Thursday, April 13, 2000

Local students get eye-opening taste of Japan

George Gongora/Caller-Times

Sue Dulaney, a Sister City exchange program board member, dishes up rice for Connie Putnam’s class at Smith Elementary.

Six-year-old Lauren Krupa loves to munch on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. This week, Lauren and her 21 classmates at Smith Elementary were surprised to learn that their counterparts in Japan fill up on entirely different foods during the course of a school day.
   No burritos, pizza slices or hamburgers. Instead, a typical lunch consists of white rice and slices of fruits and vegetables.
   Almost immediately, Lauren's classmates inundated their teacher, Connie Putnam, with questions about the absence of meat and other side dishes.
   "My kids looked at it and said they didn't think this would be enough for them," Putnam said. "The first thing they wanted to know was where the dessert was."
   After the initial shock, Lauren and her classmates used chopsticks to dig into bowls of steamed white rice, courtesy of Sue Dulaney, a Sister City exchange program board member. Dulaney and Jennifer Abraria, volunteer coordinator at Corpus Christi Medical Center, recently returned from Yokosuka, Japan, where they learned about volunteerism in that country.
   Shedding preconceived notions
   Dulaney, a long-time volunteer at Smith, shared her travel adventures with Putnam's students, who are on the brink of a class project that will let them travel the world without leaving the classroom. In a few weeks, Putnam's class will begin e-mailing students in Japan. In an era of globalization, Putnam said, awareness of cultural diversity is at a premium.
   "Because of technology, the world kids are growing up in today is a different world than the one I grew up in," Putnam said. "Today's kids are living in a world that is getting smaller when you can communicate with just about anybody instantly. They need to know how to interact and the best time to start learning how is when they don't have preconceived notions about others."
   Diversity becomes more real
   During the class exercise, Dulaney captivated her audience with tales of her adventures. While in that country, she told them, she adhered to the Japanese custom of kneeling on cushions when eating and sleeping on a floor mat at night. Dulaney also delivered a scrapbook of artwork and photographs that Putnam's students created for children in Yokosuka. In return, Dulaney brought back paper-craft creations, including an origami Pokémon Pikachu, which was a hit with Putnam's students.
   "The kids are real excited about the e-mails," Putnam said. "It makes awareness of cultural diversity more real than just seeing pictures of children from around the world on the bulletin board or reading about it from a book. If they can relate to another child, it becomes more real to them."
  
  
 

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