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For a year now, our two schools have been sharing and co-authoring short stories, grandparent biographies, autobiographies, cultural information, poetry, and other creative writing assignments for publication in our respective school newspapers. The exchange has provided student writers with an insight into the writing process that is not only interdisciplinary, but international, as well. My father, Bruce, and I had the distinct pleasure of visiting Mr. John Surface, the Director (Principal) of the A.E.S., for ten days over the summer break in 1999 (to continue discussions about our schools' future collaborations), and again in 2000 for John's wedding to University of Gdansk English teacher, Anna Czabaj. In addition to inviting us to his wedding, John offered my father and I a tour of the American Elementary School, the Auschwitz and Birkenau Holocaust Museums, as well as the contrasting cities of Warsaw, Krakow, Gdansk, and Sopot.
Over the course of the 1999/00 school year, the schools' student governments initiated a diplomatic project called the "Heart-Shaped Box." The idea was for each of our schools to offer to the other a postal box filled with items of cultural, national, social, and/or sentimental significance. The project was a huge success, and reaffirmed our students' commitments to the "Breaking Down Boundaries" collaboration.
Additionally, the Manhasset 7th Grade Student Government, with the help of Mr. Adcroft and Mrs. Belth (Middle School Media Center), generously shipped sixteen, seventy-pound mail bags filled with badly needed textbooks, encyclopedias, and assorted titles to the American Elementary School. Moreover, the Student Government raised and passed a motion to release $200 from the treasury to help defer the cost of postage.
The future brings excitement and challenge to the "Breaking Down Boundaries" program. In fact, during the 2000/01 school year we will use videoconferencing technologies for the first time to create for our schools--separated by over 4,000 miles--a common classroom. The Manhasset Public School District and BOCES have facilitated both schools with the ability to use the Internet and large screen televisions to create an interactive, video/audio link. This videoconferencing link promises to be a powerful tool of enrichment for our students, promoting global and interdisciplinary learning, project design, problem solving and, of course, diplomacy.
I hope you enjoy the educational and entertaining photo album from our trip. (For more information about how to participate in this year's exchange, please see Mr. Koondel personally, or e-mail.)
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