Pingry Travelers

Driving down the road to do barn chores, it was -9º. Inside the van it was probably 0º. As we got on the road, we noticed the windshield. Foggy and bitter, that of an old man. We pulled over and cleaned off the windshield. Well, [Middle School Dean of Students] Mr. Coakley did. Juan, Jai, and I sat in the car, shivering. 

Eventually, we pulled up to the barn and walked around the gleaming, red gate and into the facility. In addition to the four of us, North Country School (NCS) students helped care for the horses, chickens, goats, sheep, ram, and ducks. Usually, there are around 15 NCS kids helping out. Today, there were five. Ten people in all—the four of us from Pingry, the head farmer, and the five NCS kids. 10 PEOPLE, and 34 chickens, five ducks, 10 sheep, two goats, 11 horses, and one ram. We had to clean and replenish all of their areas, whether it was to collect the eggs or clear the manure and add new shavings to help the animals live in cleaner stalls. . . 

. . . From this trip, I learned that hard work pays off. Of course, this is a common saying, but in this case, it's very obvious. You help the animals, and they become healthy and prepared to continue the journey that everyone ventures on—life. 

My love for travel and history has been further deepened by two Global Field Studies programs I took to Europe. The first was during the summer before my junior year, when I traveled to Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina on the “Nations at a Crossroads” program. We learned about how nationalism and war have shaped the identity and history of the region, specifically regarding the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s. On our journey, we met with many locals who each recounted how their lives were touched by the wars. In these conflicts, each faction was defined by its religion and ethnicity, turning communities against one another throughout the region. Listening to the emotion in their voices change as they talked about the hardships they faced made each conversation very personal and impactful, and I will never forget the struggles these people went through. During this time, I was able to fully understand how much more powerful it is to hear these stories in person rather than in a textbook, and how learning through immersion is one of the most powerful tools someone can have.  

These lessons were reinforced on a second program I participated in, the “Beyond the Wall” course to Berlin, Prague, and Budapest. After World War II, each city fell under the communist leadership of the Soviet Union. We traveled across these beautiful cities visiting their many monuments to the past and other public spaces, and we learned how governments could use these places to reshape their nation’s past to fit their current ideologies better. I have always been fascinated whenever we learned about the stories of individual countries in my history classes at Pingry, and being able to be told by locals about how they’ve seen their cities change as their leaders changed has only furthered my interest in learning how a nation’s past can heavily influence its current leaders, even years later. 

I am excited to continue to learn about world history and different types of governments during my senior year at Pingry, and I hope I can continue to do so in the years to come. 

Throughout the entire trip, I picked up multiple skills about traveling, navigating, and even basketball with our peers at Quzhou No.2 School, but most importantly I was able to expand my knowledge of the Chinese language, people, and culture. I was able to see a country from the inside out for two weeks and gain a different perspective than that offered by the American media. I was able to make new friends with students from China and deepen friendships with students from my own school. For that and much more, I am immensely grateful for the experience. 

To date, I can say with a great deal of certainty that China has been my favorite travel destination and I hope to return to reunite with my peers in Quzhou and perhaps even climb the Great Wall once again. The entire trip was an eye-opener in several respects and a great learning experience. I would like to thank Mrs. Yu, Mrs. Romankow, Mr. Murdock, and others at Pingry for enabling a wonderful program to China.

Although I originally signed up for Pingry's trip to the Adirondacks because of its recreational opportunities, I came away with so much more. The trip forced me to evaluate my own way of life from a totally new perspective. Entering the trip, I had such a limited view of what it means to "live sustainably." Recycling my water bottles? Turning off the sink while I brush my teeth? That was about all I knew. My time at the North Country School (NCS) provided me with an entirely new lens through which to view the world around me.

Just hours after arriving, our group ventured to the barn for afternoon barn chores, which included tending to the chickens, sheep, goats, and horses. To say the least, I was petrified.Before the trip, I had never really been around farm animals, much less cared for them. The first day of chores, I was hesitant to get involved, stepping back in order to let the more experienced NCS students finish the job. Yet, as the trip progressed, I became increasingly attached to the animals. On the last day, I asked to go back to the barn because I still had not captured the perfect photo of my favorite sheep.

By the end of the trip, I had acquired so much knowledge about topics from organic food to generating your own heat. However, no teacher ever lectured me about these topics as they would in a traditional classroom. I was forced to learn by doing.

Even though the trip taught me so much, it left me with many questions as well. What efforts should Pingry make to be more sustainable? Would every initiative at NCS be realistic for the Pingry Campus? What can I do at home to decrease my impact on the environment? This experience taught me how much you can learn by being in a new, possibly uncomfortable, situation. By challenging myself, I was able to learn and grow, while still having tons of fun.

Last year, she, along with second-grade teachers Sally Dugan, Mary Ogden, and Sara Berg, decided to broaden their STEAM initiative—by a few continents. They introduced Grade 2 students to an innovative, STEAM-based global learning program. Facilitated by an educational organization called LevelUp Village, the three second-grade classes partnered with schools in either Ghana, Nigeria, or Brazil to take the same design-thinking course. In “Global Storybook Engineers,” for example, after reading the Italian folk tale Strega Nona, students were tasked with constructing a tower strong enough to withstand an avalanche of spaghetti. Not only did they have to design, build, and problem-solve, they were collaborating—through weekly video exchanges—with peers who live in countries vastly different from their own.

The program was such a success, it was introduced to Grade 4 students the following year. Soon, Mrs. Driscoll hopes to roll the program out to all Lower School grades.

"The design-thinking part of it is so cool, but the global connection is really the icing on the cake,” says Mrs. Driscoll. "We really want Pingry students to learn from the exchange. The kids have an opportunity to see life differently from their own, and that's an important lesson, too."

I can cook, I can run 10 miles, I can like history, I can live without my phone, and, in fact, I thrived without it. I can summit a mountain, and climb a cliff, and go into and out of a canyon. I can rock climb, I can bake brownies, and I can wrestle with someone three times my size. I’ll lose, but I can still do it. I can square dance, I can play guitar in front of actual people and not just my dog and the stuffed animals on my bed, I can cross a river, and I can push my way through a patch of willows that are much taller than I am. I can hike 10 miles in a day with a backpack that is almost half my body weight.

I learned to stop saying “I can’t do this” before even trying. I figured out how to be more open to different ideas and choices, and that I may even like them.

None of us had ever attended a MUN simulation before, and our knowledge of Japan’s situation was limited to our study in the weeks prior to the conference. Upon arrival, I entered a conference hall packed with teenagers dressed in business clothes, carrying clipboards and appearing extremely confident.

The room was abuzz with the languages of Europe. As French, Spanish, German, and Italian all blended together with English into a hum of excitement, I truly embraced the MUN experience. I realized that before me was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see the world from an authentically European view, and I had the opportunity to debate issues from truly global perspectives.

Seeing the world through a different lens allowed me to shed all remnants of my small-town New Jersey self, and I was pushed into my new skin as a citizen of the world. It was there, sitting in the audience as a panel of European teenagers discussed the ongoing fight against terrorism, where I truly felt myself enter adulthood.