Making A Difference in People’s Lives (around the world) through Publishing

Teachers are unaware of just how many publishing opportunities exist for our young people to share their voices and make a difference. Before discussing outside publishing projects, students’ voices can be heard loud and clear starting with classroom publications. The Tropical Tribune (described in Chapter 3 of Publishing with Students) illustrates how students at their own school can publish to make a change. In this instance, student editors want to inform readers and move them to act so that others will become involved in environmental issues like saving the rain forests.

The interest in and participation by students in online international publication projects is phenomenal. The numbers speak for themselves. For example, the Global SchoolNet Foundation sponsored a contest inviting students to “share and unite” with local communities to identify specific information (e.g., local leaders, historical landmarks, local specialties, and so on) and publish it through the Internet. Since 1995, over a half million students from fifteen hundred schools have participated in the International Schools CyberFair (Curtis and Armstrong 2002).

In Chapter 5 of Publishing with Students and in Brave New Schools: Challenging Cultural Illiteracy through Global Learning Networks, teachers and students can learn how they can participate in ongoing international publication projects to make a difference in people’s lives. They will be amazed at what our young people around the world are accomplishing and will want to join them. There are numerous global telecommunications networks (e.g., Global Kids, The Global Schoolhouse, Intercultural E-mail Classroom Connections, and so on), where students can participate in global dialogues, project exchanges, and e-mail classroom pen pal exchanges.

However, go to iEARN’s (International Education and Resource Network) website at to see what important, meaningful work our young people and their teachers around the world are accomplishing. iEARN is a non-profit organization, which currently works with approximately 350,000 students at 4,000 schools in more than 90 countries.

It’s purpose is to empower young people to work together online to engage actively in meaningful educational projects with peers in their countries and around the world. Edwin H. Gragert (2002) explains how this objective is being met:

Students in Belarus post their folk tales on the Internet and in turn are treated to student interpretations of local folk tales from their own countries, providing a unique window into new cultures, customs, traditions, and beliefs. Middle-school-age in Australia research existing conditions about their wetlands, post them on the Internet as part of iEARN’s Wetlands Project, and then reap the benefits of similar research done by students inUganda, the United States, and Romania.

There are over 100 projects in iEARN that enable students to develop:

•  research and critical skills
• experience with new technologies
• cultural awareness and understanding
• the habit of getting involved in community issues

Every iEARN project answers the question, “How will this project affect the quality of life on the planet?” By participating in their projects, students and teachers become global citizens who make a difference by collaborating with their peers around the world.

Howard Gardner, Professor in Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and pioneer of the theory of multiple intelligences, talks in an interview about the importance of engaging students actively in what they are studying—just like iEARN students do.

We have schools because we hope that some day when
children have left schools that they will still be able to use
what it is that they’ve learned. And there is now a massive
amount of evidence from all realms of science that unless
individuals take a very active role in what it is that they’re
studying, unless they learn to ask questions, to do things
hands on, to essentially recreate things in their own mind
and transform them as is needed, the ideas just disappear.

The iEARN projects, to say the least, are astounding and are leading us in the direction where we want to take our children and have them lead us. As you will see, students want to make a difference and have a positive say in their lives as is illustrated by their involvement in such projects like those of iEARN. In the various iEARN projects, students’ work is: displayed on websites, included in published anthologies and magazines, part of e-mail exchanges, and included in research documents. In these ways, students have their voices heard to effect positive change in people’s lives.

The following is a sampling of the range (across age levels and disciplines) and power of projects that iEARN offered to students and teachers.

iearn Social Studies Projects

• Child Labour Project — Youth collaboration in research and awareness-raising on the issues of child labor and exploitation.

• Contemporary Global Newsmagazine (TC) — An international magazine that enables students to interact on contemporary global topics.

• Faces of War — Students share and explore their knowledge of peoples lives in regions of conflicts.

• Fight Against Cancer — This project works to involve parents, medical staff, representatives of local authorities, business and society in seeking better treatment and quality of life for children with cancer.

• The Holocaust/Genocide Project — The HGP is a global, theme-based Internet project on this topic, with participants from more than 16 countries.

• Inside View: An Urban Student Magazine — Magazine based on the issues that teenagers go through living in an urban society.

•  Kindred: A Book About Families — Participants submit stories and pictures from the oral histories of their families during the twentieth century.

• My Safe School — A place for all pupils, students, teachers and parents to share thoughts, expressions and contributions about safety in school.

• My Life as a Street Child — The project seeks to highlight the causes of street children by having them tell their stories and by so doing, finding ways to remedying the situation.

iearn Science/Environment/Math/Technology Projects

• Labs Alive — Students share in scientific research and classroom practice with a focus on environmental issues.

• Planetary Notions — A publication in which students from around the world express their feelings on environmental issues.

• Youth Can (Youth Communicating and Networking) — Students write about and interact on environmental issues in their communities.

iearn Creative/Language Arts Projects

• Beauty of the Beasts — A traveling international wildlife art and poetry exhibit.

• Colouring Our Culture — A focus on multiculturalism and refugees through the sharing of art, writing and first-hand experiences.

• Laws of Life Essay Project — Students write about their personal values in life.

• Lewin — A global anthology of student writing

• A Vision — An international literary magazine that teaches tolerance and mutual understanding.

All iEARN projects result in a final product, most of which take published forms: magazines, anthologies, letter-writing campaigns, writing displayed on websites, reports to governmental officials, exhibits, and so on. iEARN teachers make every effort to publish (in hard copy form or display on websites) all participating students. Writing authority Don Graves (1983) would commend them for this because he believes, “Publication is important for all children. It is not the privilege of the classroom elite, the future literary scholars. Rather, it is an important mode of literary enfranchisement for each child in the classroom.”

All students should have such opportunities to work with their global peers and publish their work on the Internet or in a traditional format. It is the teachers’ obligation (Atwell, 1998; Weber, 2002) to seek out and encourage their students to participate in publishing projects. The Internet offers countless opportunities for students and teachers alike. Not only the participants who will benefit but the public, too.

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