Mark Twain once wrote, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
Portsmouth High School is a place that offers many enrichment opportunities to immerse students in global perspectives. More events have been integrated into the PHS school year such as World Awareness Week, Global Connect, trips, and visits from students in Japan.
PHS partnered with Nichinan Gakuen Junior-Senior High School, located in Nichinan, Japan, in 1997. Visits between the schools have been reciprocated since the beginning of the partnership and will continue in the future. This year in June, a group of PHS students will spend a week in Nichinan learning what life is like as a student in Japan. Students from Nichinan visit PHS in the fall, while PHS students have the opportunity to visit Japan in the spring.
In addition, students from Nishi High School in Tokyo visited on March 26 and spent the day learning about life as a PHS student. New this year, students from Tokyo and Portsmouth were paired as pen pals and have been communicating for the past two months. This was integrated into the experience so students could learn about each other and form a friendship before meeting in person. The friendships that form continue on as it’s a special bond that is fueled by curiosity on both sides, says Laura LaVallee, a PHS English teacher.
Takumi Kato, a student from Nishi High School, came because of his interest in theAmerican lifestyle and what America has to offer for studies. His visit to MIT showed him the difference between American and Japanese educational systems.
Travel is not accessible to all students, but by bringing International students to PHS it allows high schoolers to learn about other cultures and make new friends.
The knowledge learned and experiences shared in classrooms is a goal for this program. LaVallee hopes that the connections made with students from Tokyo teaches PHS students that being a teenager is a universal experience.
“It makes us all realize we are much more alike than we are different despite where we grew up, race, and ethnicity. Most of us want the same things in life: to be healthy, happy, to be loved,” says LaVallee.
LaVallee hopes to set an example for students that you can become friends with people from other countries and to not be afraid of language barriers.
Another program PHS offers is the Global Connect program. It was created as a club in 2023 to foster a love of learning for global and local perspectives, cultures, and people. The membership rate has increased since its establishment to around 30 students. They meet once a month in the principal’s conference room during flex and discuss new topics such as preservation of areas around the world, global portfolios, and even superpowers. Their goal is to immerse students in global exposure, whether through travel or independent experiences to obtain the title of global scholar by their graduation.
World Awareness Week this year will run from April 12 to April 19, and will start with a film festival put together by UNH. This year UNH partnered with the PHS Italian department to bring movies in different languages to students so they can debate and discuss how they shaped ideas of the world.
Global connect students also participate in World Awareness Week. The week includes events such as the Global Summit, and flex opportunities to learn from students sharing their experiences.
World Awareness Week began in 2013 after Helaine Wemple, a PHS Spanish teacher, was awarded a sabbatical for a semester to travel to learn how to infuse global perspectives into the curriculum for all teachers, said Wemple.
When Stephen Chinosi, PHS Principal, came to Portsmouth he gladly contributed to Global Awareness Week. He created the Global Summit in 2023 to bring students together to work collaboratively on global issues such as sustainability, future of food, and health and well being.
The Summit is a singular day at PHS with workshops, community speakers, a design challenge, and other collaborative opportunities. Students and staff sit down to share a meal together during the experience to reflect on what they have learned throughout the day.
Sydney Ruel, a PHS sophomore, attended the Global Summit last year and learned how to look at the sustainability of food on a global scale, and a local scale, known as “glocal”. She shared that she was lucky to be invited to the Summit and learned how to effectively and sustainably grow and produce foods and adjust depending on the agriculture and factors of the country.
“I think immersing PHS students in global perspectives is so important because it would make us more globally sensitive,” said Ruel. “We become more aware and understand when learning about other places’ similarities and differences. I personally feel like a well rounded person because being able to hear the differences and share parts of different cultures is so wonderful that it shows me there is still goodness in being able to respect and understand one another.”
Ruel expresses that global awareness helps to broaden your perspective, it also can help your problem solving skills. When exposing yourself to new experiences, it makes you want to delve deeper into your knowledge, which is very valuable, Ruel says.
World Awareness Week and Global Connect work together to show, “We need opportunities for our own students and faculty to work together in alternative ways to build community in our own school. And then when you realize that your community can be tight and strong in its own right but it shouldn’t create walls, we are the city of open doors,” says Chinosi.
Chinosi is trying to convey to students that there are solutions out there.“There are places all over the world where communities have solved problems, and we could learn from them. I would love for our Global Connect kids to realize we can learn from the world,” he says.
Chinosi wants every Global Connect student, as well as PHS students, to know that their voice is needed in communities around the world. Global connect is an accelerator to show where your voice, intelligence, perspective, and role is needed in the world, says Chinosi.
Additionally, PHS has offered trips to other countries for decades. PHS students and staff have visited Costa Rica, Italy, Bali, andTanzania to name a few.
Both faculty and students can suggest ideas for trips. The first Puerto Rico trip was created because a majority of Spanish students in Wemple’s class had not traveled outside of America. Wemple wanted to keep them immersed in Spanish over break so she brought them on a trip to Puerto Rico.
The purpose of immersing students in a new global perspective is to show, “The world is a pretty big place, but it’s not all that big,” says LaVallee.
For more information about what trips will be available in coming years, reach out to Ms. Wemple at [email protected].
For more information on the Japan trip please contact Ms. LaVallee at [email protected].
For more information on the Global Connect program or to get involved with World Awareness Week please see Mr. Chinosi or visit the World Awareness Week website.
