Columbia Elementary hosts students, teachers from Taiwan | News

Students at Columbia Elementary School got a special visit last month from 17 of their Taiwanese pen pals with whom they’ve been communicating for the past two years through a program aimed at promoting global competence among local youth.

The 17 students from National Nanke International Experimental High School in Tainan, Taiwan, roughly 6,670 miles from Columbia, were joined by two of their teachers. They arrived at Columbia Elementary on April 22 and stayed in the area for three days.

Their trip was part of the Classroom Connect program introduced at Columbia Elementary School by teachers Jessica Mathews and Emily Reynolds.

During the three-day visit, the Taiwanese fifth and sixth graders met their pen pals and other students, stayed at the homes of Columbia Elementary teachers and paraprofessionals, and visited Columbia State Historic Park and Calaveras Big Trees State Park.

“These students from Taiwan were just welcomed with open arms into these friend groups,” Mathews said. “It was so nice to see our students be proud of Tuolumne County and show them around.”

Classroom Connect, which pairs local students with pen pals throughout the world, is a facet of Global Education programs that Mathews and Reynolds brought to Columbia Elementary in 2022.

At the beginning of the 2022 school year, Mathews and Reynolds were extended the opportunity to become fellows with the California Global Education Project through the University of San Diego.

According to the University of San Diego’s website, the California Global Education Project “endeavors to develop the potential in every global citizen through professional learning programs and resources for teachers focused on the knowledge, skills, disposition and leadership needed to foster global competence.”

“Our area has been really devoted to global education in general, and it’s part of the California subject matter through the California Department of Education,” Mathews said. “Emily and I had the opportunity to be fellows through the Global Education program in 2022. We loved it so much and felt our area and students could benefit from it so much, we really have tried to bring it into every facet of our teaching. ”

A dozen Columbia Elementary classrooms, from kindergarten through eighth grade, are now participating in the Global Education and Classroom Connect programs.

Prior to last month’s visit, the fifth and sixth grade classrooms interacted with the Taiwanese students largely through online programs in which they collaborated on projects related to the environment and water conservation.

Reynolds said one of the Columbia Elementary students told her and Mathews that meeting his pen pal in person was one of the best days of his life.

“He was emotional,” she said. “This has just been the best experience of his life to meet his global pen pal in person.”

The students first day on campus April 22 was what Mathews and Reynolds referred to as an “immersion day,” during which there was an assembly with most of the student body that included a gift exchange between Columbia Elementary teachers and their counterparts from Taiwan.

Students then went to their home rooms with their Taiwanese pen pals for collaborative discussions on United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, a major focal point of the program.

The second and third days of the visit featured field trips to Columbia State Historic Park and Calaveras Big Trees State Park.

Mathews said gold panning at Columbia State Historic Park was cited as a favorite activity of the trip by many of the Taiwanese students. She said they also marveled at the natural beauty of the area, as Taiwan is much more metropolitan by comparison.

Evenings were spent with the families who hosted pairs of Taiwanese students at their homes and planned their own events, such as barbecues and pizza-making parties.

“Several (of the Taiwanese students) were asking if they could stay longer,” Mathews said. “Many of them exchanged emails with other students to communicate directly.”

Funding for the trip came from the Taiwanese students’ and teachers’ school district in Taiwan, while Columbia Elementary used some one-time funding primarily for the field trips to the state parks.

Mathews said she, Reynolds and Wade are working on funding opportunities for a future trip to Taiwan in summer 2025 for local educators and potentially students, as well. The school in Taiwan is also working to build funding for another trip, hopefully in the fall.

The importance of global education programs is to help build students’ understanding of the world outside of their own communities, especially with how increasingly interconnected the world has become, Mathews said.

“It’s important they understand that, even if we’re in a small, rural community, we are part of a much larger connection among humans,” she said. “Everything we do impacts each other, and what they do throughout their lives, that needs to be taken into consideration.”

“It sparks creativity for them to investigate the world around them,” she continued. “A lot of the feedback we get from our students is that they are learning a lot about how they have more commonality than differences, and the differences are something we can still connect over.”

Mathews and Reynolds also hope to extend the Global Education and Classroom Connect program to other schools in the county in the future. Any teachers interested in the program can contact Mathews at [email protected] or (209) 533-7700 ext. 4421.