Grateful Eight

Sorry, Quentin Tarantino – I had to play on your movie title! Around Christmas time before I left, the movie, Hateful Eight, came out. While I never saw the movie (too gory for my taste), I thought the play on the title was perfectly suited for the eight teachers coming from the U.S. for the Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching Program! I know I am extremely grateful to be here in New Zealand studying science education and the other teachers are I am sure!

This past week was the midpoint for the other teachers, but closer to the endpoint for me because I am leaving in May instead of June and July like the others based on my project dates. Our NZ Fulbright Director organized a time for us to share our work so far with others and our advising professors at Victoria University. We met and had presentations followed by questions for each of our projects. It was fabulous to hear about the other projects in detail even though we had general ideas of each other’s projects based on our “elevator speeches.” Elevator speeches were what we prepared back in Washington, D.C. to be able to tell our story with people we may come in contact and have only a couple of minutes with which to share our project! Great idea because I cannot tell you how many people I have been able to share this with on a daily basis! The main focus areas of projects of the other teachers are as follows on the flyer that Eric Yates of Victoria University created to publicize the event!

Just in case you are not able to read the print in the picture above:

Lisa Purcell (Minnesota): Addressing achievement gaps through culture-first content and pedagogy

Angela Palmieri (California): Pedagogical study of Māori bi-lingual education: closing the achievement gap

Elizabeth Pitman (Texas): Building and restoring relationships with at-risk students through restorative practices

Nessa Mahmoudi (California): Bi-lingual/bi-cultural identity formation of Maori youth in schools

Emily Stanley (Maryland): Developing a toolkit for sustainable education

Sue Levine (Georgia): NZ-USA: A shared approach for an inclusive school library

Megan O’Neill (Alabama): Going global with science

Patricia Hemans (California): Teaching at-risk students in trauma informed schools

Eric Yates kicking off our presentations!

So incredible to be amongst these “Titans of Teaching” as our ever-humorous, Irish leader, Colin Kennedy, refers to us LOL. I truly enjoyed taking the time to share our projects and our data so far! Looking forward to seeing how they all shape up over the coming months!