Juniors taking International Baccalaureate Personal and Professional Skills will be exchanging videos with students in the Philippines. Students will have the chance to experience a day in a different culture without traveling the distance.

“This is on a whole [other] level of really learning about another culture,” Personal and Professional Skills teacher Sandy Young said. In the past years, the course required students to go over to a friend’s house or church to experience a different culture.

With the cultural exchange video project, students will get an idea of a typical day as a Filipino student, giving them a more diverse experience than going out into the community they live in.

The project was influenced by the experience of social studies teacher, Adam Schwartz, who did a ten-week program called, Teachers for Global Classrooms. He went to a town in the Philippines called Iloilo, where he taught students. “It was the greatest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Schwartz said.

Students in the Philippines were formal and very polite. While Schwartz was visiting, he would always be addressed as ‘Sir.’ The people of Iloilo are known as the “friendliest people in the Philippines,” Schwartz added. “They’re [also] known as being very hospitable.”

“I’m so excited for the video exchange,” junior Taylor Johnson said. A link will be shared with the teacher in the Philippines, allowing the videos to be uploaded to YouTube for the foreign students to see. Students in the Philippines have mandated testing, so a video response from them should be sent back in a couple weeks.

Students will be able to learn and recognize the differences and similarities between the culture in the Philippines and the culture here, in the states. Students and teachers hope that the video exchange will be an ongoing exchange throughout the school year.

The typical video students would send to the Philippines would be about morning routines, after-school routines, and how their culture at school differs from their culture at home. “I’m excited to see their reactions,” junior Sebastian Batanero said. “I’m looking forward to seeing the differences and similarities between our lives.”