Vice Versa

Meet US: the Embassy comes to your classroom

What is the American Dream? What do Americans think about Belgium? How does the American election system work? Do you drive to school or work? Who is your favorite actor, singer, group? Americans only eat fast food and everybody is overweight. Americans are very superficial. These are some typical questions and preconceptions that young Belgians have about the United States.

The Meet Us Program is designed to help clarify the picture by bringing Americans - U.S. citizens from all backgrounds of life resident or visiting Belgium, as well as U.S. Embassy staff - together with secondary school students in Belgium to engage them in dialogue about everyday life in the United States.

The speakers meet with the students at their schools to talk about anything that helps give the students an impression on "how the Americans think". The intention is not to focus primarily on current policy issues, but rather to offer a dialogue on social, historical or cultural aspects of the United States and the interests and aspirations of Americans.

The visits are not structured as formal lectures, but rather an open and direct dialogue between the guest speakers and the students. The speakers usually present a short overview of a particular subject relating to American society and culture or talk more generally about their lives (their jobs or job goals, the schools and universities they attended, their hometowns) and then open the floor to discussion and questions. In some cases, they may even have some questions of their own! The discussions may be conducted in either English or Dutch/French.

Schools we have visited in recent months: College Saint-Francois d'Assise in Tubize -- Atheneum Wispelberg (Gent) -- Atheneum Toverfluit (Sint Jans Molenbeek)  -- Lycee Emile Jacquemain (Brussels)