“Sooo excited!”
That pretty much says it all. Five middle schoolers from The New Century School are days away from boarding a plane to Puerto Rico, and the energy is infectious. We sat down with them ahead of their departure on Thursday, April 23rd (returning Tuesday the 30th) to find out what they’re most looking forward to. Spoiler: it’s basically everything.
E is already thinking ahead to the second house the group will have access to—the one with the pool in Ponce. Priorities.
S is excited to experience a new culture firsthand. He’s never been to Puerto Rico, and the prospect of encountering something genuinely different from Baltimore is energizing him.
A is counting down to learning more about the indigenous communities.
P has two things on the brain: the jungle and the food. When pressed on what she’s hoping to eat, she admitted she had no idea yet (which, honestly, is the best possible answer).
Z has actually been to Puerto Rico before, but hasn’t had the chance to really explore. This time, she’s going to change that.
As for the Spanish? The consensus was swift and unanimous: “We’re going to be fluent by the end.” ¡Buena suerte, chicos!
Why Puerto Rico?
Back when TNCS added a middle school division in the fall of 2016, the administration decided to cap off this critical developmental period with an international service-learning trip. That tradition launched with Puerto Rico back in 2019, the first-ever TNCS international service-learning project, which is now in its fifth incarnation. TNCS middle schoolers take the trip every other year, and it alternates between Puerto Rico and Costa Rica.
Puerto Rico in particular is readily accessible with no passports required, and it’s a Spanish-speaking destination where students can put their developing language skills to real use. For a school where Spanish immersion is woven into the daily fabric of learning, there’s something irreplaceable about arriving somewhere and needing the language—ordering food, navigating conversations with guides, connecting with people whose first language is Spanish. Past TNCS travelers have ordered their meals in Spanish, conversed with tour guides in Spanish, and helped each other through tricky phrases along the way. That’s the language classroom you can’t build inside a school building.
And then there’s service, a TNCS Core Value. Throughout the year, students take on various initiatives toward their service-learning goals, from intra-campus projects to broader community endeavors. The international trip is a chance to experience just how far-reaching that impact can be. Previous TNCS groups have cleaned and painted at an urban nature center, organized the library in an elementary school, cleared brush from the roads at a nature preserve, and planted native trees along the coast to help restore ecosystems damaged by hurricanes. In reflecting on past trips, chaperones noted that students often ranked the service learning above the “fun stuff” when asked about their favorite moments. That’s the thing about real service: it tends to surprise you with how meaningful it is.
This year, Profé J and Mr. Callahan are chaperoning. “I’ve been fortunate to spend a lot of time in Puerto Rico over the years,” said Profé J. “It’s a place I’ve always felt at home. I’m very excited to share it with this group and to watch them make it their own.”
Itinerary
The trip is structured around three areas of the island, each offering a distinct window into Puerto Rico’s history, ecology, and living culture. They’ll begin in San Juan, soaking in the history of the capital, its Spanish colonial architecture, its forts, its storied streets, and kicking things off with a bombo drum musical experience that will “set the tone” for everything to come.
From there, the group heads south to Ponce, known as “La Perla del Sur” (the Pearl of the South), to visit Hacienda Buena Vista, a beautifully preserved 19th-century coffee and corn hacienda that offers a living lesson in Puerto Rico’s agricultural history. Students will learn about native plants and get their hands in the soil, tending gardens as part of their service-learning component.
The itinerary also inc
ludes a visit to the Centro Ceremonial Indígena de Tibes, an archaeological site and one of the most important pre-Columbian ceremonial centers in the Caribbean. It’s not a living community; it’s an ancient one, carefully preserved, and it will give students a chance to understand the Taíno people whose presence on this island stretches back well over a thousand years before European contact. This connects directly to one of the themes of the trip: Puerto Rico’s identity is layered, and understanding it means going beneath the surface. (Those months Profé J spent in Puerto Rico in her early adulthood? She was making an award-winning documentary about the Taíno people and their deep spiritual connection to the land: I Am the Land. TNCS middle schoolers all viewed it as part of Spanish class.)
And yes, there will be time in the jungle—El Yunque; time at the beach; and a kayaking excursion on Laguna Grande, a bioluminescent lake, where microorganisms (Pyrodinium bahamense, dinoflagellates) in the water light up the night in one of nature’s most extraordinary displays. It is, in a word, magical.
Bigger Picture
In the end, beaches and waterfalls aside, the capstone trip is about personal growth, a chance for TNCS students to demonstrate how they’ve matured. Every group that has made this journey has come back changed in some way. They’ve forged deeper friendships. They’ve discovered reserves of confidence they didn’t know they had. They’ve done hard physical work in service of something larger than themselves, spoken a language outside the safety net of a classroom, and encountered ways of living that expanded their sense of what the world is and what their place in it might be.
Stay tuned to the TNCS blog for a full trip recap when the group returns on April 30th. ¡Hasta pronto desde La Isla del Encanto!
