TOWNSHEND — Leland & Gray Union Middle and High School had a chance last week to experience something that many high schools around the country can only dream of.
As part of an exchange program by the U.S. State Department, 25 teachers from India and Pakistan came to the school on June 5 to spend the day as part of a larger initiative.
Sponsored by SIT/World Learning, these teachers stopped by Leland & Gray as the first stop in a longer journey to observe different American high schools over the next weeks.
The teachers had spent the majority of the day visiting classrooms in different disciplines - Chinese, English, and history among them. When school let out they attended a faculty meeting, and then observed a variety of after-school organizations.
Organizations such as CLEA (Civic Leadership Education and Action), a student-led activist group, and LGTV, a video program that provides the high school with its own daily news program, were some of the extracurricular groups that the teachers visited after breaking into smaller groups.
After, the teachers were brought to Dutton Gymnasium next door to the high school for a community reception. Perhaps the greatest surprise was the visit of state lawmakers representing towns in the LGUHS district - Reps. Richard Marek, Carolyn Partridge, and John Moran, and Sen. Peter Galbraith.
At the reception, Leland & Gray principal Dr. Dorinne Dorfman noted that this program is much different than the one they had last year. Previously, it was a chance for students to spend three weeks in India and Pakistan. This year, it changed to bring teachers from those countries to the United States, both as a form of reconciliation between the two cultures and to give the teachers a chance to see how their counterparts work - and students learn - in different parts of the world.
In the years following World War II, India and Pakistan have had a strained relationship marked by four wars.
Moran, who was previously involved in the school's former program of bringing students from Mongolia to visit, stated that “Leland & Gray have led the way with exchange programs,” and sees their success in both this and other programs as examples of why small schools are doing so well.
There was also a reception with various school officials, an open-microphone event with Marek, Partridge, and Galbraith speaking.
Most heartening was when the teachers themselves came up to the microphone and thanked the school for this chance to spend the day with them.
One of the teachers from India presented Dr. Dorfman and Victoria Chertok, the school's interim coordinator of after-school programs, with a gift as thanks for this chance to visit.
After the speeches, folks socialized. Many of the visiting teachers swarmed around Galbraith - whose father, the renowned economist and public intellectual John Kenneth Galbraith, served as U.S. ambassador to India in the 1960s.
One of the Indian teachers, Jasleen Kour, explained that the most striking difference between American and Indian education is the informal setup here, the way that teachers and students conduct their relationship with each other and how open it is, such as the sudents' being able to leave the classroom whenever they want.
Another teacher, during the open-mic reception, told how she posted to Facebook saying how excited she was in being able to sit in an English class, with her Pakistani counterparts, learning Chinese.
Following the reception, after a number of the teachers and visitors spoke, the Indian teachers gathered to sing, in Hindi, “We Shall Overcome,” which they said they offered in the spirit of peace and unity.