"Living somewhere where you haven't lived before, you realize there is so much poverty ... it's not like anything in Willow Glen," 17-year-old John said.

For Shelly, the trip also presented another life lesson. "I learned that every day people can rise to the occasion when asked, and that was very inspiring to me," she said. "I also learned that you don't have to plan everything out but can let things happen. And you can still be proactive in what you do."

Removing those rose-colored glasses is exactly what Archbishop Mitty principal Tim Brosnan and associate principal Dick Robinson say the school's immersion programs—courses that teach the students about cultural differences, social justice and the importance of service—are all about. And now the program is embarking on a whole new journey that will take 25 high school juniors more than 10,500 miles to Johannesburg, South Africa.

When Brosnan and Robinson, who have each lived in Willow Glen for more than a decade, were first approached by a former high school parent, Brian Swan, about the South Africa idea Brosnan candidly said, "Our first impression was that's just too far away, people are going to flip out over this. It's a 20-plus hour plane flight."

But Swan, whose four daughters went to the private co-educational Catholic high school, was not dissuaded and continued to push the importance of the idea for the next year and a half.

As a dentist and an African American interested in his own heritage, he had been traveling to South Africa and other countries on the continent for five years. At first he went on his own helping people at local clinics. Then he expanded his efforts and brought dental students from New York University. From there his efforts grew to include lay people and other physicians, who were all part of his humanitarian push to bring the "forgotten" continent closer to the rest of the world.

"I've learned everything you do that is positive has a longer lasting effect than you can imagine. It's all significant," Swan said,

He also knew the Mitty administration had a listening ear, and that the school was continually looking for ways to expose its students to global issues and concerns that would have an impact on how these youth would view the world as young adults, and in the careers they pursued.

By continuing to pitch his program Swan hoped that the proposed two-week summer trip would "take away the fear and myth that people living far away were so greatly different from us," he said.

Brosnan and Robinson already knew that the other immersion trip programs had a significant impact on the psyche of those who participated in one of the school's numerous offerings. Students had traveled to Fort Apache in Arizona, worked with the poor in the Eastern Kentucky hills of Appalachia and traveled to Dolores Mission Parish in East Los Angeles. Many teenagers also chose to do their community service closer to home, helping out at the Emergency Housing Consortium or spending four-days at St. Anthony's Foundation in the San Francisco Tenderloin. And whether the service was near or far, the experience left a lasting impression.

Different Vistas

Before Shelly went to El Salvador in the summer of her junior year, she participated in the St. Anthony program as part of her yearly community service requirement.

The cultural adjustment after her brief time in the Tenderloin was intense the high school senior said, "I realized I had everything, and I felt so guilty after the experience."

But after reflecting on it she said, "I realized you don't have to be guilty about what you have, instead you have to ask yourself what can I do to make things better for others, and start asking those questions."

Through her experience in the Tenderloin and then her trip to El Salvador, Shelly's awareness about the world around her grew stronger.

"We need to learn to step away from the classroom, America, and our own minds and look beyond," she said.

This scope of self-discovery and understanding is also what Willow Glen teenager Eric Herrmann realized when he went to El Salvador last summer.

"The biggest impact is it changes the way you think about things," he said. "When you first come back, you want to share your experience with everyone, but its kind of tricky because the only ones who understand what you are saying are the people that were there with you."

And he notes, "It's a very powerful experience because you are living in another culture."

That culture is found in a small village in Central America when there is no technology, where 11 family members might be sharing a one-room house, the floors are dirt and the cooking is done outside. Yet, even in these impoverished conditions, one paradox of life clearly stood out to Eric

"Here we have so much, but seem less happy," he said. "There, they have so much less, but don't complain and are content and happy."

That "less is more" philosophy also hit home for Kevin Becker when he went on the school's Los Niños immersion trip last summer to Tijuana.

"At first I was extremely shocked as we rode in the van and saw how the people lived inside walls and ceilings made from five garage doors," the Willow Glen teenager said. "These communities were so large and so poor but the people were so close, not like here where there is so much wealth and people are so distant."

With more than 100 students participating in immersion programs at the high school, the newest offering, the South Africa course, brings a new dynamic to what is already available.

Through each one of these programs students have gained a greater understanding about global issues and needs because they get to see first-hand a world beyond their doorstep, Brosnan said.

"I also think they feel empowered and believe they can make a difference," he adds. "It's not something you can teach in the class."

Social Justice

At Mitty all juniors are required to take a course in ethics that is centered on peace and social justice issues. The South Africa and El Salvador classes, however, are unique because the entire year's ethics, culture and justice curriculum focuses around a specific country.

"If we take these students so far away, we want them to be prepared," said Bill Kroenung, who teaches the year-long course "Ethics, Culture and Justice: South Africa," and is the school's Christian service coordinator.

He points out that when students travel to foreign countries with their families, many times teens don't appreciate where they have been because they have no background about the country

"We want to make sure these students have a vast amount of background knowledge so when they go they can make the connections and are better informed," Kroenung said.

Making the connections is what Brosnan, Robinson and Kroenung did during the summer before deciding if they could add the South Africa course to the school's curriculum. In six days the men where given a history-packed tour by Swan. They group flew into Johannesburg, traveled to Cape Town and the township of Soweto. They visited Rethabile Village, a home for children and young adults infected with HIV/AIDS. The went to Siyazigabisa Home of Hope, a place where children have been orphaned by AIDS. The group visited the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, went to Robben Island Prison, where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated, and Hector Pieterson Museum in Soweto that commemorates the struggle for freedom in the country. They visited with local educators and administrators and came away breathless and convinced of the importance in bringing the program back to the San Jose school.

"You look around and ask yourself, 'How did something that bad happen in a place this nice,'" Robinson said. "How does the world ever get to that point."

It's a part of history these administrators want today's youth to learn about and understand so that they can graduate from high school and go into the world thinking about ways to make it better.

"For me at 51 years old it was probably one of the most significant educational experiences of my life," said Brosnan about the brief six-day trip. "So at 16 the experience will have a big impact."

Brosnan also sees the year-long course and two-week trip as an unforgettable teaching tool in illustrating the power of leadership.

"No doubt in my mind that if Nelson Mandela, who was revered, had came out of prison and said, 'Now it's our turn.' And then led a civil war uprising instead of coming from a faith and pragmatic perspective, I don't think the you would have a country that is healing itself. Hopefully that message is what the students come back with. And they realize things can be accomplished through justice and peaceful ways."

For Brosnan and Robinson the South Africa program, in addition to the other immersion courses, offers students another essential piece in the puzzle of life.

"These kids walk across that graduation stage headed to some of the best universities in America," Brosnan said, "but if they are not filled with some sort of passion and desire to give something back to the community then we haven't done our job."

And he adds, "I don't care if they go to one of the top 20 universities, if they haven't developed their heart. That's why we are in business here. It really comes out of that—developing individuals who have a need in the world to make it a more just place."