When students in Mid-Michigan learned that students in Africa needed shoes, they brought in 110 pennies and pairs of shoes to help.
Holt Public Schools third-graders noticed a picture of a boy from Africa without shoes on while they were reading an article about other cultures through an MSU supported program.
“They were saying, ‘We just have to send shoes to these kids,’” said Sally McClintock, a founder and facilitator of the Linking All Types of Teachers for International Cross-cultural Education program.
A group of international MSU graduate students are working with local educators to prepare students for a global future through the program, LATTICE. In the program, international students talk to teachers about how to conduct their classes with a global perspective.
Several Mid-Michigan districts, including East Lansing, Lansing and Haslett schools, are educating children by introducing them to other cultures. LATTICE participants teach them to learn topics such as reading “Cinderella” and other tales through other cultures’ eyes.
McClintock said MSU is a diverse community that has a lot to offer younger students. The program has existed since 1995, and has expanded from 20 people to more than 300 people.
“I wanted to see some of that diversity on campus have a chance to reach the kids in our area,” she said. “Some of them have said, ‘I have to be in LATTICE to meet people from my own continent.’
“So the international students love meeting other internationals. They love having an ongoing relationship with the American teachers.”
The districts pay for substitute teachers for a four-hour session, while the teachers are working with international students.
LATTICE is now in 45 countries, partly because MSU graduate students go home and start outgrowth programs. One such program links East Lansing and South Africa.
LinkingSchools, created in 1999, connects East Lansing Public Schools and Dover Combined School in South Africa. Both countries’ teachers and students exchange stories via e-mail.
Ken Bialek, who helped start LinkingSchools, said LATTICE’s role to spread the understanding of different cultures is more important than ever.
“What’s happening in the world today highlights the need for global sensitivity of people to do things in different ways from ours,” Bialek said.
“It affects books we read, the way we give - it just affects lots of things.”
Bialek, who also is a LATTICE member, said he thinks the program would not be possible without MSU’s help.
“The diversity of the MSU participants really helps that we’re able to interact with a broad array of diverse cultures,” he said.
Kurniawati Yahya, an education graduate student, said it is important that people don’t watch cable news clips to form an opinion about a country. Yahya came from Malaysia in 1998.
“Everybody is open-minded,” Yahya said of LATTICE. “People respect everybody’s opinion and ideas. People really listen and you get really good feedback about what you say, about the questions you ask.”
The students respect other cultures’ perspectives as much as the teachers do, said Maxine Patel, a reading specialist for Laingsburg schools.
Patel, who is from India, said at the end of the school year LATTICE hopes to publish a reflection book.
“I think the personal relationships enhance the understanding of other cultures,” the third-year LATTICE member said. “I think it’s important - more than ever - to teach students about other cultures and commonalties and creating understanding and tolerance.”
