Going abroad for education

from The Stockton Record

By Keith Reid
Record Staff Writer

STOCKTON - While her Waterloo School students are on vacation this summer, middle school teacher Stephanie Phillips will be preparing a special lesson plan for next year's classes - only she will be doing it in Brazil.

Phillips won a grant in a nationwide contest, sponsored in part by Sam's Club, to visit Brazil for a week this summer to learn how coffee bean farmers in the South American country live and work.

The trip will provide Phillips, and 10 other teachers from across the country, with a glimpse of how food products that are Fair Trade Certified can help environmental and economic conditions for farmers around the globe, trip organizers say.

Phillips said she has long taught students in her social sciences classes about farming practices, and the principles of Fair Trade.

"It's important for students to learn how farmers and workers in other countries live," said Phillips, a Lodi resident. "It's important to let them know that when you buy something at the store, you are supporting an industry. Fair Trade helps farmers get out of poverty.

"Students get all kinds of messages about why a product or brand is cool, but there's very little linkage to the human or environmental impact of the purchases we make," she added.

Students in Phillips' seventh- and eighth-grade classes say they enjoy talking about world cultures.

"She is always talking to us about world problems. I hope she'll be able to tell us what the schools are like there, and what kind of environment the children live in," said seventh-grader Jana Colombini, 12.

Phillips also heads a global-issues volunteer club at Waterloo School.

"I'm excited to learn about Fair Trade when she returns from Brazil," said Alexis Pettis, 14.

Products labeled as Fair Trade are monitored by non-profit organizations and groups that ensure food is grown in an environmentally friendly manner and that farmers are not gouged by wholesalers or other middlemen as the product goes from production to consumption, according to one such nonprofit, TransFair USA.