Each year, Participate Learning welcomes hundreds of ambassador teachers to the United States with the goal of uniting the world through global learning. Read on to meet a few of our ambassador teachers, learn what being a global educator means to them, and uncover what they want to teach their students this year.
Why did you make the journey to the US to be a teacher?
“I really want to share things about my culture. Not only from Colombia but the city I am from — Bogota. I think that it’s a great opportunity to learn from people who live in the U.S. It’s an incredible chance to share things about what I know as a teacher and learn from others.”
Maira Forero, ambassador teacher from Colombia
“A great impact on my life was learning about global education and different systems of education. That’s why I became passionate about this. Education leads the way for progress. It’s the leading way to build a society and build a better future for our children.”
Suzy Manuela Prajea, ambassador teacher from Romania
What does being a global educator mean to you?
“A global educator to me is a teacher who can teach beyond limits. That person who loves to learn. When you inspire students to love to learn, then learning is fun.”
Shellome Goulbourne, ambassador teacher from Jamaica
“We don’t know what kind of a world the children we are educating now are going to be in when they are adults. We’re basically raising them for a world that doesn’t exist yet. Instead of preparing kids for a certain academic or career world, a huge part of the education has to be how to embrace and love different cultures, people, languages, and races.
It’s how to enable them to be open-minded, tolerant, interested in the world, and to work with each other. I think to do that they have to be exposed to different opinions and people who are different from them.”
Emma Wiid, ambassador teacher from South Africa
“Being open and having a global mind is essentially at the core of being a global educator. Teaching in another culture, another setting is humbling enough to realize I’m not going to know everything.”
Paul Guille, ambassador teacher from the United Kingdom
What do you want to teach your students this year?
“I’m most excited about setting up my classroom first. I’m thinking about the colors and everything. And then, more than that, I’m excited about teaching and doing fun activities for my kids, interesting projects, and creating new things so I can show parents and the community. I want to share with the community what I do with my kids.”
Maria Fernanda, ambassador teacher from Ecuador
When teaching a language, we are teaching more than words. We’re teaching an entire culture. It’s really important when we’re in a classroom and we are teaching students who don’t know anything about where I come from. It’s like being a sponge and gathering everything from your culture and finding the best ways to tell your students about it.”
Carolina Castro, ambassador teacher from Colombia
“I love being with the kids. I brought different games from Spain so my kids can play. I'm just looking forward to this whole experience.”
Estabaliz Medina, ambassador teacher from Spain
