The Crossroads Experience
- Daun Yorke
- Nov 29, 2017
- 4 min read
I first encountered the Crossroads Foundation in 2010 when living and working in Hong Kong. We took our large Diploma Programme (DP)Grade Eleven class to their center to experience a poverty simulation led by David Begbie. I will never forget that initial simulation, the student's responses, their faces and the visceral feeling inside my own gut and heart. The impact that this experience had on the students and us teachers was quite incredible. Each year, in Hong Kong, our DP Orientation trip, involving approx 120 students happened at Hong Kong’s Gold Coast and the culminating event would always be the poverty simulation at Crossroads. It was a tradition we started, that seven years later, is still in place at the school.
Fast forwarded to 2017, I am the Head of Secondary at a small three-programme IB school in Xi’an, China. It is a school with a real heart for service. Clearly, there had been foresight put into the grounding of the (MYP) Middle Years Programme with emphasis on student-led action. This year, in our inaugural year of the DP and third year of MYP, we decided that we needed to really work towards bringing service to the center of the school. Over the last week, we made great strides in this direction by bringing out David Begbie and his team from the Crossroads Foundation. When I initially contacted David and asked him and his team to come out to Xi’an, he told me that, this couldn’t be a one-hit-wonder where they come out and run a professional day and fly off. Our school had to commit to a full-school sustainable approach to service. If they were to come out and work with us, the agreement was that they would work with everyone: secondary students, parents and all teachers and support staff. We agreed to the conditions and a date was set.
We threw in another layer and asked if they would like to meet and work with some of our NGO partners here in Xi’an. The proposal was for our parent sessions to include members of our NGO communities, volunteers, etc. They also agreed to come out to the Yellow River Soup Kitchen: http://www.yellowrivercharity.com/en one of the amazing NGO’s we work with so they could get an idea of our context. The much anticipated day arrived, the Crossroads team touched-down in Xi’an and was shepherded from the airport to the soup kitchen that evening. The team was so impressed by China’s first soup kitchen and the hearts of the people they met on both sides of the serving table. Immediately, David Begbie demonstrated his fluency in Mandarin and started to have conversations with the people at the soup kitchen.
Over the next two days, our school community would go through an incredible set of activities that would bring us closer together and bring deeper alignment to our goal of service at the center. David Begbie ran an assembly for our Middle School students that saw the students uncharacteristically animated. David shared incredible stories from his life of service, from his beginnings as an international student (much like them) trying to make sense of the world to an adult who is deeply committed to humanitarianism. Begbie has spread that message to school children, world leaders and billionaire business people around the world. The assembly ended up with a touching story about a child who initiated an incredible service project. Then he shared the provocation with our students: What will you do?
Following this, Begbie and team ran the first of three poverty simulations. The first was for our high school (MYP, DP, and AP) students. Again, the engagement was incredibly high and students talked later about how powerful the experience was using words like “intense” and emotional” to describe their feelings. The simulation ended with the same question and students were left pondering what they can do to make a difference in this world.
In the afternoon, our parents and members of NGO’s joined together to participate in a poverty simulation.This event was also incredibly moving for participants. Parents and NGO representatives stayed behind to talk with David and share their feedback. That evening, members of our NGOs and school community broke bread with the Crossroads team to discuss further their work and ways to move service forward at the school.
The final day of the visit was dedicated to our teachers, administrative and support staff. All ninety of us gathered together in a small gymnasium to go through a poverty simulation. This event was important for us as a community. Teachers who said they were initially skeptical about the simulation were transfixed by the experience. Large and small collaborative group work followed wherein teams, we would do some soul searching and look inside of ourselves to answer that same question that was asked of students, parents and community members. In our roles, how can we make a difference and support service in meaningful ways? At the end of the day, our staff rose to the challenge and shared their ideas and innovations. Clearly, this is just the beginning. Momentum is strong and in the coming week, a vertical group for Community Action will hold their first meeting.
My whole career has been dedicated to education and for many years, a major focus has been on supporting and developing teachers through professional development and training. I have been the beneficiary of some incredible training around the world and worked with some amazing trainers. This simulation experience and guided community action sessions that followed were some of the most powerful training that I have ever experienced. Every session ended with a powerful provocation and had every one of us reflect upon our responsibility and shared humanity.
Comments