Four international teachers visited Streetsboro High School over the last month to advance and grow as teachers while experiencing American culture.  

English teacher Maria Judd hosted these teachers, who included Adina Lonescu from Romania, Merve Gok Salk from Turkey, Anna Vasjutina from Estonia and Merita Rismani from North Macedonia.  

Vasjutina is from Estonia, a country in Europe next to the Baltic sea and is highly ranked in quality of life and other aspects of living is also one of the smallest countries in the world having a population of only 1,330,068. Vasjutina said her drive to be a teacher comes from wanting to watch people. She came here for the opportunity to interact with other cultures and build a foundation for the world, and since she has been here in America she has become familiar with American culture.

 Lonescu comes from Romania,a southeastern European country with an average population of 19.29 million people, is most commonly known for Vlad the Impaler and Dracula. She taught at small village schools and said that these schools have decent technology and while they are not adept at using it, they do their best to keep up to date with it.  Lonescu decided to go into teaching as she was inspired by the way her first grade teacher presented her lessons, and also believing that education can make a difference in the world.  She has been teaching for 12 years now and said she sees Streetsboro as an inclusive and supportive community.

Gok Salk worked in a small village school in Turkey where technology was not up to date but they had been advancing.  She said she wanted to become a teacher because “I had people who invested a lot in me and I don’t just mean financially, I mean people who added a lot of value to my life. So during the hard times I knew they were there. That motivated me to pass that forward.” 

She said she likes both the atmosphere and the facilities here at Streetsboro.  A fun fact she provided was that in both her and Lonescu’s countries, students call teachers by their first names. 

Risami comes from North Macedonia, where she has said she worked with many cultures and nationalities. There the schools struggle with technology but other than that remaining relatively the same as here.  Risami said she wanted to become a teacher due to her love of being with students and seeing change throughout the many generations of classes. She has been teaching for 18 years. 

She noted that everyone feels comfortable with each other and are very interactive here at Streetsboro.

After hosting these and other groups of international teachers  for around 15 years now, Judd said she regularly hears this message from them:  “You should appreciate all the opportunities and great facilties you have here in America.”