EDUCATION
learning beyond borders
FOREIGN EXCHANGE PROGRAMS TEACH KIDS ABOUT THE WORLD
22
AUGUST 2017 | (201) FAMILY
“WE WANT TO PREPARE STUDENTS TO
BE CARING AND ETHICAL CONTRIBUTORS
TO SOCIETY. TO DO THAT THEY NEED TO
UNDERSTAND THE WORLD BEYOND THE
LITTLE POCKET WHERE THEY LIVE.”
DOUG McLANE, DIRECTOR OF THE UPPER SCHOOL
AT SADDLE RIVER DAY SCHOOL, SADDLE RIVER
“This kind of experiential learning
is so important,” McLane says. “When
students intersect with other ways of
life and build relationships with people
from other cultures, it helps them
appreciate and comprehend our world
better.”
A WARM WELCOME
Saddle River Day School junior Alana
Malanga of Englewood has hosted
exchange students twice, welcoming
a French girl her freshman year and
two Senegalese girls her sophomore
year. She recalls the experiences with
amazement.
“It was so interesting to see their
routine compared to ours,” she says
of the Senegalese students, who often
spoke Wolof at home and displayed
fashions representative of their ethnic
groups.
Malanga also loved sharing new
experiences with her guests. “We took
them to a Mexican restaurant because
they’ve never tried tacos,” she says,
adding that the girls became obsessed
with Ben & Jerry’s after a visit to the ice
cream shop. They even went to a New
Jersey mall, of course, where the girls
stocked up on gifts for loved ones.
T
here are some things you
just can’t learn from a
textbook, like how it feels
to wake up in another
country, share a home
with a peer from a differ-
ent culture, and connect face-to-face
with someone from across the world.
But if you attend a school with a foreign
exchange program, these experiences
are at your fingertips, and members
of school communities that offer them
believe the value of these exchanges is
immeasurable.
“We want to prepare students to
be caring and ethical contributors
to society. To do that they need to
understand the world beyond the little
pocket where they live,” says Doug
McLane, director of the Upper School
at Saddle River Day School in Saddle
River. “We’ve had an ongoing exchange
with a school in Dijon, France, where
their students attend our school
and stay with our families, and on
alternating years, our students go there
to do the same.”
The program involves about 12
students and two teachers for around
10 days. This past year, the school
also hosted 15 teenaged students and
three teachers from Dakar, Senegal in
West Africa, for a week, an experience
McLane calls the highlight of the year.
“The students were blown away.
They really connected with them
and learned all about their culture
and traditional way of life,” he says,
adding foreign exchange programs
make students more culturally savvy
and aware, skills that benefit them
throughout life. McLane also notes
that programs like the Dijon exchange,
which typically involve those studying
French, allow students to have practical
use of their language skills, important in
developing fluency.
WRITTEN BY JACKIE GOLDSCHNEIDER