The Groups:

TRW1

The Metropolitan Learning Center, Bloomfield, Connecticut – participating teacher Mrs. Wendy Nelson-Kauffman
http://www.crec.org/magnetschools/schools/met/index.php

Metropolitan Learning Center Class letter:
The Metropolitan Learning Center is a magnet school for global and international studies. It is a middle school and high school that has about 650 students, ages 11-18, from six different towns and a wide variety of racial, ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds. A lot of emphasis is placed on our global and international studies theme in school and in most of our classes. Our school also integrates a lot of technology into the classroom; each student receives a wireless laptop. We are trying to promote international understanding and exchange and create a multicultural atmosphere in our school. Our school organizes several international trips for our students throughout the year and every year we host exchange students from all over the world.
The Average Day

• The day isn’t that complicated for an MLC student.
• Most students wake up around 6 o’clock so that they will be ready to catch the bus.
• Some of the older kids drive cars mostly juniors and seniors (17 and 18 year olds), so they don’t have to wake up as early.
• We eat breakfast, things like eggs, toast, bacon, pancakes, cereal, orange juice and apple juice… etc.
• When we arrive to school we chill out in the hallways by the lockers and in the alcoves ( there are benches in a big open space)
• We stay here until about 7:55 because 3 minutes before 8 o’clock they play music to let us know it’s time to make our way to class.
• School starts at 8 o’clock, and we must be in our first class by then or else we will get swept ( taken away and put in ISS, the In-School Suspension room)
• We stay in our first period class until about 9:45, we have five minutes of passing time to our next period class.
• Then we stay in our second period class until about 11:25, we have a study hall which we call Focus Study. We have this time to do homework, talk with friends, and play games and any thing else we want to do.
• After Focus Study we go to lunch where we eat NASTY school lunch. Lunch lasts until 12:20.
• After lunch we attend our third period class until 1:50. Then we have a fourth class, except for seniors who have another study hall. Some seniors leave to either go to work or to go and play sports at their sending district. (Their home towns teams)
• Then at 3:00 schools over and students board the bus to go home.

Metropolitan Learning Center is not your typical American school. In America there are numerous types of schools. There are public schools, alternative schools, magnet schools, and tech schools. Many schools have their own theme. Most schools in the United States are public schooling. The Metropolitan Learning School is an Interdistrict Magnet School. The theme of our school is international/global studies. We study countries all over the world. We don’t learn about the world from just an ordinary history class. We tie all the courses the school offers into global studies. The biggest challenge at our magnet school is that we have six sending districts, and students of all nationalities. The big difference between the magnet school we have and most public schools is that we have longer days in school due to block scheduling. At public schools, the day consists of classes that range from six to eight classes a day each being about forty five minutes long. At magnet schools th!
e school day consists of three to four classes a day each ranging from seventy to eighty minutes long. Students who attend magnet schools wear uniform clothing where as in public schools students wear the latest trends or urban clothing. For example jeans, sneakers, t-shirts etc. We would say that public schools have somewhat of an advantage when it comes to expressing oneself through appearance and other situations. The advantage of our magnet schools compared to public schools and some other magnet schools is that we have relations with sister schools in other countries. This means that we have contact with schools across the globe. Also each student has the privilege to have his or her own laptop for the entire school year. In public schools students only have access to the library computers. Being at a Magnet school can be great if you enjoy focusing your day on a theme and if you like being in uniform.

