Milobo’s Musings

Imagine that your school has been asked to host a visit from a group of international delegates who are interested in learning how you use technology to communicate, mentor, and collaborate with other schools both in town and around the world.

Now imagine that the delegates are from Saudi Arabia and are visiting the United States for the first time.

And you are one of two females in the IT department.

And you teach in the predominately conservative South.

In a Catholic School.

With a Crusader as a mascot.

Sound unlikely? Today that’s exactly what came to pass when a group of 9 delegates and 3 interpreters spent the afternoon touring our school and learning more about our technology program. The delegates all serve as leaders in the Boy Scouts of Saudi Arabia. Many of them also work as university professors or serve on the Ministry of Education in their country. We had little idea what to expect, but decided that we’d focus on talking about 3 aspects of our program:

• Mentoring elementary students in other schools through programs such as our iPodPals project.
• Collaborating with others via iChat such as the program begun by Dean Shareski where his pre-service students at the University of Regina are working with high school students around the world.
• Communicating with our student body and parents through a student podcast series created and maintained by our Design classes.

Three of our students volunteered to present to the group about the iPod Pals, while Colleen Glaude (our Technology Coordinator), Travis Brown (our Design and Media teacher) and I gave an overview of the other programs. We were fortunate, too, to have Dean join us via a video chat from his office in Canada for a portion of the visit.

Here’s the great thing.  Our students (and we) came into this experience not knowing what to expect.  We had been briefed on many customs that could be offensive (showing the sole of your shoe, giving a thumbs up, pointing with your left hand, among others). How accepting would they be of our students our school, and our country?

In the end, however, our students left with a greater understanding of how difficult it is to stereotype someone when they’re standing right in front of you, asking questions, smiling at your student’s work, and gasping as Dean Shareski shares images of the snow outside his window during your video chat with him. It’s a lesson I hope will remain with our students for life -that deep down, regardless of where we live, what religion we profess, or what the media reports, we really aren’t all that different.

As the delegation left, they gave each of us a lapel pin from their group (shown in the picture above), while we gifted them with bookmarks from our school that list our core values:

• Selfless Love
• Commitment to Excellence
• Personal Integrity
• Commitment to Service

The nicest thing? Seeing them nod in agreement as their interpreter translated the 4 values written on the bookmark. It seems that those values aren’t just important to us, but to others around the world as well.

Imagine that.