Since arriving at Sussex School about eight years ago, Thom Sanders-Garrett has gone to great lengths to bring an international flavor to the private Missoula school. So it should come as no surprise that Sanders-Garrett, the Sussex School director, literally jumped at the opportunity to travel to Japan later this month to retrieve an international experience firsthand.
Sanders-Garrett is one of 200 American teachers, selected from a pool of about 2,000 applicants, who have been invited to take part in the Fulbright Memorial Fund Teacher Program in November. Four hundred other teachers participated in the program by visiting Japan in June and October. The program is administered by the Japan-United States Educational Commission.
One of three Montana teachers selected for the November visit, Sanders-Garrett will fly to Tokyo on Saturday for a three-week stay in Japan. The first week will be spent in Tokyo in an orientation program, he said. After that, Sanders-Garrett will travel with 19 other teachers to the northern Japanese city of Hirosaki in Aomori prefecture.
"I'm not really sure what to expect there," Sanders-Garrett said.
Sanders-Garrett believes he was assigned to Hirosaki because he said that he was interested in studying environmental education in Japan.
"Sussex has an environmental education focus for the whole school," he said. "This is a chance to see other places working on environmental education."
Sanders-Garrett said the country around Hirosaki has been described to him as somewhat like New England.
"I heard there's maple trees, but I don't know a lot of other specifics," he said. "I do know that we will visit a grade school, a middle school, a high school and a teachers' college."
While in Japan, Sanders-Garrett will also have a chance to visit with Japanese educators and stay with a Japanese family.
"I recognize that I have my own personal image of who the Japanese people are based mostly on media accounts. I'm assuming they are only partly accurate. I'm looking to find out what they are really like," Sanders-Garrett said.
Sanders-Garrett said he hopes to come back to Sussex with some new ideas about environmental education.
"They have different ideas. It seems to me that their ideas are geared toward finding ways to make room for industry and crowded conditions and preserve the environment at the same time," Sanders-Garrett said.
He also hopes to get the opportunity to share some educational concepts that have made Sussex a successful private school.
"I will certainly describe Sussex and talk about the American school system and the idea of nontraditional education," he said. "I want to be able to give them what we have found to be an effective style of education."
When he returns to Sussex, Sanders-Garrett said he will introduce a thematic study of Japan to all the school's students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
"Every year we do a block week in the spring about a different culture," he said. "This year, I think we will be doing Japan."
Reporter Gary Jahrig can be reached at 523-5259 or at gjahrig@missoulian.com.
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