Newsletter

By:  Ana Paula Jakob
School:  John F. Kennedy The American School of Queretaro

Gentrification is often reduced to the arrival of oat-milk lattes and avocado toast, but beneath the "aesthetic" lies a complex global shift in capital. As residents of Mexico with roots in Japan and South Korea, the students have analyzed two distinct engines driving urban change: the "invisible hand" of the global market in Mexico and the "iron fist" of state-led development in East Asia.

By: David C. Virtue, PhD

Western Carolina University

The Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE), the world’s oldest and largest international organization dedicated to the education of young adolescents (i.e., ages 10 – 15), calls for a middle school curriculum that is challenging, exploratory, integrative, and diverse (Bishop & Harrison, 2021). Such a curriculum:

By:  Molly Hinsvark
School:  Colegio Interamericano

Ten minutes before class begins, seniors at Colegio Interamericano are already asking to go down to the library. They search the shelves for favorite picture books from their childhood, while others arrive carrying well-loved stories from home. As they compare titles and laugh over familiar memories, they really are preparing to enter a familiar space from their early years.

By:  Otto Neitzel
School:  American School of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

This was my first year in a new school—the American School of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico—which welcomed me and my family so warmly. From the start, one of my top priorities was simply to connect—getting people genuinely curious about each other, their students, and the learning happening all around them.

By:  Ana M. Calvo
School:  John F. Kennedy The American School of Querétaro

This is my first year teaching DP Global Politics, and I quickly realized how challenging a concept-based course can be. The pool of possible examples to learn the concepts is practically infinite, and I kept asking myself: What will actually ignite my students’ curiosity? What I find engaging is not necessarily what they find interesting.

By: Sandro Hernández Hernández
School: Colegio Jorge Washington

En el Colegio Jorge Washington de Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, comencé a hacerme una pregunta que no podía ignorar: ¿cómo puedo enseñar mejor si no entiendo lo que mis estudiantes sienten? Esa inquietud fue el punto de partida de "Educar con el corazón", una propuesta de capacitación docente en habilidades socioemocionales que hoy forma parte de mi práctica diaria y de mi tesis de maestría en Educación Inclusiva e Intercultural.

By:  Carla Meyrink
School:  The Community for Learning

At The Community for Learning, our professional learning begins with a simple question: What impact do we want to have on our students? In the years since the pandemic, we’ve noticed a shift: students are often less willing to take risks and persist through challenge.

By:  Diana Marcela Valles Montemayor
School: AIM

At the American Institute of Monterrey (AIM), we are constantly looking for ways to Ignite Curiosity and give our students a platform for their voices. This year, our 5th-grade students embarked on the "Estante Mágico" project, a transformative journey where they stepped into the roles of professional authors and illustrators.

By:  Laura Mena Sturla
School:  St. Michael's School

There is a quiet kind of magic that lives inside a school library. It is not loud or flashy, but it is powerful. It teaches children things that no textbook ever could. Long before they master research skills or fall in love with a favorite author, they begin learning how to be human.

By:  Reid Prichett, Ph.D.
School:  CAG

We live and work in an era defined by relentless complexity. Between the rapid evolution of technology and the "data firehose," it is easy for us educators to feel pulled in a dozen directions at once. At the American School of Guatemala (CAG), we believe the antidote to this modern chaos isn't doing more—it’s focusing on the singular goal that matters most.

By:  Sandro Hernández Hernández - Tatiana Rodríguez Samra
School: Colegio Jorge Washington

¿Puede un grupo de estudiantes de grado séptimo investigar sobre Inteligencia Artificial y Computación Cuántica y usarlo para decidir su futuro? En el Colegio Jorge Washington de Cartagena de Indias, esa pregunta se volvió realidad.

By:  Araceli Ponce de León Domínguez
School:  John F. Kennedy The American School Of Queretaro

AI is already shaping how our students think, so the real question is: what are we doing to shape how they think with it? What began as a moment of curiosity during an IB workshop quickly became a turning point in my professional practice. Rather than treating AI as a threat, I chose to approach it as a responsibility: to understand it, question it, and intentionally shape how it enters our classrooms.

