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EXCHANGING COMMUNITY RESEARCH WITH OTHER SCHOOLS

Children need to be able to compare their research with that of other communities. Community "exchange" or "linking" enables them to exchange their work with children who are doing similar local research in other communities. Many schools already involve children in pen pal exchange projects. There are special motivational and learning benefits to children when they share serious local research projects. The medium for the exchange can be traditional correspondence, fax or the Internet. Whichever one is used, the emphasis of this unit is upon a sustained exchange of learning by groups of children. This is distinct from those kinds of Internet projects where children have brief or periodic communication about a wide range of ideas. This unit is also different from those kinds of programs where many classes of children are part of a global or regional network of children who are working on a common problem. This unit is limited to pairs of schools that are engaged in research and are exchanging their research with one another.

Locating a Partner Classroom
Teaming up with Teachers
It is particularly valuable for teachers who are working on such innovative projects to have the opportunity to meet with one another. Such professional development meetings enable teachers to clarify with one another the aims and methods of their project, to share experiences and frustrations and to find solutions to practical problems.

Teachers who will be exchanging with one another's classes should talk at length before a project begins. They need to do this in order to determine that they have common aims and objectives. They also need to understand the different circumstances of one another's schools so that there are no big surprises later on.

Matching the Children
Each child can pair up with an individual child from the twin school so that there is a "pen pal" exchange within the larger class-to-class exchange.

Age: Children should be approximately the same age in order to guarantee a parallel exchange of ideas. It is possible to carry out twinning projects with children of all school ages, even as young as six years of age.
Gender: Because so much of what children choose to exchange is personal, it is important that the paired children be of the same sex.
Social class: If you expect to include direct visits as part of your project you should carefully consider the social class differences between the children involved in the exchange. Even with correspondence exchange there is the possibility that great differences in the material wealth of children in the link will become too much of the focus. Such differences in wealth should become a matter for dialogue, not an issue of power between the children. It is too easy for a project between poor and rich children to take on traditional benefactor kinds of relationships particularly when parents get involved.

Local Exchanges
Choose a partner school which is sufficiently close that the children can visit one another's communities towards the end of their community research (Go to Case Study of a Community Exchange Approach to Environmental Education in the U.S.A.). This way they will meet their twin friends and see the other community that they have been studying. Correspondence exchange is itself a most valuable experience. But the children establish such an excellent rapport and learn so much about each other's communities through writing and other media that they are in a superb position to learn even more by meeting. They can learn much more from an exchange field visit than they would from a normal field trip because of these prior exchanges and because of the rapport between the children who serve as community guides. It is often possible to find schools to which one can travel to and return from in one day that sit in very different physical environments and whose children are from distinct cultures. In Niger, Africa, for example, children from classrooms in different schools sometimes walk to one another's communities. This enables them to show each other the very different kinds of ways that they play and make a living from the land.

International Exchanges
International correspondence exchanges enable teachers to help their children make extremely valuable connections to many parts of their curriculum (Go to Case Study of an England and Kenya Exchange). This is valuable for geography and cultural studies. It is also particularly important for environmental education, which calls for local problems to be seen in a global context.

There are linkage organizations in one or two industrialized countries (see Resources, below), but generally linkages are established through informal networks of personal contacts rather through any official channels. If you do not have such a network, the best recommendation is to contact an NGO that is internationally linked.

Issues to Consider
Speed of Correspondence
Children feel great frustration when correspondence takes weeks between countries and may lose interest when relying totally upon mail. Every opportunity should be taken to use non-government organizations and friends who may be visiting the other country to serve as couriers of the children's material. Wherever possible a fax machine should be taken advantage of, for it enables some of the children's materials to be communicated instantly, thereby avoiding much of the problem. For those who have Internet connection the children can at least be in very frequent contact. But this should not result in an avoidance of other means of communication. There is a tendency with Internet exchanges for the material exchanged to be brief and superficial. Unless both of the paired schools have the capacity for scanning and sending visual data, the Internet link will need to be supplemented by traditional mail.

Media and the Problem of Literacy and Different Languages
It is important to be aware of the problem of different languages and degrees of literacy in different countries. This should be discussed between teachers before children are even involved. If a real problem is expected because of different languages or inferiority in writing abilities, then one should arrange for an appropriate medium of communication. One solution is to use tape recordings rather than written language. Photographs are extremely useful and can also be annotated by children to express desires for change. One difficulty is that access to cameras and film is difficult for schools in many countries. Some schools have found ways to work with adults in their community in the industrialized countries to send cameras and film to their partners overseas. Drawings are valuable across languages with storyboards particularly effective for children with limited shared language skills (Go to Alternative Methods - Storyboard).

Resources

The United Kingdom One World Linking Association (1993). School Linking and the Curriculum. Chesterfield, England: UKAWLA, Town Hall, Chesterfield, S40 1LP, United Kingdom.

Beddis, R. and Mares, C. (1988). School Links International: A New Approach to Primary School Linking Around the World. Bristol, U.K.: Director of Education, Avon County Council.

Hart, Roger (1997). Children's Participation: The Theory and Practice of Involving Young Citizens in Community Development and Environmental Care. New York: UNICEF and London: Earthscan.

Children as Community Researchers

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