Matěj Milý: Step Back to Leap Forward

Transformed, inspired and challenged after being the mentor of Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Brianna Dotson at Civic Engineering High School in Liberec in 2019/2020, English Language Teacher Matěj Milý applied for the Fulbright Teaching Excellence and Achievement Program. In April and May 2021, Matěj spent six weeks in Ohio, U.S. at a training focused on media literacy. Together with a group of 18 colleagues from various Central, Northern and Eastern European countries, Matěj explored ways of expanding the media literacy skills of his students and colleagues, and modern technology tools to use in the classroom. Even though the training happened in the midst of an international pandemic that limited some components of the program, Matěj was still able to plan a couple of lessons with his American colleagues, teach American high school students online and visit multiple American virtual classrooms. Read about Matěj's experience below. If you are a Czech high school teacher, consider applying to the Fulbright TEA Program during the Winter of 2021/2022. 

I’ve been working as an English Teacher at the High School of Civil Engineering in Liberec for the previous 10 years in which I had an opportunity to work with the Fulbright Commission and host an English Teaching Assistant for several months in term 2019/2020. This valuable experience and related cooperation with the Fulbright Office in the Czech Republic led me, eventually, to submit my application and participate in the Fulbright TEA program hosted in Kent, Ohio. It is a great pleasure to share a few lines about my Fulbright experience which I gained throughout my stay at Kent State University as a member of TEA Spring 2021 Media Literacy Cohort.

In summer 2020 I was accepted to take part in the TEA program. I felt that as a great opportunity to further develop and gain new skills and professional knowledge because I believe that no matter how much you love what you do there are moments in which you need to take a step back and reflect on what you do and who you are to keep yourself going forward. When I was leaving for the program in April 2021 I was very motivated to do this step and bring something back.

Photo 2: With a group of fellow grantees during a trip to Cleveland. (A group of seven people pose together in front of a large sign that says: "Cleveland," the skyline of the city of Cleveland in the background.)

My Trans-Atlantic Journey During the Pandemic
My arrival at Kent State Hotel, which was supposed to be my home for the next six weeks, took longer than expected. Whenever I travel overseas I suffer from the “domestic flight curse” which means that my connecting flights are either delayed or canceled completely. This time my flight from Atlanta to Cleveland was delayed for only 6 hours and I ended up being the last participant to arrive at the hotel at 3 AM after 25 hours of traveling. The only positive thing from such a long layover at the Atlanta airport was the opened restaurants and shops which was something completely different than we had back home during the lockdown.

As mentioned above the whole 2020/2021 was affected by the pandemics and so was the TEA program in Kent. Even before leaving the Czech Republic, we were told that the first week of the program will be the quarantine week and all the activities will be online. This was a unique experience because we couldn’t leave our rooms during that week and all the contact we had was either online or the knock on the door that meant your meal was waiting for you behind the door. During that week the staff did a great job keeping us busy and through series of webinars, online classes, movie nights, and game nights we were able to gel together even without meeting in person. That “shared struggle” eventually produced a well-organized and well-cooperating group of people that I was lucky to be a part of.

Photo 3: Matěj and other Fulbright grantees during a game night organized by one of the training coordinators at his house. (A group of nine smiling people pose for a group picture. Most of them hold dollar bills in their hands.)

A Multifaceted Training Experience

Throughout our stay, I and 18 other participants from ten different countries took part in three main courses which formed the core of the program. We learned about academic research papers, U.S. lesson planning standards, and guidelines in the General Academic Seminar, we were introduced to many interesting online and in-class resources in the Media Literacy class and discussed online services and tools in the Technology class. Unfortunately, all of these classes took place at the hotel conference room instead of the university premises due to the COVID rules so I didn’t have a chance to feel the atmosphere of a university classroom in the United States. In most of the classes, I worked in a pair or in a small group which turned out to be one of the greatest benefits of the program because having a chance to work with so many motivated professionals and share ideas and experience with them was by far the best highlight of my stay. I need to add that before leaving for this program I was told by previous Czech alumni of the program about that but I didn’t fully realize that until I was midway through my stay.

