Going global

Four Homewood High School teachers will be bringing a global perspective to their classrooms this school year, after being awarded grants to further their education abroad. 

In being selected for their grants, these teachers can count themselves among the top educators in the state and the nation in their field, and each of them felt their trip will reap long-term benefits for their students.

Megan Cole: Germany

There’s more to modern-day Germany than what’s written in World War II history books. Through the Transatlantic Outreach Program sponsored by Goeth-Institut, social studies teacher Megan Cole got a taste of modern German culture and business to share with her economics and AP Macroeconomics classes.

“The goal, basically, is to bring North American — so American and Canadian — teachers to Germany to learn about modern day German culture, the economy, so you will bring back those lessons to your classroom,” Cole said.

Cole, a six-year Homewood teacher, visited Berlin, Tann, Hamburg and Braunschweig during her two-week trip in June. The visit included museums, historic sites and two German secondary schools, where Cole and other teachers got to see the similarities and differences between American and German education. Cole said she also had the opportunity to speak with Syrian refugees who were teachers.

Having taught modern U.S. history in the past, Cole said she enjoyed seeing a U.S. Army camp stationed on the former border that divided East and West Germany. In Hamburg, she learned more about Germany’s international trade with a harbor tour to watch container ships unload goods.

Though it isn’t part of her economics curriculum, Cole said she has often had students ask her about how Germany teaches and talks about World War II.

“I didn’t really know the answer to that. It really was fascinating because I feel like the Holocaust is remembered everywhere in Germany. Everywhere we went, we couldn’t get away from it,” Cole said.

Those remembrances include raised stones on sidewalks throughout the country, with names and information about Holocaust victims engraved on them. The stones are placed in front of each victim’s last known address.

“You almost trip or stumble over the stone, and you stop and you think and remember,” Cole said.

This was Cole’s first international educational trip, and she said making connections with the 14 other teachers on the trip helped her plan how to bring what she saw back to the classroom.

Douglas Welle: Carthage, Sicily and Italy

Latin may be considered a dead language, but the history and impact of the Roman Empire is still visible in the Mediterranean.

Douglas Welle, a four-year Latin teacher at Homewood, spent part of his summer retracing the path of Aeneas, the hero of a book he assigns to his AP Latin class each year, Virgil’s “Aeneid.” Through the University of Alabama in Huntsville’s STAR (Success Through Academic Research) grant project, Welle was able to visit Carthage in Tunisia, Sicily and southern Italy for three weeks.

“I want to be able to show the students how Rome interacted with a lot of other people,” Welle said.

His trip included visiting historic sites and finding remnants of Roman, Greek, Carthaginian and Phoenician cultures, which were neighbors and trading partners at various points in history. Welle said Rome influenced the areas it conquered, but the empire was uniquely multicultural as people were allowed to continue their traditions and cultures.

“Rome spread this big umbrella, it considered itself to be the governor of the known world, broadly speaking, and as long as people didn’t really push back against that, they were kind of OK with it,” Welle said.

Welle is a former Fulbright scholar and spent his time in that program in Tunisia.

“Anytime I can get back to Tunisia, I’m a very happy person,” he said.

Other highlights of his trip included historic sites in Segesta and Syracuse, on the island of Sicily, and staying on a tiny island called Ortigia. 

“It’s deeply helpful in understanding what the language and ideas that you’re learning, how they translate into people’s lives,” he said of the Roman sites and historic inscriptions he saw.

Following “the footsteps of Aeneas” will help Welle bring a new perspective to his AP students as they read part of the “Aeneid,” but he said he wants to teach all his Latin students about the “poly-cultural zone” that Rome created in its empire to help them understand the language and culture of the time.

“You are really trying to bridge where kids are, both in terms of the language they know but also their own culture, and the language and culture of somebody else,” Welle said.

Mindy McBride: Italy

During her week in Rome at the AP Summer Institute for European History, Mindy McBride saw the way Italy has influenced the world from the Roman Empire and the Renaissance all the way up to the creation of Starbucks.

McBride, a 13-year teacher in Homewood, said the summer institute program was a chance to learn from other European history instructors from Switzerland, Hungary, Qatar and the U.S., as well as take field trips to important sites. The program focused on new teaching and learning strategies for Advanced Placement courses, as well as the chance to share ideas with other teachers. Her trip was funded by the Homewood City Schools Foundation.

The field trips to surrounding cities included the area’s first Renaissance church, the Pantheon and Colosseum, the Sistine Chapel and the EUR business and residential district built by Benito Mussolini. By comparing narrow Roman streets built during medieval days with modern roads made to accommodate carriages and cars, McBride got to see firsthand how industrialization has shaped cities.

“We visited piazzas where heretics were burned during the Reformation. We discussed the impact of globalization by visiting the coffee shop in Rome that inspired the founder of Starbucks,” McBride said. “The field studies in Rome were amazing, and I can't wait to share photos and videos with my students.”

In the classroom this year, McBride will share photos and short videos she created as virtual tours of the city and important cultural places.

“One of my goals is for our students to better understand the impact that Europe has had on the rest of the world, both historically and in present day,” she said.

Rebecca Phillips: Mexico

Spanish teacher Rebecca Phillips has also received a STAR grant from UAH, and over an extended Thanksgiving break she will be traveling to Mexico to improve her language and cultural skills.

Phillips has taught in Homewood for eight years, but before that she taught at an international school in Argentina. Since returning to the U.S., she said she has wanted to spend more time immersed in a Spanish-speaking environment to keep up her Spanish knowledge.

“Improving my own language skills will help my students to increase proficiency, as well. I also hope to bring back cultural knowledge about Mexico from not only traveling there but also from living with a family and seeing what daily life is like,” Phillips said. “I hope to set an example of being a life-long language learner and inspire my students to travel or live abroad one day.”

Her trip will include sightseeing in Mexico City and a stay with a host family in Guanajuato, where she will be taking intensive Spanish lessons.

“I have never been to Mexico, so I am excited to see some cultural sights, especially Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera's homes,” Phillips said. Students in her class study the two painters, and Phillips said she is fascinated by their relationship.

She’ll be bringing photos, videos and everyday objects back to the classroom.

“Firsthand experience is the best learning tool,” she said.