Visit to Queretaro, Mexico Pays Dividends
A summer trip by a delegation of area educators to Holland's sister's city of Queretaro, Mexico was more than a learning experience — it was a life changer for many of the participants. Holland East K‑8 Principal Nery Garcia led the group of 17 teachers from Holland Public Schools and Holland Christian Schools to Mexico for two
weeks in August. It was funded by a federally funded professional staff development grant.
"No one returns home the same person after a trip like this," Garcia said. "You have a new perspective on your profession and what it means to be in the minority. You have a greater sensitivity for how many of our students feel. Many students face difficult adjustments and need support. "
Garcia visited several elementary, middle and high schools and met with school leaders while teachers attended Spanish language classes.
"It was a very humbling experience for me to be immersed into a culture different from my own," said Carol Smith, who teaches World Studies at Holland West Middle School. "Three hours of Spanish class each day was an eye opener as to what my non‑English speaking students confront every school day. I definitely have more empathy for my students because of this trip."
Members of the Queretaro delegation lived with Mexican host families to experience the culture 24/7. One of the stated purposes of the trip was to also put in motion partnerships with schools to benefit students who live both in Holland and Queretaro.
"Excellent relationships were established and this allowed me to secure partnerships at all three levels, elementary, middle and high school," Garcia said.
One of the partnerships has already begun, as local seventh and eighth‑graders
will soon dive into social studies project exploring early civilizations with their middle school peers enrolled at Celtic International in Queretaro.
The students will use Skype to video chat, ustream.tv (http://ustream.tv/), and wiki to share videos, text, share educational links, and collaborate on ideas.
For the non-techies among us, Skype is free software that allows users to video conference and chat. Ustream is a Web site that allows users to chat online and post videos. School officials have also created a private channel where they can post videos for students to view. Wikis are collaborative sites where users can post and publish work,
which can be viewed, edited created, and shared by multiple users.
This international partnership is already on the move for 2009. It is expanding by pairing up elementary students in Holland's Spanish classes (FLES) with English classes in the Green Hills Elementary School in Queretaro. Students can look forward to building their language skills via email and making new global friends.
"We're even going beyond this, too," said Garcia. "Area sixth-graders will also interact with their grade level counterparts at Queretaro's Neuvo Continente School. They will trade back-and-forth columns they compose for their student newsletters."
This is an ambitious educational opportunity for the sixth-graders as students will be responsible for interviewing each other in the actual language they are trying to learn according to Garcia.
