leadership

As the world becomes increasingly interconnected and interdependent, it is vital to the United States and its current and upcoming generations to understand the complex world we now live in. The lack of cultural education throughout the majority of the United States is startling and must change as we compete and collaborate with other nations, most of which learn extensively about other languages, geography and cultures. Nations across the globe have aspects of education put in place to learn about the world through either immersive experience, an area in which the US lacks due to its size and therefore large distance to travel to other nations (This aspect can thus be hard to change in the near future), and through education, which can and must be improved now. Through our lack of cultural education in elementary schools in today’s globalized world, not only are we harming our own nation but also the next generation, being brought up at an extreme disadvantage compared to that of the rest of the world. I have recognized this harsh reality through my experience, conversations with other Americans, and especially my interactions with citizens of other nations, who consistently know more about other cultures, far more languages, oftentimes more about American history and politics, and the same level of English as I.

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Regardless of growing up in a descent education system, the extent of my cultural education in elementary school was watching a video of a Spanish woman singing a song about mixing chocolate. Similarly, in middle school, my class learned the very basics of Spanish yet there was still very little talk about culture or geography. In high school, through the International Baccalaureate program, I was exposed to translated texts in my literature course therefore exposing us to some aspects of culture which we would analyze to an extent, a French class that I loved but learned very little in in part due to the use of crosswords as our main means of learning, and map quizzes, in which we needed to know strictly North American geography. Most students do not qualify for the IB program mentioned above, resulting in very few students having access to even this level of cultural education, not to mention the program's limitations both regarding information but also time frame (a mere 2 years) and the extent to which a few teachers can convey in such a short time.

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To address this very present and pressing issue, I propose that Elementary schools in the Columbia area, with hopes for expansion, implement a cultural program for all students to participate in. With the implementation of technology in our schools today, there is little reason why it is not being used to connect American students with students in other nations to facilitate a learning of each other’s culture and language. The schools in Columbia, South Carolina would be connected with other elementary schools around the globe, for instance an elementary school in Tokyo, Japan. The American elementary students would be paired each with a Japanese student and interact on a weekly basis similar to a pen-pal. The interaction would not only improve the American students' understanding of other cultures and languages, but it would also provide students in other parts of the world the opportunity to learn a vital global language, English, through conversations with students their own age.

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An additional component that I propose for Elementary Schools in Columbia is a program that has already begun in different parts of the United States. I worked at a summer camp for many years for kids ages 5 to 14. My last year of working, I had a cabin of 12-year-old girls, three of them being fluent in Spanish. When asking how this is possible, they told me that they attended an elementary and middle school at which half of the school day is taught in English and the other half taught in Spanish. As studies have shown, language fluency is the easiest for children, who soak up information much more quickly than adults because their acquisition of different linguistic sounds is in an early stage. Therefore, if we spread this style of program to public schools, where other languages, potentially critical languages such as Russian or Mandarin Chinese were taught to students at a young age, our nation would increasingly become more capable of thriving in the globalized world that we are living in and diving deeper into.

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To enact the first recommendation, my plan would be to discuss with the Columbia education board about the proposal, the reasoning for it and how it would work. After successfully defending the proposal and spreading awareness of this critical need, I would work with the education board to connect with schools in different parts of the world, both international schools, which would likely be the most enthusiastic about joining the program, as well as local schools in all areas of the world. I propose that these areas should include parts of South America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East included, and Europe. All areas of the world are critical to understand and have empathy for and are therefore important for young children to be raised with an appropriate and aware perspective of. After connecting with different elementary schools, I would help the school board to implement a plan for the time spent each week for students to have conversations with the international students during their school day. There would also need to be planning with the international school regarding their school schedule, taking into account time zones. The details of how the conversation partners would work would not be an issue due to the existing platforms that make this kind of interaction on an educational basis very simple. Many French courses that I have taken throughout university have required a specified amount of time on one of the conversation partners platforms to practice French with a native speaker. Not only were the platforms useful in terms of fluency but also had an ease of access. Lastly, this program would be implemented and evaluated by interviewing both students and educators to understand how well it is working for both parties and if there have been any issues or great successes. The program would thus be adjusted as needed.