Global Voices Initiative Offers Bridge to Understanding

For the last 15 years, Upper School French teacher Lorin Pritikin’s advanced-level French classes have participated in the Global Voices Initiative (GVI), a program that connects U.S. students with peers across the globe. Leveraging the power of the arts and language, GVI strives to promote cross-cultural understanding, cultural competence, geographical literacy and good will between these students regardless of distance. GVI states, “The goal is to have a shared cultural experience, demonstrating that students have much more in common than they have differences, fostering peace, one student at a time.” And so, to achieve this goal, Parker students connected with students from Casablanca, Morocco.

This initiative asks students to create one-act plays that focus on areas relevant to their lives, including topics such as bullying, family and school issues, equality, politics and more. However, it isn’t just the play that is important in this program. “They meet via a digital platform and get to know each other prior to the culminating play exchange video conference,” Pritikin shared. These meetings set the stage for this conference when “our French students have their original works crafted in their second language (French), read by mother-tongue French-speaking students in Casablanca, and the Moroccan students have their original works crafted in their second language (English), read by mother-tongue English-speaking students at Parker.”

This exchange is incredibly beneficial, as it affords students the chance to gain confidence in using their language skills and, hopefully, inspiration from seeing how well their counterparts speak English. However, these meetings and readings also open an opportunity for students to discuss the play topics and learn more about each other and their lives. “Perhaps the greatest benefit of GVI,” Pritikin stated, “is that students start out thinking they will be quite different from each other, due to cultural differences; however, they find out that students their age in other countries, although they may be from diverse cultures, are much more similar than they are different: they all like to talk about music, food, dating, video games and popular social media sites. And they all would like to participate in ‘true’ exchanges in the future and travel to Chicago and Casablanca, if given the opportunity.”

While the digital nature of this program transitioned easily into a world impacted by COVID, this sharing and discussion between the students truly made this year shine. “It was cathartic for the students to share their personal experiences of navigating a pandemic—the tough times and the hidden blessings, like growing closer to their families—and to talk about how they were resilient and able to overcome the tremendous challenges brought on by the pandemic,” Pritikin elaborated.

When asked about the future of this program, Pritikin said, “This initiative is sustained annually because the value of programs like this is that they are not ‘one-off’ experiences. Students around the globe learn about the program from alumni who have participated and benefited from the cultural exchanges; some of these participants have pursued university studies and careers with an international focus as a result of GVI. And so, the cycle continues each year with a new crop of students who carry on the important work as global ambassadors.”

As part of a global world, Parker believes we must create opportunities for students to strengthen their capacity to relate to one another so they may treat others with respect and kindness. Pritikin has recognized the value of this goal and used GVI to skillfully weave this message into her curriculum for 15 years.

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