I - INTRODUCTION
International School-to-School Experience
(ISSE) was founded in 1971 by Dr. Doris T. Allen, who had started
children's International Summer Villages (CISV) twenty years before.
Both programs have the goal of contributing to international understanding
and world peace by offering children opportunities to actually meet
and make friendships with young people from other nations. In CSIV,
delegations of four 11-year-olds from each of 10-12 countries meet
at summer camps throughout the world; in ISSE, a team of six to eight
11-year-olds from one elementary school visits all the classes of
an elementary school in another country. In both programs the visits
are for about one month. During it's first thirteen years (1972 -
1985), ISSE arranged 95 partnerships involving 73 elementary schools
in 15 countries.
The number of partnerships each
year has increased. Through these partnerships it is estimated that
over 50,000 young school children have personally met and become acquainted
with children from other cultures and countries. For them, people
in these countries are now real people, friends, distant neighbors;
no longer just stereotypes one reads about. After such introductions,
people who have had ISSE experiences are likely to grow up thinking
about the world much more realistically, with more concern for fairness
and peaceful solutions to world problems. We think this is worth working
for.
A more detailed explanation of why ISSE was established and how it
operates is described in ISSE Guidelines, copies of which may be obtained
from the ISSE International Office. The manual you are now reading,
Do's, Don'ts, and Ideas That Really Work in the ISSE Partnerships,
is intended to provide advice for schools conducting ISSE Visits,
to help them make the experience more effective for more children.
ISSE is a grassroots, cooperative organization.
So far, it has managed to gradually grow without salaried administrators.
The fees paid by the participating schools, cover the cost of postage,
telephone and telegraph, printing and office supplies and, occasionally
in a very limited fashion, some travel costs. Although we realize
the need to raise funds to help the program expand more quickly to
more schools in various parts of the world, we expect to depend primarily
on individuals who believe strongly in the program to contribute their
time to keep it moving and growing. If you want to work with us, here
are some ways to do so: Help find more schools, in any country. This
can be done by correspondence and during personal travel, through
your own contacts or through schools which you have found out about.
You can obtain, from the ISSE Office, materials to send to those who
may be interested, or you can create materials by careful use of a
copying machine, or you can ask the ISSE Office to send materials
to your prospects. (For promptness,
do it yourself!)
Participate in Regional ISSE Conference. These
are held several times a year wherever we can arrange them in order
to bring together school representatives and others who want to (a)
find out about ISSE, (b) share ideas about the functioning of ISSE
(c) help ISSE expand. Volunteer to take on some project or responsibility.
This will help ISSE function more effectively. Volunteers needed for
Publicity, Expansion, Fund Raising, Publications, Research, Mailings,
Answering Inquiries, Representing ISSE at Educational Conventions,
etc... The various national Coordinators and the ISSE International
Office are anxious to work with you.
II - SCHOOL COORDINATOR
The most important person in a school's ISSE
program is the school's ISSE coordinator. The Coordinator may be the
principal, a teacher, or an interested parent. She/he must keep track
of all aspects of the program: getting a partner school through the
ISSE International Office, making arrangements with the partner school,
selection of children (and the Adult) who will Visit and Host, planning
with all faculty and host families, etc... The last page of this manual
contains a checklist of the main items which need to be done. It is
a good idea to have one or more ISSE Committees working on various
aspects of the planning. Teachers, parents, former Adult chaperones,
and former student participants might be on the committees.
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