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Connecting Across Continents: Seventh-Grade Humanities Kicks Off Ghana Cultural Partnership

A collage of diverse school activities features students and teachers in the foreground against backgrounds of libraries, classrooms, and performance stages.
Connecting Across Continents: Seventh-Grade Humanities Kicks Off Ghana Cultural Partnership

As part of their humanities curriculum, seventh-grade students at The Howard School are moving beyond textbooks and gaining real-world global perspectives through an immersive, yearlong cultural exchange with a community in Ghana.

A Direct Connection to West Africa

A young boy looks down at a table of African cultural artifacts in a classroom with other students and desks in the background.

This semester, seventh-grade humanities classes are focusing on the geography and cultures of Africa. To launch the project, The Howard School hosted Peace Corps Volunteer LaBrittany Koger, who is currently stationed in Ghana. She spoke to students about Ghanaian culture, daily life, and the community projects she manages in the field.

In collaboration with Speech-Language Pathologist Joseph Walsh, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Tunisia from 1986 to 1988, students will participate in live video conferences throughout the year to connect directly with Koger and local Ghanaian youth, alongside potential pen-pal partnerships. The inspiration behind the project stems from a desire to offer students a richer, more nuanced perspective of the African continent.

"The impetus to begin this was the need for students to have a more direct experience leading to a more detailed narrative about Africa, moving past the monolithic ways it is often portrayed in mainstream media regarding war and famine," said Walsh. "While these challenges exist, it is only part of the story of a complex, varied, vibrant and innovative continent."

 

Honoring Humanity Through Communication

A woman in a maroon t-shirt and blue jeans stands holding a tablet in front of a world map and a digital screen.

The project exemplifies one of The Howard School’s core values, "Honoring Our Humanity." As part of the school's commitment to experiential learning, students will learn to seek common ground, practice cross-cultural respect, and build meaningful relationships across different backgrounds.

Through these exchanges, students will build lifelong communication skills, including active listening, formulating thoughtful questions, and navigating cross-cultural dialogue, to prepare them to engage thoughtfully with the world around them.

Students will participate in these international exchanges through May 2027.