Celebrating Our
EDUCATORS “IEARN CHANGED MY LIFE” EGYPT: INTERNATIONAL YOUTH REPRESENTATIVE YASSER ALAA MOBARAK SHARES HIS JOURNEY WITH IEARN FROM STUDENT TO LEADER
CONTAGIOUS PASSION USA: 25-YEAR IEARN VETERAN TEACHER GREG REIVA INSPIRES A GENERATION OF STUDENTS TO CARE ABOUT THE EARTH AND THEIR PEERS ACROSS THE GLOBE
DEVELOPING A GLOBAL DIGITAL CITIZEN TANZANIA: SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHER
SPELLAN MZENGO SHARES HIS EXPERIENCE WITH OUR DEVELOPING DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP EXCHANGE
THE LATEST ON OUR PROGRAMS YES VOICES PODCASTING WORKSHOP
NEW! PAYING IT FORWARD SPOTLIGHT ON AN IEARN DONOR
SPRING 2022 ISSUE
From the Director Dear friends, Join us in honoring the incredible educators who make the iEARN Network a thriving, global community. In this issue, you will meet some amazing educators who do so much more than teach; they nurture and inspire, help students see their potential, encourage curiosity and spark a love of learning, and connect students to something bigger and greater than themselves. iEARN educators are the heart and soul of our network. As they connect their students and classrooms with peers abroad, they too are developing not just a network of colleagues, but also a network of friends. Friends who celebrate each other’s successes and provide support and encouragement through hard times. In the last few weeks, members of the iEARN community have stepped up to help those suffering in Ukraine…from teachers who are traveling to Poland to help support Ukrainian refugees to educators in Ukraine who are bringing food and clothing to orphans and others who could not leave. I thank them for their commitment and dedication and for making iEARN one of the most impactful experiences a student can have. And, I thank you for your continued support, which allows us to reach, train, and support more teachers so we can connect even more students with the hope of building a more peaceful and just world! With gratitude,
Stefanie Ortiz-Cidlik Executive Director
Ukrainian orphans hide in a basement during bombings. Photo taken by an iEARN educator who is providing food and clothing for the children.
In This Issue “IEARN CHANGED MY LIFE”
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COMING SOON! SAVE THE DATE!
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NSLI-Y: THE LATEST ON OUR PROGRAMS
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INTERNATIONAL YOUTH REPRESENTATIVE YASSER ALAA MOBARAK SHARES HIS JOURNEY WITH IEARN FROM STUDENT TO LEADER
CONTAGIOUS PASSION
25-YEAR IEARN VETERAN TEACHER GREG REIVA INSPIRES A GENERATION OF STUDENTS TO CARE ABOUT THE EARTH AND THEIR PEERS ACROSS THE GLOBE
DEVELOPING A GLOBAL DIGITAL CITIZEN SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHER SPELLAN MZENGO SHARES HIS EXPERIENCE WITH OUR DEVELOPING DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP EXCHANGE
IEARN’S ANNUAL “RUN WITH THE WORLD” VIRTUAL 5K
TAIWAN & KOREA
YES: YES VOICES PODCASTING WORKSHOP. 3-MONTH WORKSHOP FOCUSES ON THE ART OF STORYTELLING
PAYING IT FORWARD
HONORING CATHY HEALY FOR HER IMPACT
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One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world. MALALA YOUSAFZAI
“IEARN CHANGED MY LIFE” INTERNATIONAL YOUTH REPRESENTATIVE YASSER ALAA MOBARAK SHARES HIS JOURNEY WITH IEARN FROM STUDENT TO LEADER As a teenager growing up in Egypt, Yasser Alaa Mobarak didn’t like school at all. He often cut classes until one day, his school offered to exempt him from a few of his classes to participate in iEARN’s YouthCaN project. YouthCaN is a youth-directed network of clubs, classes, and community groups that focus on conservation. These groups observe and study the environment and work together to create solutions, then share their findings with other groups through online YouthCaN forums and in-person conferences and workshops.
