There’s something compelling about seeing a self-diagnosed Star Trek nerd and all-around sci-fi lover turned science teacher come face to face with one of the most remote and alien lifeforms on the planet. That’s the experience had by Stilman Bruheir, who applied for and received Washington Latin’s Inspire Grant in order to journey to the Charles Darwin Research Station, located in the Galapagos Islands, this last summer.
Defying a leg injury that would have kept a less enterprising individual at home, Stilman flew from DC to Guayaquil, Ecuador, met a team of fellow travelers, then plane-and-boat hopped out to the Galapagos islands. He was able to share the company of both researchers and the islands’ native wildlife, including the famous tortoises. He says of the experience, “It’s something that made me appreciate learning. I learned so much about the islands, myself, and I ended up learning about other people.” Of the tortoises, he was awestruck in thinking “how potentially old they could be. Some of them had been around for more than one hundred years.”
This experience can safely be called once-in-a-lifetime. After all, you only do meet a reptile predating Lincoln for the first time once. Since returning, the stories and pictures from the trip have been a point of connection and inspiration for Stilman’s peers and students alike.
His trip gets to the spirit of the Inspire Grant, which has been a staple of Washington Latin’s faculty experience for the last seven years. The grant, which awards up to $5,000 to a faculty member for a self-selected professional development pathway, has been used to send teachers all across the country and globe, for lessons in new languages or with a new instrument, or to take graduate level courses in the teacher’s chosen area.
Dean of Academics Liz Foley, who oversees the Inspire Grant process, says, “It’s about seeing teachers as lifelong learners as well, not just students. It also recognizes that teachers need financial support in addition to emotional support to continue to grow as human beings.” As many of Latin’s teachers view their work as a labor of love, the grant is a method of making possible the kinds of experiences that might have been available had they pursued more lucrative careers. Foley says, “It’s just one example of how we’re different from other schools. We respect teachers as people with lives and ambitions beyond just the work they do.”
