7 minute read
What if learning happens everywhere?
Eighth grade students participate in a four day backpacking, camping, outdoor experience in Colorado every year.
Find Respect
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“As children of God at Presbyterian School, we respect ourselves, each other, and the environment.” -Presbyterian School Motto
At the heart of our school’s motto are two critical ideas: First, a community like ours affords amazing and diverse opportunities for learning in relationship with others, and, second, those relationships must be rooted in respect. Their acquisition of knowledge affords our children some measure of power over their futures, but we believe that the character development they receive during that learning process teaches them to respect others. The best learning does happen anywhere and everywhere ...and it’s characterized by respect.
Presbyterian School teachers regularly take students on a journey, because learning can happen everywhere. Learning is about our social, physical, and emotional interactions with the world that involve all the senses, getting our hands dirty, and experiencing life firsthand.
The third grade Think.Make.Talk class finds inspiration at the Sculpture Garden.
Seventh grade students enhance their European medieval studies with a visit to see medieval artifacts at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
Fourth grade students learn from the MFAH Glasssell School of Art how to install an art exhibit.
The Pre-K classroom is transformed into India as students immerse themselves in the culture and life of that country.
Meet the Waters
We had always talked about doing a distinct family adventure, and it became a case of now or never due to the ages of the children and their schooling commitments. We tried many iterations of an around-the-world itinerary, and ended up having to cut many places out, as our aim was to spend a minimum of three weeks in each country. So, in August of 2014, we– Gerry, Lou, and Sacha, then 12; Thalie, who was then 10; and Luke, who was 9–hit the road to 12 countries: Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, England, India, New Zealand, Australia, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and Turkey.
We had a lot of scary moments. Our car broke down on the Interamericano, and Gerry nearly overturned our tiny car in Costa Rica. Rappelling off a sheer cliff face with a crazy rushing waterfall roaring down at breakneck speed and the children getting sick in India were, frankly, terrifying. But then we camped out with camels in the Indian desert, scuba dived the Great Barrier Reef, did the four-day Inca Trail
trek, and hot air ballooned over mystical cave dwellings and rock formations in Turkey. So, the positive experiences definitely outweighed the negative!
The best overall experiences were living and working at a leprosy school in India and living in Cambodia with Ponheary Ly, who has won many global awards for her work in getting children off the streets and into schools. Both places gave us a great sense of community and purpose, which is an important counterbalance to the rootless life of traveling. When you stay in one place for some time, you can start to connect with the city and community to understand the culture and living like local people. We learned many lessons from our year abroad.
You can work anywhere; you can sleep anywhere!
Don’t sweat the formal learning too much. Many of the lessons we learned through our travel are still emerging in history and geography classes today. We learned through walking in the places where huge seismic or historical events happened, through listening to locals who really understood it.
Have faith in the goodness of people. When Lou was absent, some people looked on Gerry as a bit of a curiosity traveling alone with three children. But she was never threatened or felt in danger. People around the world looked out for us and wanted to make sure we were OK.
You don’t need a lot to be happy; a place to sleep and a full stomach are pretty good! We lived on five T-shirts each, and that was much more than most people we met had. Having many possessions can be as much of a hindrance as a blessing.
Traveling to see things gets stale pretty fast. The joy and fun comes in meeting and spending time with other people and having experiences. When we were in New Zealand, we did far too much traveling around to look at things, and as a result it was everyone’s least favorite country.
Three years later, our kids are pretty fearless and adventurous–always up for a new challenge. They have a strong sense of self. They are kind and respectful and have good circles of friends, but don’t waste much time worrying about fitting in or pretending to be someone they are not. They are all quietly confident and care a lot about others. We spend lots of time volunteering with Houston’s homeless, which came directly from seeing the desperate circumstances that many people around the world live in. We remain a close family and still do crazy projects together like the huge art car we built for Houston’s Art Car parade.
It’s our hope for future generations to develop a great respect for the many different forms of belief and culture while understanding the interconnectedness of the world. Most importantly, may we all experience the kindness and humanity of every culture.
Sa • cha
/ˈsɑ ʃə/ noun: Class of 2016 Alum
The place where I learned the most about the lives that other people lead was in India. There I saw houses held together by string and a sheer will to survive. There I saw people with stumps for fingers painting beautiful works of art. There I saw poverty. And it was terrifying. India is hot and dry and dusty, and its people are poor. And they are wonderfully happy. Because joy is free.
So I will always remember a mix of things. I will remember that homeless man covered in fleas I saw sleeping on the sidewalk. I will remember the children I saw begging. I will remember thinking I would die a number of times. I will remember the stoneworkers who are slaves. But I will also remember the joy I saw in people’s faces. And I will remember flying. Because nothing can compete with flying.
Tha • lie
/θəˈlaɪ ə/ noun: former Panther
The trip around the world was wonderful, interesting, and exciting, but also quite challenging and, at some points, scary. We tried new things and met many different people. I hope the memories will stay with me all my life. This world is changing fast, and we are lucky we saw it when we did.
The first day of our trip was not too great. We arrived, and at night it was really dark; it was raining, and we had no idea where we were. I thought the trip was going to be miserable, and I was really upset, but then the sun came out the next day. The town grew on me, and then it ended up with none of us wanting to leave and us actually having a dog. It was like a dream community. Costa Rica was one of the best parts of our trip because it’s a welcoming community, and everybody is friends with everybody.
Luke
/luk/ noun: Class of 2020 Panther
It was really unexpected when I sliced my toe open on a barnacle in Thailand, and also loads of people said that it was super bad, and I could die. It was unexpected when people were super friendly everywhere. It was unexpected when the people kept touching my hair and wanting to hug me and take pictures and calling me “Boy.”
It was much easier to do the Inca trail than I expected, because I guess we were pretty fit, and I didn’t have altitude sickness. Also, Australia and New Zealand were more English than I expected.
It was hard when I was sick in India and Thailand, because I couldn’t do anything at all. It was hard in India when we couldn’t have hamburgers or meat, because the cows are sacred in India.
