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11/23/2017 1 Comment

Thankful Thursday

A few years ago, airline tickets were so expensive that I couldn't afford to fly home to be with my family for the first time in my life. Despite this change in the usual, very generous friends offered me a place in their home and at their table in Stone Ridge, NY on Thanksgiving. We shared stories and had a wonderful meal; we played lots of old school Legend of Zelda and laughed until our stomachs hurt. 
Last year, I chose to stay on the east coast for Thanksgiving, but again, friends and local "family" thoughtfully included so many people that I can't remember all their names. The laughs and the love complimented the incredible food we shared perfectly.
This year was different once again. Back in September, my mom let me know that a family friend was getting married in Florida on November 17th, and that she’d be staying for Thanksgiving. I didn’t want to miss the wedding, and I wanted to stay for Thanksgiving as well, but it meant that I would have to take several days off from work. I spoke with my administrators, and we brainstormed possible ways to work despite being away from my physical classroom. Our solution wasn’t particularly revolutionary, but it was certainly effective.
The Naples Zoo is home to several endangered species native to Malaysia and southeast Asia, and for such a small zoo, they do a phenomenal job disseminating information and raising awareness about their conservation efforts. My administrators and I decided that I would create a lesson that:
  • incorporated information about these endangered species,
  • enabled my students to do a bit of research about causes of various species’ endangered status,
  • included photographs, videos, and keeper interviews that I provided,
  • offered real-time conversations with a Q&A that I set up with my Teaching Intern back in New York City via Google Hangouts Meet,
  • empowered students to brainstorm solutions to address the needs of multiple stakeholders in this part of the world.​
Read the brief lesson here
File Size: 153 kb
File Type: docx
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The lesson was wildly successful (no pun intended); my students loved it, and more importantly, it demonstrated that our learning doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Students were able to apply what they learned in real time, and the fact that I could participate from afar only added to the appeal. It was truly “Science By the Seat of My Pants,” but we all won!
All of this is to say that no matter where I find myself around this time of year, I’m thankful. I’m emboldened by so many friends and family members that inspire me to do better and be better, both personally and professionally. To this end, I encourage you to download this free application for your mobile devices. It will help you identify products that contain palm oil that is grown and harvested sustainably. The endangered species will thank you, too!
1 Comment

4/21/2016 1 Comment

Adventures in the Unexpected

Well, it wouldn't be called Science By the Seat of Your Pants without a few unexpected adventures, right?My return from Senegal and Morocco was scheduled to be an arduous one. That's right, I said "was scheduled to be..."
I spent my last day on the African continent in the beautiful blue mountain town of Chefchaouen, Morocco. The name is from two Berber words literally translated as "look at the horns" because the surrounding mountains reminded them of their goats' horns. Depending on who you ask, it is blue for different reasons: "To keep away mosquitoes that love the climate of this altitude," says one guide. I thought this was amusing, but in reality, Jewish refugees painted many of the buildings in a traditional style meant to remind them of God.
The maze of stairs and buildings seemingly carved into the mountainside made for fun exploring in a medina (old town) that was much less stressful than Fes (more on Fes in a later blog).
I had a leisurely breakfast prepared on the roof of my Dar (guesthouse) with a beautiful view of the mountains. I packed my bags, managed to avoid the intermittent rain, and hailed a cab several blocks away that came to get me to the bus station. The bus ride from Chefchaouen is a 4-5 hour trek through mountains and then rolling hills back into Fes, usually behind mule-driven carts of farmers and delivery trucks trying to reach the city. Arriving in Fes during rush hour, hailing a cab to get me from the bus station to the train station made me feel like finding my keys on any given day was downright effortless--and much less frustrating.
Me: "Taxi."
Driver: "No."
Me: "Parlez vous anglais?"
Next driver: "No."
Me: "¿Habla Inglés?" (Looking at watch)
Third driver: "Si."
Me: "Bien. ¿Como estas?"
Third driver: "Bien. ¿Adonde vas?"
Me: "Estación de tren."
Third driver: "No."
Me: 😡 "TRAIN STATION, S'IL VOUS PLAÎT!"
Man with a van that is obviously not a cab: "30 dirhams."
Me: "I'll give you 40 if you get me there in 5 minutes."
Have I mentioned that this was my second cab ride of the day, after 5 hours on a bus? Suffice to say, rush hour in Fes is much like rush hour most places: marginally faster than a Whole Foods checkout on a Saturday afternoon.
I missed the 5:50pm train by 15 minutes, but there was another at 6:50. Like the bus, the train ride was 4-5 hours from Fes to Casablanca. Why these 1-hour variabilities? The best answer I could get was "Morocco time." I refrained from saying "Airplanes do not abide by 'Morocco time'." If you're doing the math, 6:50pm plus 4-5 hours equals arriving potentially at 11:50pm. And here's where I tell you that my flight from Casablanca back to to Dakar is at 12:35am. (No worries. Right?)
My train gets to Casablanca at 11pm. I walk outside with all my bags to hail my third cab of the day to get to the airport. Every one of the 32 drivers outside the train station speaks some English and demands 300 dirham to go to the airport. I have $107. I take 200 dirham from the nearest ATM and tell the driver "¡Rapidamente, por favor!" We skid into the airport at 11:33pm; I scan my bags at the entrance and find the Royal Air Maroc check-in counters. It is 11:40.
"We're sorry sir. Check-in is closed."
I would like to think that volcanic eruptions are more often quiet and beautiful instead of explosive and violent...
And strangely, while I contemplated it for a minute, I didn't explode. I asked if an exception could be made since I was only 5 minutes beyond the 1-hour check-in window only to be denied.
I wandered aimlessly for a few minutes, trying to find wifi that worked and trying to find any airline with flights still departing in the middle of the night. Get me to Dakar or Paris or even back to New York at this point. The next Royal Air Maroc flight to Dakar was in exactly 24 hours--or at about now, as I sit in a cab back to my apartment in NYC. I went to the RAM ticket office and waited for what seemed like eons before being called as the last customer of the night. It was 12:44am. The agent said I could fly directly to JFK at 3:05pm. For the low price of US$859.
If you're curious, a night in the swankiest airport hotel you've ever been in will set you back another US$150. And so, here I am now, back in NYC. Senegal (and Morocco) have been wonderful, life-changing, and in more ways than one, altogether unexpected. Here's to continued adventures! Bon voyage for now Africa, but see you again soon!
1 Comment

