February 7, 2024 By Carol Britton Meyer
The prestigious 2024 AFS-USA Global School Award went to Hingham High School this year.
“If that sounds like a big deal, well, it is,” Principal Rick Swanson shared in an announcement. “Every year AFS selects just one school for the whole country, and this year it’s us!”
AFS-USA, formerly known as the American Field Service, is a nonprofit organization that offers international student exchange programs in more than 80 countries around the world through independent, nonprofit AFS organizations.
The award is designed to recognize a school or school district that demonstrates a commitment to cultural diversity, global competence, and curriculum internationalization, in alignment with the AFS-USA mission of “creating a more just and peaceful world” through intercultural learning and exchange.
HHS lists “global citizenship” as one of its core values, “but, as with all of our core values, we don’t just put the words on a piece of paper and hang them on the wall. We live them out every day, year after year,” Swanson said.
AFS strives to build “‘a more just and peaceful world’ through its many programs, and HHS shares in that mission,” Swanson told the Hingham Anchor.
“To be named the 2024 AFS-USA Global School of the Year is a tremendous honor, and it deserves to be celebrated throughout our whole community,” he said. “National recognition of this kind can be accomplished only in a place where people believe in global citizenship and act to advance that core value in ways that are real and tangible.”
Nominators submit a packet of information demonstrating a school’s commitment to global education and the integration of global competence concepts into the everyday experiences of students, teachers, and the local community.
Hingham Public Schools World Language Department Director Erica Pollard played a big role in the application process.
Achievement ‘reflects on entire faculty’
“This is an achievement that reflects on the entire faculty, and the application process required us to reference [global activities, themes, and ideas that are] happening in every part of this building. I’m also sure that there are things I missed or don’t know about!” Pollard told Swanson and other staff.
The application included information about the HHS curricululm, professional development, and school culture and about the Global Citizenship Program and how it helps students develop global citizenship during their time at HHS.
“A lot of our professional development has been teacher-led by some really talented faculty members who are generous with their time and knowledge,” Pollard told the Hingham Anchor.
The application also provided information about the Unity Project, including their focus on last year’s World Cup, the many student clubs and activities that reflect student choice, diversity, and global awareness — including Activists United, Best Buddies, language-based clubs, the Diversity and Empowerment Club, the Global Citizenship Program, Girls Learn International, the Green Team, and Model UN.
“This focus on global education isn’t new — it has been developing over the past 10-plus years, with the revision of curricula across departments, the development of the Global Citizenship Program, the creation of new globally-focused electives, and a focus on critical thinking and problem-solving that can be seen across all departments,” Pollard noted. “I am really inspired by the work my colleagues have done to deserve this award.”
Exchange students participating in the HHS program during the 2023-2024 school year are from Bulgaria, Switzerland, Malaysia, and Spain.
In addition, HHS students have taken trips to Argentina, Costa Rica, Spain, the Czech Republic, and Austria, among others. HHS has also facilitated two-way exchange programs with France and Japan. Also, about 66 percent of the 2023 HHS graduating class earned the Seal of Biliteracy.
The winning school is determined by the AFS-USA School Outreach Advisory Group and receives an invitation for one representative and a guest to attend, participate, and accept their award in person at the Spring 2024 Educational and Cultural Affairs Conference in Alexandria, Virginia, in March.
Creating global citizens
“AFS-USA believes that we must all work together to create global citizens. Educators and schools are great partners in helping our next generation achieve global and intercultural competence,'” according to the AFS-USA website. “To that end, celebrating those educators and schools who are going above and beyond in their classrooms and buildings is important.”
Emily Campbell West, who worked for the Hingham Public Schools from 2001 to 2012 and who nominated HHS for the award, took over the Hingham Chapter of AFS in 2002 when another teacher retired.
“I felt strongly then that we needed to try to welcome exchange students into Hingham. Since then, there have been exchange students attending HHS each year,” she told the Hingham Anchor. Just before I left HHS, I was on a small committee with Mr. Swanson and a few other teachers as we started the idea of the global citizenship program.”
West is still active in AFS as a host parent and has been in touch with HHS over the years since she left.
“I have seen just how much the program has continued to grow and strengthen its global awareness and focus,” she said. It was for this reason that I decided it would be great to nominate Hingham for the AFS Global School award. All of the global activities that HHS does definitely deserve recognition!”
As the MassBay area team chair, West has an opportunity to work with a lot of schools, “and Hingham is truly remarkable,” she said. “I am so happy they have won this honor!”
AFS South Shore Area Coordinator Deb Gallagher, who serves as hosting coordinator, has been working with HHS for the past three years, with 1 exchange student at that time, then two the following year and four this year.
‘Diplomats to their countries’
“These [visiting] students act as diplomats to their countries and introduce the [hosting students] to different cultures,” she explained.
Hingham is “very deserving of the award,” Gallagher said. “Hingham High School has been very welcoming, with Principal Rick Swanson and Erica Pollard going out of their way to make the experience easier for the visiting students and supporting them throughout their stay. The town has always been, and continues to be, a very welcoming community — open and interested in the program. Hingham is a community with a global view.”
While Swanson expressed appreciation to Pollard for her role in submitting the application, he noted, “This award belongs to our entire community, and especially to our faculty. Collectively, they have helped to build a school with a genuine global focus; a school that prepares students incredibly well for life in a world that is ever more interconnected. I am deeply grateful to work alongside the kind of people who make something like this possible.”
To read a story about Hingham families who have hosted international students, visit https://www.hinghamanchor.com/hingham-families-welcome-international-students-as-part-of-the-afs-international-exchange-program/.
For more information about the program, go to https://www.afsusa.org/educators/global-awards/.
If interested in hosting a student for next year, email dgafs@yahoo.com.
I spent the school year 1957-58 as the AFS exchange student from France at Hingham High School. It was an amazing experience which enriched and impacted the trajectory of the rest of my life. I had the good fortune to live with a wonderful host family, the Omans, on Martin’s Lane. I made very good friends during that fateful year: some at HHS and some who were also AFS exchange students attending other schools in MA.
The experience of living in another country learning about its culture, history (short compared to France but nonetheless rich already!), its customs, its language, its people— friendly, hospitable, generous ….as exemplified by everyone I met in Hingham — was truly life-changing. That it was my good luck to have lived it in Hingham was something I have appreciated ever since.
I have returned to Hingham many times to visit and each time I thank my lucky stars to have brought me there that long time ago.
Heartfelt congratulations to HHS for receiving the 2024 Global School Award. It’s well deserved in view of HHS’s unflagging support of the AFS program.
Danielle Toussaint (1957-1958 AFS exchange student)