Bringing the World to Chattaroy Students Through Email | Community Spirit

The known world is expanding to a group of kindergarten students in Chattaroy. Thanks to the expanding powers of mass communications, the barriers of countries are coming down in the form of simple emails.

For two weeks, Johnna Jones’ class has been receiving emails from around the world, collecting them for their hallway maps up until today, Valentine’s Day. Jones hoped the global messages would share words of wisdom and advice for her students.

Messages we take for granted are the highlight of their afternoon when they get to learn about life in Brazil and the weather at the South Pole from the people who experience it every day.

They received over 200 messages and some of them were still waiting to be printed out and pinned to the wall for all to see. The children are so young, that imagining a world beyond the classroom can be hard.

“They are still under the impression that this is it,” Johnna Jones, teacher, described the school as their world. “Though we got emails and found it on a map, it’s a far out expectation that they can be my friend, but they don’t live down the street or go to the school,” Jones said.

Some emails didn’t travel that far. Some came from Alaska, Idaho and Wyoming where a wife described what her husband does for a living; he rounds up wild horses on land belonging to the Bureau of Land Management.

A family in Alaska advised the Chattaroy students to never get in the way of a momma moose and her babies: “Cars will actually stop on the road to avoid traveling between the family members.”

A former Chattaroy student in Illinois wrote to the class remembering the small chairs that he sat in, staring up at the map of the United States and thinking how far away everything was from his town. This Valentine’s Day he wanted to remind students that everyone is just a short email away.

Some emails were sent from the coldest places on Earth. A climatologist sent a photo of his office, a habitat structure that can handle -58 F weather at the South Pole.

He told students to keep learning science and math: “If it wasn’t for science, everything that they use and look at would not be here.”

A selection of emails came oversea countries experiencing hardship and war. Numerous soldiers serving overseas in Afghanistan wrote to the students. One email came from Egypt and the writer attempted to describe last year’s revolution and what it meant to the people of their country.

Students read emails from every continent, but were still missing a messages from states like Maine, Arkansas and Vermont.

Jones says this is just the start of integrating the students with technology and getting them used to the different ways of communication.

“At least they know there’s another way to communicate besides telephone or person-to-person,” Jones said.

Past attempts of this project didn’t produce as many results. Jones said those attempts were before Facebook and Twitter. This go-around was different because with one click, their call to action was a share away to someone else webbing around the world. Many people wrote in their messages that they heard about their project online through Facebook.

We might not know how these messages of goodwill stick with the kids of Chattaroy, but maybe down the line, we’ll see a snippet of what they carried with them.

Many students said their favorite emails were from several law enforcement officers from around the world. In fact, when the students were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, many boys and girls of Jones’ class squealed with excitement saying they’d like to become police officers.

One boy said he wanted to become a reporter.