"In the summer of 2008, I was working in a private ESL college where I had been employed for over five years. My class that summer was comprised mostly Mexican university students, visiting Canada between terms in order to improve their conversational English.
During our first week together, a lot of time was spent getting to know one another. A lot of time was also spent comparing and contrasting Canada and Mexico, often resulting in giant freehand VEN diagrams drawn on the whiteboard. In the process, one thematic contrast began to emerge: the responsibility of local and global citizenship. We finished our first week in deep discussion of this responsibility, and the differences the students had noticed in relation to the concept since arriving in Canada. Two sentiments were shared unanimously by the students: Canadians seemed committed to upholding and improving the standards of their communities, and sadly, a cynical and unhealthy skepticism that a similar style of citizenship could never happen in their particular state in Mexico. I left school for the weekend knowing the challenge I faced—how could I replace the skepticism with something more productive?
That weekend, while attending a backyard garden party, I learned about theWATERproject.ca and the work being done in Adexor. The answer to my classroom conundrum hit me like a flashflood.
On Monday morning, I set out to work on the task at hand and culled all my resources that dealt with Africa, water, and sustainability. I spent the week building, tuning, and restructuring schema through short story, song, film, and language acquisition. We read traditional African folk tales adapted for emergent literacy, watched a locally–made documentary on a volunteer group in Mozambique, and discussed initiatives such as theWATERproject.ca. We also spent a lot of time comparing Africa with Mexico in terms of the social, political, and environmental challenges both regions face.
Satisfied that the schematic foundation had been sent, I made my pitch: how would the class feel about participating in a fundraising initiative of our own? The proposal was to have a swim-a-thon at a local pool, collecting pledges for completed laps, and donating the pledge money to theWATERproject.ca. I got permission from my boss, consensus from my class, then put together a pledge sheet for my students to bring home to their homestays.
My students went out into the community and canvassed for pledges, practicing their English skills out of the classroom and off of the worksheet, in authentic surroundings with meaningful outcomes. The energy was infectious: the intermediate ESL decided to host a bake sale, and build a unit on cook vocabulary around the fundraiser.
When it came time to hit the pool, the symbolism of swimming in this abundance of water overpowered everyone. We spent a morning swimming, and an afternoon enjoying brownies and muffins. When all was said and done, we had raised hundreds of dollars. We also developed a greater sense of what it means to belong to a community, and broadened the definition of citizenship: students visiting Canada from Mexico could help fund a rain harvester in Ghana. The process dulled the students’ cynicism, and gave them pause to think as they returned to their University classrooms. School, home, and community came together in a lasting and meaningful partnership, evidenced by the friendships that remain to this day."
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