It seems like an eternity ago that Mr. Conti introduced pen pals to my Social Studies class. He explained that these pen pals go to a school called the Crossover Academy, in Ghana, and they had been taken into the school as refugees of a huge flood that demolished their every last possession. Pity washed over me as I digested what Mr. Conti had said. Quickly, I wrote my first letter to Mary, my pen pal, and I patiently awaited her response. I could never have predicted the intensity, passion, and emotion that Mary’s letters would bring into my life.

On March 10, 2012, I received the first reply from Mary. That one letter changed my views about life and my purpose; it put everything into perspective. The first line said it all: “Hi, Sister Alisa. I’m really proud to know you and I feel important to  read you wrote that ‘I love you’; it is a sentence nobody uses for me. Thank you.”

Waves of emotion washed over me. I stared at the screen in shock. I love you. (Three words that I have taken for granted my entire life had never even been said to Mary.) How does it feel to never hear somebody say I love you? I never knew until Mary shared her life with me. Tears filled my eyes — and still do — as I came to understand what our relationship meant to her, and now means to me.

Our emails are more than text in a Word document: they are a hand to help us, a  connection that will guide us through life. These letters remind me about how fortunate I am, and, because of my blessings, I can make a difference in the global community. Our first concrete contribution was to collect old laptops and other computers and send them to Crossover to use in their classrooms. Before we sent the computers, Mary and all of the other students shared one slow computer, and they waited in line to compose their emails. Now, they have many more computers and can access technology much more easily.

What started out as a simple idea turned into the long-running relationship between Mary and me. A simple idea resulted in action: new computers for all. One idea yielded so much. So many lives (ours and theirs) were reshaped.

Now, instead of pity, I am filled with hope for the children of Crossover Academy, and I want to do more to help them and others. Seven months later, Mary and I still email regularly and keep each other updated on news going on in our countries and in our lives. We have become the best of friends, as we help each other to navigate the ups and downs that life presents us even though we live thousands of miles apart.

The Pegasus School in Orange County, California, and the Crossover International Academy in Ghana paired in 2012. Their connection went beyond writing only. Pegasus Magazine reported on how the Californian students translated their education into life. We selected parts of the original article written by Karla Joyce to highlight this particular exchange.

Opening the door to Ghana

The exchange all started with Jim Conti, a Pegasus Middle School social studies teacher and award-winning debate coach.

“A year ago, Conti found himself searching the Internet for tools to enhance the international component of his Social Studies curriculum. He paused at a site called Pen Pal News. “I liked the idea of what pen pals purport to do, but after the initial interaction you often don’t have much.” He bookmarked it and moved on to a Global Education Online Conference that was in-progress and “really cool.”“While I was there,” Conti continued, “I could see other people who were listening with me. I noticed a ‘Dave’ from Crossover International Academy in Ghana, and — it was just really cool — so I started a conversation.”

After a lengthy online chat, Conti remembered Pen Pal News and invited Dave Lee and his Crossover students to partner with Pegasus. “There was a real connection between us from the beginning,” admitted Conti. (A mere three months later, Conti would describe Lee as “my personal hero and an exceptional human being.”)”

The exchange

In the spring of 2012, Pegasus eighth graders were paired with the Ghanaian children from Crossover, students ranging in age from six to mid-teens.

“While the kids were sending out those first, get-to-know emails, Dave and I were talking about the questions each of us might pose,” Conti explained. “It was super easy to find common ground,” he added with enthusiasm. Conti, whose lesson plan at the time  was incorporating our national debate over the economic and environmental impact of varying energy sources, lobbed the first question to the pen pals: “Should countries continue to pursue hydroelectric power as a source of energy in the future? Why or why not?”

He prepped the Pegasus kids with a unit on damming and asked them to investigate the pros and cons, give a cost-benefit analysis of hydroelectric power and envisage its trickle-forward effects on mankind. Conti deliberately withheld the fact that Crossover was situated at the base of the Akosombo Dam on the bank of Lake Volta, and flooding had wiped out the school in the past. Thus they began their online dialogues.

Both groups shot out missives that revealed thoughtful deliberation, but the African students’ opinions were clearly shaped by experience. In chilling testimony they shared with their American friends the human costs of damming. Conti immediately recognized the “power” that was occurring in his classroom. “The level of thinking that this generated in my students was amazing. The sophistication of their understanding and ability to weigh reallife consequences so far removed from their own lives, for kids this age…it was just really cool.” And the connection had just begun.”

Action

“The second question, posed by Lee, was: “How do you think technology affects the Third World?” Before Pegasus students could break into groups to discuss, a .jpeg arrived from Ghana that once again catapulted the subject into reality. In the image, the students from Crossover were standing in a line behind a folding table, while a single student composed a response to her Pegasus pen pal on the school’s only laptop. The other classmates waited patiently, their own words at the ready.

