Ninth graders at the 2,300-student South Plantation High School in Plantation, Fla., were in a videoconference with Egyptian students and journalists last year when President Hosni Mubarak stepped down. Both the Americans and the Egyptians were in awe, clapping and laughing and sharing in a moment of global importance.
鈥淎ll of a sudden, our students understood what freedom is, what a democracy means, how fortunate they are to be where they are, and how people have to struggle to get to that level,鈥� said Donna Rose, the director of the school鈥檚 VALOR Freshman Academy, the academic program for the school鈥檚 500 9th graders. 鈥淚n a heartbeat, they changed their view of humanity. How could I have done that on my own?鈥�
Across the United States, students are teaming up with classrooms around the world, using videoconferencing equipment, social media, and other technologies to learn about current events, historic milestones, economic trends, and cultural norms. Educators say the collaborations, which lend themselves to co-curricular projects, foster deep and meaningful conversations, whet a thirst for knowledge that textbooks cannot offer, and show that people in different countries have a lot more in common than many assume.
Educators note that no matter what countries American students are paired with, the same teenage topics seem to come up as they get to know each other during formal class discussions: dating, sex, family, music, and clothes.
And they point out that the poor technological connections between countries, the dropped calls, and the broken translations teach patience and perseverance even as they pose logistical problems for the partnerships themselves. At the same time, educators say the authentic relationships that form between students from different cultures tend to turn them into more independent thinkers with higher levels of tolerance and compassion.
鈥淚t鈥檚 really easy to hate what you don鈥檛 know,鈥� said Lisa Nielsen, an international speaker on innovative education and the co-author of Teaching Generation Text, published in 2011 by Jossey-Bass Teacher. 鈥淚n the future, I think there are going to be big changes in the way countries are defined, because people around the world are going to be connecting and bonding with each other in a way that doesn鈥檛 involve places, but their ideas and passions.鈥�
Ms. Rose has noticed a rise in the academic performance of each freshman class at South Plantation High School, particularly with critical-thinking skills, since she started partnering with other countries five years ago. Students have spoken with earthquake survivors in Haiti, widows in Afghanistan, and indentured servants in Pakistan.
This school year, they鈥檙e connecting regularly with a school in Nagoya, Japan, and with students in a Yemeni refugee camp. (Sensitive to requests from Yemen, South Plantation students make sure there are no high-tech gadgets on their desks and nothing too ornate in the classroom within view of the refugees, because they don鈥檛 want to make them feel deprived.)
鈥淲e are an urban school with a high minority population,鈥� said Ms. Rose, 鈥渁nd this is how we expose our students to the world.鈥�
Connecting Cultures
For the same reasons but in a far different environment, social studies teacher Suzie Nestico oversees a project that involves 14 schools and nearly 400 students in Australia, Canada, England, Germany, South Korea, and the United States. She teaches students in grades 10 through 12 at the 900-student Mount Carmel Area High School in Mount Carmel, Pa.
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鈥淲e鈥檙e a small, rural town of 6,000 with ultra-conservative family values and viewpoints, and most of our students have never gone anywhere else,鈥� said Ms. Nestico, the project manager for the , an international collaborative effort that links classrooms around the globe. She also built a course called 21st Century Global Studies that started this academic year. The course is for students in grades 10 through 12 who, through project- and inquiry-based assignments such as editing wiki pages, learn that working collaboratively with other cultures鈥攁n increasingly marketable skill鈥攃an be challenging.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a big shift for them to go from 鈥榤e鈥� to 鈥榳e,鈥� 鈥� she said. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 help but think that the more kids we involve in projects like this, the more we start to break down some of this sense of entitlement鈥� that exists among students in the United States.
鈥淛ust imagine if you wrote 200 words on your wiki page, and when you went back the next day, you saw that students in Korea had changed a couple of your sentences because they thought it sounded better another way,鈥� Ms. Nestico said. 鈥淭here are a lot of sighs at first, and it鈥檚 a messy process, but it鈥檚 very much worth doing. This is where we truly push learning to the highest level.鈥�
Some lessons have less to do with a final grade than with understanding that a simple phrase in one culture can easily be misperceived in another.