-In a survey of our class we determined the following about ourselves:
-Our favorite color is green
-Our favorite movie is a tie between “Saw,” “Incredibles,” “Napolean Dynamite”, and “Dodgeball.”
-Our favorite music artist is Nas and Fray
-Our favorite actress is Angelina Jolie, and our favorite actor is Will Smith
-Our favorite sport is baseball and football
-We have traveled to the countries of Romania, Canada, Puerto Rico, Australia, China,
Japan, Barbados, France, England, Greece, and Jamaica

Name age Ethnic background
1. Beason Jones, Ashton: 17 West Indian and British
2. Brown, Kanesha: 17 African-American and Native American
3. Ciesla, Emily: 17 Polish-Irish American
4. Comer, Desirae: 17 African-American and German
5. Czarnecki, Anthony: 17 Polish and Italian American
6. Delaire, Andre: 17 West Indian and African-American
7. Ferguson, Nikida: 18 West Indian
8. Gordon, Jovanie; 17 West Indian and British
9. Greaves, Theresa: 17 West Indian
10. Hansley, Aquanna: 17 African-American
11. Hussey, Meghan: 16 Irish American
12. Jagaciak, Christian: 17 German exchange student
13. MacPherson, Cristopher: 18 Scottish, Italian, Swedish
14. Mack, Christinna: 16 African-American
15. Nelson, Amoi: 17 West-Indian
16. Relerford, Antoine: 17 African-American
17. Rucker, Kathryn; 17 Latino
18. Scott, Stephanie: 17 African-American and West Indian
19. Thomas, Adriana: 17 West Indian
20. Thompson, Christopher: 17 West Indian
21. Whitfield, Josiah: 17 African-American

Our school was created by state law in order to break down racial barriers in Hartford and the surrounding suburbs. Our class consists of very different towns that include the following:

Hartford: Hartford is our state capital. The largest number of our students come from this city. Hartford is the home of such internationally known treasures as the Wadsworth Atheneum (the nation’s first public museum), as well as attractions like the Mark Twain House, the Hartford Stage, the Bushnell Memorial, and the Artists Collective. But ever since the first Europeans in the 1600s used the Connecticut River to conduct business, Hartford has been abuzz with insurance and financial transactions. Companies such as Aetna, The Hartford Insurance Group, Phoenix, and St. Paul-Travelers have their roots here--- as does industrial giants like United Technologies.
But our biggest pride is our people--- a melting pot of the world that’s reflected in our restaurants, business districts, and entertainment. In a city of 121,500 residents there are 46 different languages spoken. The cities ethnic breakdown is 40% Latino, 36% African-American, 18% Caucausian, and 1% Asian.
Windsor Locks
Windsor Locks is a small town that is 9 square miles and has 91% Caucasian (white) in the town. 2.7% of the citizens are black. There is also 2.2% Hispanic population in the town. The biggest thing we have in town is an airport. There are many small businesses due to the airport. There is a little over 12,000 people living in town.
Windsor
28,000 people live in Windsor, the first English settlement in the State of Connecticut. Windsor is a suburban town located north to Hartford which is our state capital, and west of Bloomfield which is where our school is located. Teenagers think Windsor is a pretty boring town though. Other than being involved in activities such as sports or group organizations there is nothing to do in Windsor. There is no form of entertainment in Windsor, if we are looking for entertainment we would have to go to another town for it, like the mall or the movies. Windsor has a pretty diverse population. We have 63% White, 27% African-American, 5% Latino, 3% Asian, and 1% Native American.
Enfield
Enfield is a town that is very family based. With a population of about 50,000 the small town is filled with several elementary schools and two high schools. In Enfield holidays are celebrated with parades and a gathering on the Town Green. A typical day for someone who lives in Enfield is waking up around 6am to go to school, work, or daycare depending on your age. The day generally ends between 3 – 5pm where students go home and parents go home and spend time with their kids and chauffer them to their many after school activities. Enfield has a fairly low crime rate and “nothing big ever really happens.”

TRW3

College of Staten Island High School for International Studies (CSI), Staten Island New York – participating teacher mrs. Bridgette Francis
http://www.csihighschool.org/

We are a 9th grade World History Class at the College of Staten Island High School for International Studies. Most of us are 15 years old. Our teacher assigned us a few questions to help her compose this introduction letter. Based on our answers members of our class thought it was important for you to know the following things about us:

• Our school, the College of Staten Island High School for International Studies (CSIHS for short) is a small high school located in on a college campus in a suburb of New York.

