Help 2000 students from US & Japan connect online!

We are excited to report that the sixth Global Classmates Summit successfully took place this past summer to engage the next generation of international leaders! The Summit selects a handful of outstanding students who participated in Kizuna Across Culture’s virtual exchange program to further deepen their mutual understanding and collaboration skills over the course of twelve days. For this year’s Summit, sixteen high school students (eight from the U.S. and eight from Japan) were selected from a pool of 2,130 participants of our virtual exchange program in the previous year. Since the Summit’s launch in 2017 until the third year, it was held in-person in Washington, DC; however, due to the global pandemic, it has been a virtual program since 2020.

During the Summit, students broadened their perspectives and deepened their knowledge through dialogue with internationally minded leaders and experts and through discussions on a wide variety of topics such as cross-cultural understanding, U.S.-Japan relations, diversity and international society, media literacy, and the role of citizen diplomacy. We have focused on active learning by using students’ intrinsic motivation, inquisitiveness, and empathy for each other.

This year, to further develop the Summit as a supportive learning community where students learn from each other, we added elements to the program such as the students becoming speakers themselves to teach each other about topics they are passionate about, meeting with business leaders to consider various ways to address real-life challenges that they are facing today and providing specific positive feedback to other students after each session. As a result, the students became increasingly aware of each other’s unique strength and learned from each other, which seemed to have accelerated their personal growth and build trust within the group. The level of bonding that the students developed during this Summit was incredible and comparable to past Summits that were held in-person!

Below are some of the student comments regarding their Summit experience:

US Students:

The Summit has been a once in a lifetime experience, where I was able to create new friendships, improve my communication and collaboration skills, cultivate potential networking opportunities, expand my knowledge of the US-Japan field, and have a wonderful time bridging cultures. The friendships that I have made are irreplaceable, and I am so grateful to have been a part of this wonderful program. I now know how much I would love to major in East Asian Studies or Japanese, and have learned so much about the JET program that I would absolutely love to do. Also, being a mentor for other students who get to be a part of this amazing experience in the  future is something else that I realized how much I would love to do, so thank you so much.

I learned a lot from the speakers about the diverse paths of everyone's career. I came to understand Japanese culture more both through people my own age and those above it. I practiced having discussions with diverse people. I learned by listening to other people about their passions. I learned more on how to be approachable and friendly to new people too. I am really glad I got to meet all of those people too. This experience encouraged me to keep pursuing my Japanese language skills, so I want to make sure I can study it in University and potentially study abroad.

Japanese Students:

At the Summit, I was able to learn about U.S.-Japan relations and international careers, which I had not known much about before. I have always been interested in researching animal behavior, but I now have a stronger desire to conduct research on an international level, such as by working with researchers from abroad. In addition, the experience of speaking about my research in English at the Summit gave me confidence for the future. I have also been interested in being a science illustrator, which is not a major job in Japan yet, but it has given me the motivation and confidence to pursue it by taking courses abroad and studying for it.

The Summit was a very valuable experience for me. I could see that my post-Summit self has clearly grown, and I was able to gain confidence in my future. In particular, I gained the ability to look at a single issue from different perspectives and find solutions, the ability to accept opinions that differ from my own, and the skills to communicate my thoughts in English. In the future, I hope to study medicine and provide medical care to areas in developing countries where there is a shortage of medical care. I believe the skills I have gained here have put me one step closer to achieving that dream.