From New York to Alabama: Elisa Bonadonna’s Journey to Explore the US Education System
Twelve days, two states, one major goal. The experience in the United States of Elisa Bonadonna, a 2025 Teach For Italy Fellow, made possible by the J.M. Henton Fellowship, illustrates what it means to build community through the collective leadership of a global network.
“If I had to choose an image to describe this experience, I would pick a roller coaster. A whirlwind of emotions going up and down, but at the end of the ride, I found myself in front of a breathtaking landscape, flooded with sunlight.”
This is how the story of Elisa Bonadonna begins, currently in her second year of Fellowship with Teach For Italy. Last July, thanks to the support of the inaugural edition of the J. M. Henton Fellowship—a grant promoted by Friends of Teach For Italy that gave Elisa the opportunity to live an experience in the United States—she entered classrooms and explored many diverse realities across the country.
Twelve intense days, bridging classrooms in the Bronx in New York and landmark civil rights sites in Alabama, within the educational ecosystem of Teach For America.
Yet, Elisa’s trip was not merely an observational study visit. It was a profound step outside her comfort zone—a journey that, as Elisa pointed out, allowed her to see what it truly means to be part of a movement like Teach For All, which unites education leaders worldwide with the shared mission of tackling educational inequity.
The Impact of New York and the Power of Community
Departing, like any major challenge, brought with it the weight of responsibility. Being the first Italian Fellow to take part in this exchange meant representing the mission of Teach For Italy before a historic network like the US one. The ice broke in New York, with a warm welcome from Friends of Teach For Italy at the offices of Tarter Krinsky & Drogin, where Elisa shared her story and her projects in Italy before getting to know several of the many people who accompanied her throughout this American journey.
Between the Bronx and Brooklyn
Elisa shares that she got to know “the reality of Charter Schools, public schools with significant operational autonomy. Here, I was able to observe very young teachers managing Summer Schools with incredible resilience in the heat of July. But what struck me most was the remarkable strength of the network.”
Speaking with veteran leaders like Jennifer Early, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer with more than twenty years at Teach For America, Elisa discovered a circular ecosystem where former students from the most vulnerable backgrounds become teachers, later stepping up as the future school leaders of those very same neighborhoods. “Seeing such a well-structured network, where Fellows are never left on their own but are coached and trained to become true education professionals, helped me realize the enormous potential we have in Italy as well,” Elisa reflects.
Alabama: Between Civil Rights and Inclusion
If New York represented the encounter with the system, Alabama struck a chord at the very heart of Elisa’s vocation. In Auburn and Montgomery, the trip intertwined with the legacy of June M. Henton, an enlightened academic who dedicated her life to turning education into an instrument for empowerment and social justice.
Welcomed by Connor Lowry (June’s daughter), Elisa experienced what she warmly described as a journey “tailor-made to her cross-cutting interests”: civil rights and inclusive education. She visited the Equal Justice Initiative museum in Montgomery accompanied by Kyes Stevens, Founder and Director of Auburn University’s Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project, discussed LGBTQ+ rights with university faculty, and—in her role as a special education teacher in Italy—toured the university's autism assessment clinic.
“Seeing a clinic where parents receive support and evaluations for their children before they even enter the school system was illuminating. Nothing like this exists back home,” she says. “It is in these moments that the true value of exchange comes to life—not to find plug-and-play magic solutions, but to open our eyes to new possibilities.”
Collective Leadership: Returning Home with New Questions
Beyond the classrooms and training sessions spanning Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) to the ethical use of Artificial Intelligence, the greatest takeaway Elisa brought back to Italy was a deep development of her own leadership.
After all, as Elisa herself clearly put it: “Educational leadership is not about passively importing foreign models into a profoundly different context like Italy.” Rather, it means having the courage to engage in dialogue, question oneself, and look at one's own reality with fresh eyes. “What I bring home isn't a comparison between Italy and the United States. I bring home questions. Questions about how I can adjust and shape my teaching practice based on what I have seen.”
Today, Elisa is back in her classroom in Italy, but she does not feel alone. Through this journey, she witnessed firsthand the essence of the Teach For All network: thousands of professionals around the world who, while navigating different contexts and challenges, share the same resolve.
“Today in my school, there are around ten of us from Teach For Italy, three in my classroom alone, and I feel the power of the network every single day. Talking with people on the other side of the world and discovering that they share your exact same goal—restoring the school’s value as a driver of social mobility—makes you feel unstoppable. It makes you realize that together, we truly have the power to transform the future of our students for the better.”
