Volume 96, Number 2
6. Because the shortest path between teaching and great teaching often leads halfway around the globe.
by Theresa Pease
| On Sept.
11, 2001, when most people were glued to their televisions, kneeling
in prayer, or gathering to mourn friends and countrymen lost in the
attacks on the World Trade Towers and Pentagon, PA history teacher
Peter Drench was ripping apart the fall syllabus for one of his courses. The course was called The Middle East, and Drench had planned to devote one week to the topic of terrorism and two days to Afghanistan. But when disaster struck, he quickly altered his curriculum to delve more deeply into those topics over the whole trimester, and in place of the usual research paper he assigned students to write their own educated reflections on the situation. |
| Drench’s
ability to adapt rapidly to the changing world picture was in part
a manifestation of his more than 30 years of teaching, informed by
a B.A. degree in international relations and Asian study from Cornell
and a graduate degree in history and secondary education from Tufts.
But what gave him the confidence to lead the students in explorations
of what life might look like from a Middle Eastern perspective was
his own firsthand experience in the area. Thanks to a full-year sabbatical in 2000-01 made possible through faculty development monies raised during Campaign Andover, Drench had examined computer usage at schools across the United States, observed technology professionals at an Australian software company and coached softball in Europe, each of which gave him new insights and knowledge to take back to the classrooms and athletics fields of Andover. More to the point, however, was his travel for six weeks in the Islamic world. |
| “I could tell students things I had learned in books about the Middle East, but that would not have the power of telling them what it was like finding myself looking across the border into Afghanistan and being warned not to cross because there were minefields and hostile warlords and the Taliban was running the country.” |
| Drench
had visited Israel, Egypt and Turkey, where he tapped the minds of
individuals whose lives had been colored by ongoing hostilities.
Through an affiliation with
philanthropist George Soros’ Open Society Institute, he had also worked
as part of a team interviewing university students from Tajikistan, Kazakhstan
and Uzbekistan who had applied to study in the United States. And during a separate
trip funded through Andover’s International Academic Partnership, he had
collaborated on curriculum development projects with Ismaili Muslims in London
and visited counterparts from Islamic schools run by the Aga Khan Educational
Service in Pakistan. Such encounters bring a valuable immediacy to Drench’s teaching. “I could tell students things I had learned in books about the Middle East,” he says, “but that would not have the power of telling them what it was like finding myself looking across the border into Afghanistan and being warned not to cross because there were minefields and hostile warlords and the Taliban was running the country. As I got to know Tajik and Uzbek people, I was able to understand the issues on a personal level and gained insight into what it felt like to be part of the multiethnic societies of Central Asia. I think that translates in a compelling way to my students.” Drench’s experiences—which also proved useful as he set up an Internet correspondence between PA kids and teens in an Aga Khan network school in Pakistan—may be unusually dramatic. Still, the use of a sabbatical opportunity for travel that enriches teaching is one prac-tice that contributes to the effectiveness of the Andover faculty. Consider the understandings gained by Chinese instructor Yuan Han as he used a school-supported break to interview students, faculty and staff at five prestigious private schools in China. Or talk to Francesca Piana, who teaches Spanish as well as Latin American history and spent her sabbatical working in an impoverished area of Ecuador. For recently retired English teacher Edward Germain, who taught a generation of PA students Ulysses, visiting the James Joyce Center in Dublin and exploring that city’s neighborhoods yielded fertile material for the classroom. Even hitting the road in America can provide a new perspective, says art teacher Peg Harrigan, who devoted a sabbatical to photographically documenting the progress of the Women’s Motorcyclist Foundation as its members traveled 30,000 miles of highway to raise awareness of and funds for breast cancer research. Harrigan says the adventure raised her artistic credibility and set for her students an example of creative passion. Not all PA-supported release time is used for travel, of course. Some full- or part-time sabbaticals enable teachers to pursue advanced degrees, complete writing or research projects, develop new skills, pen new curricula (see page 26) or just refresh themselves for another decade in the classroom. Nevertheless, experiences of teachers like Drench—whose travels have also enlivened his courses on China and Central Asia—rank high among the uses Campaign Andover had in mind when it decided to devote $5 million of its $35 million faculty support goal to solidifying support for sabbaticals. Simply put, the academy believes such explorations help educators develop and extend their global perspective. Drench views sabbaticals as luxuries and privileges—but not as frills. “Teaching,” he explains, “is a heavy-duty people-to-people business, intense in both the amount and depth of contact involved. In a boarding school, teachers put in especially long hours. When they’re not in the classroom, they’re coaching or mentoring kids in the dorms. They’re preparing for class or doing research; they’re grading tests or reading papers; they’re advising students and they’re trying to be as available to everyone as they possibly can. “After doing that for many years, it’s important to step away from the profession and assess it from a distance, but also to find richer ways to re-engage with it. People come back from sabbaticals energized, educated and eager to share everything they’ve learned with their students and colleagues. At Andover, much of what we teach is international in quality, so travel itself relates directly to what we do. The more of this planet we see, and the more we interact with different cultures, the better position we are in to teach our students about the world.” |
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| E-mail: Theresa Pease |