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Learning through service at Culbreth

Posted on April 15, 2010 by Staff

BY KATE GRIESMANN
Staff Writer

A penny may not be worth much these days; but in impoverished nations, it is enough to buy a pencil and open the door to an education. That’s the basic idea behind Pennies for Peace, one of two service-learning projects that seventh-graders at Culbreth Middle School are participating in as part of their social studies and language-arts work.

Pennies for Peace, which benefits the Central Asia Institute, shows students that they can make a global impact even though they may be halfway around the world. CAI, founded by Greg Mortensen, who co-wrote Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace … One School at a Time, is dedicated to providing community-based education and literacy programs in remote areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The organization has built nearly 100 schools and serves 28,000 students – half of whom are girls that may never have had access to an education otherwise.

During the course of the project, Culbreth students read Mortensen’s book and collected pennies – no dimes, quarters or nickels – to send to CAI. So far, the seventh-graders have collected over 70,000 pennies to improve the lives of children they will likely never meet.

The students are also involved in an international partnership with Saint Vincent Patolli School in Rwanda. The Patolli School operates under the motto “English for all,” and Culbreth is helping it achieve that goal through a pen pal project. As part of the project, Culbreth students learned about the education system in Rwanda and the Patolli School specifically. Then the letters began traveling back and forth between the two schools, giving students an opportunity to learn about each other’s cultures and countries while practicing writing skills. Culbreth Middle School is supporting the cost of sending the letters to and from Rwanda.

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