Community News Salaam! Iâm Your Pen Pal [ by Peter DeMarco They swapped Snapchat handles, frolicked on playground equipment, and wrapped arms around each otherâs shoulders as they marched down the Lower Schoolâs halls. When pizza arrived for lunch, everyone cheered; when it came time to leave, there were pictures and hugs. âI donât want to say goodbye,â said sixth-grader Kate Constan to her newest friend, a smiley, freckled girl named Yumnah Elshaar. âI wish you were at our school!â For eight weeks, Constan, her BB&N classmates, and 17 students from the Al-Noor Academy of MansďŹeld had been old-fashioned pen pals, writing letters to each other as part of a school project. Finally, in late May, they got to meet face to face. Al-Noor is a religious school for Muslim children, so in addition to standard courses such as math and English, students study Islamic history, pray, and girls, even sixth-graders, wear traditional Muslim hijabsâlong, black cloaks from their heads to their ankles. One of the goals of the pen-pal project was to introduce BB&N students to the differences in their counterpartsâ lives. Many of Al-Noorâs students, likewise, had never set foot inside a secular school. But what became clear, as the day went on, was just how much they all had in common. Boys from both schools chatted about their favorite sports, YouTube clips, and video games; girls exchanged social media contacts and fashion picks, complained about annoying brothers, and hung out on the playgroundâs âSuper Novaâ spinning wheel. Within an hour of meeting, Al-Noor student Rayan Tabidi was giving her BB&N pen pal, Zoey Liu, a French braid in her hair. âEveryone just does each otherâs hair here,â piped in sixth-grader Lily Sidman, who shared Tabidi as a penpal. BB&Nâs sixth graders are no strangers to pen-pal writing, having written to children in Rwanda for the past ďŹve years under the direction of teacher Berhane Zerom. But with Al-Noor, students knew theyâd eventually be hosting their pen pals at the Lower School, and taking a ďŹeld trip to Al-Noor Academy as well. That heightened interest from the start. âI would say in class that weâre going to read one of the letters as an example of something, and they were so excited they would say, âCan you read all of them!ââ Zerom said. âThey wanted me to read every childâs name and their pen pal every time.â Students even embraced the idea of writing their letters in longhand.
âItâs kinda cool how you can put in all your stuff without interruptions. Itâs a lot different than texting or social media, where responses are almost instant,â said student Shane HanaďŹn, whose pen pal was Al-Noor sixth-grader Mohid Nazir. âYou put it down on paper, they take time to read it, itâs kind of more personal. You can hold onto it.â Students from both schools were a bit nervous when the pen pals arrived around 10 a.m. But sixth-grade teachers Zerom, Leila Huff, and Stevie Olson, who spearheaded the project with Al-Noor teacher Hamzah Henshaw, threw them into games to break the ice. Soon, BB&N students were traipsing around the school with their new best friends, showing off their lockers, the Thinker Labâs neat 3D printer, art rooms and more. As part of their letter writing, students from both schools were told to exchange their personal ideas about what makes a healthy society. During the visit, they wrote poems together based on their thoughts, and painted large canvasses in the schoolâs Community Room with images of peace, acceptance, and unityâor salaam, tafaham, and tajamua in Arabic. BB&N student Lea Newport, with the help of others, wrote in large, symbol-style letters the word âCOEXIST.â âChildren seem to be more open than we are at times to embrace somebody whoâs different,â said Iâman Soloman, BB&Nâs Lower School art teacher, who is Muslim, as students painted away. Indeed, as Tabidi twisted strands of Liuâs hair, they werenât the least concerned about religion or politics. Liu said sheâd barely thought about Tabidiâs black hijab. But their mutual love of pizza and donutsâthat was worth discussing. âI messed up!â Tabidi, braid in hand, cried suddenly. âItâs OK,â Liu reassured her. âNo, that looks really good,â a classmate, Michelle Barrocas, offered. Tabidi relaxed and smiled. âThank you,â she said. D
PICTURED [ 1 [ Lea Newport â22, Maya AlmesaďŹr, and Katie Chen â22 display their in-progress tiles during the Al-Noor Schoolâs visit. [ 2 [ Tushar Aggarwal â22, Mattie Hung â22, Amira Mohamed, Ahd Hosny, Tristan Fitzgerald â22, and Tia Angelakis â22 work on their art project. [ 3 [ Maryam Shehadeh and Helen Cobert â22 enjoy a light moment on the âSuper Nova.â
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