Every day of my stay was packed with activities and classes. Our core classes took a vast portion of our schedule but we also had a unique opportunity to meet and learn more about the American educational system from many different professionals in the field. Among most of our classes, there were online meetings with superintendents, special needs teachers who shared their bits about teaching and running schools in the United States. These meetings made up for the lack of in-person experience that we couldn’t have during our pandemic-affected program and I appreciated some of the insights presented.

Photo 4: Matěj Milý and his teammates present a group project during one of the training sessions. (A group of five people stand together in a classroom, presenting their group project.)  

Teaching at a U.S. High School

One part of the TEA program is also a field experience component in which TEA participants are teamed up with their partner teachers in various elementary schools and high schools and together they take part in real classes co-teaching or delivering cultural presentations about their native countries. I was really looking forward to experiencing teaching in a different school environment but again due to the pandemics some of these schools had online-only classes and that was also my case. I spent most of 2020/2021 teaching online and I was eager to see the real students after such a long time, so I was a bit disappointed to be a virtual teacher once again at the beginning. After I had met and worked with my partner teachers Trina and John at the Stow-Munroe Falls High School I knew I couldn’t have got anyone better. I decided to turn this virtual experience to my advantage and I tried to visit as many different classes as possible. Even though my primary subject is English and History my partner teachers did a great job scheduling a wide variety of subjects for me and I had an opportunity to observe classes of Aeronautics, Robotics, Chemistry, and many others. I also had an opportunity to teach a present in my online classes but this extra opportunity to peek in many different subjects taught me a lot about the “class life” and I appreciate the work my partner teachers did for me.

Photo 5: Matěj, together with a group of American high school teachers, pose together for a picture in front of Stow-Munroe Falls High School. (Matěj in the middle, two females on his right side and two other females on his left side, pose together for a picture in front of a modern school building with the sign "Stow-Munroe Falls High School.)

Getting to Know U.S. Life & Culture

So far I’ve covered the academic program but the TEA program is also about having a chance to be immersed into American life and culture. I was lucky enough to be partnered with Tom Hatch who serves as a friendship coordinator of the whole program and who helped me and the others to experience so much. Tom was our rock through the program and despite the fact we were not able to travel and visit as many places as the other participants before us we did our best enjoying our time in Kent. We celebrated Earth Day by planting trees in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park so I can come over again and see “my” tree growing whenever I return to Ohio. The program also offered trips to Niagara Falls, Cleveland, and Columbus which allowed us to do a bit of sightseeing but the pandemic shrank our traveling itinerary to a minimum and the limited availability of public transport didn’t help either. With the help of our American friends and host families, I managed to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Cavaliers NBA game in Cleveland, and we concluded our stay by kayaking the Cuyahoga River which is probably one of the few rivers in the world that caught on fire in past.

Photo: Matěj and a couple of his fellow grantees pose together before their kayaking adventure on the Cuyahoga River. (A group of eight people pose together for a group picture in life jackets and with paddles in their hands.) 

Personal Reflection

That was my TEA Fulbright experience - the experience which can’t be easily explained in one article but you must simply live through it. I spent a lot of time reflecting while I was still in Kent but mostly after I returned home. Most of the things came to me much later and I still believe that I’ll be able to capitalize on my experience long after my stay is over. Such experience wouldn’t be possible without all the care of all the KSU staff and I would like to mention my friendship host Tom and my tutors Marty and Abdoulaye who devoted a lot of time and effort to make my experience valuable and unforgettable.

I’d also like to thank my fellows from the cohort Ausra, Ayten, “Coriana”, Corina, Elvira, Ivana, Jelica, Johanna, Joszi, Kinga, Milica, Monika, Nenad, Olena, Rita, Saadet, Suzan, Tonya and for being such a great inspiration to me and allowing me to discover more about me as a teaching professional but as a person as well. You truly made me step back and reflect so I can leap even further than I expected.