Last Friday I had the opportunity to teach some of Lebogang's classes. The first class started at 8 a.m. As my taxi pulled up to the gated entry, students were running alongside the vehicle to make it on time. Administrators and teachers made the stragglers pick up trash outside the security fence which surrounds the school. Lebogang reserved a room with an LCD projector and wifi, so I was able to use the brief Power Point I had prepared, as well as access Google Earth during the lesson. The first class, an hour long "double block," was 8th grade English. I shared a little bit about myself and my family, then described Annandale High School. They seemed surprised by both the size of the school and the diversity of the student body. The students seemed especially interested in the experiences of the Hispanic/Latino students and wanted me to teach them some Spanish. On the whole, they demonstrated tremendous linguistic dexterity, quickly picking up the handful of Spanish phrases I introduced. Many of them speak several of South Africa's official languages and most have been taking English as a first additional language since 4th grade. In addition to English, there are three home language offerings at Thandi Sibeko, including Sesoto, isiZulu, and Xhosa (this is pronounced "kosa" with a click at the beginning). While I observed Lebogang teaching primarily in English, she regularly switches into one of the home languages when interacting with her learners. Her own home language is Sepedi (also referred to as Sesotho sa Leboa, or Northern Sotho). I hoped to explore some of the stereotypes US school children might have about students in South Africa and vice versa. When I asked what they thought my students might say or think about them before actually meeting them, one girl volunteered, "They might say we are intelligent." Another added, "They might think we are beautiful." Wonderful self-images, I thought, and so I quickly dropped the exploration of potential stereotypes. At the end of the class, Lebogang's students wrote letters to my students at Annandale. My students will respond to these letters in the first week of school. During my favorite part of the class (I believe the learners enjoyed it, too) we acted out a story from the prologue of Congressman John Lewis' book Walking With the Wind: A Memoir of the Civil Rights Movement. Set in a rural African-American sharecropping community in Alabama, Lewis relates how a group of young children worked together to hold down a rickety house during a powerful storm. Without hesitation Lebogang's 40 plus students got in a circle and held hands. We made wind and rain and thunder and circled the room several times to keep different corners of "our house" from flying away. It was so much fun, mostly because the students seemed to embrace the activity. We talked about the meaning of the story and then I related it to the different historical storms that have shaken both the United States and South Africa and the resilience of the people in these nations to resist, survive, adapt, and thrive. What a wonderful teaching experience! In the third block I substituted in a math class. The students heard that I knew a portion of the South African National Anthem (Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika) and asked if I could sing it. I promised I would sing the first line if they did the rest. This was the beginning of 30 minutes of singing and dancing. One young lady bravely came to the front of the room and sang Bob Marley's Redemption Song with me. Another young man came up and performed a gumboot dance. Finally, I sang them an Irish Blessing. In the last class we used Google Earth to explore global geography and discuss how we might use technology to connect our schools and classrooms this year. I do not view technology as a panacea or silver bullet that will cure all manner of ills in education. However, I am excited to utilize tools that might facilitate the kind of global education envisioned by the World Affairs Council, DC.