School-2-School 2013:
Indonesia & Bangladesh
School-2-School (S2S) is a unique program that fosters global awareness and mutual understanding by connecting American students to their peers in a school in the Muslim World and raising funds to help schools in need. Students engage in a virtual exchange that empowers them to learn about each other and overcome stereotypes. American schools also raise money to purchase vital supplies for their partner schools abroad, ranging from books and paper to computers and lab equipment. In addition to supporting AUA’s peace-building mission, S2S has also directly benefited more than a thousand students in Afghanistan, Iraq, The Philippines, Panama, Uganda, Bolivia, and Jordan. Learn more about S2S here.
Elementary school students at the Sukma Bangsa School in Aceh, Indonesia.
For 2013, S2S is partnering two schools abroad with schools in the United States. At Lancaster Country Day School, in Pennsylvannia, Teacher Sam Schindler and his students will be corresponding with a classroom at The Carter Academy, in Bangladesh. In Dallas, Texas, Hannah D’Apice and her students will foster a new relationship with students at the Sukma Bangsa Schools in Aceh, Indonesia.
Later this year, S2S will send both teachers to their partner schools abroad as Unofficial Ambassadors to serve as volunteer teachers for 2-4 weeks and help them to share their stories with students, colleagues and their communities when they return.
Becoming a Partner School – 2014
For educators, the S2S program is a wonderful opportunity for personal and professional development, as well as a chance to serve as citizen diplomats and volunteers in the Muslim world. Educators in the United States interested in partnering with a school abroad for our 2014 program may contact stefanc(at)creativelearning.org.
Unofficial Ambassador Brittney Scott returns from Jordan
In 2012, Teach for America corps member Brittney Scott and her students at Panorama High School in Colorado Springs, CO became School 2 School partners with Queen Noor High School in Al Wehdat, a low-income neighborhood of Amman, Jordan.
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Brittney and her students learned about their counterparts in Jordan by corresponding online and raised funds to purchase an interactive SMART Board for them. She later traveled to Amman during the summer of 2012 to teach English at her partner school and to train her Jordanian colleagues in the use of the board.
Teaching in Jordan was an “eye-opening” experience that Brittney, chronicled in real-time blogs for AUA and shared with her students in Colorado when she returned as a way of engaging them in lessons and discussions about the Middle East.
“For all the apparent differences between my American students and my Jordanian students, there are striking similarities,” she writes. ”They smile when they answer a question correctly. They have a natural curiosity about the students in their partner school and their questions for the teacher seem endless.”