New high school student exchange relationships with schools in France and Spain as well as a service-learning trip to China are the latest global exposure opportunities offered at Cincinnati Country Day School (CCDS). The school continues to implement its bold, new strategic plan, and the Global Engagement Pillar is an integral piece of its many initiatives.
“Our overall mission is to get students ready for success in the world, and the world is increasingly global,” says Jeanette Hecker, Country Day’s modern languages department chair. “I firmly believe – and our school firmly believes – that most of our students will not stay in one place after graduation; either their job or personal travels will take them around the globe. All of our communities are becoming more global. If you have knowledge of or some proficiency in another language, you open doors and you can create meaningful relationships.”
The overall vision of the Global Engagement Pillar is to “develop responsible global citizens through curricular and co-curricular opportunities that foster the skills, knowledge, and empathy required to engage ethically and successfully in a rapidly changing and interconnected world. We must give all students the opportunity to engage meaningfully in the places, people and programs they learn about in their classes through activities such as service, language immersion, and research and study.”
Country Day’s global initiative takes into consideration that international travel requires resources and time from students and their families. Thus, Country Day has established student exchange relationships and is intentional in bringing foreign guests, visitors, and exchange students to the Indian Hill campus during the school year to share their cultures in return. The program was founded in sister school relationships, exchanges and travel-study trips, world language programs, and its tradition of sending students abroad to live and learn.
“Our Global Engagement Pillar gave us an extra impetus to
develop relationships, and we’ve created three different relationships to support our language programs,” Hecker explains. The week-long student exchanges with France and Spain are more than travel trips, she emphasizes. Students attend school in each other’s countries and reside with and are a part of their respective host families’ lives.
“Our goal is to get students off campus and out of Cincinnati where they will hopefully make new friends and discover that people do things differently in many parts of the world,” Hecker says. “Last year we had a group of our Chinese language students involved in a service-learning project with The Dandelion School in China. CCDS students spent a little over a week teaching and doing volunteer work at the school over spring break.” To further this relationship and
partnership, CCDS will host teachers from The Dandelion School this winter.
Going “Glocal”
Another integral Global Engagement Pillar initiative involves what Country Day’s strategic plan has termed “glocal” opportunities – global experiences in a local setting. These are partnerships with Cincinnati-based multinational companies and organizations that provide work experiences for students, helping them discover their passions and develop skills via learning by doing. Job shadowing and internships are but two ways in which students explore the skills, commitment, decisions and strategies necessary for professional careers inside and outside U.S. borders.
“We have all kinds of opportunities, from day-long to week-long job shadows with people working in all kinds of fields. It’s fascinating to see what kids get from it,” says Sarah Beyreis, director of college counseling and external opportunities at Country Day. “What’s striking is that kids learn on so many fronts – they learn basic information about the way the work-world operates, but they get deep and immediate insight about jobs and careers they may have in the future.”
Watching eye surgery one day and meeting the patient whose sight has been saved the next; working with a major consulting firm on a global accounts team; assisting in lab research; helping edit a published poet’s upcoming book – just a few examples of the extraordinary “glocal” activities in which Country Day sophomores, juniors, and seniors have participated. Students also learn how to write a first resume and cover letter during a series of informal lunch meetings. This experience is a great step in planning for college and for life – an integral component of the school’s mission.
“The idea behind ‘glocal’ is that you don’t have to travel the world to meet the world, the world comes to Cincinnati Country Day,”
Beyreis says. “We’re fortunate to have such great professional resources just within the CCD community. Parents and alumni have been very generous with their time, and the response from the students has been huge. These job shadows are brief exposures to various careers, but they are pretty fantastic.”
“We work as a school – and have for years – to get our students out into the world through all kinds of programs,” she adds. “We encourage students to just dive into the many opportunities out there.”