Through a sister school
relationship that began in 1997 with Frederico
Jorge Logemann School in Horizontina and SETREM
School in Tres De Maio, both R.S. Brazil, groups
of exchange students have arrived here with the
goal of transferring cultures through
journalism.
The program was originally proposed by
journalism teacher Deb Buttleman Malcolm. It
began with the help of business partner John
Deere and resulting in Brazil receiving the 44th
National Charter of International Quill & Scroll
and has since received international recognition
including cites in Dow Jones publications.
Former Central principal Henry Caudle and
Logemann principal Sedelmo Desbessel, agreed
that each quarter an individual student from
both schools could spend three to six months
studying as a journalism correspondent if an
appropriate host match can be found. There is
also a plan in place for up to twenty to travel
for three weeks every three years to produce a
bilingual publication. Seventy five percent of
those traveling must be students and adults must
be directly related to the journalistic purpose
to transmit culture. One administrator may be
part of the group, but must be able to
communicate in English/Portuguese.
"This is not a sightseeing vacation," Buttleman
Malcolm stressed. "It is a resume builder for
the serious student. The Logemann school offers
a mechanical engineering program and SETREM
offers an agricultural component, so students
who are strong in math or science or those who
hope to have a career in journalism or
linguistics are first in line for long term
stays in Brazil," she added.
Brazilian students who go to Central are
required to take journalistic writing (this
counts as a required sophomore writing class or
an elective in non-fiction writing). Computer
skills, photography, and Spanish, German, or
French is also highly recommended. Students from
Brazil cannot come to the U.S. unless they have
reached intermediate levels of English
proficiency. "The program is more cost effective
than other international travel, because there
are no middlemen. The project also helps in
obtaining the Brazilian/US visas needed in
addition to passports," Buttleman Malcolm said.
According to Buttleman Malcolm, the original
goal of the exchange was to help break
stereotypes produced in professional media
related to sensationalistic coverage and
introduce the skills of scholastic journalism as
a way to improve English as a second language
(ESL) within secondary curriculum in Brazil.
Since that time, she has been collecting data
paralleling the journalism curriculum in the
United States to radical communicative language
training approach used to teach English in other
progressive countries, hoping to establish
scholastic journalism as a cost effective way to
increase academic achievement within the ESL
households.
Over the years Buttleman Malcolm's students have
developed numerous spin-off projects including
an elementary and middle school journalism
academy and a multi-lingual publishing component
within BlackhawK publications. Students along
with Buttleman Malcolm have presented workshops
at the state and national level and received
numerous national awards and scholarships. |
