Dana Lewis

GRIFTON —  When Dana Lewis first came to North Carolina back in August of last year, she didn’t know what to expect. But now the Canadian-born teacher has seen her first turtle and experienced what the South has to offer.

“I’ve never been called ma’am before in my life,” Lewis said of her first days in North Carolina.

Lewis came to North Carolina through Visiting International Faculty. She is now a Kindergarten teacher at Grifton School and is doing a bit of learning herself.

Lewis, who is from British Columbia, Canada, was seeking an international experience and decided to apply for Visiting International Faculty after hearing from some colleagues about the program. When contacted by Pitt County Schools, Lewis requested a rural area and ended up at Grifton School. Lewis says she chose a rural area because her home is also rural and she enjoys living in a closeknit community and wanted to be able to teach in a similar place.

“I’m definitely an adventurer at heart,” Lewis said. “I wanted to experience living, and teaching, somewhere different.

Since Lewis began teaching at Grifton School in September of last year, she says she’s learned a lot of new things from her students. Her students have also learned a lot of new things from her.

Being from such a different part of the world gives Lewis the opportunity to teach about different cultures. It also gives her an opportunity to learn just how different the United States, and Grifton are from the rest of the world. The language barrier between Lewis and her students has created a few awkward situations, Lewis says, but nothing they haven’t learned from. In fact, Lewis says she has having fun with the language and dialect differences between her and her students.

“It’s a strong thread in my classroom that they (students) know where they’re from, that they know about Grifton,” Lewis said. “I believe identity is very important, so I’ve shared my identity and the children have had lots of opportunities to see where I’m from. The children love to tell me about Grifton.”

Lewis admits there are a lot of differences between her culture and cultures in the United States. Even the structure of the school day is different for Lewis, something she is getting used to. Another thing Lewis is getting used to is seeing simple things we take for granted, such as turtles and collards. Lewis says in Canada, turtles are very rare and she spends a lot of her free time searching for turtles. Food here, Lewis admits, is very different too.

But one thing that will always be similar are the children in all cultures, according to Lewis.  “There’s a strong, common thread with children in all cultures,” Lewis said.

Lewis doesn’t know for sure what her future holds although with Visiting International Faculty, teachers may remain for three years. Lewis hopes to at least stay one more year but has no definite plans for the future. Lewis does admit to becoming attached to the children and hopes she will have the opportunity to stay a little longer, not only for the children but also to have more time to travel and explore the United States.

 Lewis says she has also enjoyed the help of the staff at Grifton School and admits her journey to the United States would have been much  harder without the help of the faculty and staff.

“At this age, you get very attached,” Lewis said. “The support of the staff here was an essential ingredient to making this possible. I couldn’t have done it without my staff.”

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