Why Bogota?!

Tonight I arrive in Bogota. I cannot believe it. Tomorrow I begin teaching and it all just feels a bit unreal but I am very excited. There will be many more details to come as this tale unfolds but many of you do not even know why or how I ended up here in Bogota, so here’s the story (I’ll do my best to be brief, but it’s kind of weird twist of events):

I went to Harvard this year thinking I wanted to return to Uganda to work. All my major papers were written about Northern Uganda – policy and program proposals for how to improve the education and thus the economy and quality of life. Despite this fact, I continued to study Spanish while at Harvard. I felt like the only person in the International Education Policy program NOT fluent in at least two languages and because I already knew some Spanish that seemed to make the most sense. I think my advisor and program director disagreed – but now I wish I had take two semesters of Spanish.

In addition to studying Spanish, I also served on my program’s advisory board. Through this position, I ended up helping to plan an international study trip to Bogota and Cartagena, Colombia to look at the country’s education system and some of the innovations in education taking place there. See the blog our group created if you want to learn more about it. The planning of the trip was supported by Cecilia Maria Velez, a visiting professor at Harvard and the former Minister of Education of Colombia. She is an incredible woman and helped us to put together and incredible visit to Colombia. I fell in love with the country.

Finally, prior to graduate school I taught in Houston, Texas. Many of my students come from families where Spanish is the primary, often only, language spoken in the home. I loved teaching and the work I was doing in Houston but I was constantly frustrated that my lack of proficiency in Spanish prevented me from developing strong relationships with families of my students – relationships that would ultimately have increased my students’ success.

So – studying Spanish, visiting Colombia and not wanting to ever be prevented from communicating with the families of my students – I’ve decided to leave the States for two years. I will be teaching at a school called Gimnasio La Montana. The school is for students K through 11 (which is equivalent to 12th grade in the U.S.). I will be teaching 5th grade geometry (which is equivalent to 6th grade in the U.S.) and 6th grade mathematics and geometry (which is equivalent to 7th grade in the U.S. …noticing a pattern?). Additionally, I will be a part of committee to help the school revise its curricula to incorporate 21st century skills in all that they do. It is still a bit unclear what this exactly means but I’ll keep you posted. As far as housing goes, I’ll be living in a hotel my first week until I am able to look at some of the places my school director thinks are nice and can choose the place that is best for me.

This is what I know.
Let the adventure begin!