Fulbright Reality Czech

Niecea Wilson, Fulbright ETA 2018-2019 at Agriculture and Veterinary High School in Lanskroun, reports on her experience returning to teach in the USA and the effects of COVID-19 on teaching and learning in Downieville, a picturesque mountain town of 300 residents in the heart of the Sierra-Nevadas. New teachers are told if they can persist through the difficulties of the first year, nothing is impossible. Well, this is my third year teaching, (my first year back in the United States after completing my 2018-2019 Fulbright ETA in Lanškroun, Czechia) and it has certainly been the most difficult. A year that began with rolling power outages, leaving millions of Californians without electricity, now concludes with a global pandemic that shut our schools so abruptly, many of us didn’t get to say goodbye to our students. Everything just came to a standstill. School districts and states are now grappling with how to administer free and appropriate public education, a right to all stu...

Fulbright for Posterity: The Ripple Effects of Fulbright on Rural America by Niecea Freeman, English Teaching Assistant at the Agriculture and Veterinary High School in Lanskroun, Czech Republic “How about: It’s quality, not quantity?” my dad proposed, wearing a grin. We were brainstorming city slogans for Loyalton, California, my hometown of 800 people nestled in the Sierra Nevada mountains—now named “the Loneliest Town in America.” We all laughed. On the surface, country living seems like paradise, but in reality a myriad of issues affect rural communities across the nation. Employment opportunities are sparse, lower income leads to higher instances of poverty, and—consequently—there is a clear demand and absolute need for higher quality education. Megan Meschery and her family in Spain, 2008  When the town’s sawmill closed in 2001, followed by a mass population exodus, Loyalton’s tax revenues declined rapidly and ancillary school programming disappeared with them....