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By
Gordon Bonin
Of the NEWS Staff
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After
a week in Cuba, the question for the 30 Maine educators
who visited the country is how are they going to put the
experience to work back in their classrooms. History teachers
say it will help their lessons on communism and modern politics.
Spanish teachers say they went to hone their
skills and learn about a Latin American culture.
Some teachers said they want to strike up pen-pal correspondences
between their pupils and Cuban students. One thing is for
sure, there will be a lot of slide shows.
Kevin Sipe, a middle-school social studies
teacher in Presque Isle, shot 16 rolls of slide film in
six days. He plans to create one overview slide show about
the country and then a series of theme-specific slide shows
on such subjects as people, culture and politics. He will
augment the shows with materials such as clothing, including
a beret-like cap with a star on it, that he brought back.
Carolyn Hardman, a social studies teacher
at Rockland District Middle School, took 200 slides. ‘‘I’ll
pick out the good ones and will make little slide shows,
like one on the cars and one on the schools,’’
she said. She hopes to establish a pen-pal relationship
between her pupils and some of the youths in a rural school
visited on the trip.‘‘My students would love to
communicate with them,’’ she said.
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Anne Kofler returned with masks that she bought
in the markets of Havana to show her primary-school art pupils
in SAD 40 (Waldoboro area).
The masks are very typical of African and South
American art, Kofler said. She also picked up some musical
instruments that she will use when her schools focus on Latin
American culture.
On the trip were a number of history teachers who plan to
use their experience to help teach students about communism
and 20th-century history. John Michalowski, a history and
political science teacher at Katahdin High School in Sherman
Station, will use what he learned to present a different perspective
on U.S.-Cuba relations and U.S. foreign policy.
While in Cuba he bought a number of books. One
was titled ‘‘Globalization and Cuba-U.S. Conflict,’’
written by three Cuban authors.
Karol Kucinski, who teaches middle- and high-school history,
government, economics and geography at Vinalhaven Community
School, hopes what he learned will ‘‘broaden and
enrich’’ his lessons. ‘‘It will certainly
give me a better understanding of nationalist leaders in other
parts of the world,’’ he said.
Carolyn Bennett, a middle-school teacher on
North Haven, isn’t quite sure how she’ll put the
experience to use in the classroom. However, other teachers
in her school have expressed interest in what she learned,
Bennett said, and students in the school are eager to hear
about their Cuban counterparts.
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Next article: The triumph of education
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