"A Vision"
"A Vision" is an international
literary magazine that publishes art, poetry,
and prose created by secondary school students.
Its purpose is to use art and the medium of creative
writing to demonstrate that despite linguistic,
cultural, ethnic and racial differences, teenagers
around the world share the same hopes, fears,
interests and concerns. The project is currently
facilitated by teachers and students in Lebanon,
Pakistan and the Philippines.
From the 1994 issue of A
Vision  -
ABOUT A VISION
Three years ago, A Vision was started by Adam
Sonfield, now a Cold Spring Harbor graduate, though
the International Education and Resource Network
(iEARN). Originally, A Vision was an e-mail project
consisting of only two schools and was called
"The New York State - Moscow School Telecommunications
Project." The first magazine produced was
20 pages long. In the second year of the project,
A vision grew to sixty-four pages and included
schools from four continents. |
A
Vision |
A Vision is produced by students from Cold Spring Harbor
High School. The staff of Vision from CSH is small,
fewer than ten people. Students from many different
countries send their work to Cold Spring Harbor by e-mail.
The CSH staff then replies to the authors with comments
on their work. A Vision also has its own teleconference,
called iearn.vision. The point of having a conference
is to allow students from schools other than CSH to
read and comment on everyone else's work. By eliminating
the middleman, (CSH), more students come in contact
with each other. Another way of involving students in
the project is through our International Editorial Board.
These students are put in charge of gathering work from
their school, e-mailing it to us, and posting it on
the conference.
In March of each year, the actual production of the
magazine begins. The editors of the magazine read all
of the work that has been submitted during the year
and decide what to publish in the magazine. The faculty
advisor, Mrs. Ackerman, aids in the editing of the text
for clarity and length. When all of this is completed,
A Vision is laid out on PageMaker, a desktop publishing
program. It is then sent to the printer and two weeks
later, the magazine is completed and the staff at Cold
Spring Harbor send the contributing schools copies of
the magazine.
The first intention of this magazine was to form a
partnership between two schools in countries that had
long been political enemies. The hope was that through
the medium of creative writing and artwork, an understanding
could come between the students. Now, by extending its
domain from New Zealand all the way to Ramallah, Palestine,
A Vision has expanded this hope to include hundreds
of students. A Vision has worked to increase global
understanding between the young citizens of our world.
EDITORS' NOTE, Brian
Fox and Celeste PerriBefore we are black, white, red,
yellow, we are flesh. Before we pray to Jesus, to Allah,
to GOD, to no one at all, we feel. Before we are Russian,
American; Arab, Israeli; Serb, Bosnian; Before this,
we are human. It is this shared humanity that we celebrate
in the word and picture.
People whom we have never seen have lent us their eyes,
their hearts, their ways of knowing, and we have tried
to translate for the world what being human means, individually,
collectively. Pain, hope, longing belong to all of us.
And we belong to each other.
We know that we are not changing the world. We are,
however, seeing it for the first time. We give you our
Vision.
2001 issue of A Vision
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