Hello Glimpsers and families!
My name is Holli Van Zandt, and I am honored to be one of your Global Glimpse Leaders for our Constanza trip! It has been a pleasure to meet some of you in the information sessions, and I can already tell by your positive attitudes that this trip will be everything we want it to be. I can’t wait to watch you all grow and change over the two weeks we have together. Two weeks may seem like a long time, but it will fly by!
Now, for a little bit about me. I absolutely love travelling and take up any chance that I have to do so. The DR will be the 10th country I have travelled to in the last 5 years, and I am currently planning a trip to Norway in the fall! My love for travel really took root my Junior year of High School when my choir took a trip to Canada, so this GG program is very near and dear to me. It offers me the chance to see students in the same age range as I was when I first left the country. I can only image how powerful it will be to see that spark of travel fever ignite within each of you! Besides travelling, I have also taken up residence in a foreign country to study. During college, I studied and lived abroad in France to finish my degree. This live-in experience offered me the best possible opportunity to fully immerse myself in the culture of another country and learn about them to the best possible degree. While there, I was able to travel the course of Europe and discover things about myself I would have never known if I hadn’t taken that plunge!
There will certainly be some growing pains along the journey, but those difficulties offer us the chance to learn more about our own limits and how we can push them. One of my biggest philosophies in my teaching practice is that if you aren’t challenged, you aren’t learning! I teach at Morgan Park High School, an IB school, and we always push our students to become strong global citizens. This trip will open your eyes to the world around you and how others live. Ultimately, you will be able to bring back what you learned about the world and encourage your fellow classmates to see the world through different lenses. I will be there, happily supporting each and every one of you so ensure we have the best trip possible.
Let’s do this thing!
Holli