Dr. Nelson’s Blog

Father Robert K. “Moki” Hino recently visited our school and church community on Guam. Fr. Hino was a student of St. John’s School as well as revered faculty member who now resides in Hawaii.

I requested from him a copy of the sermon he shared at St. John’s the Divine Church two Sundays ago and he generously sent it along to share with all.

Here is Fr. Hino’s sermon about the Good Shepherd…

Come home, come home,
You who are weary, come home;

As I fly 3,800 miles over the vast Pacific Ocean to be with you all this morning, I hear the words over and over in my mind:

Come home, come home,
You who are weary, come home;

Home.  Home is where the heart is.  If that’s true, then I have three places that I call home.  I have my home in the Hawaiian Islands where my family and I live.  It’s where my grandmother’s house sits three hundred feet from the spot where she was born.  It’s where my grandfather dies suddenly two years ago, just four miles from where he was born.  It’s where I live and work as an ordained priest at a parish called Church of the Good Shepherd and as chaplain at a school called Seabury Hall.

I also have a home in Evanston, Illinois called Seabury-Western Theological Seminary.  It’s where our beloved Grove Needham attended seminary in the 1960s and whose presence is still felt in the seminary cloister and chapel.  It’s where I spend the three best years of my life – three years in formation.  It’s where I make some very good and dear friends that I take with me into my ordained ministry as one of your priests.

And I have another home.  It’s right here.  Right here in this church.  This is where my parents marry in 1964.  This is where I’m baptized in 1965.  This is where I bid farewell to my cousin Kimo in 1976.  This is where I attend chapel services as a junior high school student from 1977 to 1980.  This is where I graduate from junior high.  This is where I take communion with my third grade students in 1995.  This is where Charles Keyser confirms me in 1996.  This is where I remember my Uncle Jimmy Shintaku in a memorial service in 1998.  This is where I help bury Grove Needham in 1999.  This is where I see our friends Jim and Emily marry in 2000.  This is where I’m a vestry member, this is where I’m a Sunday school teacher, this is where I’m an altar guild member, this is where I’m an ECIM Council of Advice member, this is where I’m a student of Education for Ministry.  This is where I leave in 2001.  This is the launching point for the journey that leads me to ordination as a priest in 2006.  This is home.

Come home, come home,
You who are weary, come home.

The Good Shepherd calls a new priest home.

Sounds glamorous, doesn’t it – the Good Shepherd.  Have you seen Brokeback Mountain, the movie about two shepherds in Wyoming?  If so, you know that being a shepherd is anything but glamorous, don’t you?  In Brokeback Mountain, the shepherds make no money.  The shepherds sleep in a tent.  The shepherds eat beans from a can every night.  The shepherds rarely bathe.  The shepherds carry sheep around their necks – they carry sheep around their necks that have manure stuck in their wool.  It’s dirty work.  It’s messy work.  It’s difficult work.  And then you’ve got the wolves. And they don’t just come in the form of a canine animal with big teeth.  We deal with wolves in our midst every day – divisiveness, petty jealousies, and constant questions of self-doubt like, “Can we really be resurrected if we die?”

Who is the Good Shepherd?

In February I escorted 13 students from Seabury Hall to the Hansen’s disease colony at Kalaupapa on the island of Moloka`i where we spent four days painting the house of a Hansen’s disease patient who died five years earlier – Boogie’s sister’s house, that’s the only name we ever got.  On our last day we stood on the cliff at Kalawao, the original settlement on Moloka`i.  As I looked at the greens, blues, and grays on the 3,000-foot sea cliffs – the tallest sea cliffs in the world – I thought to myself, “this is the most beautiful place I have ever seen.”

The people of Moloka`i didn’t always see it that way, though.  Certainly not when Father Damien DeVeuster washed up on its shores in the 1870s, this man who was a saint, this man who was a shepherd to patients who were so sick that they didn’t have the energy to grow food or build shelter for themselves.  Father Damien himself slept under a pandanus tree until he was sure that they had shelter, food, and medical care.  And he slept under a pandanus tree in the midst of the wolves – objectification of the sick, institutional apathy, and ostracism of the sick.  He eventually contracted Hansen’s disease himself, but not before he resurrected the patients of Kalaupapa from their Good Friday misery on the cross.

Who is the Good Shepherd?

Across the channel from Moloka`i on the island of Maui there’s a small building called Church of the Good Shepherd, founded by His Majesty King Kamehameha IV and his consort Queen Emma.  It’s the place where I was ordained priest.  Church of the Good Shepherd is a thriving parish with over four hundred members, a youth presence thirty-plus strong, a Sunday school bursting at the seems, a senior choir, a junior choir, two priests, three clerical staff, and an average Sunday attendance of almost two hundred.  It’s a happening place.

