Art Exchange and GP School Visits

Global Playground is conducting its first ever ‘Art Exchange’ between its schools and I am jazzed about it, to say the least! One of the tricky aspects of coordinating cross-cultural curriculum between our schools is that there is no common language. We are forced to get creative, and oftentimes we do that through art because art, like our schools, speaks no singular language. You can communicate things with art you don’t have the words for. Art brings people together across country borders, languages, and ability. We’ve used art as a tool to connect students for years, but I’m excited this year to coordinate an art exchange between our schools in Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Honduras, Uganda, and hopefully Cambodia and the Philippines and other interested classes across the world.

I heard about the concept of an 'art exchange' from a current Thailand PeaceCorps teacher. She had students from her school participating in an exchange that they had to pay close to $100 for. Each school was sending art to a coordinator who would then send each school a few pieces of art from around the world back to each participating school. As she shared more, I thought that could be an incredible program to offer Global Playground schools and schools in our network at no cost. We are asking classes to send a minimum of five art pieces around a common theme to my address. I am collecting the pieces and using my fellow funds to send art back to each school from 5 unique places.

The theme for the exchange came from Mae La Noi. In one of my blog posts last month, I wrote about the community I see in Mae La Noi every day. I have an appreciation for it that grows with each meal, activity period, and song between classes. I feel very fortunate to have had the people of Mae La Noi share a part of it with me for the past 5 months. I didn’t know I could grow to love a place so quickly. I don't know how to describe Mae La Noi and give it justice, so not too long ago I asked students in my oldest classes to think about what community means and what their community looks like. The discussion was incredible and inspired the questions that make up the theme of the first Global Playground Art Exchange.

For the exchange, students around the world are responding to the question(s):

What does community mean to you?

and/or

What does culture mean to you?

Students are reflecting on the questions through art and writing about it in their native language and English, when possible. Here are a few of the early responses from Mae La Noi. I should receive art from Paw Myar School in Myanmar in just a few days!

I can't wait to receive more! Ultimately all of the art will be stored on a 'virtual gallery' on Global Playground's website.

Over the next several weeks Amanda, our co-founder Doug, Cathy, our assistant web content manager, and Scott, the Vietnam Teaching Fellow, and I will be making our way to four of the five Global Playground schools in Southeast Asia. It will be a whirlwind! I will do my best to post updates on the trip. If you aren't already, be sure to follow Global Playground on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for more consistent updates.

Till next time, wishing you all a wonderful holiday season!