Did You Know? • Egypt is ethnically homogeneous, with Egyptians comprising more than 99% of the population • One of the most famous figures tied to Egypt, Cleopatra VII, was Greek. • The 365-day calendar that is divided into 12 months was invented in Egypt. • Egypt is home to seven UNESCO-designated World Heritage site source: usnews.com
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Though Yasser joined YouthCaN solely to get out of class, he was instantly (and unexpectedly) hooked once he began to work on the project. He especially loved interacting with students from other countries and cultures – something he had never experienced before. And Yasser wasn’t alone. The project was so popular, school administrators quickly made student participation contingent on attendance and good grades. That was enough to motivate Yasser to do whatever it took to stay involved with YouthCaN and fan the flames of his growing passion for iEARN itself. Within a year, he received an invitation to join the iEARN Egypt Student Board and a scholarship to attend the iEARN International Conference and Youth Summit in Morocco. He joined the media committee at school and soon led the committee to publish the iEARN iExpress, a magazine written by iEARN participants from all over the world. Over the next several years, Yasser went on to help plan and organize iEARN’s Youth Summits in 2012 (Virtual), 2013 (Qatar), 2015 (Brazil), and 2018 (USA), traveling to each nation to attend the summits. Now, at the young age of 29, Yasser holds a visiting faculty position at the Delhi College of Photography in India and is an award-winning travel photographer. “That first trip to Morocco in 2009 was a turning point for me, “ Yasser says. “iEARN changed my life 180 degrees and I’m working with iEARN now to change the lives of other youth.”
15 years later, he’s as passionate as ever, serving as iEARN-Egypt’s International Youth Representative, facilitating the Youth Forum on the Collaboration Centre, serving on the iEARN International Facebook committee, and leading numerous iEARN projects with his students. However, even in light of all he has accomplished so far, one of the most impressive outcomes has been how he has used his experiences to create his own projects in order to reach even more students worldwide. He’s organized an annual iEARN Photography and Design Challenge, iEARN artist of the week series, iEARN International Photography Exhibition, and most recently, an annual iEARN Art Challenge. To paraphrase a common sports analogy, Yasser has taken the iEARN ball and run with it – all over the world.
2021 ART CHALLENGE WINNER ADELIA RACLENCU (IEARN-MOLDOVA)
2015 PHOTOGRAPHY CHALLENGE SUBMISSION BY FURRUKH MUGHAL (IEARN-PAKISTAN)
“Women empowerment is the way to change. These sisters make jewellery at home and sell outside a park and study in schools working on their homework as they are doing brisk business one evening”
2016 PHOTOGRAPHY CHALLENGE SUBMISSION BY FLORIANA GLAMBA (IEARN-ARGENTINA)
At iEARN, we are supportive of educators using our projects as a springboard for other initiatives that share our goal of making the world a better place. Like Yasser’s experience, this has led to some incredible outcomes. Never limiting or one-size-fits-all, iEARN’s projects inspire teachers and students to think creatively, broaden the scope, and take their own ideas even further. Yasser was able to provide student artists all around the world a platform and opportunity to share their gifts by utilizing our global network, reaching millions of kids he never would have been able to on his own. Because our projects have opened up a world of possibilities for Yasser, he is able to use what’s he’s learned and experienced to open the world to students with a passion for the arts.
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Above all, what has impacted him the most has been the camaraderie and relationships he’s formed with other students, educators, and leaders in the iEARN network. Dalia Khalil (Country Coordinator of iEARN-Egypt) and Diane Midness (former Executive Director of iEARN-USA) have been two of the most inspirational teachers in his life. They, along with the rest of the network, have taught Yasser perhaps his most valuable life lesson: iEARN has taught us that we are important, we are leaders, and we can make a difference in the world. The only thing that needs to define you is your own worth and your efforts – people will not define you by your culture, or country, or appearance. Everyone is equal; everyone is similar. Let’s forget about religion, or gender, or country – we all appreciate and respect each other; we all are similar and want families. Let’s let our hard work and efforts define who we are and nothing else.
Who would guess something as simple as an environmental project could so dramatically change the trajectory of a person’s life? iEARN.
A few examples of Yasser’s award-winning photography. He has won photography prizes from Travel Photographer of the Year, National Geographic, Sony World Photography Awards, Egypt Press Photo, International Federation of Photographic Art, Photographic Society of America and Prix De La Photographie Paris. Yasser’s works have been featured in The Guardian, VICE, National Geographic, Digital Camera World Magazine, Amatuer Photographer Magazine, Photographer’s Forum Magazine, Street Photography Magazine, Smart Photography Magazine, Digital Photographer Magazine, Adobe Blog and PBS NewsHour.
