Anne Canipe
Chester resident Anne Canipe boarded a plane to San Francisco on Friday beginning her trek around the world. Well, almost. Canipe loves to travel and she will be clocking a lot of air miles this summer thanks to a $12,000 grant awarded to her from the R.E.B. Foundation through the Community Foundation for her excellence in teaching.
The 38-year veteran teacher of world history and human geography was a 2014 recipient for the R.E.B. Award for Teaching Excellence. This was her second R.E. B. award. The foundation allows past winners to become eligible at the beginning of the sixth year following their last award. Nominated by Sheriff Karl Leonard and a parent of one of her former students, Canipe became one of over 30 finalists out of 200 nominated teachers; Her proposal presented to a 12-member board pushed her to the top to be awarded the grant. Along with travel to California and Napa Valley, Canipe will be traveling to Japan and China, a visit to an international school, attending the 70th Commemoration of the atomic bombing at Hiroshima, walking on the Great Wall in China and visiting China’s Three Gorges Dam. The Village News will be following her travels and reporting from her blog during the weeks she is on her adventure. Canipe will spend over a week in California and 21 days touring Japan and China.
The R.E. B. Awards for Teaching Excellence was developed by the Community Foundation and is funded by the R.E.B. Foundation. For over 25 years, the foundation has rewarded public school teachers who have distinguished themselves by inspiring classroom performance with grants ranging from $4,000 to $12,000 to approximately 15 teachers in the Metro region to support professional development activities.
One of the requirements for the recipients is to share their education experiences with fellow teachers. Canipe has created a blog and website to share her experiences with plans to bring them back to the classroom as well.
Canipe is excited to be able to share her experiences to her students. “I teach world history and human geography – early civilizations, Egypt, China and Japan.” she said. “I have always wanted to stand on the Great Wall. I teach China [history]and ancient China, ancient Japan, where people live and how they have impacted history. When kids see that you have actually been there, they get it.”
Canipe’s blog will allow us to follow her adventures, which we will share with our readers during her first week in California and the 21 days during August. She said July will be spent with family.
Canipe spent the first three days in California touring San Francisco and Oakland before heading to Napa Valley for a Project Based Learning (PBL) workshop representing Chesterfield County Public Schools.
Along with running into a Cosby colleague first thing on the plane to Atlanta, Canipe ended up having to run through two concourses in Atlanta to catch her plane to California.
She blogs, “Arriving around noon – California-time (3 p.m. Virginia-time)… WHICH TIME ZONES ARE THESE?…on the way to get my rental car, I met a family on the air tran whose son had just finished AP human geography (ninth grade) in Tampa, Fla. He felt pretty confident about the AP exam…SCORES come out in July…Good luck to all my APHuGs!
The rest of the day was PERFECT! Found the wonderful place I’m staying through airbnb Good night, all! Some of DAY 1 sites…if you could travel to San Francisco, what would YOU like to do and see?”
Photos are included throughout her blog.
Day two… “As we crossed the Oakland Bridge to see another part of the Bay area, I realized that we were on the bridge that had partially collapsed from the 1989 San Francisco earthquake…now it has been rebuilt – it was hard to imagine it was the SAME bridge – going TO OAKLAND, you are on the LOWER LEVEL – it was kinda weird…look at this 1989 footage… 1989 Bay area earthquake – Oakland Bridge across San Francisco Bridge … The day was super – as we visited Berkeley University – oh how it brought back (hippie) memories, unique shops and architectural of Oakland – MUCH different from San Francisco, the Jack London Square – remember Call of the Wild – a beautiful mural honoring Jack London is here… If you’ve never been to OAKLAND, California, it’s a wonderful place – totally different from San Francisco. I LOVE THE QUOTE… ‘the perfect function of man is to live, not to exist’…have a wonderful evening = until tomorrow!”
Day Three… “To Golden Gate Park and the Japanese Tea Garden and Jasmine team with my friend and colleague and getting a preview for my Japan trip in August…
and then to a concert with Pacific Mambo, Salsamania and Sheila E in Stern Grove/Golden Gate Park.”
Day 4… “BEEN WAITING to attend this conference for a year now – cannot wait until it starts!”
Monday morning, Canipe was in Napa Valley for the PBL World workshop. The workshop is structured around Workshops and Academies, which are designed to develop the ability of teachers and instructional leaders to design rigorous projects, provide coaching support to teachers in PBL classrooms and create systemic structures that allow PBL to flourish. World-class national faculty and staff deliver these sessions.
PBL World is held each year at New Technology High School in Napa, a gorgeous and green facility that is known globally as an epicenter of Project Based Learning.
Visit at pblworld.org/world.
To follow Anne Canipe’s travels and see her photos, her blog address is annecanipe.wordpress.com
Stay tuned.
