Lovett Spanish Teachers Travel to Ecuador for Curriculum Innovation

In May 2026, eight members of the Lovett community, including six Spanish teachers spanning all three divisions, Assistant Director of Technology Innovation Conway Brackett, and Towner Schunk ’20, who will serve as summer station manager, traveled to Siempre Verde, Lovett's longstanding partner site nestled in the Andes Mountains of northern Ecuador. The trip, led by Upper School Spanish teacher Diane Staats, marked a significant investment in the K–12 Spanish curriculum.

The group traveled not as chaperones, but as learners. "We (wore) two invisible hats during this experience: the student hat and the teacher hat," said Upper School Language Department Head Olivia Rocamora. "The chaperone hat, rewarding but heavy, stays at home." That intentional shift in perspective, she noted, is precisely where innovation often hides.

The trip's goals were threefold: to experience Siempre Verde firsthand and reimagine its connection to Lovett's mission; to capture content, including audio, video, and eventually virtual reality, that could bring Ecuador into Lovett classrooms for students who may never make the trip themselves; and to learn what it means to teach travel as a transformational experience rather than just an itinerary.

The week included immersive visits to a coffee farm run by biologist and community leader Marisol, a family-owned panela (brown sugar) operation, a waterfall hike through first-generation rainforest on the Ruiz family's property, a tiny four-student school in nearby Santa Rosa, a women's artisan cooperative working with cabuya plant fiber, and the Otavalo indigenous market on the return to Quito.

Each experience fed directly into curriculum planning. The group brainstormed connections to Lovett's Women in Business club, Sandra Switzer's Religion in Nature course, and Spanish units at every level. Upper School Spanish teacher Leonor Fernandez conducted interviews with Intag community residents, while Lower School Spanish teacher María Baloucoune developed ideas for collaborating with the Lower School Science department around the legends of volcanoes Imbabura and Cotacachi.

Brackett, the only non-Spanish speaker on the trip, spent the week building a virtual reality experience designed to bring Siempre Verde to students on the Riverbank. "Communication was never really about words," she reflected. "It was always about the willingness to be present enough to receive what someone is actually trying to give you."

Central to the Siempre Verde experience is the Ruiz family, who have stewarded the property and welcomed Lovett visitors for more than three decades. "To know the Ruiz family is to know Lovett and to know ourselves," Rocamora reflected. Staats, making the trip for approximately the 30th time and this time with infant son Nico in tow, watched the Ruiz family's patriarch Nelson scoop up her baby the moment the van door opened. "Nelson is a baby whisperer," she wrote, "and Nico gladly let him carry him all around the property."

The group returned to Atlanta with pages of curriculum notes. "Although it's the end of the year, I feel energized and excited to continue this work," reflected Staats. The team plans to share ideas for expanded Siempre Verde integration across all three divisions in the coming school year, from new Spanish units to the virtual reality experience Brackett is developing.

The word the teachers kept returning to was minga, an Ecuadorian concept for collective work where representatives from each family in a community come together to address a shared need. For one week in May, Lovett's Spanish department had exactly that.