The World Is As Big or As Small As You Make It

Exchanging Culture in North Philly

Award-Winning **VIDEO**

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

The World Is As Big or As Small As You Make It is a short documentary chronicling American kids using technology to connect with other kids in different countries.

It began as a 140-character essay entry and was created with money from a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Sundance Institute.  It follows youth living in North Philadelphia who are involved in a local program called Do Remember Me.

Teacher Sannii Crespina-Flores, who runs Do Remember Me, takes resources a lot of the kids already have– iPhones, iPads and the like– and helps use them for her students to explore the outside world.

The kids video chat with others in Paris, Kazakhstan, Tanzania, and other countries, learning about their cultures and exploring their similarities.

One student in Paris shows some boys in North Philly his beat-boxing skills.  In return, a group of Philadelphia dancers show the Parisian kids a routine.  At one point, a boy from Philadelphia whispers, “Do y’all have any girlfriends?” to a group of Parisian students.  During that same exchange, the cross-country communicators connect on Instagram. 

The film, based in Philly but also traveling to some of the countries where the students are video chatting, brings up some important issues in the veil of childhood innocence.

Questions like, “Have you ever experienced racism?”  “Is your school safe?” and the simple question, “Where are you from?” yield some poignant responses from the kids here and around the world.

Cultural exchanges have proven to be of the most important and effective forms of education.  Technology, too, has increasingly played a role in how we travel and engage on an international level.  The young students from Philadelphia are putting their curiosity, interest, and technology to the test– with good results. 

As the video comes to a close, one Philly student summed it up in its entirety:  “I feel that everybody should be able to go all over the world,” he said. 

He then added, “The world is as big or as small as you make it.”

So true.