Ms. Elsie Miller's fourth-grade class at Coe Elementary School welcomed Miss Washington back to their classroom last Friday, Oct. 27. Kristin Eddings came to deliver a very special box from the Coe students' new "global classmates" at the Tibetan Chil-dren's Village in Dharamsala, India.
The exchange is sponsored by Bridges to Understanding, a local organization founded by human-rights photographer Phil Borges that engages K-12 students worldwide in direct, interactive learning and storytelling to build cross-cultural understanding and leadership skills using innovative technology.
Eddings traveled to the Dharam-sala on Oct. 9 to participate in a two-week Bridges to Understanding Digital Storytelling Workshop, and to visit partner classes engaging Tibetan refugee children with Seattle students. Miss Washington was also a judge in this year's Miss Tibet contest and met the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, also on a mission to the Tibetan Children's Village.
As for that box: Students at Coe sent a "Culture Box" to introduce themselves culturally to their Tibetan counterparts. Contents included a classroom novel and another book about the Pacific Northwest, plus baseball cards, Jolly Ranchers, a stuffed animal and a DVD of the Coe fourth-graders singing their class song.
The box was created as an integrated social studies, science and art project. With the help of Coe art teacher Anne Baumgartner and Bridges mentor Daphne Guericke, students learned simple portrait photography and then collaged their ideas about their own individual cultures, as well as collective culture.
Ms. Miller will integrate these ideas into her curriculum in several interesting ways. Her class studies the importance community as part of citizenship, and also integral to the local history. Coe celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, and students will explore that history along with their required Washington state history curriculum. Additionally, the study of community is about interdependence, and Ms. Miller helps students to draw parallels to their science unit on ecosystems and the natural world.
Eddings returned from Dharam-sala this week with another special box for students at Coe. It contained cultural self-portraits akin to those that Coe students sent over, a small stuffed Yak named Moru and little packets of cheese curd.
Each child received a pin from the Tibetan Children's Village school, and there were prayer flags for their classroom. Of particular interest was a prayer scroll from the Dalai Lama, which speaks simply to the importance of being kind, compassionate, generous and peaceful. The children were riveted by the simplicity of his recipe for happiness.
Bridges to Understanding works intensively with more than 20 highly diverse schools in the Puget Sound area connecting them with classrooms in dozens of countries all over the world. Thanks to the generosity of Getty Images, Bridges to Understanding (www.bridgesweb.org) will be housed in and receive office support from their Fremont office building starting this month.[[In-content Ad]]
