Building Global Awareness in Elementary Schools

Warner Arts Magnet School, part of Metro Nashville Public Schools, wanted to expose its scholars to other languages and cultures. According to the principal Dr. Ricki Gibbs, the Warner Arts community has been historically 99% economically disadvantaged and has limited opportunities to see the world beyond the neighborhood. Meg Languages engaged with Warner on a pilot program in the Spring Semester of 2019. Quickly, Warner scholars and staff saw the value of providing its scholars with unique and engaging language and cultural experiences, and the program continued into its first full school year adoption.

“This partnership with Meg Languages allows us to see things that don’t just resemble the direct community; it allows us to create a window to the world where a lot of our scholars only have a mirror to the world.”
– Dr. Ricki Gibbs, Principal

After its first successful year of partnership with Warner Arts, Meg Languages proposed an idea to take exposure to Latin American culture to the next level. Meg partnered with a local Colombian-owned small business to surprise the scholars at Warner with a pop-up food truck event. That day, Warner scholars learned about different Latin American cuisine and how to order food. Unbeknownst to the scholars, they would be applying their skills that very day.

Meg Languages and Warner Arts continue to look for ways to surprise and delight scholars with cultural events. In the 2022/23 school year Meg has partnered with Salsa Soul Nashville to provide scholars with basic salsa lessons, this event will be accompanied by a Spanish lesson on vocabulary that will be used during the dances.

“What makes Meg such a perfect fit for our school and for this community is that Meg is all about exposure. It’s about helping students identify and be exposed not just to a language, but to a language that’s rooted in culture.”
– Jon Wren, MSAP Coordinator