Fulbright Reality Czech

Hannah Pontari is a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant at Matiční Gymnázium in Ostrava, Czech Republic. A recent graduate from Villanova University, where she studied Political Science and Public Administration, Hannah is interested in education policy, specifically the equitable internationalization of the American school system. Hannah, the daughter of a first-generation college student who instilled in her the values of education and travel very early in life, eagerly pursued the opportunity to immerse herself in an international educational context through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. Hannah plans to apply her knowledge from teaching abroad to her studies at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education when she returns to the United States in June. This past February, I had the incredibly exciting opportunity to attend the annual Fulbright EU-NATO Seminar in Luxembourg and Brussels as a representative for the Czech Republic Fulbright Commission. As a sel...

Julia Nema is an English Teaching Assistant at Gymnázium Ladislava Jaroše in Holešov, a town of 12,000 people located in the Zlín Region. This year, she teaches English to students aged 12 to 19, and in the afternoons, she hosts four English conversation clubs (three for students and one for interested teachers), and an English writing club. Julia’s parents come from Ukraine. She visited her parents’ homeland once, in 2015, and it was the time when she finally met the “family [she] only ever heard about but had never seen.” Julia further notes that, “For the first time in [her] life, [she] felt whole [and] felt Ukrainian; the culture [she] once thought was so removed from [her] took [her] in its arms and never let go.” After that summer, Julia and her parents returned back to the U.S. However, the unstable political situation, financial constraints and, most recently, the war in Ukraine, prevented Julia from visiting her family again. In 2022, Julia graduated from Villanova University ...