While March and April might seem like "down months" in my mission work, a workshop series and school visitations require much advance planning. I "visit" the Diocese about every day through emails, texts, and conversations on iMessenger. We are well on the way to working out all of the details for our next professional workhops, coming in early May.

Our team for these sessions (expanded from our last workshops) includes two additional US missioners (one from Nebraska and the other from California), giving us quite a varied line-up. We will offer sessions in mathematics, technology, the humanities, motivation, second language education and school organization. Melvina Dinsen and Miquelina Corporan will handle introductions and ways that workshop content can be useful in Dominican classrooms. Our theme this time: The Humanization of the Educational Process. We will again visit four Episcopal school sites, representing each region of the Diocese, but different colegios than in past trips (La Romana, Todos loa Santos; Boca Chica, San José; San Francisco de Macorís, Jesús Nazareno; Santana Baní, San Matías). The team is already feeling the excitement of presenting to 40-50 motivated educators at each site.

An additional educational improvement activity that shows yet another international connection of the Dominican Episcopal schools involved a team of educators that assembled in April in Mexico City. This conference was sponsored by the Santa Maria Foundation. While specific topics varied, the theme centered around language learning and ways in which the Santa Maria Foundation might support schools introducing English language learning programs. Our very own Miguelina Corporan represented the Diocese at the conference.