By:  Ana Paula Jakob Zúñiga
School:  John F. Kennedy. The American School of Queretaro.

In a compelling Theory of Knowledge (TOK) exercise, students stepped back in time to 1972, immersing themselves in the harrowing survival story of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571. Through a structured role-play inspired by the film Society of the Snow, the class navigated the complex ethical and psychological terrain inhabited by the survivors of the "Miracle in the Andes."

By: Anahi Paredes, Curriculum Director, American School of Tegucigalpa

Like many schools in our region, The American School of Tegucigalpa has embraced Project-Based Learning (PBL) to provide students with more authentic and meaningful learning experiences. While teachers have engaged in a variety of professional learning opportunities, both online and in-person, job-embedded professional learning continues to be the most effective pathway for moving from theory to practice.

By:  Karla Jannette Mendoza Cervantes
School: John F. Kennedy The American School Of Queretaro

During one of my units, I wanted my students to move beyond simply reading and answering questions. While working with “La tortuga y el hombre” by Horacio Quiroga, I noticed that although students understood parts of the story, they were not fully engaged or connecting with it in a meaningful way.

Is there life on Mars?
By: María Alejandra Vega Hernández
School:  John F. Kennedy American School of Querétaro

It started with a simple read-aloud of Life on Mars by John Agee, a normal library day. Kids were tired from the long day. Wondering if the soccer coach would take them to the field, or if they would just practice in the kindergarten playground. Will their mom come pick them up, or will it be their grandma?

By: Valeria Rojas Alonso (vrojas@gi.edu.co) & Luisa Guarín Pérez (luisag@gi.edu.co), GI School

All of us have watched at least one TED Talk that impressed and inspired us somehow, but at the same time, they can seem unreachable, especially for an elementary student in Latin America who has grown to believe that being in the spotlight requires a “movie-like” life. Then, how do we break the preconceived ideas of what a worthy story is?

By:  Steven Eggers. Co-authors: Maria Teresea Soto, Araceli Ponce, Diana Campos
School:  John F. Kennedy The American School Of Queretaro

At JFK, we have been exploring how to strengthen the connection between classroom learning and what happens at home. This led to the creation of our Parent Academy, an initiative designed not only to inform parents, but to equip them.

By:  Dr. Peluchi Pabutoy Flores
School: merican School Foundation in Mexico City (ASF)

At the American School Foundation in Mexico City (ASF), our Principles of Teaching and Learning (PTL) are more than aspirational statements; they are a shared commitment to how learning comes to life in every classroom. Developed through a design thinking process by a dedicated committee of 12 faculty members, these principles reflect our collective voice and vision for student learning.

By:  Ricardo Vázquez Alegría
School:  John F. Kennedy The American School Of Queretaro

Based on the TriCon26 theme, “Ignite Curiosity, Empower Learning, Inspire Change,” I would like to share a recent experience from my elementary music classroom that reminded me how meaningful innovation happens when students are given the chance not only to learn music, but also to create it.

By:  Rebeca García Arroyo
School:  John F. Kennedy The American School of Querétaro

In a hallway at JFK The American School of Querétaro, a group of seven-year-olds independently manages a production meeting for their shadow theater project, checking off tasks from a self-made list without a single teacher’s prompt.

By:  Fernanda Zarandona Trejo
School:  John F. Kennedy The American School of Querétaro

Al inicio de mi vida estudiantil, me parecía que enseñar se daba de uno hacia muchos. Una voz enseñaba y las otras escuchaban. A veces y con suerte, se volvía un diálogo breve entre dos, pero no era común. Afortunadamente, mi experiencia con el aprendizaje no se quedó ahí, y supe después que enseñar-aprender, en el fondo, es un fenómeno mucho más complejo y vivo, como intuía entonces.

By:  SILVIA DANIELA SOLIS FERNANDEZ
School:  LINCOLN INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY
At Lincoln International Academy in Nicaragua, our Safe Environment Program recently brought to life a meaningful initiative: We Are All Unique Week. This experience was designed to help students understand that each person is uniquely created, with different ways of thinking, learning, and experiencing the world.