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Peace Corps Volunteers today are serving in 73 countries—in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, Central and South America, and the Pacific Islands.
Of the 7,749 Volunteers, 4,000 of them are exchanging letters with U.S. classrooms. (Why not make it 4,001?) |
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As the pleasures of summer come to a close, great new possibilities await each of us: a new school year, and with it, new students, new friends, new contacts, new challenges. One of the key resources World Wise Schools offers your class is a chance to communicate all year with a Peace Corps Volunteer serving abroad. Many of you are already enrolled in the Correspondence Match program; you can attest to the power of this connection in conveying to U.S. kids the idea that cultures elsewhere are keenly different from our own. If you’re not already signed up (it’s free), why not enroll today? See www.peacecorps.gov/wws/correspond for more information, and click "Educators" for an enrollment form. Learn more from Frequently Asked Questions and tips about the program.
 Go to the Correspondence Match Page |
World Wise Reading
Starting the School Year—Somewhere Else |
Eastern Europe—Peace Corps Volunteer John Deever faces a new school year, new school, a new class, a new culture—recounted in this excerpt from his memoirs from his service as a teacher in Ukraine. Read "Mr. John and the Day of Knowledge" and see just how much like a student a new teacher can feel getting his feet wet in an unfamiliar culture.
West Africa—Roz Wollmering approached her Peace Corps position with a modicum of confidence and expectation. What she met was not what she expected. Find out how school started out for her in "Cross Cultural Dialogue," from her point of view and that of her students!
Asia—Talk about new beginnings! Steve Iams wrote not about the start of a Nepali school, but about a typical day. Hear the sounds, sense the aromas, hear the chatter: Read his "Waking Up, Stepping Out," an account of a Nepali morning.
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Multimedia Resources |
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 Surf's up on Philippine reefs—but are the fish populations up, too? Let former Peace Corps Volunteer Tommy Schultz tell you the remarkable story of what's happening to sea life in the Philippines. And take in his breathtaking images that illustrate his slide show.
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Want to see, hear, and learn more about Pacific reefs? Watch "The Coral Reef: A Hidden World," a captivating video produced as a Peace Corps project to help Fijians understand more about the reefs off their shores. |
For more lessons on coral reefs, visit
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's "Ocean Explorer." |
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"I encourage every single one of you from grade K to 12—please connect with the Peace Corps and a Volunteer who's in the field. The relationship can be as simple as a monthly e-mail.... It’s free, and you can do amazing things in your classroom to encourage global education."
—Audra Schmitt,
Global history and
geography mentor teacher,
Rochester, NY
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Check out Crossing Cultures With the
Peace Corps—a newly gathered collection of letters written by Peace Corps Volunteers capturing the adventures and challenges, joys and sorrows, trials and rewards of service in another land. The book is designed to help U.S. schoolchildren grasp what life in other cultures is like. Teaching suggestions, appropriate national standards, and vocabulary definitions accompany each story, along with short autobiographies from each author. Available online and in hard cover, through e-mail requests. |
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