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Idly milling around the cafeteria Friday, 10 minutes before an assembly to welcome students visiting from Japan, a few restless Montgomery Blair High School students started playing "slides," a popular hand-clapping game that resembles a modern, higher energy version of "patty-cakes."
The game is a typical adolescent timewaster made for situations like these, but many of the Japanese students quickly gathered around and watched in wonder. Within minutes, the American students were teaching their Japanese counterparts how to play, the cafeteria filled Far East vs. Western World games of "slides" and an international crisis in high school awkwardness was averted.
For students at the Silver Spring high school, overcoming lingual and cultural differences is nothing new. Of the 2,814 students at Blair this year, 28.8 percent are African-American, 27.8 percent are Hispanic and 25.8 percent are white. The 350-student English for Speakers of Other Languages program alone is represented by 42 countries and 20 languages. Students are taught French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Arabic.
"It's really colorful," said Manabu Nitta, a teacher with the visiting Kaichi School, a private high school located north of Tokyo. "The students, the building, the walls."
When about 100 students from the Kaichi School visited for the day, it was one of many opportunities Blair students have to apply their multicultural experiences to real-life situations. It's not enough just to sit next to students from different countries, students need to experience those cultures first-hand, said Kevin Moose, the academy coordinator at Blair.
"Blair's a diverse school, but there's this recognition that American kids aren't globally educated," said Moose, who oversees Blair's five academies, which allow students to take courses on specific interests they want to pursue in the future. "The way the world's changing should reflect how education will change with it."
The 140 students in Blair's International Studies program have taken annual field trips to the Ghana Embassy and the Israel Embassy and the World Bank in Washington, D.C. They have had visiting students from Rome stay in their homes. On Oct. 21 they welcomed Humphrey Fellows, graduate students from around the world studying in the United States.
International Studies at Blair "has something at every corner," said senior Trevor Fullerton, who went on a trip to Italy last summer. "I'm a lot more open to learn about other cultures now."
The Japanese students arrived in formal uniforms, and their demeanor contrasted with that of the Blair students, who showed off "Freestyle Friday" with a poetry slam and dance contest during lunch periods.
With the exception of their spiky hair and vibrant sneakers, the quiet Japanese students reminded Blair teacher Yoko Zoll of her classmates when she was a young girl in Japan.
"I know to be outspoken here," said Zoll, who moved to the United States in 1985 and is one of two teachers in Blair's 105-student Japanese-language program. "But [in Japan], you can't do whatever you want and speak up. You watch others and then decide how to act."
When left alone with the American students, however, the Japanese students did what most high school students do: emulate their peers. In a meet-and-greet while teachers toured the school, Blair and Kaichi students shared headphones to the same iPod and watched pop-music videos on YouTube through the classroom projector.
As they exchanged e-mail addresses, American students enviously marveled at the Japanese students' electronic organizers as many American students used the antiquated method of pen and paper to keep track of the new contacts.
"Their phones are a lot cooler, they have TV on their phones!" exclaimed senior Shawnecca Burke, who plans to travel to Japan this summer.
Dressed in her cheerleader uniform, because Blair's football team had a game that night, Blair junior Victoria Luc couldn't believe the Japanese student she befriended didn't recognize her outfit.
No worries, though, it wasn't hard for them to find common ground.
"Do you like hip-hop?" Luc asked her new friend.
"You mean ‘hip-hopu'?!" 17-year-old Mayumi Onishi asked excitedly, a smile coming over her face and her eyes widening.
"Yeah! Me too!" Luc responded, giggling.
