High school abroad enriches educaiton
Sponsored by: EdgardJPierreFoundation
By Caitlin Austin/ cau...@cnc.com
Friday, December 31, 2004
For three weeks Joe McGrath slept on the only bed in a concrete house
with wooden shutters instead of windows and curtains instead of doors.
Every morning he got up with the sun, drank a bit of coffee and nibbled
on some leftover bread. He would pat the donkey that stood outside his
window, splash his face with water carried from a well two miles up the
road, and walk to the city center of Matenwa, a 350-person village
located on the Caribbean island of Haiti.
With no electricity or running water, Joe, an 18-year-old senior
at Nauset Regional High School in Eastham, experienced first-hand what
it means to be a third world citizen living within the most financially
decrepit nation in the Western Hemisphere. And yet, despite his lavish
American existence on Cape Cod - far removed from the clay hut he
shared with a family of six - Joe fell in love with Haiti.
He fell in love with root soup and beans. He fell in love with
hours spent sitting around the fire in the evening. He fell in love
with children who slept on the floor so he could have the only bed, and
he fell in love with the intoxicating heat of the mid-day air. For Joe,
Haiti was no longer a faceless nation to be perused in black and white
through textbooks and newspapers but a real, living and breathing
country full of vibrant color, rhythmic music and inspirational souls.
Thanks to a renewed interest and support for affordable overseas
programs within Cape high schools and middle schools, hundreds of
students like Joe McGrath are making the jump beyond the boundaries of
Cape Cod in the name of education. With costs that range from $400 to
$2,000 and destinations that range from Japan and Germany to Spain,
Italy and Haiti, students today have their choice of locations to
experience and appreciate what they have been studying in textbooks and
classrooms for much of their childhood.
"We find the experience any student has abroad to be tremendously
academic," said Nauset Principal Tom Conrad. "In the last few years,
these trips have really expanded. They are an amazing opportunity for
students to experience what they are learning, living lessons that they
will actually retain for the rest of their lives."
Currently, Nauset offers cultural exchange programs in Germany,
Italy and France spanning a period of three weeks. Students live with a
host family and are completely immersed within the foreign way of life.
For teenagers who prefer a less lengthy period abroad, Barnstable High
School offers a two-week trip to Greece; Chatham High School organizes
a 10-day trip to Rome; and Harwich High School offers a two-week
vacation visiting Milan and Paris.
"These trips really change the kids," said Carla Blanchard,
foreign language department chairwoman and French teacher at Harwich
High School, who has traveled to Italy and France three times with her
students. "It gives them a view of another culture and another way of
living they otherwise would never have the opportunity to see. To study
another culture up close takes away a lot of the mystique and allows
students to grasp how different people live in different ways."
Seeing is believing
A picture may speak a thousand words but when it comes to learning
about another culture most educators will agree there is no textbook
comparison to experiencing that way of life first-hand.
"Travel opens up a student's eyes in so many ways," said Keith
Staton, a German teacher at Nauset High School who manages the school's
German exchange program. "They notice the oddest things like a
difference in light, or a switch in parenting styles that can open up
another world for them making them more culturally aware to the realms
outside of Cape Cod."
For foreign language and history students, travel overseas is a
particularly valuable addition to educational frameworks, presenting
students a unique opportunity to call on their knowledge and skills.
"Language was a big part of our trip," said Sean Mulholland, a Latin
instructor at Chatham High School who recently returned from a trip to
Rome with his foreign language students. "Many of my students were
intoxicated with the power of being able to read and apply so much of
their knowledge to the ancient words around them. It was an incredible
opportunity for them to encounter the language in use, an experience I
would not be able to ever fully replicate in the classroom."
"You can talk about something as much as you want, but actually
witnessing a piece of history is different," said Nick Diego, a junior
at Chatham High School who traveled with Mulholland to Rome last year.
"We had been doing a lot of Latin work with Ancient Rome and the whole
purpose of the trip was to go and look at the ancient monuments and
compare what they said to what we learned in class. There is just
nothing like seeing it for yourself."
John Halter, 18, a senior at Nauset, used his three-week stint in
Germany to perfect his language skills. "I wanted to go because I love
speaking the German language and I was eager to learn the modern
aspects of German I had not encountered in class," said Halter, who
found his time abroad to be most valuable. "It was just so incredible
to be treated like one of the kids and grow close with a family so
different from my own. I came back to the States feeling older. An
exchange like this is so good because you are able to interact with
real people rather than reading about them in a book."
New eyes, new world
It would be naïve to argue that education is the primary reason
so many students choose to board a plane headed overseas. Travel also
offers a unique opportunity for parental-free fun and while learning
may not always be on the forefront of every mind, most students return
home to find they have a newfound perspective on life.
"Coming back from Haiti was the hardest thing for me," said Joe
McGrath, of his first of three trips to Matenwa Village with his world
music teacher Lisa Brown at Nauset, "because you realize just how
fortunate you are. It used to make me so frustrated to see people
complain because their car wouldn't run. After Haiti I just don't take
anything for granted anymore. You want to convey that same feeling to
other people but it is just hard for them to grasp unless they have
been there. The Haitian people taught me more things about humility and
respect than I have ever learned. They have so much hope and are so
strong even though they have so little. I don't think I will ever look
at things in the same way."
Since beginning her trips to Haiti with students five years ago,
Brown has seen a significant change in the way many of her students
perceive the world. "The kids walk away more thoughtful, quieter and
understand a bit more about what their place in the world is and what
their responsibilities are to themselves and others," said Brown. In
her program, students interact directly with the local population and
then present their experience to the school.
With the war in Iraq, travel abroad is particularly fascinating
for students, enabling them to view their own country through the eyes
of a foreigner. "We were in Rome one day before the start of the Iraq
War during the largest protest that has ever been in the city," said
Mulholland. "There were peace protests all over Europe against the
action, and pictures all over the newspapers with signs and slogans
aimed at the U.S. government. Many of my students didn't know quite how
to take it. A lot of these kids had not really traveled outside of
Massachusetts, let alone outside of the States. At home they are
normally so far removed and now here it was in their face."
"It was a really interesting time to be in Rome," said Nick of his
experience observing the protest. "In our media you always see the
groups of people protesting and burning flags but when you are in the
middle of it, it is completely different. It really gives you a better
feel as to how the world reacts to certain things when you are actually
there."
Upon returning to the States, many students find they have a
renewed interest in political and international affairs. "For a lot of
the kids, the whole world opened up to them and they really started
thinking about people who live very different lives," said Mulholland.
"They have been following international stories and the whole campaign
in Iraq a lot more closely. People were shocked to think that there
were other countries with another opinion on what we're doing. It was
truly a politically broadening experience."
Bitten by the travel bug
Oversea trips in high school can set the stage for a lifetime of
travel and service abroad. In the case of Isadora Dunne, 17, now a
senior at Nauset High, it was a two-week journey to Japan with her
middle school that would forever fuel her desire to see the rest of the
world.
"I went to this little town in Japan for 10 days in August," said
Isadora, who attended Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School in Orleans and
traveled to Japan on an educational exchange at the young age of 14.
"We flew into Tokyo and we spent the night there before taking the
train to a small village in northern Japan where we each lived with a
host family. My favorite part of the trip was just interacting with the
kids. Even though they looked totally different I realized how alike we
were. The whole experience there prompted me to travel on the German
exchange my sophomore year in high school and then take a two-week trip
to France last year."
With so much traveling under their belt at a young age, many
students look to continue their experiences abroad in college. "I
realized how much I love interacting with people and traveling so I
look for extensive study abroad programs when applying to college,"
said Isadora. "A lot of people that wouldn't have had the chance to
travel regularly can see the world with these trips. When I came back I
couldn't stop telling all my friends how amazing each country was. It
is so eye opening and I think young people, after hearing us talk about
our time overseas, want to experience it for themselves."
Arielle Magid, 16, a junior at Nauset, has dreamed of traveling to
Haiti since she was a freshman. "I have always wanted to go and learn
about their way of life and how they live without so many of the things
that we have," said Arielle, who will travel to Haiti this spring. "I
plan on doing a documentary piece on a-day-in-the life of the family I
am staying with to share with my school and encourage people to see the
world."
"Kids on the Cape can become so narrow-minded and unaware of how
other people live," said Joe, who after Haiti plans on continuing his
work in third world countries, currently studying to become a licensed
EMT. "You need to observe how other people live and gain some
understanding and respect for these different ways of life. I want to
expand my borders and go out into the world where people don't have an
infrastructure like we do. After visiting Haiti, I want to make a
difference."
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