It was the first image they had received from Ghana, and it shocked even Conti. He’d been reading the correspondence from both camps and saw deep dialogues unfolding, so early in the relationship. The picture said so much. With his students, he wondered: How do they speak English so well? How are they so articulate? How is it that they are doing all this with so few resources and one old computer?

The leap to action took few words.“I realized he was telling me look, our Toshiba, it’s not working very well. And I said to him, hey, if we get you another laptop would that be helpful? And he said yes.”

To make a fantastic long story short: Pegasus students arranged seven laptop computers, educational materials and soccer balls and shipped everything to the Crossover Academy.

“With their newfound access to the Internet,” Conti explained, “they are not just talking about their own problems with intelligent people, they are entering into the world. And they feel really good about that.”

–

The huge impact of PenPal News’ program on individual students is reflected in this piece written by Pegasus student Alisa Bhakta.

“It seems like an eternity ago that Mr. Conti introduced pen pals to my Social Studies class. He explained that these pen pals go to a school called the Crossover Academy, in Ghana, and they had been taken into the school as refugees of a huge flood that demolished their every last possession. Pity washed over me as I digested what Mr. Conti had said. Quickly, I wrote my first letter to Mary, my pen pal, and I patiently awaited her response. I could never have predicted the intensity, passion, and emotion that Mary’s letters would bring into my life.

On March 10, 2012, I received the first reply from Mary. That one letter changed my views about life and my purpose; it put everything into perspective. The first line said it all: “Hi, Sister Alisa. I’m really proud to know you and I feel important to  read you wrote that ‘I love you’; it is a sentence nobody uses for me. Thank you.”

Waves of emotion washed over me. I stared at the screen in shock. I love you. (Three words that I have taken for granted my entire life had never even been said to Mary.) How does it feel to never hear somebody say I love you? I never knew until Mary shared her life with me. Tears filled my eyes — and still do — as I came to understand what our relationship meant to her, and now means to me.

Our emails are more than text in a Word document: they are a hand to help us, a  connection that will guide us through life. These letters remind me about how fortunate I am, and, because of my blessings, I can make a difference in the global community. Our first concrete contribution was to collect old laptops and other computers and send them to Crossover to use in their classrooms. Before we sent the computers, Mary and all of the other students shared one slow computer, and they waited in line to compose their emails. Now, they have many more computers and can access technology much more easily.

What started out as a simple idea turned into the long-running relationship between Mary and me. A simple idea resulted in action: new computers for all. One idea yielded so much. So many lives (ours and theirs) were reshaped.

Now, instead of pity, I am filled with hope for the children of Crossover Academy, and I want to do more to help them and others. Seven months later, Mary and I still email regularly and keep each other updated on news going on in our countries and in our lives. We have become the best of friends, as we help each other to navigate the ups and downs that life presents us even though we live thousands of miles apart.”

A eighth grade social studies class at the American School in Guadalajara was partnered with a social studies class at Terrill Middle School in New Jersey

Students in Guadalajara and New Jersey were asked to read about Pope Benedict’s impending visit to Mexico and how it would effect the ongoing drug war. During the course of the conversation, Tona, a student in Guadalajara asked his penpal, Ava, what the perceptions of Mexico were amongst other students in her class.

Sombreros, burritos, tacos, beaches, mustaches, mud houses, El Paso (taco shell brand), Mexican jumping beans, mexican food, and music, were among the things that Ava said came to her classmates’ minds.

Tona wrote this in response:

Before anything I would like to say I am not judging you and I know it is not your classmates fault to believe that of Mexico because they have been hearing that for a lot of time but I would like say what life is really like in Mexico.

Sombreros
A lot of people wear hats like the ones you use in the US, not sombreros, some do use them because they are cheap and project an awesome shade against the sun.

Tacos/Burritos
Your classmates might think tacos and burritos are like the ones from Taco Bell, but they are nothing like that, that is junk food, Mexican tacos are DELICIOUS and NUTRITIOUS they have nothing in that compares them around the world but that does not mean we only eat tacos or burritos, we have international food from everywhere, italian food is really popular in here.

Beaches
I don’t know what your classmates mean about beaches, but they are beautiful and attract a lot of American people to go and enjoy them. Not everyone has mustaches, and if someone has them they are traditional and not salvage.

Mud houses
There are a lot of poor people, but not that poor! We have constructing materials and even though some houses end up not being finished or looking poorly they are not made from mud, we also have hygiene.

El Paso (Taco Shell Brand)
We do not have a taco shell brand, we do not even have taco shells, in the US people use a lot of frozen food, in Mexico we use something called tortilla when they are barely made so the tacos are nice and fresh.

Jumping Beans
Okay Mexican jumping beans are not even called that way, they only “jump” because the larva inside of the bean is dying. When cooked they are actually really good and used a lot in tacos.

Mexican Food
Well there is a lot of Mexican food to eat to, but we don’t eat it all the time, and Mexican food has been named the fourth most rich food in the world because of its diversity.