When a student in California posted an online request last summer for information about a 鈥渇lash mob,鈥� for example, a teacher from Germany immediately jumped in to write that European students couldn鈥檛 even talk about such a thing because of the London riots. And two years ago, during an education-related trip to Mumbai, India, Ms. Nestico had to nix any exclamatory T-shirts that might offend the local residents, such as 鈥淗oly cow!,鈥� because cows are considered sacred animals in India.
鈥楯ust Like Us鈥�
Troy Tenhet, a 6th grade teacher for the 650-student Bill L. Williams Elementary School in Bakersfield, Calif., turned to ePals to link his classroom with those in Iceland, Norway, and Singapore. The joins more than half a million classrooms in more than 200 countries and territories.
When Iceland鈥檚 most active volcano began erupting in May 2011, Mr. Tenhet鈥檚 students heard about the devastation firsthand from children their own age through email exchanges. And a haiku-poetry swap with peers in Norway evolved organically into a lesson on patriotic symbols.
鈥淭hey realized that, hey, there are kids all over the world that are just like us,鈥� Mr. Tenhet said. 鈥淎ll of a sudden, everything matters more.鈥�
The day after Haiti鈥檚 massive earthquake in January 2010, Melissa McMullan, who teaches English and social studies to grades 6 through 8 at the 900-student John F. Kennedy Middle School in Port Jefferson, N.Y., found herself unable to get her students to focus on an upcoming state exam. They kept interrupting with questions about the catastrophe, and no amount of redirection got them back on track for long.
Ms. McMullan went home that night and, struck by the anguish she saw on the evening news, decided to adjust her strategy.
鈥淚 believe strongly that whatever you need to teach kids can be taught in the context of what they鈥檙e interested in,鈥� she said.
With backing from her principal and help from other faculty members, she constructed an interdisciplinary unit of study centered around Haiti and the earthquake. She set up partnerships with people who traveled frequently to Haiti; ran a shoe-collection drive for orphans; and flew to the ravaged country to deliver the donations. She stayed only 18 hours, but used Skype, a Web-based videoconferencing service, to introduce her students to the orphans they were helping.
鈥淭hat was the moment,鈥� Ms. McMullan said of her inspiration to launch what would become the nonprofit organization Wings Over Haiti. So far, the group has shipped at least 1.5 tons of donated shoes, clothing, and toiletries to Haiti. Students do all of the packing, weighing, and invoicing.
鈥楳ake a Difference鈥�
Ms. McMullan鈥檚 students even helped open a school in Haiti, with 43 students in kindergarten and 1st grade, in October 2010. They wrote job-interview questions, watched the interviews via video, helped hire the school鈥檚 three teachers, and started a meal program to feed every student at the school two meals a day.
Eighth grader Gianna Bottona organized a car wash to help the fledgling school buy a satellite dish. Her family also has started sponsoring a 4-year-old Haitian girl, whose pictures are all over the family鈥檚 house.
鈥淚t gives you an outlook that no matter what your size is, or who you are, you can make a difference,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an indescribable feeling knowing that every time you see those kids smile, it鈥檚 because of you. It鈥檚 almost selfish, really. When you help them, you鈥檙e helping yourself.鈥�
She and her classmates use Skype to keep in touch with the Haitian students, and password-protected cloud-computing rooms to post files and pictures and set up conference calls.
As a result, new connections are being made within JFK Middle School鈥檚 walls as well. Ms. McMullan has her students collaborating regularly with eight special education students she鈥檇 never met before the earthquake. 鈥淭here was something about reaching way beyond us that allowed us to work much better in the building,鈥� she said.
Ms. McMullan travels to Haiti once a month these days. The relationships between students continue to strengthen鈥攁nd that means that some tragedies far away now hit closer to home than before. One student at the Haitian school recently died of starvation.
鈥淲hen you see those things happen, it makes it much harder to judge somebody because they don鈥檛 have the right shoes or they aren鈥檛 good at lacrosse,鈥� Ms. McMullan said. 鈥淚t puts things in perspective.鈥�
