Courtesy photo

Bethany Baca, junior at Seton Catholic Preparatory High School, performed with the Phoenix Children's Chorus in China this summer.

Catholic school students and staff often "think globally" while living locally.
Several of them jumped at the chance to "live globally" for a week or more this summer. Their experiences abroad are translating to a new outlook for the academic year ahead of them.

Nick Hart, an English teacher at St. Mary's High School, spent an intense three weeks in July with teachers nationwide through the Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Teachers' Program. Hart was among 27 high school teachers who traveled to Poland, Israel, Germany and Washington, DC.

Related: Students return to classroom
for growth in wisdom, faith

They walked through several concentration camps, visited memorials and attended workshops at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

"Our day spent at Auschwitz-Birkenau will remain with me for the rest of my life because the camp area is so large and we only saw a fraction of it," Hart said. "When we stood in the watchtower we were able to overlook the campgrounds and it seemed to extend for miles. We stood in the areas where the selections took place. This simple act of being told to walk left of right decided if you marched to the gas chamber or were allowed to continue a subhuman existence in forced labor."

The teachers spent nearly nine hours there.

"The more we walked around the grounds the more we realized that we were passing through one of the world's largest cemeteries, especially considering that ashes gathered everywhere throughout the grounds," Hart said.

The English teacher discovered several poems about the Holocaust throughout the journey and may have his AP Literature students analyze them. Hart also uncovered many documents and speeches that he hopes to discuss with his students.

World literature students next semester will discuss some of the narratives the teachers discussed during their travels.
Hart plans to share his photos, notes and materials from his journey with the history department at St. Mary's, particularly the Anti-Semitism class. He plans to share material with his brother too, a world history teacher at Seton Catholic Preparatory in Chandler.

Guitar classes at Notre Dame Preparatory in Scottsdale will be a bit richer this year too after its teacher, Kristofer Hill, spent 17 days in Sevilla, Spain. Hill found himself in class and playing the flamenco guitar four to five hours a day.
He also studied palmas (Flamenco clapping) and percussion.

"It was an amazing experience and only deepened my understanding of the art form and the Spanish language," said Hill who co-composed music for a major theatrical release earlier this year. "I will be incorporating rhythmic, harmonic and melodic aspects of flamenco in my guitar classes."

The Notre Dame teacher also plans to bring in a flamenco dancer and guitarist later in the semester.

Student travel

Students at Brophy College Preparatory immersed themselves in one of four cultures during their summer immersion trips to Argentina, El Salvador, Peru and Kenya.

Their experiences and workload varied, but most seemed to return with a greater sense of what it means to be a true community. Twenty Brophy students spent 10 days in southwestern Kenya to begin building a school for the villagers and learning about their way of life.
It was the school's first time in that country.

"Before I came on this trip I was like most people at home. I heard stories of famine and dirty water in Africa and thought that their lives must be horrible. The truth is the opposite," junior Blake Fassero wrote July 21 in the group's blog about the 10-day trip. He noted that despite the problems, the small village is full of life.

He planned to bring home "The happiness these people get from each other and the sense of community they all share."

Kaitlyn Fitzgerald, a senior at Seton, also learned a thing or two about pure joy from her two weeks in Ghana. She traveled with the Projects Abroad group, which put her with 15 other teenaged volunteers from all over the world including fellow Americans.

They spent the mornings finishing construction of a classroom building complete with character drawings on the walls, the alphabet and other decorative paintings. They devoted the afternoons to recreation with the village children and visiting orphanages.

The teens saw villagers import water from a well a mile away and only use electricity — from a generator — to watch the World Cup.

"Despite their unfortunate circumstances, they have laugher in their eyes," Fitzgerald said of the Ghana people.

She befriended a nine-year-old in the orphanage who was sent there because his family could not afford to care for him and his two younger siblings. He could only attend school because a previous volunteer paid his tuition.

It was those experiences that inspired Fitzgerald and a friend to start an educational fund through Projects Abroad for a school in Ghana. She plans to fund it in part from sales of imported goods. Fitzgerald brought bags to sell and beads from a local market that she'll sell as bracelets.

Fitzgerald, who plans to go into international development and aid, particularly in Africa, said the experience affirmed the need for a solid education so that she can give the children in Ghana a chance at any education.

"As we drove around the rural landscape of Ghana, passing the makeshift homes and barely clothed children, all I wanted to do was fix their problem of poverty," she said.

Junior Bethany Baca spent 10 days in China in June with 100 fellow members of the Phoenix Children’s Chorus. The singers performed as a group and with local Chinese choirs. She recalled the audience clapping along as the Phoenix Children’s Chorus performed with a local Chinese choir.

“It’s a small world and music brings people together no matter where you are,” Baca said.

Case in point: the group met up with Dobson High School’s choir while touring the Great Wall and Baca re-connected with Dana Hu, a Seton exchange student who returned home in the spring.

Baca said the China experience also taught her the importance of being a good ambassador, something she’ll remember as part of Seton’s ambassador program this year. Its members host campus guests and aid in other public relations outreach.

“No matter where you are, you are and ambassador for your country, for your school or for your state,” Baca said.