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CONTAGIOUS PASSION 25-YEAR IEARN VETERAN TEACHER GREG REIVA INSPIRES A GENERATION OF STUDENTS TO CARE ABOUT THE EARTH AND THEIR PEERS ACROSS THE GLOBE Greg Reiva is the kind of middle school science teacher we all wish we had: engaging, funny, and incredibly enthusiastic about what he teaches. Though he’s primarily taught public high school over his 25-year career, he’s been in his sweet spot these last three years teaching Earth Science to sixth, seventh, and eighth-graders at St. Thomas the Apostle School in Crystal Lake, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. He loves this age and stage of development in kids – when they’re still young enough to get excited about new things but on the cusp of more advanced thinking and reasoning. When he started his career back in the late 1990s, Greg became fascinated with how science and scientific principles interacted with real-world issues. In 2005, after learning about fuel cell technology at a convention, he and his high school students grew bacteria to produce electricity. Later, they developed worm farms to produce organic fertilizer, and grew plants to study its effectiveness. Greg loved how these projects engaged his students and created a deeper desire to learn more. Several years later, he discovered iEARN and was excited to find a learning model that he so passionately believed in: When I came across iEARN over a decade ago, I saw an opportunity to do these projects and connect with other schools that might be interested in doing them together, worldwide and in the United States. Then we would have an audience that we could present to. With any type of good project-based method of education, you’ve got to have an audience that you can present to, and iEARN provides that –it’s built in. Not only is iEARN geared towards projects, it’s got the builtin audience already there that you can ascend to and share data and your project results with. Everything in the classroom is based on motivating kids so you don’t have behavior problems, and [iEARN’s method] does that.
Greg has received grants over the years to create curricula for science projects, and he recalled a time he posted one of his soil testing projects to iEARN’s network and was matched with a classroom in Algeria. The students were so engaged with one another’s results, they began using Skype to connect the classrooms live so they could interact in person.
Did You Know? • The United States is the only country that has all of Earth’s five climate zones: tropical, dry, temperate, continental, and polar. • The United States is home to nearly 45 million immigrants – more than any other country in the world. • The current iteration of the American flag was designed by a high school student. • More than nine in every 10 Americans have eaten pizza in the last month. source: usatoday.com
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He said it really impacted all the students in both countries because, through the project itself, they were able to share about where they live, what it was like to live there, and how their ordinary lives played out each day. It was a prime example of how engaging in our collaborative projects fosters so much more than learning the subject at hand. It creates understanding and respect between people of different countries and cultures, sharpens their communication skills, and inspires deeper and more creative thinking. Greg designed the Earth Stewardship project for iEARN about seven years ago – a “legacy project”, he calls it – and continues to use it now with his middle school students. Through it, his kids have interacted live with classrooms in India and Poland, and recently with Australia through the Water is Life project. Before the pandemic began, his students created an environmental club of their own called “Team Green” that would meet after school and give presentations. Through iEARN’s network, his class was able to share about their club with the rest of the world. Now, Greg says, there’s a “Team Green” in Pakistan, India, Australia, and other countries, and has become so popular, it’s been renamed “Team Green International” and is embedded within the Water is Life project. This means that now any classroom that participates in the project worldwide can be a part of a club his 12 and 13-year-old students created themselves! This year, Greg and his students joined The Learning Circles, a cohort of classrooms around the world looking for opportunities to collaborate on iEARN projects. Before The Learning Circles, he would have to actively search for others who were interested in working with his classroom – now, Greg is scrambling to keep up with the demand! Just like our projects have a “built-in audience”, these cohorts provide built-in collaboration partners, ready to get to work. Through a newly created student forum in The Collaboration Centre, kids are now able to record and post video narratives that can be shared around the world.
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Once again, his students have taken the ball and run with it. Using the Collaboration Centre platform, the students are discovering that the internet and technology offer so much more than just entertainment – they are powerful tools they can use to learn, discover, communicate, and create. In fact, Greg says, It’s shown them the potential for what they can do. The level of creativity has gone up exponentially now – they’re discovering they can do so much more than just send a text. Now, they’re recording videos, making plays, writing poetry, making Powerpoints, even creating their own websites and posting the links for their peers around the world to see.
