When South Middle School teacher Lisa Bock wanted to give her sixth graders a more memorable experience in her geography and cultures class, she called on Missouri Southern’s own international students to pay her class a visit.

“My students were getting ready to do an activity where they were going to research schools in other countries and then compare that education to their own educational experiences,” Bock said.

Bock contacted Betty Willems, an adjunct faculty member in the Institute of International Studies, who arranged for four Missouri Southern international students to visit the school. They were Ali Alabdurmuhsen, freshman English major, and Ahmed Alanazi, freshman paramedics major, both from Saudi Arabia; Moeko Yoshinaga, freshman communications major, from Japan; and Liew Chui Foong, freshman international studies major, from Malaysia.

Bock also said her class’s culminating project will be a media presentation where the students give their own views on ways to improve the educational curriculum locally or in specific countries.

“I just thought it would be really interesting to have some international studies students come and talk about what it would have been like [to go to] school in their country, just to get [our students] thinking along the lines of how different education is from one place to another.”

Each of the four Missouri Southern students came with Powerpoint presentations describing education in their countries, and they talked to seven different sixth grade classes.

“For me, it was also good experience that I could talk in front of American middle school students,” Yoshinaga said. “I talked about when [Japanese students] go to school, what they wear, what they do, how to eat.”

Yoshinaga said that in Japan, students begin learning English at the junior high age.

Foong also talked about some differences in his home country.

“[In Malaysia], we have to wear uniform. In America, you don’t have to wear uniform,” Foong said. “In Malaysia, it’s kind of off. The teacher is more [focused] on making the student get good results, but in America, the school wants to make the student become more creative and more social.”

Bock said the visit was “successful” and hopes to recreate the experience for her classes next year.

She also related anecdotes to The Chart from the international students’ visit to the school. She said the students opted out of a fast food lunch in favor of a “typical American school lunch” in the South Middle School cafeteria. Another happened just as she picked the students up in the morning.

“In the morning when I picked them, I said, ‘Gosh, I really hope you guys are getting extra credit or something for doing this.’ And they said, ‘We don’t want extra credit; we just want to be successful,'” Bock said. “I thought that that was an amazing attitude.”