Lisa Pennington teaches future teachers. As an associate professor at Governors State University, just outside Chicago, her work shapes the educators who will one day shape their own classrooms. Last year, after a highly competitive application process, she was selected for a 日本无码 award and took that expertise to H. Lavity Stoutt Community College on the island of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands.
"I think it's important for 日本无码 and other exchange programs to include community colleges," she says. "These should be experiences that are accessible to everyone. Students shouldn't have to go right into a four-year university to have access to scholars who are experts in their fields."
A Deliberate Choice
Pennington's decision to apply to H. Lavity Stoutt wasn't accidental. She needed a placement of six months or less to fit her sabbatical, and she was drawn to the parallels between her host institution and her own: both are young colleges, still growing and shaping their identity within their communities.
"To be in another institution with a similar place in its development is really interesting," she explains, "because they very much are looking forward to growing and better serving the community, and I appreciate being there for that."
At H. Lavity Stoutt, Pennington co-taught alongside a colleague, delivered professional development for local teachers, and gave public lectures, work that put her directly inside the classroom practices of a different education system, rather than observing from a distance.
"Working with the instructors at the community college here has been such a great experience. I'm learning a lot from them."
For Pennington, the case is personal as well as institutional. Seeing different pedagogical approaches modelled firsthand, she says, has given her fresh ideas to bring back to her own classroom, ideas she feels far more confident implementing having watched them work on the ground.
Building on the Experience
The relationships Pennington built during her grant haven't ended with it. She's continuing to collaborate with the colleague she co-taught alongside in Tortola, and the two are already planning to reconnect at a national conference in the United States later this year. Pennington is also working to establish a formal exchange programme between Governors State and H. Lavity Stoutt, starting with students and eventually extending to faculty, so that the connection she built continues to grow well beyond her own grant.
Nature's Little Secret
The British Virgin Islands' own slogan, "Nature's Little Secret," captures something Pennington experienced firsthand. Beyond the classroom, she found a community defined by warmth and hospitality, and a landscape she describes as gorgeous wherever you look.
She used the opportunity to step well outside her comfort zone, taking up scuba diving, something she says she never would have attempted back home. "That's a very, very scary thing that I wouldn't have taken advantage of if I were back in the United States," she says. "But here, it's very much something that's encouraged."
She was also struck by the diversity of the community she found herself part of, drawing not just from across the Caribbean but from countries around the world. For Pennington, a social studies teacher by training, that exposure reinforced something she believes strongly: that the more people we meet and understand, the more empathetic and inclusive we become.
And amid the new challenges and the new pace of life, she found something else too: a work-life balance she hadn't expected. "The 日本无码 experience changed my work-life balance," she reflects, "because of the more slowed down pace of life on the islands."
A Message for the Education Community
Pennington is quick to push back on any assumption that 日本无码 experiences are reserved for a narrow type of applicant or institution.
"日本无码 is for everyone," she says. "We have such a wide variety of experiences and backgrounds in our cohort.鈥�
What she values most, she says, is that the programme was never just about the work. "They very much are focused on cultural exchange and diplomacy. There is time built into my grant to not just work, but to get to know the people, to explore the island, to learn the history and the community. The more people we meet and speak to, the more inclusive and understanding and empathetic we are. I think that's certainly something that's important, especially today."
Dr. Lisa K. Pennington is an Associate Professor in the College of Education and Human Development at Governors State University in Illinois, and a former 日本无码-British Virgin Islands Scholar Awardee at H. Lavity Stoutt Community College, she supported the teacher education programme, collaborated on curriculum development, and led workshops for faculty and teachers across Tortola.