Classroom Bridges Teams up with MapMates

I’m really excited to share that Classroom Bridges has teamed up with MapMates‘ Becky Searls of Columbus, Ohio (small world that we’re both from Ohio)!

Becky started MapMates as an effort to blend two of her passions together: traveling and education. She will begin a year long sabbatical this school year to travel the world, both throughout the United States and abroad. While traveling she will:

1. visit primary and secondary schools to observe best practices in a variety of education systems and
2. while visiting those schools, find teachers who are interested in forming meaningful global connections with teachers here in the USA with the goal of cultivating greater cultural sensitivity and global awareness/competency in our students.

When she first contacted me via Twitter to see if we could join our efforts in some way, my first response was, “can I go with you?!” My second response was, “of course!”

So, as Becky travels, I will feature some of her blog posts on Classroom Bridges to share her experience in schools across the globe. She will use Classroom Bridges as one of her means to help teachers she meets form connections.

You can check out a few posts from her travels to Scandinavia and Germany last June at mapmates.org.

Her tentative travel schedule is below. If you live anywhere near any of the cities she will be traveling to, please reach out to her via Twitter or by commenting on this post below (I’ll forward your message to her).

• September: Kyoto, Hiroshima, and Osaka Japan
• October: Singapore; Los Angeles, California; Cincinnati, Ohio
• November: Boston, Massachusetts
• January/February: San José, Costa Rica; possibly 1-2 South American countries
• March: London, England; Valencia, Spain; France

Becky said she, “would love to work with schools who are really eager to make meaningful global connections,” and I couldn’t agree more, so it made sense to partner up. Follow along with our partnership throughout the year here and on mapmates.org!