Day 8: Ebenezer, Sinde Village, and a Circle of Gratitude

Day 8 (July 1) began in Livingstone, where our group split up again to visit different schools and community spaces. My group started at Ebenezer Orphanage / Ebenezer School, where we spent the morning with younger learners.

Before beginning our activity, we peeked into a few classrooms. One space in particular stood out to me because two classrooms were connected, with an open area between them. The students were engaged and participating, which I loved seeing, but the sound carried so much between the rooms that it was hard to imagine trying to teach and learn in that environment every day.

From there, we went to the reading center, where students were being introduced to a new story. Each of us was paired with two learners, and I worked with two boys on Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I began by reading the story aloud and asking them what they thought might happen based on the pictures. Then they took turns reading the story out loud, alternating pages. After reading, they illustrated the story and wrote a short summary.

After the reading center, we went to the kitchen to help stir and serve nshima to the students. The students lined up to receive their portions, clapping and curtsying as they were served. A couple of preschoolers kept running back and forth from their classroom to give hugs, which was another of those small, sweet moments that I will cherish.

Usually, the students wash their own bowls, but our group took over that job for the day. It quickly became clear how busy that task was. There were not enough bowls for every student to have one at the same time, so as soon as one student finished, the bowl had to be washed quickly so it could be used by the next person in line.

After helping in the kitchen, we were asked to make new anchor charts for the school. I was assigned to create a poster comparing wild animals and domestic animals. As I worked, one of the workers watched over my shoulder, fascinated by the drawing process. He asked how I could draw so quickly and confidently. I told him the honest answer: practice.

He wanted to know what he should do if he practiced drawing for 40 minutes every day and how long it would take him to improve. I explained blind contour drawing and told him that I thought it was one of the best exercises for building observational drawing skills. I also told him that a full year of practicing 40 minutes a day would lead to exceptional growth. I appreciated that conversation because it gave me a chance to talk about drawing not as talent alone, but as a skill that grows through observation and steady practice.

Later in the morning, we traveled to what I believe was another Ebenezer School location, possibly for older learners. The classroom setting felt different from the younger students’ space earlier in the day, but the students were just as welcoming.

After our school visits, we returned to the hotel for lunch, where I tried crocodile skewers. I was not sure what to expect, but I really enjoyed them - one more opportunity to try something new while we were in Livingstone.

After lunch, we drove out to visit Sinde Village through the Children in the Wilderness program. Sinde Village is connected to Wilderness Safaris’ Toka Leya Camp and is made up of four smaller villages: Katiba, Lypwaya, Siatela, and Mulauli. Through Children in the Wilderness, students from the local Twabuka Primary School participate in an Eco-Club led by trained Eco-Mentors.

When we arrived, we were taught how to “knock” before entering the home of Senior Chief Musokotwane of the Leya and Tonga people. Instead of walking directly into the compound, we clapped our hands and called, “Odi, Odi,” a respectful way of asking permission to enter. Once we were welcomed in, we sat on mats, benches, and chairs while our hosts shared information about the village and their cultural practices.

One demonstration showed how women can walk long distances while balancing heavy water buckets on their heads, keeping their hands free to carry other items or care for a child. We were able to ask questions while the chief sat nearby observing.

Afterward, we watched the chief play a game in the dirt with his granddaughter. It looked similar to Mancala, but with more rows and a different rhythm to the play. It was one of my favorite moments of the visit because it felt relaxed and personal, a small glimpse of daily life they were willing to share with strangers.

After spending time at the chief’s home, we were invited to walk down the road to visit one of the family compounds in the village. Several children walked along with us, holding hands and staying close as we moved through the sandy paths. We were shown one of the homes, built with mud walls and a thatched roof, and were told that these structures can last around ten years.

Nearby, another house was being built, and we could see the wooden posts already set into the ground for the frame. Outside, chickens moved through the compound, laundry hung along the fence line, and we saw an outdoor latrine with a curtain for privacy. The visit gave us a closer look at the materials, routines, and practical design choices that shape homes there.

As we left, I kept noticing the chief’s presence. He seemed relaxed and approachable, but still carried a quiet authority. From the bus, I watched him talking with our driver and guide, and then he and his granddaughter waved as we pulled away. It felt like a fitting end to the visit. We had been welcomed in, invited to listen and ask questions, and sent off with a wave.

On our way out, we passed a group of boys walking together in a procession. Our driver shared that they were taking part in a coming-of-age tradition - just another reminder that we were only seeing small pieces of much larger cultural practices.

