[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 205 (Wednesday, December 20, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S18997-S18998]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




THE YORKTOWN AND MONROE COUNTY HIGH SCHOOLS CULTURAL EXCHANGE PROGRAM: 
UNDERSTANDING AND APPRECIATING CULTURAL DIVERSITY BY BRIDGING THE MILES

  Mr. HEFLIN. Madam President, over 3 years ago, in September 1992, 
teacher Susan Ross of Yorktown High School in Yorktown Heights, NY, 
contacted my office to inform me of a wonderful new project which she 
had recently developed for her ninth grade students. She had just 
organized a cultural exchange program between her students and the 
students of Monroe County High School in Monroeville, AL. As part of 
the program, she wanted to get my recollections of what is was like 
growing up in Alabama and in the South.
  Yorktown Heights is located about a half-hour's drive from New York 
City in a rural area surrounded by farming towns. Monroeville is the 
hometown of writer Harper Lee and was the model for the fictional town 
of Macomb in her Pulitzer Prize winning novel ``To Kill a 
Mockingbird.'' The courthouse in Monroeville actually served as part of 
the set for the Academy Award-winning film version.
  This classic novel, which Ms. Ross has taught her classes off and on 
for 26 years, proved to be the catalyst for her program. One year, 
while reviewing the books that she would use in her class for the 
upcoming school term, she realized, in her words: ``I was teaching a 
book about a culture I knew nothing about, and I was possibly doing a 
disservice to it. To understand the issue from the character's point of 
view, you need to go to the source, so I did.''
  Going to the source meant first approaching her counterparts in 
Monroeville. First, she contacted Monroe County High School Principal 
Pat 

[[Page S18998]]
Patterson, who put her in touch with Paralee Broughton, a 9th and 10th 
grade teacher at the high school. Ms. Broughton told Susan that since 
``To Kill a Mockingbird'' would serve as the central link between the 
two schools, she should get in touch with Mrs. Sarah Dyess, whose 
eighth-grade students were reading the book.
  With the help of Ms. Broughton, Mrs. Dyess, and other teachers, 
educators, and administrators in Monroeville, Ms. Ross established a 
truly unique and stimulating cultural exchange program which she hoped 
would teach respect for each other's cultural differences and 
individuality and give students an understanding of basic universal 
human rights that are vital to democratic society. The project came to 
be known as Understanding and Appreciating Cultural Diversity, and was 
to help create cultural awareness and understanding through letters, 
tapes, pictures, and interviews. As part of the program, Ms. Ross' 
students would create all these materials and exchange them with 
students from the other school. The program is special because it was 
the first time that a project of this nature and scope had been done 
between any schools from the North and South.
  Ms. Ross had high hopes for her program, the key to which was 
overcoming stereotypes. It was not to be simply a pen-pal 
correspondence exercise. Instead, each class was to communicate with 
the other class as a group, each serving as a microcosm of its 
community. To get the exchange underway, the students at Yorktown 
compiled a written and visual profile of their community, including its 
history and information gathered through interviews with local 
officials. They provided an analysis of the town's transportation, 
entertainment, and shopping facilities.
  The Alabama students, under the guidance of their teacher Mrs. Dyess, 
compiled a videotape of their community which they sent to their 
friends in New York. Monroeville sent Yorktown an autographed copy of 
``To Kill a Mockingbird,'' while Yorktown in turn sent Monroeville 
books set in the Hudson Valley, including Washington Irving's ``The 
Legend of Sleepy Hollow.''
  Their teacher watched as the students' misconceptions began to 
crumble. She saw lackadaisical youngsters grow interested in reading 
when they began believing that the South was a real and 
multidimensional place. They learned that there are many different 
Souths, just as there are Norths, and both groups learned that it is 
dangerous to generalize about any region.
  While learning of each others' differences, the exchange also made 
obvious the similarities between Yorktown Heights and Monroeville. Both 
are a mix of suburban and small town. Both have many working farms in 
the community. The two schools are about the same size, 900 or so 
students. In both places, the school is a vital link in the community 
and there are strong family values present.
  The program has had its lighthearted movements along the way. 
Yorktown students were surprised to discover upon receiving a copy of 
Monroe County's yearbook that the students did not wear overalls. On 
the other side of the connection, one Yorktown student, Guy Gentile, 
was surprised to be asked by one of his Monroeville counterparts ``If I 
walk out the street--in Yorktown--will I be shot?''
  Soon, other schools learned of Ms. Ross' innovative program and 
expressed an interest in becoming involved. Her students eventually 
began an exchange with a school in Louisiana to gain a better 
understanding and awareness of the influence of French culture on the 
United States. On November 14 of this year, Ms. Ross called to let me 
know that two of her current students were visiting Monroeville as part 
of the Bridging the Miles program, as it is now called.
  Overall, the program has served as a bridge for students who would 
otherwise depend on often inaccurate and shallow media stereotypes. Ms. 
Ross said that a typical Yorktown student's opinions of Southerners 
were formed by movies such as ``My Cousin Vinny'' and television shows 
like ``The Beverly Hillbillies.'' The students were surprised to learn 
of the extent to which the racial climate in the South has changed 
since the 1930's, when ``To Kill a Mockingbird'' was set. They had not 
expected students who were so open about race and who participated in 
school activities together regardless of race.
  In Monroeville, the students realized we have a tendency to cluster 
everyone in one stereotypical unit and mark them as being nondescript 
people. The sharing of poetry and letters has given the students a 
whole new perspective on the relationship between North and South.
  The program begun by Ms. Ross has gained a great amount of attention 
all over the country, having been spotlighted by The New York Times, 
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the CBS television network. So far, 
most of its funding has come directly from Ms. Ross; this is how 
strongly she believes in what she is doing. Hopefully, the program will 
continue to expand and promote further understanding among the many 
diverse areas of the United States.
  Just as programs such as the one between Yorktown and Monroeville 
demonstrate that it is wrong to generalize and stereotype about regions 
of the country, the energy, drive, and example of Susan Ross prove that 
it is also harmful to generalize about the health of our public schools 
and the commitment of public school teachers. I congratulate her for 
her broad-mindedness and innovativeness in educating young people.
  It is my hope that others interested in ways of improving American 
education will see the great benefits that can be realized through 
projects such as this. One thing that makes us unique as Americans is 
our diverse cultural heritages that bind us together even as we 
maintain our regionally distinct traditions and customs. We tend to 
think of exchange programs only in terms of those between citizens of 
different nations, and these are indeed important and valuable tools 
for learning about our world. But as Ms. Ross and students of Yorktown 
High School and their counterparts at Monroe County High School have 
demonstrated, we have so much to draw from different regions within the 
United States itself that it is not necessary to go out of our own 
country to experience a cultural exchange. I commend her and wish her 
every continued success for her programs.

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