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BoatSchool



We have tried to stay as close to the girls' school curriculum from Greenville as possible. As an educator, I know the value of sticking with a scope and sequence, so I was a little apprehensive about how we would pull this off while traveling out of backpacks.  But when I saw that 6th grade was studying Volcanos and 2nd grade had Christopher Columbus on their list I kind of chuckled.  As a teacher, I would spend hours trying to create experiential learning and this trip was giving it to me on a silver platter (silver mined from a volcano and stolen from the new world). Teaching on a boat is the best kind of adventure!


First up: Volcanos
Our ship had its disembarkation on the volcanic island of Guadeloupe, giving us a full day to climb La Grande Soufrière.  After getting soft and eating too many Italian cannolis on the ship, I was rethinking my philosophy on experiential learning.  If the Camino was a marathon, climbing a volcano is a sprint going straight up, but not a 100m more of a grueling 800m where you still need your kick and you can’t see the finish line, cause it’s somewhere above those clouds.  


A prior earthquake had taken out the road, making the trailhead inaccessible by car. This meant we weren’t even going to start without first hiking through the rainforest.  It was hot and muggy, everything a rainforest should be in mid-December.  If we needed a reminder that a white Christmas wasn’t gonna happen this year, this was it.






La Soufrière is a 1,467m stratovolcano that jets out of the Caribbean Sea and helped to create this tropical island.   It last erupted in the 70’s, so although we weren’t in danger of a lava bath, it is still considered ACTIVE and there were plenty of signs reminding us of its power. 

On prior hikes, I always groaned when I saw the switchbacks coming.  The good news is this volcano didn’t have any switchbacks, the bad news was that it just went straight up.  This is the last photo I have of the assent, the camera needed to go in the pack cause I needed my hands for the long scramble to the top.  We didn’t need crampons or ropes, this wasn’t an ice shelf in the Rocky Mountains (shout out to my adventure girls).  But there was a quick lesson about 3 points of contact and how to NOT roll down a mountain.  The girls yet again amazed us with their determination.  Not a complaint just focus and stamina as they worked their way up to the summit.

We hit the summit at 2:00 in the afternoon.  The wind whipped out of the cauldron along with a strong scent of sulfur, giving a clear message this wasn’t a place to hang out.  Our little volcanologists collected some samples and made their observations then we made our descent.  There sure wasn’t a gift shop at the bottom, but we did find a hot thermal with water for some tired and sore feet. 



Next up:  Christopher Columbus
Our ship embarked in Genoa Italy, the birthplace of Columbus.   I found a great book about Columbus from Greenville’s online public library (thanks to librarian extraordinaire Christal) so we were able to read along as we traveled through his life.





The Italians are proud of their explorer as seen above in their statue.  But when we hit Barcelona it became apparent that the Spanish were even prouder, they had an even bigger statue as seen below.   We read about King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain and the riches they got from the voyages of Columbus.  He had put them in the running with the other colonial empires, and they still like him today.

Power seems to keep coming up this year as we study history.  From our first lesson in Boston at The Commons about the Revolutionary War to the art about the French Revolution in Paris, and then reading the Magna Carta in London. Getting to teach the state-sanctioned standard of Christopher Columbus just seemed to fall right in line with our apparent theme this year of Power.





As our cruise ship crossed the Tropic of Cancer the Europeans celebrated Columbus as the kids created versions of the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María.  Our ship's captain (the guy in white) received permission to sail from El Comandante Colombo himself (the guy in red with the funny hat).  We were traveling in the same North Equatorial Current that Columbus had sailed and apparently, we still needed permission.  





At night our family would head out to the upper decks and look at the stars.  We had read about how Columbus navigated by the stars, and we felt it important to just double-check that we were going in the right direction.  Orion’s Belt and Cassiopeia showed themselves every night pointing us west.  The girls were soon able to locate the North Star on their own and were fascinated when we began heading north toward its light.   According to our calculations, the high-tech GPS of our ship was still working. 


Then we hit the islands, moving our way up the French Antilles just as Columbus had to the beautiful island of Hispaniola. Just as he had, we were met at every island by warm and welcoming islanders engaging us with their delicious piñas.  We are currently in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, the sight of the first European colony in the New World settled by Columbus himself in 1492.  And it all seemed like a tidy and pretty ending.   But now at the end of the voyage, Claire kept reading our book.  We read about the Taíno people and the cost of that power.  How Columbus had nearly wiped them out depleting the population down to 200 sole survivors all enslaved.  And just like when we learned about the Knights Templar the other P word showed up again in our history lessons: perspective.  Who is telling the story?  Who is gaining power and who is losing it?  Who is building those statues?  And who is no longer around to tell their side of this story?  Apparently, the 2nd-grade curriculum is a little heavy. 

As we are now the new foreign arrivals to the DR, how will we engage?  Over the next few months, will we see this as a place created for our benefit?  We have no intention of island domination, but we are acutely aware of the micro-aggressions that tourists commit in communities.  With the knowledge of the past, we pray that we will do better.




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