• Technically, Staten Island is a one of New York City’s five boros, but it has a much smaller population than the other four sections of the city and most people live in houses here instead of apartments and drive to work as opposed to taking a subway line or bus.

• New Yorkers are nicer than most people expect us to be.

• As is the case everywhere in New York, our school population is very diverse. Over twenty different cultures are represented in our class alone and most of us are from a mixed heritage.

• The work at our school is unique from many other schools in the area because we focus on internationally themed curriculum. This year we are reading literature from all around the world in our Global Humanities and Literature course, analyzing and creating art from different cultural traditions in International Art, investigating global history and modern current events in our World History course and taking several languages including Chinese, Japanese and Spanish. In addition, we have an Advisory class that meets three times a week.

• At our school we all must complete over 50 hours of community service in order to graduate. Some projects we are currently working on in that class include fundraising for Child Soldiers in Uganda, knitting caps and toys for orphans of the War in Iraq, taking part in a Model united Nations Conference on the Genocide in Darfur (Sudan) reading international children’s stories to children in local primary schools and fundraising for the Lymphoma Society, an organization working to end rare forms of blood cancers.

• Most of us list music as our top interest. We enjoy hip-hop, R&B, Reggaeton, punk, hard core, emo and popular music. We are very interested in what kinds of music are popular in the Netherlands.

• Fashion and style are also on our list of things we love. Many of us collect and wear sneakers and handbags. Some of us love shopping and name brands and wonder what styles and labels are popular in your country.

• Sports are popular among us, but since we are a small school we don’t have many athletic teams. Many of us enjoy baseball, basketball, soccer (especially the girls) and football. Several of our classmates hope to play college-level and professional sports in the future.

• We are all HUGE fans of the Internet. My Space, You Tube and Instant Messaging take up a lot of our time at home. We wonder if this is something all of us have in common…
 

TRW4

Oostvaarders College, Almere – participating teacher mrs. Thalysia Knoppel
Oostvaarders College, Almere

 Number Name Age Background
1 Mitchel Austin 15 Surinam
2 Bianca Baak 15 Dutch
3 Lamyâa Chraibi 15 Moroccan
4 Paula van Dijk 14 Dutch
5 Anne van den Dool 14 Dutch
6 Donny Failé 14 Dutch/Spanish/French/Belgian
7 Tamara van Gelder 14 Dutch
8 Steyn Hooijer 14 Dutch
9 Manon Klok 14 Dutch
10 Shirley Klomp 14 Dutch
11 Joyce Libert 15 Dutch
12 Lilian Matton 14 Dutch
13 Marco Meijer 15 Dutch
14 Marianne NG 14 Chinese/ Malaysian
15 Gené Prince 14 Dutch/Antillean
16 Christa van de Put 14 Dutch/German/French/Spanish
17 Gert-Jan Schoenmakers 14 Dutch
18 Floor Schothorst 14 Dutch
19 Arne Vermeer 14 Dutch
20 Richelle Wolff 16 Antillean

Subjects that we have:
Dutch
English
German
French
Math
Physics
History
Geography
Physical Education
Music
Art
Economy
Mentor Hour, a special hour where we spend time with our mentor and talk about problems and school stuff.

In the Netherlands you start with primary school when you’re 4 years old. You end it when you’re 12. After that you go to secondary school, there are 3 different levels there; vmbo, havo and vwo. Vmbo is the easiest level it takes 4 years to end it. Havo is a higher level that takes 5 years. The highest level is vwo, it takes 6 years. That’s the level we do. We’re in the 3rd year now. We have about 32 hours of school in a week, we start at 8:30 am and our longest day ends at 4:00 pm. We are obliged to go to school until we’re at least 16.
After secondary school you can choose to continue study at a university or to do a pre university education.
When you’re finished with all that you’re ready to go to work!