I just wanted to clarify that, and to your question I could pretty much answer the same way your classmates did, with stereotypes. However I am not going to do that because I have manners and have been in the US and know that the stereotypes are not true.

I am just going to tell what I have experienced with Americans not that it is what all Americans are like. Americans are nice and welcoming people. They sometimes are afraid of people from other countries and do not accept them. They like fast food. They believe too much in media and stereotypes.

Sarah Whitehouse, Ava’s teacher wrote that she “shuddered a bit when I read Ava’s stereotypes, but Tona really was able to answer them in a way to help Ava understand!” Brian Zink, Tona’s teacher, thought that the exchange  “is a great example of the power of these discussions. Ava gave a list of what classmates thought of Mexico and Tona was able to respond and inform her perspective. I hope we can continue and encourage our students to have these deeper discussions and erase some of the stereotypes.

“PenPal News is the future of global education and dialogue.”

Miguel Angel Perez Alvarez
English and Educational Technology Teacher
Colegio Internaciónal de México
Mexico City, Mexico

I used PenPal News last fall with 100 of my 13-year-old students. It was an incredible experience — my students wrote and reflected on real world issues and got to meet peers in the United States. It went so well that I got another teacher at my school involved, who also loved the program.

I highly recommend PenPal News and encourage teachers who are looking to get their students involved in a substantive, highly educational exchange to sign up for this project. PenPal News is the future of global education and dialogue.

9th graders at Churchill Junior High School in East Brunswick, New Jersey partnered with 9th graders at South Valley Junior High School in Liberty, Missouri.

Kaeli writes:

“[In New Jersey], very few people have guns. In Missouri, you make it sound like its traditional and almost normal to have hunting guns; however, in New Jersey, if someone says “I own a gun” most people think automatically “oh he is a serial killer” or something along those lines.

James writes:

Well no, we don’t immediately jump to the conclusion that someone who owns a gun is a cold-blooded murderer.

We are a generally left-leaning state, but we’re not extremist liberals (most of us at least). I consider myself a very pro-gun individual, albeit I have never wielded (nor plan to) a gun in my life. I’ve found that some of my best friends’ families are right-leaning people who love shooting and hunting, so if I had to say we’re pretty diverse on that issue.

Speaking of guns, since it’s not one of the issues we’ll be required to discuss (and it’s a fairly interesting one) I’m curious… What is your exact stance on gun control? I apologize if you already said it, I’m very dizzy at the moment and can’t remember. Sorry for the abrupt ending to this letter.

Kaeli writes:

I have never personally shot off a gun. In fact, I protest against it. I don’t really find that sort of stuff interesting and fun. My family however has a different approach and hunts in season. They mostly shoot ducks or geese and such, or actual deer. But we have a couple guns stored in safes around our house just in case we get attached or broken into. I think that’s safe and an ok situation to have a gun. But I don’t think I could point a gun at someone and pull the trigger. I’m not that type of person.

For each week of the exchange, PenPal News provides a short animated video about a particular issue (i.e. Immigration) as well as an article and questions for students to respond to about that subject. Students are prompted to comment on what their penpal writes and take the discussion further. In the sixth week of the exchange PenPal News asks students to produce an article, editorial or interview about a subject that interests them to share with their penpal.

Our Curriculum

We currently offer two curriculum modules for our exchanges. Module 1 covers Technology and Innovation, Poverty, the Environment, War and Conflict, and Education (one topic will be covered per week). Module 2 covers Immigration, Health Care, Role of Government, Energy and the Economy . The curriculum is geared towards 5-12 graders and is designed to be take 45 minutes every week.

Our Platform

Student writing happens on our safe and easy-to-use platform – no emails required. Students can log in from school or home. Teachers can monitor and grade all work.

Below find animated videos, selected articles and prompts for both modules. Contact info [at] penpalnews.com with any questions.

“Wow! Week 1 was a total success and I’m looking like an all-star teacher right now! It’s making it much more fun and enjoyable to teach students and to interest students in this year’s election. I hope you have something planned for next year too…”

Charlotte Scorniaenchi
8th Grade American History
Northwood Academy Charter School
Philadelphia, PA

My kids love this! They were so excited to get replies…Thanks for the opportunity, it has really generated a genuine interest in my room.

Steve Beyl
Honors Government Teacher
Our Lady of Providence High School
Clarksville, Indiana

“PenPal News has figured out how to make social media into an educational activity. Reading and discussing news is a great way to connect students around the world.”

Tjasa Milijas

High School English Teacher

Ljubljana, Slovenia

“PenPal News is an amazing tool for teachers and students. It gave my students the opportunity to read interesting articles and use the target language in authentic situations. We all loved it and looked forward to hearing from our penpals on a weekly basis.”

Sonia Calamusa  
Spanish Teacher
Scotch Plains High School
Scotch Plains, New Jersey