The breathtaking vistas, challenging her body and communing with folks a world away was only part of what made Essex physical education teacher Kelly McClintock’s trip to Mount Everest so special.
Sharing her experiences afterward with her health class brought the best part, she said, “Seeing my Nepalese students’ eyes light up.”
McClintock uses her travels — from summiting Kilimanjaro to setting up girls sports programs in Ghana and Zambia or creating a basketball program for a nomadic tribe in Tanzania — as an opportunity to teach her students in Vermont about other cultures, living a healthy lifestyle, continuing to grow as a person and following one’s dreams.
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“In school we are always preaching to our students have big dreams, have big goals,” McClintock said, who in addition to teaching fourth and fifth graders at Thomas Fleming School coaches student athletes at Rice Memorial High School. “I think it’s important to both the students and athletes to not just hear their teachers say these things but actually live out what they teach and be the example. I think that’s more powerful.”
McClintock made her three-week Everest trip in April. The trek had been delayed a year because of impacts from COVID-19. The Essex Westford School District School Board and superintendent allowed her to take unpaid leave for the two weeks of the trip that didn’t coincide with spring break.
Normally McClintock uses summer break for her big trips but said because of the weather, prime hiking season for Mount Everest is April and May. She is grateful her school and the administration gave her the time off during the school year.
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She traveled from Katmandu to Mount Everest Base Camp which is more than 17,000 feet above sea level. She hiked 95 miles in nine days, starting off wearing a t-shirt and ending with her thick winter gear including good hiking snow boots and trekking poles. She climbed a couple other nearby peaks and stayed in hostels, known as tea houses, at night.
She experienced a couple loud booms — one was a distant avalanche and the other was a snow squall thunderstorm which her party had to endure.
McClintock said summitting Mount Everest interests her, but she’s not sure she is comfortable with the Sherpas she met putting their lives at risk to help her make it up the mountain.
One of McClintock’s main interest in doing this trip was to connect with her Nepalese students. There has been a huge increase in the Nepalese community in Essex, she said, and always dreamed of getting a fuller picture of their lives.
While in Nepal, she was able to visit some classrooms and stayed with many relatives of Ongyel Sherpa, the Williston business owner of US Sherpa which provides handcrafted Nepalese-made winter clothing and organizes trips to Nepal.
When she showed photos from her trip to her class in Essex Junction, McClintock said many of her Nepalese students spoke up and shared about their lives and culture.
One student explained how they were of the Rai people, which like the Sherpa who live on the mountain, are one of many ethnic groups in Nepal. Another student pointed out the clothing as what they wear on their birthday, and another recognized exactly where a picture of a monkey was taken saying they’d been there.
While sharing images from the classrooms she visited in Nepal, McClintock asked her Essex students to compare the two classes. Many of her Vermont students noticed the Nepal children were seated in rows instead of tables and rather than technology on their desks were using paper notebooks.
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McClintock explained how the Nepalese classrooms are the domain of the teacher. When the teacher would enter the room the children would stand, bow and say “namaste.” They would not sit until the teacher did and there was absolute silence when the instructor spoke. A child who left the room to go to the restroom would need to get permission from the teacher to re-enter the learning space.
This provided an opportunity to discuss cultural differences. McClintock said the students were also very interested in the pictures of animals she saw — yaks, donkeys and mountain goats.
McClintock said being out on the mountain was freeing, particularly after a couple difficult years as an educator dealing with the impact from the COVID-19 pandemic on school communities.
“It was a breath of fresh air literally and figuratively out in the wild without a mask on,” she said.
The people McClintock met on her trip showed selflessness, humility and a hardworking nature that she would like to incorporate into her own personal growth.
“We never stop growing as learners and teachers,” she said.
And the more she grows, the more it can benefit her students, she believes.
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Next on her list is to break the 20,000 feet elevation barrier (Kilimanjaro was 19,500 feet) and could do that with Mount Aconcagua in Argentina at 22,837 feet. The Patagonia region and the Machu Picchu trek in Peru also interest her.
Whatever’s next, she’s sure expanding her horizons also expands her students’ understanding of the world and view of what’s possible.
“They see me experience the world that they want to experience,” she said, which makes it easier for them to dream big to achieve their own goals.
Contact reporter April Barton at [email protected] or 802-660-1854. Follow her on Twitter @aprildbarton.