As a seasoned, self-described “old-school” teacher, Greg believes project-based, collaborative learning is the education model of the future. Talking to his colleagues who teach the early elementary grades, he’s hearing now that kids are coming to school with behavior problems and issues they have never seen before – due in large part to the pandemic and social distancing. “If this isn’t an aberration and it’s the new normal,” he says, “we can’t expect kids to go back to what is essentially a 19th century learning model. It isn’t sustainable.” Interestingly, in 2020, iEARN was named one of the “Top 16 Most Innovative Education Models in the World” and this was early into the pandemic – before anyone knew how long it would last and what the repercussions would be. Perhaps Greg is correct that our model isn’t just ahead of its time, but right on time, when it’s very much needed for this next generation of students.
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DEVELOPING A GLOBAL DIGITAL CITIZEN SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHER SPELLAN MZENGO SHARES HIS EXPERIENCE WITH OUR DEVELOPING DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP EXCHANGE Spellan Mzengo is a secondary school teacher in Tanzania who teaches English and English Literature and is also the original coordinator of the Tanzanian of English Language Teachers’ Association. He is a Fulbright Scholar who studied at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell in 2019 and also teaches with the English Access Microscholarship Program (Access), sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs. The Access Program provides a foundation of English language skills to talented 13-18 year-olds from economically disadvantaged sectors. Suffice it to say, Spellan is passionate about teaching English!
Did You Know? • The earliest human skull in the world, dating back 2 million years, was discovered in Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania • The shortest war in history was fought in 1896 in Tanzania between the United Kingdom and Zanzibar. It lasted only 45 minutes. • Tanzania is the home to the largest crab in the world, the coconut crab. • In 2003, a new monkey, the kipunji, was discovered in Tanzania source: tanzanianodyssey.com
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iEARN often interfaces with the Access program worldwide, providing teacher training and support, and it was through this program that Spellan discovered us and our new Developing Digital Citizenship Exchange. The Department of State is always looking to implement themed programs that improve America’s relationships abroad and provide support and resources to English language teachers. iEARN proposed using digital citizenship as a theme (which was enthusiastically accepted) and designed a 10-week pilot program that ran in October. The Developing Digital Citizenship Exchange is an iEARN professional development exchange that provides the knowledge and skills needed to use digital tools and communicate online effectively and responsibly. Topics in the exchange include: • • • • • • •
Digital security “Netiquette” Cyber-bullying How to be inclusive, tolerant, and respectful of others’ beliefs and perspectives Cross-cultural communication Digital health and wellbeing Media literacy
In the pilot, there were 40 educators from around the globe who received some instruction as a group but met in breakout sessions as cohorts of 10 people. We always design our programs to be interactive, so small groups are necessary to facilitate engagement and foster relationships, which is always one of our primary goals. In fact, in this case, the “exchange” was equally as important as the professional development aspect. One of the participants, Elias, said, [My] biggest take away from this exchange is how amazing is the fact we are all from different countries and cultures, but we share many similarities in terms of the way of teaching and behave. Those experiences will help us in our classes because these are the anecdotes we need to start a speech and engage the audience which is our students. Throughout their 10 weeks, the participants worked towards creating a unit on digital citizenship for their own students, including specific lesson plans they could implement right away. They shared these with one another in a Final Project Showcase and explained how they plan to use what they have learned in their own classrooms and extended communities. It was evident that they had a strong understanding of the content and the purpose of the exchange as a whole. The response to our first session was so positive, we were invited to schedule another exchange after the first of the year, and we are currently into our seventh week. For Spellan, meeting the nine other teachers from around the world in his group was one of his most valuable takeaways – for the exchange of ideas and resources, encouragement, and camaraderie. Though he was somewhat familiar with “netiquette” through his training with the Access program, the exchange was much more in-depth and motivational for him. He summed it up this way: ”This exchange program was awesome! I can say with total confidence that I am now a digital citizen. I can’t keep calm. I will share the knowledge with my students and fellow teachers in presentations, small groups discussions and workshops.”
COMING SOON! SAVE THE DATE!
