Global Summer Academy
Rancho Bernardo, San Diego, California - It’s a warm, summer morning in San Diego, and a class of elementary school students gather around a bright blue poster with an outline of a tree. Some are dressed in hot pink t-shirts with the “Stone Ranch Elementary School” logo, the others in white t-shirts with the “FOX EDU” logo present on the back. The students range in ages from kindergarten to fifth grade, and even though they are not all speaking the same language, they are all engaged in the same activity. In pairs, each child makes a leaf for the tree with something they have learned about the other person. The tree on the poster is soon filled with leaves with drawings of playing soccer, the names of favorite colors, and doodles of favorite animals. The class ends with a “tree meditation” - where students stand on one leg and practice their balance while taking deep breaths.
This is just one activity of many that local elementary school students and their visitors from South Korea have been engaging in throughout the week. This is the Global Academy, a collaboration between Stone Ranch Elementary School of Poway Unified School District (SRES-PUSD); Fox Learning Center in Daejeon, South Korea (FOX-Korea); and the Global Classroom Lab at San Francisco State University (SF State). For one week during summer vacation, students participated in cross-cultural exchange, STEAM activities, and social and emotional learning lessons.
In post-program interviews, participating students reflected on their experience. With the language barrier, some students found it challenging to connect with each other at first. A Korean student explained how she felt frustrated and embarrassed when she tried to communicate with American students. However, students showed great resilience and adaptability during the program, such as using non-verbal communication while participating in tasks like building and coding robots. American students expressed curiosity and joy over learning new games, such as the Korean ‘ddakji’. Korean students showed gratitude towards new friends that were patient and invited them to participate in playground activities during lunch time.
The Global Academy was a transformative experience for the participating students, as well as the teachers and organizations that made the project a reality. Grow X continues to develop the Global Academy program, with an expanded program including travel to both Korea and the United States this year.
Read more about the Global Academy here, and look forward to our report on the 2024 Global Academy project.