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Dear Swain Families and Friends:
Greetings from the land of chocolat and fromage!
Once again this summer, our family is spending  five weeks living in the high country of French-speaking Switzerland. We are working in Chateau d'Oex (90 minutes east of Geneva) for The American School in Switzerland at one of their summer camps for middle school students. Every student here takes either French or English class in the mornings, and then in the afternoons the camp offers excursions, cultural activities, and athletics. In all, there are 29 students from 14 different countries, speaking 11 different languages; we are truly swimming in a sea of culture.
I am certainly not the first to reflect upon what it means to travel abroad. Countless authors, sociologists, political scientists, and others have written about their experiences with different cultures; Alexis de Tocqueville and, in contemporary times, Bill Bryson come to mind. Anyone living abroad experiences a wide variety of  emotions, ranging from exhilarating to isolating; I am no different. This summer, being immersed in a collage of different sounds, tastes, and feelings has produced an entire set of emotions that you can only experience once you venture outside of your cultural comfort zone. I have even had trouble with the English translations at times!
Outside of attempting to overcome my hesitations and limitations, it is especially challenging trying to manage the relationships among 29 very different middle schoolers.
There are Spanish speakers from four different countries, and they all use the language in different ways in terms of accents and dialects. There is only one boy from the United States who likes ice hockey, baseball, and American football, yet European children, for the most part, love soccer and most are unfamiliar with the traditional American sports (try teaching baseball to kids who have never played before!). There are four Russian students who, despite speaking English as a form of common communication with the other students, tend to stress different sounds in their speaking mannerisms as compared to their western counterparts. Students from the Dominican Republic have very different diets as compared to European students. Some students eat with a knife and fork, others with just a fork. Bread is served at every meal, and some students spread jam while other students spread cheese or butter. In the classroom, certain behaviors seem to be more acceptable in some countries as compared to others (noise level, raising hands, etc).
Deep down, we all have the same bones and blood, but culturally, people are extremely varied. As adults, most of us have a capacity to understand and manage this concept, yet middle schoolers develop this skill at different times. Some (actually very few) students here seem to flow in and out of various cultural norms with relative ease, but most need help in trying to manage. In Chateau d'Oex, we have daily discussions with the kids about what it means to respect, acknowledge, and validate difference. The old notion of encouraging kids to be 'colorblind' fails to recognize the different traits that human beings possess. Instead, it is healthier to ask kids what they notice about other cultures. This promotes understanding rather than comparison or indifference.
As the weeks have passed in these rolling hills, I have come to realize that asking students to respect, acknowledge, and validate differences is hard work. Naturally, middle schoolers are introspective and have yet to develop the capacity to see outside of themselves. Most are competitive, and in a situation like this where people  are from 14 different countries, kids are quick to compare one culture to another. "Our food is better than your food." Or, "our country is the best at soccer." As an adult living 24 hours a day with these students, it has been very challenging trying to teach them to respect and appreciate rather than to contrast and judge. It is a daily challenge, and it is a challenge that extends far beyond the boundaries of Switzerland. As an educator, it is sometimes overwhelming to think about the extreme importance of this concept, yet teaching tolerance may indeed be the most important idea we can promote in and out of school.
Coincidentally, while reading Three Cups of Tea, I discovered a passage that has helped me wrap my arms around the experience of working within so many different cultures. After Greg Mortenson's failed attempt to summit K2, he experienced an epiphany in the mountains:
"Though Mortenson had already been there [in the mountains] for months, he drank in the drama of these peaks like he'd never seen them before. 'In a way, I never had,' he explains. 'All summer, I'd looked at these mountains as goals, totally focused on the biggest one, K2. I'd thought about their elevation and the technical challenges they presented to me as a climber. But that morning,' he says, 'for the first time, I simply saw them.' " (Mortenson and Relin, 19)
Asking kids who may not be developmentally ready  to appreciate and validate other kids from Italy, or Columbia, or Canada at times seems to be as difficult as scaling K2. Instead, asking them to simply see and observe - as a place to start - is a clearer and more manageable path forward. Learning and observing fosters respect and appreciation, and this stage of cultural growth has to have time to incubate. Once students learn how to listen and soak-in what other students are saying about their countries and cultures, then the process of lifting up other cultures can begin.
This coming school year at Swain, the entire month of April will be called Global Awareness Month. As we attempt to do on a daily basis, April will specifically be devoted to bringing awareness to global issues and to the world's various peoples. It's a concept we must deliver to our students. The future of our planet depends on the ability of unique peoples to communicate and problem solve - skills that begin with the simple act of just seeing.
I hope everybody is enjoying the summer months.  Please remember to participate in our all-community read of Three Cups of Tea. At the request of our librarian Kristen Armstrong, please send pictures of yourself and/or your children reading Three Cups wherever you are this summer ( krarmstrong@swain.org); Ms. Armstrong will collate the photos and post them for all to see. Enjoy the rest of the summer, and see you all in September!
Kyle Armstrong
610-433-4542, ext. 152 | 
