Travel, it’s said, can change you. Educator Becky Rowe recently traveled to Costa Rica thanks, in a small part, to a PDK travel scholarship.

“Teaching is a universal language of love.” — on meeting teachers at the school in La Fortuna 

Becky Rowe teaches Teaching Professions Academy at Turpin High School in the Forest Hills School District, a satellite program of Great Oaks Career Development Centers in Cincinnati, Ohio — and this year marks her 18th year teaching and 10th at Turpin. In this conversation with host Kathleen Vail, Becky talks about how Educators Rising became the backbone of her TPA program, then dives into the story behind her recent Educators Rising scholarship trip to Costa Rica: nine days spent chasing fluency in a language she’d once lost, visiting a rural bilingual school as “a stranger off the street,” riding out an earthquake and a tropical storm, and eating the best brownie of her life.

She closes with what she’s bringing back to her own classroom — a “pura vida” mindset, a renewed commitment to modeling risk-taking for her students, and maybe a TESOL license. 

Listen to our conversation with host Kathleen Vail in the latest episode of our podcast: