Curriculum Exemplars: Trip Around the World

Sometimes the best way to learn about other places is to stay after school or so the kids enrolled in the after school program at Chester Elementary School found out.

Inspired by an AmeriCorps member and volunteers from a class at the local college, students enrolled in a K-8 after school program in Chester, New Hampshire have "visited" China, Japan, Israel, Mexico, Italy, Botswana, Korea and Ireland, and they have plans to keep on traveling. Dan McLane, an AmeriCorps member at White Pines College in Chester, was challenged to come up with an after-school enrichment program based on a model that had worked well at another site in New Hampshire. However, when he attempted to adapt the same model to his own site, he ran into difficulties, and had to do some quick planning. He turned to Marge Pagliuca, a professor of sociology and biology at White Pines, who also happens to be the college registrar. Marge was interested in offering a service-learning option for the students in her "Race, Class and Ethnicity" course. She had been thinking about an after-school program that would involve students "visiting" other countries, and together with Dan devised the "Trip Around the World After School."

With students from her class as his volunteer pool, and with the direct involvement of Marge Pagliuca, the model for his after-school program was transformed to suit his college's requirements and the needs of the local school. As it turned out, the elementary school had a regular after-school program run by paid personnel who enthusiastically embraced the "Trip Around the World" idea, so the college students did not have to deal with the challenge of coordinating schedules with classroom teachers. The activities engaged in by the students and volunteers are adapted for each country they visit, but generally include eating a typical ethnic food, playing a game or learning a dance or song from the country, and engaging in some kind of art project derived from the country's indigenous art or history. Marge has compiled an extensive bibliography that volunteers can use to find appropriate foods and activities. Many of the volunteers choose to present a country in which they have lived or visited; for example, Dan spent time with the Peace Corps in Botswana, so he presented that country to the children.

Marge and Dan had the idea that children might already have (or be beginning to develop) prejudices or misinformation about people of other countries or about the countries themselves, and part of the reason for their program was to inform the children in thoughtful and creative ways about other countries and their inhabitants. Contrary to expectation, they learned that the children were amazingly free of prejudices in this young age group (most of the children are first through fourth graders, although there are a few older students in the after-school group). Sometimes, to everyone's surprise, the children knew a few things about the country that even the adults didn't know or so I found out when I accompanied the group on a trip to Ireland...

A Visit to Ireland:
It's the day after Saint Patrick's Day, so Ireland is a natural choice for today's "trip." When I arrive at the school with Dan McLane and four college volunteers, the kids pour into the school library from the playground, accompanied by their after school care-givers. Passports are eagerly distributed by several students, and the children settle down to a snack of juice and Irish soda bread. While they eat, Dan McLane goes up to the board, chalk in hand. "Okay, so what do we know about Ireland?" he asks. Many hands shoot up quite a few more than appeared when Dan asked about Botswana some weeks earlier! A good percentage of the Chester students are of Irish descent, and all the students are fresh from a Saint Patrick's Day celebration at their school, which included an exhibition of Irish dancing.

"They like the color green."

"It's got rolling green hills.

"Saint Patrick was a shepherd and a pirate slave who took the snakes out of Ireland."

"There's a legend that there was no sun for twelve days and nights when Saint Patrick died.

"Leprechauns live down in tunnels underground."

"There are castles."

"They have giants in Ireland, and the Irish people believe in them like spirits."

"If you put your shoes at the end of the bed on the night before Saint Patrick's Day, you'll find money or candy in your shoes the next morning."

"Hey, now," exclaims Dan. "I'm Irish myself, and I don't remember getting candy in my shoes!" Several of the kids assure him that it's true, and the parents of others will no doubt be hearing about this custom as their children demand the same treatment come next Saint Patty's Day.

Each after-school session begins with passing out the children's "passports" (which are made by the students and contain their photographs) and serving a food typical of the country they are visiting that day. Then Dan stands at the board and lists the "facts" that the students know about the country and people they are visiting. (Dan is careful not to introduce prejudices during this process; he simply tries to determine what facts/myths the children have learned from their parents, television, friends and school about the country.) At the end of the session, the group will revisit the items on the board to see which ones they still believe and what new facts they can add to the list. This process sometimes leads to provocative exchanges laden with potential mine-fields, such as when a discussion of religion during a "visit" to Israel led to questions about Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and the college students discovered the importance of phrasing in talking about such matters.

Thus the college students themselves learn about the potential of language and word choice to reveal and promote prejudice or enlightened tolerance. If the group doesn't have time to return to the board at the end of the day, they will continue their visit to the same country next week rather than rush through this important activity. Today, one small girl pipes up that the flag of Ireland is green, white, and orange, and that the green stands for Catholics, the orange for Protestants, and the white for peace facts which were new even to some of the college students. After they list all they know about Ireland and its people, it's time to engage in another typically Irish activity. To the accompaniment of "The Chieftains" on CD, the college students attempt to teach a piece of Irish dancing to the students, with limited success and much hilarity. After dancing, one of the college students with an interest in art introduces "Irish sun catchers." She has photocopied Celtic drawings from a coloring book, and passes out matched pairs of them for the children to cut out. The children choose which parts of the middles to cut out, and paste colored tissue between the two matched pieces, so that sunlight falling through them will pick up the bright colors. By now their time is up, but none of the college students seem in a hurry to leave as they patiently help the students finish their Irish art projects. In fact, the course these students were enrolled in for the service-learning option ended last semester, but not a single one of the volunteers has since quit the after-school program. They seem to share a sense of responsibility toward these kids now. And besides, they don't want to miss the fun!