Katie Flessas–Executive Editor
This summer, as students venture off on vacations, three Langley teachers will expand their student base to children and teachers from around the globe.
This year, history teachers Ms. Jennifer Burns and Ms. Suzanne Schettini and chemistry teacher Mr. Ian Guch will all travel across the globe to teach foreign students.
History teachers Ms. Burns and Ms. Schettini separately applied for and received summer Fellowships for Korean Studies from The Korean Society, after having received letters of recommendation and writing an essay and an East Asia sample lesson.
Ms. Burns explained the fellowship’s goal is “to allow teachers a better understanding of Korea’s history and culture.”
With a website promising a “unique and unparalleled learning experience”, the fellowship is offered to 70 teachers, for a trip taken in two groups of 35. Ms. Schettini will attend in the first group and leave June 24-July 7, while Ms. Burns will accompany the second group from July 7-21.
The Fellows will arrive in Seoul, South Korea and spend several days attending university lectures and exploring historically significant sites in the Seoul metropolitan area, before teaching a brief lesson to a group of Korean students.
Ms. Burns’ lesson is primarily centered on religion. “I want to look at how the traditions of Buddhism, Confucianism and Christianity have shaped Korea and, in turn, been shaped by Korea.” she noted.
Ideally, the teachers would have a resounding impact on the way Korean history is taught in the US. After they’ve encountered the culture first-hand, they will create a lesson to present to Fairfax County teachers, in addition to bringing their expertise to Langley classrooms.
Chemistry teacher Mr. Guch will travel to Indonesia this summer, where he will be featured as the keynote speaker at a conference for other chemistry teachers. An Indonesian professor contacted Mr. Guch through the latter’s 11 year-old website, chemfiesta.com, and asked him to speak at a conference. The author of An Idiot’s Guide to Chemistry as well as a part-time professor at George Mason University, Mr. Guch tries to make chemistry easy to understand with unusual teaching methods.
For his speech, Mr.Guch plans to highlight ways to make chemistry entertaining, how to make lessons “hands-on” and, more importantly, “brains-on.” He hopes to stress the need for students to “think it out” instead of having the answers provided to them in order to inspire what he calls, “creative chemistry”.