Send High Poverty Students On Virtual Trips To France! Pt.I

The appreciation of many cultures and languages fosters global compassion and understanding. I teach high school French language and culture to middle school students. I teach a Mid Years International Baccalaureate curriculum to 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students at a magnet school on the "south side." The students I teach come from diverse social and economic backgrounds. Half of our student population is high risk and high poverty.

Although half of our students receive free and reduced lunch because they come from such low-income families I want to give them the cultural opportunities that they deserve. We have a large Haitian population in our state and many of our students' family members are of Haitian descent. The Creole language as well as French are spoken by Haitians, and we study the cultures of the Caribbean countries in our French classes. I would like to share traditional French music with the students as well as show them authentic images from different French speaking nations. I want our Haitian students to feel that their culture is recognized in our public school system. I currently have a DVD player piggybacked through an ancient VCR connected to a very old TV in my classroom. This is the only means I have to share media with my students. My school's media specialist made me very aware of how "lucky" I am to have this setup. She also told me that this TV combination may die at any moment and that I should buy my own setup because our school has no money to buy new TVs/technology. I am also using the same setup to play CDs.

A LCD projector in our classroom would successfully allow me to share technology as well as media with these underprivileged children. 100 percent of students would be exposed to actual French accents and French music. 100 percent of students would also be exposed to images of francophone culture. A LCD projector would also enable me to teach the class using our on-line textbook and all the amazing ancillary CDs and DVDs that come with our French curriculum. All students would benefit because I would be able to more effectively target each individual's learning style. With greater student interest/participation in the lessons I know that discipline would also become more manageable during class time, and therefore learning would inevitably increase.

Your assistance will give my students the opportunity to become very passionate about another language and culture, as well as take pride in their own. Having compassion and understanding for the way other people live is the key to world peace and a harmonious global community. Allowing children the opportunity to broaden their perspectives in our modern world is essential to their survival.