In winter 2022, when Dr. Lida Castro began packing for her sabbatical in Spain, she had two choices: pack a lot or pack sparingly. She’s happy to say that she decided to do the latter.
“Guillermo (her husband) and I left each with a carry-on bag, and that’s exactly what we came back with!”
Not only has Dr. Castro gathered a great many material items, as one does over the course of 11 years in one place; she also collected a nice list of accomplishments.
For her first ten years at Pennington, Castro served as department chair of the World Languages Department. Under her leadership, the School acquired a fully-equipped language lab which uses DiLL, a wireless-based language lab program developed by Northwestern University. With this technology, students have been able to work specifically on their conversation and presentational skills as well as prepare for important assessments such as the national language exams and the AP® Language and Culture Exams.
In 2021-22, Castro also directed a year-long self-study which included visits to Pennington by world language teaching professionals from several universities and schools. Through this work, the School’s World Languages department has honed their best practices regarding teaching and assessment.
Through Castro’s encouragement, each world language with an AP® course (Spanish, French, Latin, German) has had representatives attend the AP® Reading, a forum for teachers and professors to gather to grade the written and spoken portions of the AP® exams. Castro felt strongly that the lessons learned at these grading sessions, in turn, help inform future courses taught in these subject areas.
Castro has also been a huge proponent of student trips, believing that international travel helps to solidify the language and culture lessons that students learn in the classroom, as well as encourages them to continue their language study both at Pennington and at the college level. As such, Castro has led several trips to Europe and has facilitated student service programs in South America, specifically in her native Colombia.
It is avid interest in travel that led Castro to her proposal for a semester sabbatical. It was her desire to make even more connections with schools in Europe where our students and teachers could engage in educational exchanges.
Castro and her husband, Guillermo, chose picturesque Salobreña as their home base, on the Costa Tropical in Granada in the south of Spain. This cliffside village overlooking the Mediterranean Sea features outdoor markets for fish, fruit, and vegetables and very friendly, expressive people whom they quickly got to know because daily food shopping is part of the culture. However, there was a very practical reason for staying in beautiful Solabreña: Castro chose this town because a colleague from Colegio Jesús Maria, our sister school in Madrid, offered her home to the Lopez-Castros in exchange for a stay in Pennington.
Despite the beauty and the natives’ hospitality, Castro did wonder at times in her first few weeks there if she had made the right decision.
“I’m used to going from one responsibility to the next, and this required me to come up with a structure that was going to work for us in a very small town.” One pastime that she did take with her – a daily jog. “Because we didn’t pack much, the townspeople soon began to recognize me as the Colombian who wears the same shirt every day!” Castro did emphasize, however, that she washed this shirt daily.
Soon it was time for Castro to embark on her contact-seeking ventures. One important contact who has helped her with this initiative is former Pennington Head of School Lyle Rigg. Now retired, Mr. Rigg led Pennington from 1998 to 2006. Before joining Pennington, Mr. Rigg filled the same role at two TASIS schools: American schools in Lugano, Switzerland, and Thorpe, Surrey in the United Kingdom, and even served as interim head of school in his years after Pennington. Castro met with Rigg in Lugano where she attended meetings and dinners with school administrators and board members.
“Lyle was very gracious with his time, introducing me to everyone and helping me to plan my time for every one of my visits. He was especially kind to me when I visited TASIS Switzerland.”
Many ideas sprang from these meetings. including Pennington students visiting the TASIS schools, as well as the possibility of Pennington teachers taking part in short-term exchanges.
It was in the same vein that Castro met with international schools in Barcelona and Madrid, Spain, and St. Denis in western France.
“We talked a lot about our seniors choosing these destinations as an option for their Horizon projects. Because English is the language of instruction at the international and American schools, these opportunities would be open to everyone, not just students of Spanish or French.”
Castro explained that these schools are also interested in sending their students to Pennington! “Many of these students take, for example, AP US History or take part in Model United Nations. Their students would love to be able to explore nearby cities such as New York and Philadelphia.” These exchanges would complement a small, but long-running student exchange with a sister school in Regensburg, Germany.
Castro’s message for her colleagues upon her return centers on experiential learning, the process through which we learn by doing. To this end, Castro, who along with teaching Spanish will be the School’s inaugural director of cross-cultural experiential learning, presented a plan that encourages all Pennington teachers, regardless of discipline, to explore opportunities for their students to travel to learn more about their subject matter. Such offerings would include time spent before, during, and after a trip studying, analyzing, and learning. These opportunities could also be tied to summer courses which students could take for credit.
Castro encourages her colleagues to work with her to develop more service-learning experiences like ones the School has established in South America and Africa.
“The key is affordability,” says Castro. “We can be creative in how we save money without compromising the quality.” She pointed to her “house swap” in Salobreña as an example. In this way, for example, two-week teacher exchanges can occur inexpensively with teachers living at each other’s homes.
For the time being, Castro is happy to be back in Pennington’s residential community and in her “own bed.” Her son, Mateo ’22, is currently at the University of Syracuse mulling over his own study-abroad experience.
Castro’s next frontier is China! She will travel with other teachers in the coming summer to continue her work of making connections that will benefit Pennington students and teachers for years to come!