Global Partners in Lifelong Learning Create Lifelong Friendships

This just in from Corbett Prepatory School of IDS:

“I was able to have a sister for three weeks!” said Corbett Prep fourth grader Kailey McDonald of her experience having fellow fourth grader Cristina from Madrid, Spain, in her home. 

The two girls have become so close that they plan to continue their friendship on Skype - Kailey knows when to call. “When it is 8:00 a.m. here, it is 2:00 p.m. there,” she said.

For years, Corbett Preparatory School of IDS and Madrid’s “sister school” Colegios Ramón y Cajal  (CRC) have partnered in a two-way relationship—a compelling part of an overall mission to teach kids to think internationally and globally, preparing them for the future. The partnership started when Paloma Sanz, whose grandfather founded the family-owned school in Madrid, visited Corbett Prep to learn about their teaching strategies and the M.O.R.E. Model (Multiple Options for Results in Education) for increasing student achievement and success.

Since then, several groups of Spanish teachers have visited Corbett Prep, and Corbett Prep Headmaster Dr. Joyce Burick Swarzman has trained faculty and staff at the school in Madrid. Groups of students from Madrid have been traveling from Spain ever since, and several groups of students from Corbett Prep have traveled to Colegios Ramón y Cajal .

This year, 14 students in grades four through eight were CRC global explorers. Two teachers traveled from Madrid to Tampa’s Corbett Prep to spend three weeks immersed in the daily academic and social lives of their school “buddy.” The students helped each other with their English and Spanish, in and out of the classroom. They also studied math, social studies, and science together. In addition to being classmates, they shared in all after-school activities.

“We love the idea of the school being internationally minded and opening the minds of our students to the many different, and oftentimes the many similar, ways of children from another culture and country,” middle school English teacher, parent, and volunteer host Michael Vokoun said.

April McDonald and her family were one of 14 families who hosted a student.

“This has been an amazing experience for us. We learned so much from Cristine,” said McDonald. “We now know, for example, that in Spain, they take two hours for a hearty lunch, and have a light dinner. It is just the opposite here!”

Said CRC English teacher Señora Traci Clanton: “This is my fourth year visiting Corbett Prep, and I am always even more impressed. We use the same cooperative learning structures that Corbett Prep uses. The teachers are using these models constantly, and the students transition from one activity to another smoothly. They teach in such a variety of ways, which allows the kids to be themselves. At the end of the day, every student walks away with all the information.”

Corbett Prep Spanish teachers Odette Figueruelo, Sonia Morgan, Margie Carberry, and Alejandra Izquierdo are part of the Spanish team that teaches Spanish to all students starting in PreK3.

“Providing these opportunities for students to live the language with kids their own age offered exactly what we as teachers had hoped would happen," said Figueruelo. "They started to develop a love of Spanish — love for language, the people, the culture, the music, the writing, the dance — everything about it."

After the academics and the cultural exchanges, perhaps the most remarkable aspects of the trip are the lasting friendships and relationships formed.

“My family has vacationed with our visiting student’s family for the past two summers, and we are in the process of making plans to vacation together again this summer. We consider ourselves family,” said Ann Cashen, Corbett Prep teacher and former host of a student from Madrid.

“We Skype two or three times a month, and we are always missing each other," Cashen said. "We have made lifelong friends in Madrid.”