Pinegrove School in India. Photo courtesy of Sallie B. Howard School/EdNC.
As part of its National Charter Schools Week coverage, EdNC has published a new article highlighting Sallie B. Howard School‘s innovative, semester-long study abroad program.
Kristen Blair, the Coalition’s communications director, wrote the article following interviews with students and school leaders.
Here’s an excerpt below:
Just two years ago, Sallie B. Howard School of Arts & Science (SBHS), a charter school in Wilson, launched a pioneering study abroad program at India’s Pinegrove School. The semester-long experience, occurring amid the verdant Himalayan foothills of Himachal Pradesh in North India, has proved transformative for participating students.
High school juniors Blanca Orozco-Perez and Angela Sangabriel lived and studied at Pinegrove last fall, two of four SBHS students selected to go. Both returned to the U.S. having experienced seismic shifts in their self-perceptions, worldview, and habits.
Prior to studying abroad, Orozco-Perez was reticent and unsure of herself. “I wouldn’t talk to a lot of people,” she said. “I was very timid. I was very shy. I couldn’t express myself right.”
But study abroad in the East, with its immense cultural difference, stretched and emboldened her. Along the way, something remarkable happened: Her view of herself and her engagement with the world changed.
“I learned overall that you can’t hide yourself in a box and expect everything to come to you,” said Orozco-Perez. As she navigated new relationships, customs, and food, she became more expansive and expressive. Upon her return to Wilson, her mother remarked, “You talk a lot more!”
For Sangabriel, travel itself was a novelty. “I had never been outside of the country until then, so it was my first time on a plane,” she said.
A folk musician, Sangabriel was transfixed by the deeply evocative quality of Indian music. “I had my eyes on the beautiful way that Indian classical music expresses itself,” she said. “That was one of my … driving factors the second I heard about it.”
In her study abroad application, Sangabriel promised to learn at least two songs in Hindi. She did that and more, performing and singing solo before a crowd of over 1,000 people at Pinegrove. Musical immersion abroad helped her bridge language and culture.
“Music is really a universal language,” she said. “You don’t have to understand what someone is saying to be able to understand their emotions.”
Read the full article on EdNC.
