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International Exchanges | Special report: Bahrain
Exchange
Service
Learning
International Exchanges
An integral part of our school involves cultural exchanges with
teens from other countries.
- Our students are involved in an international book
club. Along with students from a school in Egypt, CSI students are
reading a book by Naguib Mahfouz, a classic Egyptian author. Students
communicate on a blog by posting responses to questions and by responding
to one another’s postings. Upon completing the Egyptian classic,
students will read an American classic to deepen their discussions
about cultural similarities and differences.
- Our journalism students working on our school’s
newspaper, The International Insider, invites student editors
and contributors from other countries and includes submissions about
events in their schools as well as about world events.
- Through iEARN, CSI students are facilitating an international
teen scrapbook project. As part of this project, each student in our
school will create a page about him or herself and each advisory group
will create a section of the book. Sections will focus on world issues,
current events and politics, pop culture, and teen issues. Students
from other countries including India, Uganda, and Saudi Arabia will
be participating in this CSI student-led project and will share their
scrapbooks with all participants. (Read
Education Week article.)
- CSI High School hosts a historic exchange visit from
Bahrain—the first time that high school students have come on
a US government-sponsored exchange visit. Click here
to read student perspectives on this exchange and to view photos.
- Our Chinese language students have started a blog
exchange with students in Shenzhen, China. Our students blog in Chinese
as well as English.
- A Danish basketball team visited our school and participated
in conversations with our students about life in Denmark, teen and
school issues they face, music they like, and feelings and ideas about
world events and politics. Then they played basketball together.
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Service Learning
Students will have community service and internship opportunities with
internationally oriented businesses, cultural institutions, and non-profit
organizations as well as opportunities to travel abroad.
In December 2005, CSI High School students completed
their first community service project, “The Giving Project.”
For this project students worked in collaborative groups. Each group
self selected either a children’s book with an international theme
or an international story. They then worked together to create a lesson
and project related to the story. Each group visited a local elementary
school where they read the story to 2nd grade children and taught their
lesson. Examples include having children Venn diagram the similarities
and differences between Egyptian Cinderella and the Cinderella stories;
having students weave paper hummingbirds; having students design and
build sugar cube pyramids; having students create banners about themselves
and use the banners to introduce themselves; and teaching students colors
in Japanese and having them create an origami figure that became part
of a class mobile. This project not only helped to increase literacy
for both the elementary and high school students, but gave the high
school students an experience in which they “gave” and felt
good about giving. We know this from their debriefing about the project.
In fact, many of them were “less than excited” about having
to do this project, but completely changed their opinions after having
worked with the elementary school children. Many even asked if they
could do it again. Discussions about giving and gratitude and this project
have begun to show our students that community service is much more
than just putting in hours somewhere so that you accumulate sufficient
hours to graduate.
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