Global Minds help open up the world for Char Valley students
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Karla Pastrana needs to get to know people before she opens up.
While she’s much more quiet in math and science classes at Chartiers Valley High School, Karla comes out of her shell and is a vivacious leader in the school’s Global Minds organization.
There, she’s around peers who have similar backgrounds as her. Many speak languages other than English and students bond over their similarities and differences.
Her sister, Marla, is more outgoing. She’s ready to tell anyone who will listen about her culture.
She makes sure to let her classmates know when it’s Three Kings Day, which is celebrated in their native Puerto Rico.
For both of the Pastrana sisters, the Chartiers Valley Global Minds group is an added way for them to feel at home in mainland U.S. and connect with their peers.
“Global Minds is a big family from different places,” Karla, 15, a sophomore, said.
Global Minds was started several years ago by a student at Taylor Allderdice High School in the Pittsburgh Public School system.
“It was originally a way to help ESL (English as a Second Language) kids fit in and make new friends and feel like they’re a part of their school community,” Chartiers Valley ESL teacher Jill Chan, said.
Chan attended a workshop where the organization’s founder spoke.
“I was like ‘Oh my gosh, we have to have that here,’” she said.
At Chartiers Valley there are 39 students in the English as a Second Language program at the middle and high school alone. District wide there are roughly 200 out of the total 3,800 student population.
They come from around the globe: Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Uzbekistan, just to name a few.
“We’re trying to celebrate that diversity and I think this is a way to get more kids involved,” Chan said.
She notices students in the ESL program at times are more quiet in school. However, at Global Minds, they don’t stop talking.
“I feel like we have something more in common,” said Karla, who is the co-president of the organization at Chartiers Valley.
Karla and Marla were born in Puerto Rico. While they went to a bilingual school, they came to mainland U.S. in 2013 with minimal English skills. They still speak Spanish at home.
To this day, they sometimes find themselves talking in Spanish at school or writing down their homework in their first language.
Global Minds isn’t just open to ESL students. It’s open to anyone.
Chan started the Chartiers Valley branch last school year.
There are about 30 students in the middle and high school in the program.
At Global Minds, they’ve done getting to know each other activities, and Marla even is working on a TikTok feed that focuses on their different languages.
On March 18, about 18 students from Chartiers Valley High School will partake in Leadership Pittsburgh’s “Big Table” event, that draws together people from various backgrounds to discuss topics that are important to them.
The Global Minds students at Chartiers Valley will participate in the youth night. Leaders from across Pittsburgh participate in the event, along with many other voices. Marla wanted to go as soon as she heard about the event.
Talking about her background and sharing her experiences makes her feel like she’s doing something to help others.
“Pittsburgh does a really good thing with diversity,” Marla, 17, a senior, said.
The sisters frequent local festivals that range from Latino and Hispanic focused to Greek events.
They love the food from each place and they also enjoy learning more about other people from various backgrounds.
Chartiers Valley hosts its own International Day — that will be in April this year. There, students in Global Minds and ESL bring foods from their homeland and dance together.
The sisters would like to see more festivals and events focused around other cultures.
Chan hopes that students attending the Big Table event share their stories.
“Maybe someday it would be easier for new people,” she said. “The stories that they share: There’s just so much behind the student who’s sitting there.”
She hopes that by them sharing their stories, it will help fight ignorance.