That night, our group reflection brought the day to an emotional close. Sabrina led us in an activity where we stood in a circle with our eyes closed while small groups stepped into the center. They were given prompts like “touch someone you have learned from” or “touch someone you now consider a friend.” It was quiet, simple, and unexpectedly powerful.

After more than a week of traveling, learning, and processing together, the gentle taps on our shoulders became a kind of wordless thank-you. The places we visited mattered deeply, but so did the relationships forming between the people traveling, learning, and processing together.

Day 7: Classrooms and Victoria Falls in Zambia

Day 7 began at Holy Cross in Livingstone, Zambia, where each of us was paired with a teacher for a classroom exchange. I was placed in a 12th-grade English classroom with a teacher named Nabita. Her lesson began with discussion questions about heroes: What makes someone a hero? Does a hero have to be famous? Are all heroes recognized?

From there, she introduced vocabulary words connected to the reading: diligent, lecturer, commitment, scholarship, sabbatical, and doctorate. The class had 36 learners and only 6 books, so the students divided into groups and shared. Watching them lean in together around the text was a reminder that learning does not always depend on having every resource we would want. It often depends on how teachers and students work with what they have.

One instructional practice that stood out to me across multiple countries was the consistent use of call-and-response. Teachers asked frequent questions, paused for students to fill in words, and kept the learners participating throughout the lecture portion of the lesson. Even in the older grades, students responded naturally and confidently. It is something I would love to bring back into my own classroom more intentionally.

After Nabita’s lesson, she invited me to teach an art lesson. I introduced the students to linear perspective and demonstrated both one-point and two-point perspective. They were attentive, engaged, and incredibly encouraging. At a few points, they surprised me by clapping during the lesson, which made the whole experience feel even more special.

As an art teacher, it meant a lot to share a drawing concept that is so familiar to me in a completely new setting. Linear perspective is something I teach every year, but this experience felt different. The students were incredibly attentive and responsive, and their enthusiasm surprised me in the best way. When they clapped during parts of the demonstration, it reminded me how powerful it can be to see a familiar lesson through new eyes. It made me think about how much energy, curiosity, and encouragement students can bring into a classroom when they are fully invited into the learning.

After Holy Cross, we visited David Livingstone High School. When we arrived, students welcomed us with music, drumming, and dance. They eventually invited us to join them, and once again, I was reminded that dance has been one of the fastest ways we have connected with people throughout this trip.

At the end of the performance, some of the students made hand gestures like they were sprinkling something and called out “Make it salty” or “Salt Sana.” At first, we did not understand what they meant. I thought they might have been teasing us a little about our dancing, like we needed to add more flavor. When I asked one of the faculty members, she explained that it was connected to a popular political slogan and that the students were praising us and wishing we could stay longer. That small moment turned into one of my favorite cultural exchanges of the day because it reminded me how much meaning can sit inside a phrase, a gesture, or a joke that you do not understand at first.

Later in the afternoon, we returned to Victoria Falls on the Zambia side. A small group of us did the Boiling Pot hike first. It was beautiful, but also a little unnerving when we passed several baboons on the trail. We gave them as much space as possible and were very aware that we were visitors in their home.

After the hike, I walked through the tourist market. That experience was overwhelming for me. The sellers were very persistent, and once I agreed to buy something, the process turned into more pressure to keep buying. I learned quickly that I needed to be clear and firm. Later, we stopped at another local market that felt very different. More local people were buying everyday items, and I purchased a woven basket piece that I plan to hang on my wall at home.

The rest of the afternoon was spent taking in Victoria Falls from different viewpoints. The mist, the sound, the rainbows, and the scale of the falls were hard to fully capture in pictures, but I did my best. There was a group of kids on a field trip who were excited to pose as well.

Later that night, we went back to the falls for one more unforgettable experience: the lunar rainbow. Because it was a full moon, the mist from Victoria Falls caught the moonlight, creating a rainbow in the dark. It felt unreal to stand there at night, hearing the falls, seeing the moonbow, and looking up at the stars.

Day 7 brought together so many different parts of this experience: classroom observation, teaching, student performance, cultural exchange, the Boiling Pot hike, local markets, and Victoria Falls by both daylight and moonlight. What stayed with me most was the way participation showed up again and again. It was built into Nabita’s lesson through call and response, present in the students’ performance and invitation to dance, and even part of the conversations that helped us understand phrases and gestures we might have misunderstood on our own. By the end of the night, standing near the falls under the full moon, I was thinking about how much of this program has been about paying attention, asking questions, and being willing to join in.

