Being the spirited middle school principal that he is, Peter Chapla is looking forward to sharing his experiences in Poland this summer inside the classrooms of Western Wayne.
Selected as one of only 15 educators throughout the U.S. to participate in a program offered by the federal Departments of State and Education, Chapla spent a little over 30 days in Poland, studying its varied geography, rich and turbulent history, while getting a glimpse at how education works in this growing central European nation.
Although ... he’s humble about it. “What am I doing in this group of really smart people,” said Chapla, of his peers who were picked among many applicants to take part in the Fulbright Hays Seminar Abroad program.
He was able to stroll along the streets of the country’s storied capital, Warsaw, attend the opera there, meet labor and education ministers, then later in the trip hike among the flaring peaks of the Tatra Mountains.
“They are really a brand new nation,” he said, especially since the collapse of communist rule in 1989, of which historical reminders remain littered throughout its cities and towns. “The stories were fantastic.”
Most humbling, however, was peering inside Auschwitz, the horrid center of the Nazi extermination of the Jews during World War II. It is estimated that more than one-million people were killed here.
“That place was indescribably eerie ... to see it first hand,” he said. “That was very sobering.”
Sharing his experiences there and in the country will prove valuable to middle-school students, who as part of the school’s curriculum learn of the tragedies of the holocaust and other unfortunate genocides in human history.
The Fulbright program also requires that he develop a curriculum, based on aspects of the trip, for use at the middle school.
“It’s a very powerful tool to have first-hand information,” said Chapla.
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Being the spirited middle school principal that he is, Peter Chapla is looking forward to sharing his experiences in Poland this summer inside the classrooms of Western Wayne.
Selected as one of only 15 educators throughout the U.S. to participate in a program offered by the federal Departments of State and Education, Chapla spent a little over 30 days in Poland, studying its varied geography, rich and turbulent history, while getting a glimpse at how education works in this growing central European nation.
Although ... he’s humble about it. “What am I doing in this group of really smart people,” said Chapla, of his peers who were picked among many applicants to take part in the Fulbright Hays Seminar Abroad program.
He was able to stroll along the streets of the country’s storied capital, Warsaw, attend the opera there, meet labor and education ministers, then later in the trip hike among the flaring peaks of the Tatra Mountains.
“They are really a brand new nation,” he said, especially since the collapse of communist rule in 1989, of which historical reminders remain littered throughout its cities and towns. “The stories were fantastic.”
Most humbling, however, was peering inside Auschwitz, the horrid center of the Nazi extermination of the Jews during World War II. It is estimated that more than one-million people were killed here.
“That place was indescribably eerie ... to see it first hand,” he said. “That was very sobering.”
Sharing his experiences there and in the country will prove valuable to middle-school students, who as part of the school’s curriculum learn of the tragedies of the holocaust and other unfortunate genocides in human history.
The Fulbright program also requires that he develop a curriculum, based on aspects of the trip, for use at the middle school.
“It’s a very powerful tool to have first-hand information,” said Chapla.
