Pen Pals - Then And Now
Calif. Second Graders Learn A Lesson About Lasting Friendship - From Teachers Who Know
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Play CBS Video Video Bringing Back Pen Pals Old-fashioned letter writing is making a comeback among a group of elementary students whose teachers met as pen-pals almost 20 years ago. Steve Hartman reports for "Assignment America."
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In the 2nd Grade classrooms of two Irvine, Calif., schools, students are learning a lasting lesson on friendship - by writing letters to their pen pals. (CBS)
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(CBS)"We want to know eight divided by two is what?" second grade teacher Amy Frueh asked her students. "You have a couple minutes."
Division is not the highlight of second grade. The highlight of second grade, for both Amy Frueh's class and across town in Katie Bentley's class … is getting the mail.
"The entire day will be like, 'Can we get our pen pal letters now? Please can we? Now? Right now,'" Bentley said.
For those of you too young to remember the concept - here's how it works.
"First get assigned a pen pal and then we write letters to each other back and forth," one kid says.
Why don't they just talk on the phone?
"Well we don't have phone numbers and besides that would kind of ruin the pen pal thing," a student explained.
The schools involved are Westpark Elementary, where Bentley teaches, and Culverdale Elementary, where Freuh works. They're in Irvine, Calif., about a mile apart. The two classes traded letters all year - until a few weeks ago, when the kids finally got to meet their pen pals at a picnic.
And that was the official end of the assignment. Now it's time for them to keep up their friendships - and many will - because they already know the second half of the story.
Hartman asked the classes: "How many people remember how Ms. Frueh and Ms. Bentley met? Do you remember?"
Nineteen years ago, Bentley was a second grader herself at Westpark. Freuh - a second grader at Culverdale. And, yes, they were pen pals. They traded letters all the way through high school.
Today, they're best friends - teaching the same classes at the same schools they were at when they met.
"I just can't believe that everything fell into place the way that it did," Freuh said.
The kids can't believe it either … friends since 1991.
"Do you know how long ago that was? 1991?" Hartman asked.
"Yeah, that was before they invented cars, they had to use wheels and horses," one student said.
Another said: "And boys had to wear skirts."
"Do they teach history here?" Hartman asked.
"No," the student said.
Fortunately, there's an even better lesson to be learned here - a lesson about friendship that pen pals like Alexander Doan and Mitchell Rogers are already taking to heart.
After their meeting at the picnic, two of the boys made a commitment.
"Do you think you guys will be friends?"
As one kid said: "To the end."
To the end?
"Yes, until 6th grade," he said.
Children bond through pen pal program
Students from Donna Klein Jewish Academy, in Boca Raton, and Pine Grove Elementary School, in Delray Beach, have formed unlikely yet bonding relationships.
It all began when two friends — who each taught at one of the schools — found some similarities between the two different school cultures. With the help of school administrations, and of course, the children themselves, a pen pal program was created where children from Donna Klein Jewish Academy were matched with students at Pine Grove Elementary School.
At the beginning of each school year, each classroom teacher takes photographs of their students, and then attaches them to handwritten notes from the students. When students from one school read the notes from students at the other school, they often learned they had a lot in common, and started to really look forward to when they would get letters from their pen pals.
"Each time a 'special delivery' came to the classroom door, the kids would cheer, and couldn't wait to hear from their pen pal," said Carol Routman, DJKA Middle School art teacher/Pine Grove Elementary liaison.
It all began when two friends — who each taught at one of the schools — found some similarities between the two different school cultures. With the help of school administrations, and of course, the children themselves, a pen pal program was created where children from Donna Klein Jewish Academy were matched with students at Pine Grove Elementary School.
At the beginning of each school year, each classroom teacher takes photographs of their students, and then attaches them to handwritten notes from the students. When students from one school read the notes from students at the other school, they often learned they had a lot in common, and started to really look forward to when they would get letters from their pen pals.
"Each time a 'special delivery' came to the classroom door, the kids would cheer, and couldn't wait to hear from their pen pal," said Carol Routman, DJKA Middle School art teacher/Pine Grove Elementary liaison.
The main structured project between the two schools continues to be the pen pal program for second-graders. Usually the students lose touch after their second-grade school year is over.
However, recently one last friendship was formed as a result of the pen pal program. Marcy Gurspan, who coincidentally is the daughter of a middle school Judaic studies teacher at DKJA, is now a third-grader and met her pen pal, Nadine, last year when she was a second-grader. Marcy felt she and Nadine had an instant connection, and when the 2008-2009 school year was over, she wanted to stay in touch. Unfortunately, it turned out she did not have Nadine's correct telephone number. Throughout this school year, Marcy said that the pen pal program shouldn't just end at the end of second grade, and added that she missed Nadine.
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