An Educational Journey
Ken & Betty Frank – Turkey
In a recent presentation at an international education conference I outlined the historical development of the high schools my missionary predecessors founded in the 1800s and described how they became the secular Turkish national schools of today.
| In a recent presentation at an international education conference I outlined the historical development of the high schools my missionary predecessors founded in the 1800s and described how they became the secular Turkish national schools of today.
Peace, Ken & Betty Frank serve as missionaries with the American Board in Istanbul, Turkey. They share the job of General Secretary of the American Board. They also serve on the board of the Istanbul Interparish Migrant Program (IIMP). |
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Many of those missionary founders were graduates of New England schools such as Phillips Academy, Andover, and Mt. Holyoke. One of the conference participants worked at Phillips Andover. He said there was a place there called Missionary Rock from where missionaries were sent abroad in the 1800s. “Now I understand the connection,” he said. And it amazed me how the educational journey of our schools in Turkey has been so similar to that of his school in New England. Would our missionary predecessors have imagined this?
Founding teachers of today’s Uskudar American Academy and Izmir American Collegiate Institute include Lara Farnham and Cornelia Storrs Bartlett, who both attended Mt. Holyoke College.