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Essays Every High School Student Should Read http://www.mrswatersenglish.com/2016/12/essays-every-high-school-student-should-read/

Essays Every High School Student Should Read

Finding Ourselves in the Peruvian People Skylar Hurst & Nicole Mann, Scuola Vita Nuova School - Kansas City, MO

As middle school teachers, we believe it essential that students think about themselves as individuals, members of the community and citizens of the world with something to offer. While the majority of students at our school are Hispanic and of Mexican descent, they didn’t realize that they are members of a larger community of Spanish-speaking cultures. Therefore, we designed our Fund for Teachers fellowship to investigate across Peru the significance of identity, perception and diversity to promote discussion about diversity in various parts of the world, students' perception of unfamiliar people and places, and the role of acceptance in personal growth.

When we wrote this fellowship, we thought knew what we wanted to do and thought we the impact it would have, but this experience took me far beyond any realm we ever thought possible. In our proposal we stated that, “By sharing our stories, insights, and identities, students will be exposed to new ideas and thinking about the world.” Some people said our plans were too big; but now, more than ever, we disagree.

We spent one month investigating various ways of life in four Peruvian communities: Cusco, The Inca Trail, Iquitos and Lima. We documented our process of exploration through journaling, photographs and video of our observations, conversations and reflections. We brought these findings and habits back to our English and Art classrooms as exemplars of self-reflection, highlighting our individual differences in expression.

After returning from our fellowship, we worked collaboratively to create a year-long unit exploring identity for all middle school students. In English, the students have been keeping Identity Journals in which they write monthly entries reflecting on their self-view, positive adult influences, family traditions, and more. Additionally, all students are taking a quarter-long class diving into Identity in Art where they are exploring their identity through art making. Students are creating daily sketches based off the interview questions from our fellowship then using those sketches to create larger and more in-depth art pieces.  

In October, we were able to share our experience first-hand with our students. On our last day in Lima, while taking a cooking class, we met Sylvia, who informed us that the company’s, Lima Gourmet Company owner, Samantha, was also from Kansas City, Missouri. After a few emails, Samantha and her husband agreed to come to our campus to share their stories of travel and learning with our students. They engaged the middle school students in a 45 minute presentation on the Peruvian culture and people, and the power of being bilingual and globally minded in today’s society. The students were amazed that someone from their hometown could accomplish so much simply through the opportunities that came with learning Spanish in high school. 

In April, our students will host an Identity Gallery to share their work with each other and the community. They will display their journals, sketchbooks, self-reflections, and Identity art pieces. Along with this, work will be displayed from other classes including music and kindergarten through fifth grade students. They will also guide their parents and other community members in creating their own identity reflection both through poetry and art.

Skylar: After returning from our fellowship, I feel confident I am finally creating the classroom of my dreams: An English classroom built thematically to foster students’ self-exploration, understanding of the world and appreciation for information, whether written, spoken, or artistically created. I’ve never felt more invigorated than when I’m thinking about what this school year is meaning to my students, myself and my school community. I feel closer to my students, more involved in my content and more passionate about the task of opening the world to urban youth through education. My increased personal understanding has led to a clear, year-long vision that will allow me to align the theme of identity with my content standards and goals. This vision is leading students to think critically about themselves, each other and the world. My passion for the culture of Peru and my personal takeaways have combined in a way that engages my coworkers and students to want to know more about the program, our trip, the world and each other. Finally, my refreshed understanding of the difficulty to comprehend and function in an atmosphere with a different language, variety of cultural norms, and diverse environments has increased my empathy for immigrant and refugee students, causing me to be more culturally-sensitive in my approach to teaching and learning.

The experience of embarking on an odyssey I had been planning, in some regards, for over a decade was awe-inspiring in and of itself. Every day during our month in Peru, I woke up reveling in the glory of fulfilling a life-long dream. Throughout the fellowship, we talked to many different people, in different cities, whom we met in a variety of situations. Taking the time to listen to and learn from others reminded me of the true beauty that exists in our world. I was reminded that if I don’t take the time to truly listen to others, I will always miss out on something or someone who could shift my worldview.

Nicole: Students are learning differently because the new art content is interesting, relatable and meaningful to them.  They gain inspiration for their artwork through their curiosity about the many aspects of identity and enlightening class discussions about perception and the power of investigation the experiences of others. Throughout the year, all of my middle school students are participating in a new  Identity in Art class for an entire academic quarter. Through analyzing artwork that features ideas of identity and perception, students garner questions to investigate in their own artwork. They fill a personal sketchbook with their questions about and expressions of their own identity through depicting personal experiences. Each student recreates a sketch or idea from their sketchbook into a larger and more developed work of art that explores an aspect of their identity. The questions and themes they’re exploring throughout the course connect directly to the interviews and interview questions that Skylar and I conducted during our fellowship in Peru. As a culminating presentation, the students will put on an Identity Gallery showcasing their exploration of identity in their ELA and Art classrooms at the end of the school year. This gallery and the projects leading up to it will include members of our school and community participating in interview, literary, and artistic expressions of identity along with our middle school students.