Introducing JA Students in Mexico and the USA - Creating the Global Connections Program

Front of T shirt that was designed by a St Emily

student. The students also contributed some

extra money to pay for T shirts for the 6th grade

students at Instituto Oasis.

(The previous blog post offers some background on starting the JA / IMPULSA program at the FFHM Mission in Mexico and is best read before reading this post)  

While teaching JA to the seventh grade class at St. Emily in Spring, 2010, I mentioned my upcoming June trip to FFHM mission in Baja, Mexico in June to one of the teachers. I told her that I thought it might be a nice idea to try to connect her students with the students at the mission. Her response to me, "Go for it." With that encouragement, the wheels started turning.

My first priority at the school at the mission was to successfully deliver Junior Achievement for the first time to grades 1-6 at Instituto Oasis (the name of the grade school at FFHM mission). As the week came to an end, I could see that the staff at the mission was happy with the program, and overall it had gone well. So I decided to ask Marie (the school's English teacher and my liaison) about her opinion in trying to connect students at Instituto Oasis with students at St. Emily.   

Her initial response to my inquiry was less than enthusiastic, and after some conversation I could understand her point of view. She said that pen pal communications had been tried before and typically resulted in a lot of translation, which usually ended up on her plate. Communications were also inconsistent and spotty and ended up lacking a meaningful purpose as a result. I left thinking that there still had to be a good way to connect the students, but also took to heart Marie's thoughts on the process and the value of initiating such a link. 

I dwelt on this through the summer, then sometime in September I saw a random piece about Skype. I had heard of this product before, though I was not a user. But the ability to call and see others on video at little or no cost got me to thinking that this might be an excellent medium for connecting the students. I began to investigate and discovered that St Emily already had a Skype account and was familiar with its use. I also followed up with FFHM - they had Skype access as well and told me they might be able to project the video onto a screen in the school's library. Sounded doable, but I wasn't sure of the quality of the projection so I put that in my task list.

With the medium of communication established, I set out to resolve the content and translation issues. I did a little research and discovered that some grade school classrooms had used Skype to communicate before. But I noticed that it was typically within a country's borders and there was also an absence of substance in the encounters. Students would wave to each other, sing songs or sometime read books over Skype, but the overall academic value in these sessions was pretty minimal. One thing I have learned from my experience in schools (mostly through JA) - classroom time is precious and needs to be used wisely. 

So I decided to create a curriculum that included questions that the students could ask each other as a means of learning more about their lives and experiences. I opted to put together two sessions in which the children asked questions about their own lives, family and friends, activities in their town and viewpoints of each others countries. Since both schools are private and Christian based, I included a section on their faith. Teachers gave the students the questions in advance, then reviewed their responses and selected students in their classroom to answer the questions via Skype. I was supposed to receive the responses at least 24 hours in advance (mainly for translation purposes), but the timing didn't always work out. We still managed to survive though.

We did a trial run from St Emily that included the two St Emily teachers, a JA staffperson and Theresa, one of the Baja trip leaders that I traveled with on previous visits to Baja. We sat in front of the computer monitor and spoke to the 6th graders at Instituto to tell them what to expect. The session also gave them an opportunity to ask questions. All went well and I had given the St Emily students an overview the week earlier. We were set to go - Global Connections (the name I gave to the program) was live! And, to resolve the projection screen resolution issue, I sent the school in Mexico a 40" flatscreen TV.

St Emily student responds to a Global Connections program

question. The screen behind the student is the video of the

students at Instituto Oasis at FFHM as seen by the 7th grade

class at St Emily.

While Global Connections can work as a stand alone program, it is a nice complement to the JA - Global Marketplace Program.Both the classes at St Emily and Instituto Oasis receive this class from me, so this was a good fit. The day of the sessions we would connect and I moderated the session. I assisted with translating at St Emily and Marie translated at Instituto Oasis. The Skype communications were to be two Global Connections classes, one JA Global Marketplace class that I would deliver from Mexico during my trip with the Willow Creek team. Then as a followup to the Global Marketplace class, but not part of the ordinary JA curriculum, I had the students market a product to each other. So overall, the students connected four times via Skype.

Making a JA Global Marketplace lesson presentation to the 6th
grade students at Instituto Oasis. The monitor behind me is used
for the Skype communication to the students at St. Emily.  

While the whole thing took a lot of work to pull together, it was entirely fulfilling and the students loved it. A few of the memorable moments of the Skype sessions included:

• The St Emily students applauding the students in Mexico as they gave their responses to the questions during the first session. It was fantastic how warm and outgoing they were. 
• One of the questions I included in the "Faith" section was, "If you could ask God a question, what would it be?" The girl who responded from Instituto Oasis said, "Why am I at an orphanage and don't have parents and live with my family?" This response received a sad sigh from the St Emily students
• As I was leaving the Sunday evening church service shortly after arriving at the mission, one of the 6th grade students who knew me from Skype ran up and said, "Roberto, televisión!
• Before I left the mission, I coached the students a little on their marketing presentation and also did a follow up Skype session with just their class to make sure they were comfortable with it. When we did the presentation, the St Emily students put a commercial together as well that was fun and enjoyably corny. Marie told me later that the students in Mexico loved it and were asking, "where's our commercial?" Something to work on for our next Skype sessions! 
• The reaction from the St Emily students when they heard that the students in Mexico had sent them Macademia Nuts (from the orchard at the FFHM mission), which was the product the Instituto Oasis students used in their marketing presentation. Next time I'll keep the Skype session open as we distribute them - another lesson learned.

After we completed the marketing project via Skype, each

St. Emily student received a sample bag of macademia nuts

along with a note and a photo of one of the 6th grade students.

• Theresa led another team in June to FFHM and helped me to secure a baggos game for the students in Mexico, which was the item that St Emily students had marketed to them. Some of Theresa's team showed the 6th grade how to play the game when they were there - they also showed other students as well. It was a big hit.

Students at Instituto Oasis school at FFHM play the Baggos game

that the 7th grade students marketed to them as part of the Global

Connections program. This photo was taken in June when the second

volunteer team from Willow Creek went to the mission and delivered

 the game to the students at the school. 

Most of all, I am happy that both classroom had the opportunity to meet and learn about each other directly firsthand. So many of our opinions nowadays are based upon perceptions from the media and what we hear from others. Hopefully this experience will open the eyes and hearts of both of these classrooms and serve as a stepping stone to better understanding of their peers across the border.

The headline picture on my blog shows me with the teachers and seventh grade students at St Emily - most of us sporting our Global Connections t-shirts that was designed by one of the St Emily students.