I don’t know where to begin to sum up the amazing weekend I just spent in Washington, DC. It was fabulous, somewhat like an awakaing creative spirits. 

After all the mental strain, the sleepless nights, the packing, the lesson planning it was all worth it, every single minute. The fellows hailed from as far north as Quebec, to as far south as Louisiana. Our backgrounds varied, and while the bulk of us were classroom teachers, some of us were instructional coaches, or educational camp directors. The room was full of power and we were ready to change the world.

I must admit, I felt a little special, almost everyone knew my name. Not because of my skin tone or the uniqueness of my name, but rather because prior to this trip to DC, I’d made a conscious effort to get to know as many people as I could. I started to form little networks with the other people selected: the Ohioans, the Montessorians, and the Cincinnatians. And then everyone one else, well we found each other on Facebook, the google plus site, and through email.

I share in everyone’s sentiments when I say, these people are amazing. The entire experience placed us all in a state of gratitude.  So here are the highlights of my week:

a)    Meeting Nina, Amy, and Kim. Wow…they were jewels to our hearts.

b)   Listening to Juan Valdez speak bout the process he went through to create the map of CUBA. As if his life story wasn’t enough.

c)    Rooming with Paola. And the adventure begins…

d)   Our one-one talk with naturalist, Karen Copeland. I will admit, I felt so special that she reached out to us.

e)    We met Mark Thessian, a National Geographic Photographer. He did an entire spread on the wildfires in California. He was amazing and spoke so passionately about his work.

f)     Skyping with Eric Guth our Expedition leader/naturalist on our ship.

g)    Skyping and meeting with past fellows.

h)   Brainstorming our lessons and how we will use this experience in our classrooms.

i)     Brainstorming our outreach within our communities.

j)     Collaboration from across the nation…these moments alone were priceless.

My trip is only four weeks away. I’d like to say that I am ready, but I would be lying to self. Truth is I still need several items including hiking boots, a watch, cargo pants, and a rain coat. This list is the short version, trust me.  In  just a few days I will be traveling to the National Geographic Headquarters in DC to meet the other fellows selected. Three days of training and what I hope to be some free time so I can get to know the other people selected for this honor.  My roommate is Paola, the other teacher traveling to the British Isles with me in May.  I am very much looking forward to meeting her and the others who were chosen-I hear we are all awesome. 

So I had a very busy weekend as I combined my birthday celebration from March with my National Geographic  honor and made the party all related to travel.  I created these geography based travel games for participants to play and focused the signage on what one would see/hear at an airport: baggage claim, inflight meal, etc. It was a pretty neat idea, as I tell friends, you had to be there to see it.

I was amazed at how engaged my friends were in learning about the world.  Adults learning about the earth, counties, names of world wonders.  I literally had 30, 40, and 50 year old friends trying to recall knowledge learned decades ago from their youth, and if they didn’t know, they were eager to find out and learn something new. It was a sight to behold. One game in particular, while appearing simple, was actually quite challenging: NAME THAT STATE.  I was amazed that some could only recall the names of only 20 states here in the US. But then something magical happened, like students, they began to use each other, on site resources (other maps in the room), and/or technology to figure out unknown answers to this game and others. One person said very plainly, “hey…no worries…just Google it.” You couldn’t help but laugh… it was the truth.

My favorite moments were watching friends who brought their children play geography games with them.  My friend Tara asked, “Netta…where can I buy these geo cards?  I want to get a set for Courtney. I want her to know the names of all the countries.” Now that is what I am talking about. This made my heart smile.

This themed celebration also gave me an opportunity to share my upcoming expedition with friends and family. I hung posters of my travels and talked extensively about the partnership between Linblad and National Geographic all in an effort to share this journey with the people I have grown to love.  I shared my story of how I found out about the fellow and where I was at the time when I received the call. I guess you can never share too many times about an opportunity that will help to change the way you see the world. 

What I have learned from this experience is that people want to know. We are so inundated with life that we forget to digest the beauty of the world around us even if it is on the page of magazine. We forget how refreshing it is to look at a map and envision where in the world we want to travel someday. Even if it takes a lifetime of savings, our imaginations in the meantime, are full of possibilities. They allow us to transform our communities into places of refuge, peace, and solitude if we search in the right space and venture around the corner out of our comfort zones. Our fear of the unknown prevents us from moving forward. As a result, we remain stuck, incapacitated. I don’t ever want to arrive on the doorstep of complacency-I said this years ago. Give me the earth, the sky, the stars, and moon…take me on an adventure for in that place I may just change the world.

As for my friends….I hope their world became bigger today.