Growing up in Mexico and Japan as a “Foreign Service Brat,” I learned from an early age to appreciate the food traditions of other cultures. One of my earliest memories is of eating corn tortillas, heated over an open flame, salted, and smeared with butter.

The source of this golden deliciousness was not to be found in a supermarket or a convenience store, but in an elderly Indian woman. Seven mornings a week, she made her way down our street to ply her trade, her body bowed under the weight of the sack of tortillas she carried on her back. Stopping under the shade of a tree, she would put the satchel down in front of her and loosen the bindings to reveal the yellow disks nestled within.

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“Don’t you get it? That’s us … we ARE the ones at the Red Table!” This was one student’s response to a simulation experience highlighting the unequal distribution of food around the world. Students at McCulloch Intermediate School in Dallas, Texas participated in a “Hunger Banquet” put on by 6th grade teachers Barbara Nye and Lynn Simoneaux. The simulation was a powerful learning experience. Students learned firsthand how unfairly food and other resources are distributed in our world.

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During the summer of 2011, while taking an online Global Collaboration course through International Education and Resource Network, iEARN, I was fortunate to make the acquaintance of David Ngare. David is Head Teacher at Igwamiti Primary School in Nyahururu, Kenya. Little did I know that we would end up becoming true friends, sharing our daily toils and jubilations as we both dealt with our respective elementary and middle school students. David was a member of iEARN, taking the online Global Collaboration course as well; and although we had different objectives overall, we did decide to collaborate on the Teddy Bear Project. This project aims to foster tolerance and understanding of cultures other than their own through the exchange of teddy bears. Together we wrote up a project plan, involving 1st and 5th graders. The students compose diary entries, as if they were the bears, describing experiences in their new culture, which are ideally shared through the iEARN Teddy Bear Forum.

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