MISSION VIEJO : Students Console Young Earthquake Victims via Internet

It started out as an exchange of adolescent poetry on the Internet and became an exercise in sympathy, empathy and hope for a group of elementary school students in Mission Viejo and an earthquake devastated area of Japan.

The sixth-graders in Darlette Dexter’s class at Del Cerro Elementary School had experienced earthquakes before--California style--but they didn’t expect to provide sympathetic ears from half a world away when they first began to exchange poems with a group of other young students in Kyoto, Japan, last October.

With the computer salutation “Greetings, World Poets,” teacher Hillel Weintraub of the Doshisha International Junior/Senior High School in Kyoto had invited Dexter’s class, via Internet, to exchange and discuss their original poetry by computer. The two classes began an electronic correspondence.

However, when the mid-January earthquake struck in Kobe, not far from Weintraub’s students, the correspondence took on a more personal character.

Among the descriptions from Weintraub’s students:

“Are you having fun in California? I was having fun until the terrible earthquake came. All the lights were out and all the things were fallen down but I couldn’t see anything. . . .”

“My apartment got a little wrecked so now I am a person who lives off on someone else. The house I’m living in right now is my classmate’s house. We first met them in America and they went to the same school. They are very nice to me.”

“It went back and forth many, many times. I thought I will die.”

And some responses from Dexter’s students:

“I saw how much damage it did to Kobe on the news. It wasn’t very pretty. Are you OK? Don’t worry about writing me back. I know it isn’t a good time for you and your family but I wanted to let you know that we were thinking of you.”

“On the map I have seen that Kyoto is fairly close to Kobe and Tokyo. Are you all right?”

“We had an earthquake just about one year ago. They aren’t fun at all. I hope your house is OK. I can’t imagine what an earthquake of that magnitude would feel like. The highest magnitude earthquake I’ve ever been in is a 6.2.”