American Week at Mtarfa school

An initiative of US Ambassador Molly Bordonaro to write to all school leaders in Malta and Gozo last October offering the US embassy's assistance with topics of the school curriculum and syllabi that involve aspects of US society, culture, history and geography, led to the organisation of a week-long programme of presentations and an exhibition highlighting aspects of the American experience and way of life at Sir Temi Zammit Boys' Secondary School, Mtarfa.

The school head, Carmel S. Micallef, decided to take up Mrs Bordonaro's offer and I contacted Louise Falzon, the embassy's Information Resource and Cultural assistant, to set the ball rolling. She liked my suggestion to organise an 'American Week' at the school and we set about drawing up the programme.

The week, which was held during May, was launched with an exhibition entitled 'America 24X7' dealing with NASA, the Civil Rights Movement, diverse aspects of everyday life in the USA and, naturally, the Fourth of July Independence Day put up by the embassy.

The exhibits were supplemented with projects of students' work focusing on the Civil Rights Movement and modern American literature, particularly Jack London's The Call of the Wild, which is a set text for Form 3 students, co-ordinated by Ritienne Buhagiar and Patrick Umanah, English teachers at our school.

The week continued with a series of four presentations about topics also related to our students' course of studies.

David Brown, a native Alaskan, gave a presentation to the Form 3 students about his home state. Alaska is the backdrop of The Call of the Wild and his presentation helped the students understand the region they were reading about from someone with first hand experience.

The embassy's attaché for cultural affairs, Jeff Andersen, gave the same students a presentation about the American Civil Rights Movement. This included clips from the Washington March of August 28, 1963, and Dr Martin Luther King's historic "I have a dream" speech.

He also gave another presentation to our Form 1 and 2 students on the topic of American landscapes, which dealt with several themes of physical geography ranging from volcanoes through to waterfalls and deserts, that the students had learnt about in their textbooks, and examples of which are found in the US.

The final presentation was delivered by the acting deputy head of mission, Jonathan Schools, and dealt with NASA. The target audience this time were our Form 4 students, who will be having a topic about the planetary system in their physics syllabus next year.

This was a positive and healthy experience for our students. Mrs Bordonaro said that besides facilitating the exchange of ideas, the week also gave the embassy's staff and herself the opportunity to answer questions about the US and hear what some of Malta's younger generation think of the United States.

The week concluded with the American embassy making a generous donation of books and DVDs to the school library, and every student receiving an information booklet to keep after each of the presentations, thereby ensuring that all our students will long remember the American Week at our school.