MKA Students Enjoy Experiencing the World

Twenty-eight tired but happy French-speaking high school students from The Montclair Kimberley Academy recently returned from a Presidents' Day weekend trip to Quebec.

In the words of one of their chaperones, French teacher Meg Slotkin, "They were enthusiastic, good-natured, respectful and flexible travelers as we filled the days with dog sledding, snow-shoeing, lumberjack dances, musket-loading, copper hammering. We looked for ghosts in the Château Frontenac, picked out a favorite room in the Ice Hotel and gazed at the glorious ceiling of Ste. Anne de Beaupré cathedral.  They rode snow tubes down black diamond slopes and ice skated under the twinkling lights in the city.  They tasted duck, Alsatian sausage and lots of maple sugar candy.  And they tried out their burgeoning French since Québec City is really not a bilingual city like Montréal."

This trip is one example of the increasing number of opportunities provided for MKA students to experience differerent countries and cultures and to provide additional context for their academic studies.  Over the upcoming spring break, twenty-one MKA seventh and eighth grade students will be visiting Spain, while Upper School students have the opportunity to participate in a service learning trip to Guatemala or an enrichment trip to Andiamo, Italy, run by the school's Foreign Language and History Departments.

As MKA's Foreign Studies Coordinator Tracy Kuser notes, "These trips are invaluable for providing our students with real-life international experiences that enhance what they are doing in the classroom, and we are committed to expanding these opportunities to enable as many MKA students as possible to reap the benefits."

Click here to view photos from the Quebec Trip