JUNE 15-30
PROCEEDS SUPPORT IEARN’S GLOBAL MISSION REGISTRATION BEGINS IN APRIL 10
THE LATEST ON OUR PROGRAMS As facilitators of the U.S. Department of State’s National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y), we work hard in collaboration with our local partners to provide a meaningful exchange experience for everyone impacted by the program. This includes ensuring that our U.S. high school students are prepared for their experience through pre-departure orientations, online discussions and communications, and by providing support during their program experience. We are happy to report that in-person exchange is back in full swing for the NSLI-Y programs we facilitate! Students in the NSLI-Y Taiwan program completed several excursions over the past three months, including experiences to learn about the geography and history of their host city of Kaohsiung and a visit to a nearby sugarcane factory. Additionally, the NSLI-Y Taiwan participants visited Qijing (Kaohsiung Harbor) to learn about the importance and influence of the harbor to the city. During these exchange programs, students are able to participate in meaningful collaboration with their local peers. One example was the NSLI-Y Taiwan students volunteering as English tutors at the Winter English Camp at Zhong Shan High School. We are also excited that the NSLI-Y Korea program has now commenced, with the students completing their pre-departure orientation and embarking on their trip in early February. During their arrival orientation in Seoul, students learned more in depth about Korean culture and were introduced to their host families. We are looking forward to hearing more about their experiences and the impact it has on their cultural perspectives.
YES VOICES PODCASTING WORKSHOP Beginning in January, 20 alumni from the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program joined together for the YES Voices Podcasting workshop, organized by iEARN-USA. The three-month workshop is facilitated by StoryCenter, and focuses on the art and design of audio storytelling. The participants spent the first six weeks of the workshop attending weekly virtual sessions and learning about the basics of podcasting including storytelling, audio editing and recording techniques, interviewing, writing for audio, and the ethics of representation. Participants are working together in pairs to create collaborative podcast segments that will bring awareness of issues in their local communities and expand the impact of the YES program. The podcast segments are covering a variety of topics, such as interfaith dialogue, gender equality, food insecurity, mental health awareness, youth leadership, and public health. In late March, the YES alumni will meet in person in Tirana, Albania, to complete the editing and production of their podcast segments. They will work collaboratively to offer feedback, reflect on their work, debrief what they learned from the workshop, and brainstorm ideas for how they can use their podcasting skills moving forward. The workshop is equipping YES alumni with the skills to take their community development work to the next level and effectively use podcasting for social change. Through their podcasts, alumni will amplify their voices on issues that are important to them and to other YES alumni and their communities. 11
NEW! PAYING IT FORWARD
Dono r Impact
Cathy Healy has been involved with iEARN for more than three decades in many capacities: As a volunteer, a board member, a donor, and even an educator. She has devoted her life to connecting students and educators around the world through education. In asking Cathy her “why”, she explains that, “It is critically important to see others, regardless of culture, as humans”. iEARN has allowed her to help students and educators make connections that allow them to get to know people of all backgrounds and create mutual understanding. Early in Cathy’s life, she had the opportunity to travel to Mexico to see the magnificent architecture and history throughout the country. It was there that she realized that cultures around the world have so much to offer. This set the stage for the work that she would go on to do with National Geographic and as a Reuters Digital Vision fellow with Stanford University, in addition to her experience with iEARN-USA. Cathy also volunteered for several years as a global facilitator and teacher for Cesar Chavez Prep in Washington, D.C., where she leveraged the iEARN network to introduce global experiences in classrooms. Some of these experiences included a learning circle on Children’s Rights with iEARNNetherlands and exposing students to other cultures through video conferences with students in the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Haiti, and Israel. As hard as it may be to believe, Cathy feels like she has received much more than she has given back to iEARN. When she reflects on her experience, she fondly recalls the many people she has had the opportunity to connect with both virtually and in person at iEARN Conferences. Many of these people remain her close friends. Cathy added that being involved with iEARN-USA, “keeps my life full of wonderful surprises”. She draws great satisfaction seeing an exhilarated student who experienced the joy of being heard by an international audience, or a student who shifted their perspective about cultures as a result of iEARN programming.
Thank you, Cathy!
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Cathy Healy remains as busy as ever as an Advisory Council member to iEARN-USA and is active on the board of Partners of the Americas. On top of it all, she is still facilitating connections within the iEARN network, ensuring that her impact will continue to be felt for many years to come.
Will you support us? Can you imagine a world where everyone is treated equally – a world where we embrace our diversity and break down the barriers that divide us? iEARN-USA believes in that world and is striving to build it. By leveraging technology to create a global virtual hub, we are connecting young people and classrooms across the world to remove socio-economic and cultural barriers, while educating the change-makers of tomorrow. We couldn’t do the work we do without the help of generous people like you.
us.iearn.org/donate
A big thank you! also to our generous board members for their ongoing support and 100% giving participation in 2021.