It was June 2019 when the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center at the University of Montana hosted a group of twenty scholars from all around the globe. Apart from the significant gains the 7-week stay in the US had for me on a personal level, our school library has a section of American History and Culture which numbers almost 90 books. As a Fulbright scholar I was given the chance to apply for additional funding for a joint project so "The American library on wheels", a one-year project for our ST1 group with a group of students at the Samcheock Girls’ High School in South Korea, was born.
The students from both schools were meant to work together on literary texts and exchange their work digitally.
The COVID-19 global epidemic and the lockdown of schools both in Greece and S. Korea prevented us from implementing all the stages of the project. We had managed to follow Christopher Colombus to his voyage across the ocean , meet some of the native Americans he encountered, talk about similar instances in global history and make a parallel with the refugee issue Europe faces today.
Kids learnt through searching the net and going through the pages of some of the books we received and they wrote articles for a special edition of our school newspaper devoted to Human Rights. Abraham Lincoln and Harriet Tubman's story inspired insightful discussions in the classroom, motivated us for a Sunday afternoon at the theatre to watch Uncle Tom's Cabin play and dream of a world intolerant to incidents like the one which led George Floyd to death.
Our project was not completed. Lots of stories remained untold. Material I brought home from my visits to schools, universities, Indian reservations and museums will have to wait a bit longer.
Still, the enthusiasm remains and new planning can't be put off. A new project has been submitted targeting girls' empowerment, our American History and Culture section of our school library will be ready for newcomers and fresh vivid discussions are anticipated wholeheartedly.
A big thank you to the University of Montana for hosting my 2019 summer memories, fueling my 2020 teaching plans and enriching the educational content of the school days for the generations who will start studying the world in our school.
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