Bringing us together: student exchange

Teacher note

Worksheet

We can learn about culture when do our homework, visit each other, manage relationships and build on understandings we develop.

Culture may include ethnicity and arts: but with people culture is not static as new generations take their place on stage. Japanese like face to face communication: student exchanges are a manageable way of helping young people connect with schools, homestays, students and other places. Student exchanges are a predictable pattern for New Zealand and Kansai schools, helped by sister city connections and the experience local people such as teachers of Japanese can share.

Student exchanges are welcomed by many Japanese schools and their communities – the general pattern of behavior can guide your school. Schools whose local authorities have sister city relationships have a head start.

An introduction can assist school principals and appropriate teachers to confer with their Kansai counterparts – as Sakai-Wellington and Minoh-Hutt illustrate – and plan perhaps a two week visit one way a year ahead.

The school you visit may send some of their students on a similar return visit. A class may use information technology to contribute to the plan. Students may plan their visit Japan budget, and get involved in fund raising, learning by doing. J

Japanese students may do the same, and a pattern of communication and cooperation can grow between schools over the years.

Possible key understandings that you may wish students in your class to explore are outlined below:
Cultural interaction allows for greater understanding.
Greater understanding may increase social, environmental and economic partnerships in society.
Student exchange schemes between Japanese and NZ schools have facilitated greater cultural understanding and interaction.

This chapter of the Kansai through Kiwi eyes DVD offers a number of illustrative examples of student exchange in the New Zealand and Kansai settings, including,
• Inquiry into the costs to be considered in budget planning for visiting Kansai
• Knowing about the small things that count about what to expect about Kansai culture
• Managing relationships in your Kansai school, homestay, sightseeing and events

Worksheets that can be used to explore the central concept (i.e. bringing us together through student exchanges) of this chapter.

Further lines of inquiry for the classroom
o Invite past exchange students in to the classroom to hear their experiences
o Explore what you can expect living in a Japanese household
o Plan a trip to the Kansai, taking into account a defined budget limit. What travel, accommodation, sight seeing would this allow?
o Set up a Wiki community between your class and another from a Japanese school, introducing each other to ‘must see sites’.

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