4/19/2016 1 Comment

Recognizing Perspectives

If education is "the great equalizer," than surely travel is the great empathizer. "Is 'empathizer' even a word?" you ponder. It is now. Stick with me.
​For the last eight months, I have worked as a global education fellow with Teachers for Global Classrooms. When I applied for this fellowship, I figured I would learn a few things, meet some new people, and visit a new part of the world. My classroom is pretty "global," so I had nothing to lose.
Last fall, I enrolled in an online course with 84 other TGC fellows called Foundations of Global Education. "Okay, I get it; we're global educators," I thought. "Can you just tell me where I'm going to have my international field experience now?" What I didn't expect was the paradigm shift in my approach to classroom instruction, and--to my chagrin--to basic human interaction. If you are rolling your eyes as you read this, then welcome to club cliché. I lazed in the over-hyped lounge of platitudes for a short while with a good number of people. It's warm and cozy, and it's not quite trite. But it's also not quite right.
I realize that clichés about learning 'basic human interaction' sound corny as hell, but this paradigm shift wasn't just a means to an end for me. And speaking of ends, if you want to race back out the door of club cliché, skip to the last paragraph. You'll save yourself time and avoid some stale pretzels, but you'll miss my personal revelation. (I'll remind you that you chose to visit my blog.) ;-)
Yes, I've always wanted to visit new places and try new things; I have Green Eggs and Ham tattooed on my forearm, after all. But if I summed up this fellowship experience in two words, they are these: recognize perspectives.
"You still sound like a 17-year-old who found enlightenment after reading Siddhartha in high school," you're muttering, eye-rolling now audible.
Ok, ok. I'm getting there. (And full disclosure: I love Siddhartha.)
I didn't set out on this little journey to become more enlightened. As I packed my bags and said goodbyes, my friends, family and other well wishers emphasized, "And be careful," as if I were skipping off to lead the war on terror. Ok, that's an exaggeration. Obviously grateful for the kind thoughts, it was easy to oblige my safety, but the implications of latent fear those words of caution possessed nagged me. Humans are naturally curious beings. (Look no further than my 1st grade science classes if you don't believe me.) But as we grow, we also develop a heathy sense of fear of the unknown. In fact, curiosity and fear often mitigate one another. If, however, curiosity can overcome fear, an entirely new and incredible world opens up.
When we overcome our fears, the unknown ceases to exist. We begin to understand one another and ourselves. (If you've made it this far into club cliché, this is where I hope you turn around to leave it, having realized that this is where the predictability ends because understanding what I will say goes deeper than simply recognizing foreign flags or food.) Inquire with or without caution, but inquire! Seek to understand how the economy drives peoples' choices, how the history, religion, education and media of a place affect peoples' values.
And if you happen to reach this depth of understanding, you've developed what most people call 'empathy'. And here's the thing about empathy: it can't be undone. Empathy enables us to see our differences and learn from them rather than fear them. Recognizing perspectives through an empathetic lens allows us to share our ideas, and emboldens us to challenge inequalities and injustices.
Now that you've left club cliché and are back in the fresh air, look around. Be curious. Ask questions. Examine your fears and go forward to find out more about your fellow man. I promise you'll be better for it. I know that I am.
1 Comment

4/5/2016 11 Comments

April 05th, 2016

Dakar, Senegal: Day 1 & Day 2

Picture
For as long as I can remember, I've had a fascination with maps and design plans. I would pour over old National Geographic magazines to discover distant lands (or even galaxies) and imagine myself there, and sometimes getting there was the best part! I was the kid with his parent in the checkout line asking for the latest copy of Architectural Digest instead of a pack of M&Ms. I'd steal my dad's copy of Grand Traverse Living when he wasn't around and imagine what my house would look like one day. On long family road trips, I would sit in the front seat, awake at 2am marveling at how multiple highways could crisscross and intersect without tumbling into one another. I'd help my mom plot our course. Something about imagining the reality of a place made me want to get up and go.
My parents always valued education, and going new places and trying new things was part and parcel of that. Given the opportunity, I've never said "no" to a new adventure. I suppose this makes me the consummate geek, learning for the sake of learning--something I swore in middle school I'd never be or do. Oh well. At this point in my life, I can't imagine it any other way, and frankly, it's fun. In another life, I may have been an explorer, an adventurer, an architect or maybe a cartographer sketching a newly discovered finch with Darwin or detailing the topography of uncharted territories. But right now I'm sitting on the "other" side of the Atlantic Ocean 3,818 miles from home and I realize that I AM some of those things, but mostly I'm a teacher. And the best part about being a teacher? I get to share all those adventures and newly discovered places and call it my job.
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    Tyler Sanders

    I am an elementary-level science teacher in Harlem, New York. When I'm not teaching, I'm exploring the world to bring back experiences that will help my students in their own explorations.

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