21^st century learners. Ms. Nguyen intends to share what she learns from her travels to develop fresh approaches that inspire students to read and to appreciate literature.

Olivia Siegels, Associate Teacher, will travel to Thailand to investigate how it is adjusting to an increase of tourism and what efforts are being made by government, hotels, and conservation groups to protect the country’s rich biodiversity. The surge in tourism in recent decades has created issues around land conservation, pollution and exploitation of animals. Ms. Siegels will use what she learns to continue to guide students to be conscientious citizens who care for our world and all of its inhabitants.

D'vora Taus-Kahn, 6th Grade Teacher and Debate Coach, will travel to Israel and Jordan to visit historical and contemporary sites that relate to the social studies curriculum for 6th grade, which includes the study of ancient civilizations, tolerance, and world religions and belief systems. In addition to ancient sites and places of archeological interest, Ms. Taus-Kahn will visit locations that are important to major monotheistic religions in order to explore the ways in which religion, race and culture are at the intersection of history and contemporary politics.