The hub for france-american exchange

This story begins with a group of ten French high school students calling themselves “The Harlem Crew,” and their project of comparing and contrasting two difficult neighborhoods separated by 3,000 miles of ocean: Harlem in New York City and Saint-Denis near Paris. The foundation of this project was an exchange program between two high schools, Frederic Douglass Academy of Harlem and Lycee Suger in Saint-Denis. This exchange not only offered an opportunity for cross-cultural encounters between two countries, two cultures, and two difficult neighborhoods, but it also represented an opportunity for these youth to have their first world traveling experience and to become young world citizens who are open to new people and new places.

Such scholastic exchanges are thus an open door to the larger world for the young citizens in our classrooms. Much more than just a time to learn the basics of a foreign language, such exchanges should in my opinion be an open door to the English-speaking world and to the cultures that inhabit it. Much more than to just teach the language, we should construct the exchange around all aspects of the culture—initiating a self-reflection on our own identity and role in the world community. To participate in this exchange with the students was thus an opportunity to challenge their prejudices by showing them the reality of a place—the very purpose of our trip to Harlem. That which follows is an account of the long adventure that eventually brought us to Harlem with the students from Lycee Suger in April of 2008.

First Step: Create an exchange

A school trip in my opinion cannot just be seen as an opportunity to learn a language and visit tourist sites. My trip with my students to Harlem last year only found its greater meaning as part of a long reflection on the comparative identities of our two countries, and of our two cities and neighborhoods, thus putting our prejudices on trial.
This process was the catalyst of a larger and more intimate reflection on the student’s own lives, on the history of Saint-Denis, and on the history of Harlem that they discovered by corresponding and meeting with their counterparts across the Atlantic. The students exchanged letters several months before they were able to meet one another, during which time we laid the foundation for the voyage in classtime and in discussions with the teachers of the high school in Harlem.

The first step was to give each student an email pen-pal, a task only made more difficult by the fact that such twinning programs are rare and barely institutionalized in the French national education system. A few exchange networks were put in place by Chantal Manès of the Academy of Amiens. In our search for a partner high school in New York, we benefited from the assistance of the Cultural Service of the U.S. Embassy in Paris, which worked on our request with the French Embassy to the United States. The requests we posted online through partnering websites were unsuccessful for us.

To create this partnership, we then worked with my American colleague to create a common lesson plan so that our students could exchange letters at least monthly regarding the chosen themes (and on other themes as well if the students formed a friendship). In theory, this seemed like an ideal project, but in practice it had some technical problems and was made more difficult by the fact that, while these students love to chat online, they found it difficult to grasp the longer-term significance of the email exchange. Even though the youth gave a great deal of their thoughts and energy to fundraising for their trip to Harlem, they still did not fully understand how much the mail exchange would enrich the voyage.

Second Step : Organize the voyage

The students were in effect the creators of their own voyage, working from the beginning of the planning effort to the final day of the trip, very much the opposite of a Club Med-type trip as they had to construct the entire experience themselves. Our weekly meetings for the project were thus not only a time for getting to know each other and basic brainstorming, but also time for real work constructing all the aspects of the trip (budget, schedule, etc.). To do this work, the students were divided into three teams:

Fundraising crew

The first group was in charge of budgeting the cost of the trip and organizing fundraising efforts and sponsorships. For example, the team organized a bake sale during recess (including American-style cheesecakes and cookies) and several other fundraising events of all sorts (from Halloween to Black History Month and a remembrance of the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.). The students also put together a musical based on their reflections on the identity of Harlem and Saint-Denis. The production, in addition to being a fabulous advertising opportunity, also helped us to accelerate our search for sponsors and donors.

Conquerors

The second team, which worked hand-in-hand with the first, was in charge of the organization of each of these events, including schedules, requests for authorization, and making sure everything ran smoothly. Beyond the organization of these events, they also “sold” the project to sponsors and patrons. For example, they presented the project at City Hall in order to obtain funding. The idea was thus to give the students responsibility and to make them actors in their voyage by allowing them to do a great deal of the work themselves. The trip was only more meaningful for the students because they not only dreamed about it, but also thought about, organized, and financed it. In the end, the cost of the trip for the students turned out to be very affordable (150 euros per student out of a total price of the trip to New York of 1,200 euros per student).

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The third team promoted our project by creating a website (on which they published thematic articles to retrace the steps of the project), contacting members of the press regarding the events, and organizing the overall communication effort. In practice, however, there were a few snags…

Teachers

Thus, the presence of teachers to coordinate the groups was essential. It was also their job to keep the project on schedule, help the students overcome obstacles and doubts, and to encourage them to make their voices heard. Because of this, we had very good meetings which filled us with hope and allowed us to move the project forward. One of the most notable meetings included Martine Barrat, a great Harlem photographer and our “godmother” of sorts, who opened Harlem’s doors to our students and focused them on the best aspects of the trip: sharing experiences, meeting new people, and discovering a new place.

Final step before the departure: constructing the trip

Traveling is also an exercise in training ourselves, as we often do not know at first how to do it. We depart heavy with stereotypes and assumptions, and we find at the end of the voyage that which we brought to it. The purpose of this project was thus above all to confront these prejudices so as to encourage critical thinking, and so we explored the streets of New York as young foreigners—maps in hand—in search of the American dream as well as its disillusions.

Before leaving, we met historians, writers, photographers, and slam poets—all people who question the world. With them, we paved the way, raised questions, deconstructed many prejudices about ourselves and others, and planted the desire to travel, to meet new people, and to be curious. It was important that the students be ready to discover Harlem and to meet their host families.

In order to do that, it was also important to learn how to become acquainted with each other, to form a team that was ready to travel together in a spirit of tolerance and benevolence. Thus, with maps in their hands and cameras on their shoulders, the students could not only discover the town but also those who live in it.