The Art 1 Course I wish I had when I Started Teaching High School (in 2009)

I started teaching high school art in 2009, and if there’s one thing I can say with confidence, it’s this: my Beginning Art class has not stayed the same. Not even close.

It has been revised, rebuilt, tweaked, scrapped, resurrected, and occasionally held together with duct tape and vibes. Which, honestly, feels pretty accurate for teaching in general.

When I first started, I taught linear perspective one line at a time. On the whiteboard. With a yardstick. I’d draw a line, turn around, and half the class was already lost while the other half was painfully bored. Then I’d sprint around the room trying to catch mistakes before they became permanent. It took forever. And it was exhausting.

Then came the document camera. That felt revolutionary at the time. I could zoom in. I could use a ruler instead of a yardstick. I could demonstrate more clearly. But it was still setting the pace, and students were still stuck waiting if they didn’t get it the first time.

Later, I found YouTube videos, and that helped a lot. Students could pause and rewind, which was huge. But that also meant remembering to reserve the laptop cart, hoping all the devices worked, and praying the Wi-Fi behaved.

Now, finally, we’re 1:1 with devices. And instead of hunting for the right video, I make my own.

Not because I wanted to be on camera, but because after teaching this course for so long, I know exactly where students get stuck.

I know the back edge of their box will not always be parallel to the front.
I know their ruler will slip halfway through a long line.
I know they’ll forget to line their windows up to the vanishing point.

So now I show them how to pivot the ruler with their pencil, how to line up vanishing points quickly, and how to work smarter instead of slower. The videos are short, targeted, and built around the mistakes I’ve watched students make for over a decade.

What’s interesting is that while how I teach has changed dramatically, the core structure of my class really hasn’t.

Everything is grounded in the elements of art and principles of design. Every unit connects back to those foundations. I intentionally include artists from different cultures, backgrounds, and time periods throughout the course, not as an add-on, but as part of the fabric of the learning.

At the very beginning of the year, I ask students to adopt a new mindset: art is a skill. Just like math. Just like writing. It can be taught, practiced, and improved.

We look at Lowenfeld’s stages of artistic development, and students identify where they think they are and where they're going. We talk about schemas, why we rely on them, and why we sometimes have to ditch the schema to draw what we actually see rather than what we think we see.

That conversation alone changes everything.

When I first started teaching, a premade art curriculum was unheard of. In many districts, it still is. And in some ways, that freedom is one of the best parts of being an art teacher. We get to design our classes around our interests, our students, and our communities.

But the flip side of that freedom is how overwhelming it can be, especially at the beginning. Our standards are incredibly broad. There are countless valid ways to teach the same content, and when you’re new, that can feel paralyzing. I remember wishing I had something to start from - not a script or something rigid, just a solid foundation I could build on and revise as I figured things out.

I can’t even fathom where I might be now if something like this had existed when I was just getting started.

Over the years, through a lot of trial and error, I’ve developed a course I’m really proud of. And I continue to tweak it year after year as my students change and technology evolves.

So, Why Am I Sharing All of This?

Because I believe deeply in sharing with other teachers. Some of the best ideas I’ve ever had came from conversations in hallways, conference sessions, or late-night scrolling through what other art teachers were doing. Our profession is better when we learn from one another.

At the same time, I also believe that teachers’ work has value. This course didn’t come together overnight. It represents countless hours outside of the school day... planning, revising, filming, reworking rubrics, and adjusting lessons year after year based on what actually worked for students. Like many teachers, I built this mostly at home, on my own time.

And as a first-year teacher, I would have happily paid for something like this. Even though I shouldn’t have had to. Even though schools should provide this kind of support. Having a solid starting point would have saved me so much time, stress, and second-guessing.

My hope is that teachers who are interested have access to a professional budget they can use, or feel comfortable sharing this with their department or district so it can be purchased using instructional funds. This kind of resource is meant to support teachers, not add to their workload.

So I’ve packaged my entire Art 1 curriculum exactly as I use it in my own classroom, with an option that includes the full course already built in Canvas. Every unit. Every assignment. Every rubric. Organized, editable, and ready to use.

Not because I think everyone should teach exactly like I do, but because I know how powerful it is to start from something solid and make it your own.

Just something I wish I had when I was standing at a whiteboard in 2009, holding a yardstick, wondering why this felt so hard.

If you’re interested, you can find my course linked below:

• Beginning Art (Art 1) – Full Year Curriculum

• Beginning Art (Art 1) – Full Curriculum + Pre-Built Canvas Course