Upper School science teacher Amalia Nitu attended a Teachers As Scholars workshop entitled “Evolution of the Mind.” At the workshop, Nitu and others in attendance explored how the biology of the brain and learned experiences from life and culture form the mind of the individual. “In our group of 16 participants from very different backgrounds (from teachers of science to speech pathologists), we studied the interplay between evolutionary neurobiology and the philosophical and scientific trends in human civilizations,” Nitu explains. “We spent one day learning about the intricacies of brain development from conception until adulthood, and then considered the neurology of developmental and acquired diseases of the brain (autism, genius, dyslexia, etc.) and used these models to reflect on the dynamic interplay between nature and nurture. The workshop was flexible in that the participants were able to ask questions about how to best apply the concepts discussed to our specific areas of expertise and work. I found this workshop, as all other TAS workshops I have attended in the past, to be excellent both in presentation and in the benefit it provided to me as a teacher to help me better understand my students and how to best serve their educational needs in the classroom.”

For 10 days in December, Social Studies Department Head Alexandra Siemon was part of a tour organized and supported by Saudi Aramco. This tour was dedicated to introducing 25 teachers from the United States to Saudi Arabia.  “We met first in Houston for an orientation and flew from there through Frankfort, Germany, touching down in Kuwait and finally landing at Damman Airport on the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia," says Siemon. Our first days in the KSA (the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) were spent living on the Aramco compound in Dhahran, and the women weren't required to wear the traditional abaya. We were introduced to the oil industry through a superb exhibit on petroleum at the Aramco Exhibition Hall as well as an opportunity to watch engineers do real time drilling with computers using the information relayed to them in offices far from the oil fields. Once we had our abayas (a gift from Aramco) we were off to Jeddah on the other side of the country arriving just after the end of the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims try to do at least once in their lifetime. Jeddah is the portal for the pilgrims and as such for nearly 1,500 years is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the KSA. We visited schools from a college to a day school for handicapped children. We had the opportunity to visit the offices of the Saudi Gazette and talk with the editor and reporters. We had an opportunity to visit the small quarter of the old city where we did some very fast souvenir shopping. I was able to quickly purchase prayer beads made of date pits to bring back to my department as well as my Middle Eastern Studies class. From Jeddah we flew to Riyadh where we met students at Al Yamamah University and listened to the newly organized debate team consider the proposition that the negative opinions of Saudi Arabia in the West were the responsibility of Saudis themselves. On our last day we flew back to Dhahran and then drove across the causeway linking Saudi Arabia to Bahrain. From the Bahraini airport we began our long journey home. My abaya hangs in my classroom, and I am still constantly thinking about the trip. My companions were an outstanding group of teachers, respectful of our hosts and their culture and eager to learn.  I am very grateful to Dana Hall for being completely supportive of this trip and to Saudi Aramco for the opportunity for such a thorough introduction to the Kingdom.”