The Palmyra School District's Director of Assessment, Accountability & Special Projects, Dr. Peter Lutchko, received a Fulbright Hays Grant to travel with TCNJ to Taiwan this summer.
Here's what he has to share in his 3rd report:
Nĭ Hăo (Hello/How are you) from Taiwan!
The week was spent traveling and experiencing the country of Taiwan in so many ways. We were honored to visit the President’s House and be given a tour. Our visit with a Tech company- View Sonic -yielded connections that will reach beyond this trip. I was thrilled to see the methods that will allow our students to engage in their online universe with our sister school Xin-Xing Elementary School. (The photo below is of students sharing “Paws Up!” with Charles Street & they are holding mini panther figurines to show support of our school district- a small gift I could share since they came in to meet us on their summer vacation).
While our students are in the online universe they can collaborate with pen-pal students from our sister school, be creative and create their own avatars! The plan is to have classroom discussions and our sister school was given our approved novel list in the hopes that the Xin-Xing students will read the same books and share insights.
We finished our official language class and seminar classes at the local university – National Taiwan Norman University (NTNU) and completed a presentation in Chinese to our visiting professor from Cornell University. We visited a Native Taiwanese tribe (aboriginal) and so many landmarks within the country.
One landmark was a world renowned library (pictured above). We visited National Parks, a Grotto......and beaches (Wǒ xǐhuān hǎibiān!- "I like the beach" in Mandarin). There were extraordinary vistas to take in of the river & mountains from the Xikou Suspension Bridge. I was happy to share this with my tour mates!
This program has been truly immersive and I cannot wait to bring back what I have learned to the district. I would like to take this update to thank our Board of Education, Dr. McBride and the entire administrative team for engaging with me remotely this July, PDSN @ TCNJ for extending this opportunity to educators, US Department of Education Fulbright program for investing in these types of cultural exchanges, the staff at our new sister school Xin-Xing Elementary, and my Fulbright program Director Dr. Celia Liu from TCNJ for this incredible opportunity and journey.
Looking forward to an exciting 23-24 school year and as always I remain #PalmyraProud.