Global Education and Catholic Schools

While everyone agrees that helping our students become "global citizens" is crucially important, many Catholic high schools believe such a goal is beyond their means, despairing that it is only possible for wealthier, "elite" schools. And indeed, scheduling a two week tour of Europe through an agency like EF Tours is likely to cost anywhere between $3,000-4,000 per student-- too much for many of our families.

I would argue, however, taking such a tour is not the best educational way to promote global learning, and it certainly is not the cheapest way to study abroad. Rather, I believe the better educational model is to create "sister school" relationships with Catholic schools in different countries, pair students in each of these schools, and then swap visits, with each student living in the homes of their paired student.

We've been doing it this way at JPII for seven years now, beginning with St. Edmund College in Hertfordshire, Ware, England, but now including the Mauritz School in Muenster, Germany and St. Riquier in Amiens, France. The model is the same for all three schools: they send their students to the United States to live with a host student and his or her family for two weeks, usually in early August when we are in school and they are not, and we send our kids to their families in early June, when we are not in school and they are.

Part of the time, students attend the school of their host; part of the time, there are planned activities that all the students in the program are engaged in, but most of the time, the responsibility of "what to do" during those two weeks is the responsibility of the host family. When English students arrive in Nashville, TN, they will spend three days in our school and our school will take them will as a group to downtown Nashville, where they will tour museums, walk down Broad Street and listen to the country music coming out of the bars, or spend time at Centennial Park. But individual host families may take their guests to Gatlinburg to ski on one of the weekends, or travel to Memphis, or visit the caves of Kentucky, or spend a weekend on a boat on the lake--whatever the host family prefers. When we visit St. Edmund's, the school will take a day tour of London just an hour south, but individuals families may take our kids to Oxford, or to the East or West Coast of England, depending.

We do this with no more than twenty students at a time and send two of our faculty members to be our "boots on the ground" in case there are issues, especially early on. Our faculty enjoy it immensely, because so much of the responsibility is "off" them once our kids get paired with families, giving them the opportunity to do some local site seeing of their own. It's actually a nice side benefit to working at our school, and it's not hard to find volunteers.

There are many advantages to this model, chief of which is our kids and their kids see the other country from the "inside-out:" through the perspective of the host family and the paired student. This perspective is richer, fuller and more authentic than a blitzkrieg tour of all the sites typical of tour companies. Second, schools share the responsibility of the success of the program with the host families, taking a significant burden off the school and its faculty to "entertain" their guests for an extended period. Third, the relationship with the "sister" schools abroad adds cachet to our school's "brand" in our community. Fourth, students develop friendships that are meaningful and long lasting. Many of our students will go back to Europe on their own--after graduation, for example--and stay with their new "family" and "friend." They, in turn, will come to visit us.

And, to my opening point, this is a much cheaper model. The trip costs a school the cost of two faculty adults who travel with our kids--money that we include in the price structure. The only other significant cost is the round trip ticket, which could run anywhere from $1500-2000, plus a little spending money for the kids when they go sight-seeing.

I, too, have benefitted from the relationships with our sister schools. When I spent a week in England with St. Edmund, I came back and started a "House" system here, so impressed was I by the quality of pastoral care these provided. They've been doing "Houses," after all, for centuries! Our kids love the new House system.

It's not hard to set these up. Many European students are looking for an opportunity to visit America, and this model is cheaper from their end as well. I would encourage you to ask your language teachers to begin making inquiries of other Catholic schools abroad in the desired locations. Finding such "sister schools" adds great value to our school programs and what we can offer our students.

I recommend these kind of exchange programs highly.