Five years after NAIS launched Challenge 20/20 with J.F. Rischard, author of High Noon: 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them, the results of many of the partnerships have been encouraging, even astonishing. Students, matched up by grade level and interest, have researched their chosen problem and devised solutions ranging from mosquito netting designed for small children in Africa, to hand sanitizers in a Central American hospital, to public service announcements on local TV stations in the U.S. and Mexico urging water conservation, to the production and sale of products to raise funds for disaster relief in South Asia.
In 2011, NAIS has enhanced the program by launching the Challenge 20/20 Portal, a collaborative learning community that provides students with access to global opportunities, cross-cultural connections, and meaningful participation in decision-making and global problem-solving. Students post their research, solutions to the global problems, and share videos, photographs, and other material through the portal.
How did all this start? In 2003, J.F. Rischard’s call to action in the seminal book, High Noon: 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them, came just as NAIS began to advocate that member schools become more global in their outlook. Through that filter, the new networks that Rischard insisted were necessary for real change generated the Challenge 20/20 program — a free, Internet-based series of school partnerships. Challenge 20/20 pairs public and private U.S. schools and overseas schools who work together on a given topic within the global problems Rischard defined. “Changing the world, two schools at a time” became the mantra.
“As a transnational school-to-school partnership program, Challenge 20/20 is designed to facilitate cooperation and intercultural understanding among students and teachers and communities,” says Patrick Bassett, president of NAIS. “One of the program’s goals is to develop global citizens who are adept problem-solvers and who are comfortable working collaboratively across cultures.”
The Challenge 20/20 participants have been encouraged to go beyond their comfort zones to educate themselves on pressing issues in today’s society and to stretch their imaginations to identify practical solutions to be implemented locally, within their own schools and communities.
Students have relished the chance to take Rischard’s advice and get involved right away. For Bess Flashner, a student from Mount Saint Joseph Academy (Pennsylvania), “I now perceive the world as a smaller place, for we are connected in our common humanity. The ongoing dialogue we have created (with the partner school in India) not only enables us to work towards solving a global problem together, but it also creates the medium for permanent change.”
Students at one Challenge 20/20 school in Kenya demonstrated their commitment by traveling 30 miles to the nearest Internet café for their weekly online sessions with their partner school in Colorado.
In all, 1,560 U.S. schools/classes and 947 non-U.S. institutions have worked in approximately 834 partnerships. Schools in more than 100 countries and 50 U.S. states have participated in the program. There are as many as 180 partnerships of two-to-four schools each in any given year and the participants represent NAIS-member schools, international schools, and public schools both in the U.S. and overseas.
For Gaby Jackson, a student from Kingsmead College in Johannesburg, South Africa, “It is easy to say something and think it will work, but, in reality, it is a difficult task to make a plan and put it into action. Through Challenge 20/20, I have learned a lot about the world.”
Students participate online, conducting their programs primarily in English, using tools like blogs, wikis, websites, email, video-conferencing, teleconferencing, and phone calls. For many participants, the partnerships prosper and continue well after the end of the Challenge 20/20 program. In many cases, schools have formed sister school partnerships, student and teacher exchanges, and the students and teachers from the partnered schools have become friends and collaborators for many years thereafter. Through participating in the Challenge 20/20 program on these many levels, students acquire important skills for global citizenship.
The application deadline for the 2011–12 Challenge 20/20 program is August 15, 2011. For more information, visit: www.nais.org/go/challenge2020.