We attend a school named OVC know as Het Oostvaarders College.
In the First year of school you can choose whether you’ll follow a regular class, a sport class, an art class or a science class. The sport, science and art classes have different subjects than other classes, sport class for example, will have more sport and participates in more sport activities than the art, science or regular class. The art class, has a subject named Art, that includes drawing, painting etc. The science class has more subjects
that have to do with technology and science.

Sometimes there are activities on the school like Night of the Stars, a talent show, where even students can participate.
There are also specials school dances when it’s Christmas for example, everyone that attends the OVC are invited to these kind of dances. Unfortunately for us we have to pay for these dances.

Recently the school produces musicals. The first musical coming up is ‘de glimlach van medusa’. Which means ‘smile of Medusa’. The story is a modified version of a Greek myth called the Perseus-myth. It has been modified by a teacher on this school. The premier is on the 28th March in school. The musical was completely produced by people on school, teachers and students.

Almere is a new town in central Holland, in South-Flevoland, which is a polder reclaimed from the »Zuiderzee«.

When the soil of Almere was made inhabitable, Almere grew incredibly fast.
Especially inhabitants of Amsterdam came (and still come) to live in Almere.
The opening of Almere took place on the November 30th 1976, and that’s where the history of the city Almere really begins.
Despite the substantial increase figures the festive opening was modest; 24 houses, 1 café-restaurant, 1 prep school, a few shops, 1 soccer field and a doctor..
The first inhabitants of Almere ended up in a jungle of piles and concrete skeletons.
The wet and cold weather of November didn’t make the new city attractive to live
‘’First we ram piles in the ground and then we’ll talk.’’

Province: Flevoland
Surface: - land= 130,47 km²
-water = 118,3 km²
Population: 181.092 (first of January 2007)
Population density: 1388 inhabitants per km²

TRW5

Libanon Lyceum, Rotterdam - participating teacher Mr. Hans vam Buuren

http://pr.llr.nl/

We are HVW2G from the Libanon Lyceum in Rotterdam, Holland. In our group are
27 pupils from different cultures: Dutch, Moroccan, Turkish, Polish and
Pakistan. Our ages are 13 and 14.

We go to school 5 days a week and have a lot of different subjects to do:

Dutch, English, French, German, mathematics, physics, chemistry, geography,
history, biology, philosophy, music, arts and physical education.

We live in Rotterdam, one of the biggest cities in Holland and one of the
biggest ports in the world. During the Second World War a big part of the
city was destroyed by the Germans, so the centre had to be rebuilt. They are
still busy doing this and now the city is quite famous for its new
architecture. Our school is in an old part of Rotterdam: Kralingen.

About half the population of Rotterdam is originally not Dutch. As we
already said there are: Moroccan, Turkish, Polish and Pakistan people, but
there are also people from: Surinam, the Dutch Antilles, Cope Verdia,
Russia, Bulgaria, Greece and Spain. Some people like those foreign people
and others don't, but fortunately this hasn't caused any problems at all and
we hope that it won't happen in the future.

TRW6

Het College Vos TRW6 Het College Vos, Vlaardingen – participating teacher Mr. Tanne Hoff

The group consists of

Renee Datema (girl)
Antonie Hogewoning (boy)
Vincent Kok (boy)
Hidde van der Kooij (boy)
Troy Meulenbeek (boy)
Bas Moerkerken (boy)
Suze Moret (girl)
Martin Nijgh (boy)
Lisa Ponte (girl)
Wouter Rosdorf (boy)
Said Sarwari (boy)
Lavi Shahi (girl)
Stefan Verboon (boy)
Ronja Visser (girl)

All these students have the Dutch nationality, but some have ancestors
abroad:
Troy Indonesian, Said Afghan, Lavi Indian. Ages vary from 13-14 years.