Life 'Round Here

Columbia (WLTX) -- What is going on in the mind of a sixth grader? CrossRoads Middle teacher Chris Craft is trying to find out, while getting his students to share with other cultures.

"All the pressures you go through each day and all the drama and stuff," said sixth grader Mendy Harris. She has learned a lot in the last school year.

"I think there's more pressures about grades because there's a higher standard when you go into middle school."

Spanish Teacher Chris Craft helps students like 12-year-old Harris share a deeper understanding of themselves with students their age on the other side of the world.

He says his Spanish class is more than learning basic words. "An introduction to culture and an understanding both of their culture and other cultures around us," he said.

"Tianjian, China to Bangkok, Thailand," Craft said. It's his idea two years running, called "Life 'Round Here."

Around twenty schools worldwide have classes like Craft's, where students make and share videos about the pressures they face as sixth graders.

"They're still young enough that they're not worried about college and things but they are old enough to where they are able to reflect on their own lives and they are able to reflect on culture around him," he said.

"I really thought about it and all the pressures you go through each day and all the drama and stuff," Harris said.

Craft says school schedules vary greatly by continent and hemisphere, making the information a constant exchange between countries as it is convenient.

"That school, San George de Mira Flores, doesn't come back to school from summer break until the tail-end of March because of course it's in South America so the seasons are reversed," he said.

"Get a cultural understanding of others and what sixth grade can be for them," Craft said.

Harris believes she won't forget this project when she enters seventh grade.

"To actually think about how many ways I could deal with it an in seventh grade I'll go through remembering doing this project, remembering all the stuff I had to deal with and think out," she said.

Craft says that while students are learning something about themselves, he is learning something about the students he teaches.

"I've been able to figure out and understand them significantly more and that's impacted my teaching," he said.

Craft was one of 47 finalists for the national Leaders in Learning teaching award.

Watch Harris's video, chosen by Thai students as the best in her school, here: