APS teachers benefit from trip to Turkey

Five Turkish schools, three APS teachers, and one week culminated in a great learning experience and international relationship for the district. Bolton Academy teachers Ingrid Arriagada and Claudine Curry recently returned from visiting five Turkish schools for a week. These two teachers first developed their relationship with Turkey through a well-known global learning community called ePals. The largest online international community with half a million classrooms in more than 200 countries, ePals allowed Curry and Arriagada to connect with teachers overseas to expose their students to a new way of viewing the world by interacting with international teachers and students.

On returning to the U.S., Curry and Arriagada receive a welcomed surprise. ePals awarded the two teachers the “Teacher Teamwork-Collaboration Award.” The work that both these teachers have done to expose Bolton Academy to a whole new world is nothing short of amazing.

Through ePals’ international community, Curry and Arriagada have been able to engage in and complete standards-based projects that promote global citizenship with their students. “Through connecting with classes from across the globe, my students and I have celebrated our differences and similarities,” Curry said. Besides Turkey, Curry and Arriagada also have ePals in Hong Kong, Syria, Lithuania, Australia, Kenya, Chile, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Bolton Academy and two other schools in APS – Sutton Middle and North Atlanta High – also will be hosting Turkish students for the week of Sept. 6. Curry sums the ePal experience up saying, “Perhaps we will never travel to all these distant lands. Yet, through the power of technology, we share our humanity; our children learn and grow together.”