Hills Students are guests of Madrid Families
By Eleanor Mathews
The concept of an international student exchange which brings young people of one culture in touch with their peers on another continent is up and running again. Shelved for a time due to various world events, the school-to-school/home-to-home exchange started anew at Watchung Hills Regional High School, and the twenty-one students who have just returned from a stay in Madrid can attest to the success of this academic venture that allows young people of two nations to experience briefly daily life in another culture.
From September 22 to October 1, the Watchung Hills students, accompanied by Hills’ World Language supervisor Brad Commerford and Spanish teacher Dan Root, were houseguests of students who attend Gredos San Diego School in Madrid, Spain. The Hills students did not come as strangers, for they themselves had already served as hosts to the Madrid youth when the latter began the exchange cycle last spring, from May 19 to June 3. Each student thus had a sense of comfortable familiarity, and even anticipation, about facing the unfamiliar and unanticipated situations a trip a broad might present.
Participants in the exchange were: Fermin Martinez and Elisabeth Silagi of Watchung; Barbara Fallon, Nicole Drasin, Alyssa Maurer, Traci Finkel, Amanda Cheung, Rachel Renaud, Kathryn Weiss, Daniela Sucato, Ariel Milara, Lindsay Cohen, Hillary Davis, Megan Nadkarni, Nadine Bastardo and Kelci Davidson, all of Warren; Lauren de Maio, Mona Hariri of Green Brook; Daniel Zadrozny, Holden Shalov and Tim Clark of Long Hill.
The Hills students attended school the first period of every day. Gredos San Diego is a private school which enrolls students from pre-school through 12th grade. Since the school uses a block system, the course menu rotated each day, giving the visiting Americans a birds-eye view of the curriculum and Spanish education practices, said Silagi. Moreover, students stayed in place and it was the teachers who moved from class to class. “It was a real culture shock,” said Martinez. “Students did very little talking; teachers lectured.”
Already familiar with their hosts, Hills students seemed to fit right into family life, with only a few adjustments. “They were really welcoming,” said Cohen, “but it was hard to get used to the meal schedule.” There was a “really big” lunch at 3 p.m., dinner might be as late as 11:30 p.m., and bedtime at about 1 a.m.”
The group as a whole made many excursions into areas adjacent to Madrid, taking in some of the area’s unique historic and cultural highlights—for instance, a monastery which held paintings and documents dating to medieval days— and to more contemporary sites such as the El Rastro Flea Market, the Prado Museum, a flamenco band performance.
With individual hosts, students enjoyed other aspects of Spanish life. Martinez went to a bull fight in Segovia, which he enjoyed as a “culturally different event,” he said. Cohen watched a professional soccer match, in which the favored local team, “Real Madrid,” won. Silagi’s host took her bowling and to a shopping mall, but she especially enjoyed a huge Saturday night disco event designed just for teens. The youth, who were prohibited from drinking, filled the street, going from one spot to another until it all ended at 10:30 p.m.
Most of the Hills students are in advanced Spanish courses and managed to communicate quite well. Cohen, in Spanish 4 AP, found the accents were different. However, using their native as well as their “foreign” tongues, both sets of students managed well to make their thoughts and wants known. All had “good relationships” and all “would do it again.” All want to keep up their contacts—if not in person, then by e-mail.
Plans for the just-completed exchange were finalized in January of this year, when Commerford, who himself had taught in Madrid for many years, met at Watchung Hills with Jorge de la Calle, world language and English as second language supervisor at Gredos San Diego. Commerford and Michael Waluk, Hills’vice-principal, had previously paid an initial visit to Madrid in November 2005 to explore the possibilities of such a venture.
The students’ school-to-school/home-to-home exchange, a concept that was in operation for many years between Hills French students and the Jules Ferry School in Paris, is seen as a way of furthering student interest in continuing world language studies, and, in the long run, fostering friendship and harmony among the nations. Similar exchanges are planned for Italian and French students in the upcoming academic year.