The people of Church of the Good Shepherd didn’t always see it that way, though.  Certainly not when they were in the middle of a heated race war between the Filipino members with the numbers and the white folks with the clout and not it got to the point where they were so busy fighting that they lost sight of the fact that they had nothing in their coffers.  They were going to die.  Then a parish matriarch from Ilocos Norte stood up one day and told all the men who were hurling insults at each other about one another’s wives that they’d better knock it off.  The men of Good Shepherd remembered that this matriarch wielded a bolo knife and chased Japanese soldiers out of her home during World War Two and the men of Good Shepherd listened.  They came together in the midst of the wolves – pride, jealousy, and institutional racism.  They resurrected themselves out of their Good Friday misery on the cross by making a deliberate decision to be inclusive and then they rallied around the cause of feeding the homeless on Sunday afternoons.  They rallied around the cause of providing a place for high school students in the community to come and lift weights on weeknights.  They rallied around the cause of renewing their commitment to the youth in their parish.

Who is the Good Shepherd?

Well, the Good Shepherd is one who lives into our Baptismal Covenant, that wonderful legacy that developed in our Books of Common Prayer over the years.  Where we promise to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves.  Where we promise to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.

Our Baptismal Covenant.  What does that mean to this church?  This church in Guam?  This church that has enough spirit in it to raise up a priest whose come home?  And can we identify the wolves in our midst?  Can we identify the sheep who want to come home?  Are we the sheep?  Is the national church at 815 2nd Avenue in New York City the Good Shepherd?  Is lack of money and attention the wolf?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  May God is calling us to look at it in a different way.

Maybe the wolf is poverty.  Maybe workers from places like the Marshall Islands, Chuuk, and the Philippines who can’t earn a living wage on Guam, maybe they are the sheep.  Maybe they want to come home.  Maybe the wolf is alienation.  Maybe those who yearn to feel welcome after being ostracized from their own churches because they’re gay, because they’ve got children out of wedlock, because they don’t believe a certain way…maybe they are the sheep. Maybe they want to come home.  Maybe the wolf is exclusivity.  Maybe those who are told you’re too young, too old, too rich, too poor, too white, too brown, too straight, too gay, too smelly, too hungry, maybe they are the sheep.  Maybe they want to come home.  Maybe we’re called to do something about it.  Maybe we’re called to respond.  Maybe we’re called to engage in engage in mission instead of being the mission.  Maybe we’re called to rally around a cause.  Maybe we’re called to do God’s work in the midst of wolves that make us want to say, “I can’t!”

We’re not a “stuck in Good Friday” people.  We’re not a “stuck in Good Friday” faith.  We’re an Easter people.  We’re an Easter faith.

Come home, come home,
You who are weary, come home;

Who is the Good Shepherd?

My brothers and sisters in Christ, according to the Baptismal covenant in our Book of Common Prayer, the Good Shepherd is the Christ in you, the Good Shepherd is the Christ in me, the Good Shepherd is the Christ in all of us waiting and yearning to do God’s good works in spite of the wolves in our midst.

In a few minutes we’ll gather at this table and say:

Christ has died.

Christ is risen.

Christ will come again.

If that’s what we really believe, then in loving gratitude we must respond.  In loving gratitude we must seek and serve Christ in others.  In loving gratitude we must respect the dignity of every human being.

Come home, come home,
You who are weary, come home;

I’m home. Come to the table and eat. You’re home. Come to the table and eat. Come to the table and eat.  But don’t let it end there.  We’ve got work to do.

Jesus reminds us, “I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.  So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

Come home, come home,
You who are weary, come home;

I’m home.  Let’s come to the table.  You’re home.  Let’s come to the table.  Let’s come to the table and let ourselves be fed – then let’s go out there and bring them all home.

Come home, come home,
You who are weary, come home;

Institutional advancement is the second most important priority for developing our school to her highest potential. Of course, our number one priority is the delivery of an advanced, well-resourced academic program to our students by certified, qualified and highly motivated professional faculty members.

So, exactly what is institutional advancement? It begins with how our school is perceived by the greater Guam community as well as the international school community of parents interested in boarding schools in the U.S. and/or Asia Pacific region. Parents are constantly looking for the most appropriate education for their children and we need to deliver our message to everyone who is at all interested in what we have to offer.

We have a capacity to serve up to 700 students at SJS and, now, as we continue to grow the school (after a high of 697 students in 1988 to a low of 497 in 2002 – losing 40% of our students – enrollment is up 8% over the past three years) our services and activities will also expand for the betterment of all students and faculty.

For example, there has been much discussion recently about expanding world languages into the Middle and Lower School as well as offering more variety in the Upper School. As we continue to advance the school this opportunity will become more apparent as the enrollment and subsequent resources increase.

Another potential area for advancement is the planning and funding for major capital improvements. Interest in building for program expansion (e.g., swimming pool, theatre, covered tennis courts, new preschool, parking garage, etc.) grows faster with a dedicated, well-resourced institutional advancement program.

Our current institutional advancement includes managing admissions, school tours, student recruitment, public relations publications, parent-alumni relations, fundraising and celebrations. The annual events are growing every year and in scope as well. With this expansion comes the need to keep up with the increases in required publications, communications amongst school community members, ensuing celebrations and evolving technology infrastructure to ensure a useful and correct database of contacts and the protocol for use of said data in an appropriate manner.

During school year 2002-03 the total amount of giving was a mere $23,075 – not very good results for a school of such high caliber as St. John’s. Since contracting help in school year 2003-04 we can measure progress in the hard data from the numbers alone.

· desired goals:

    year 1 2003-04 = $50,000

    year 2 2004-05 = $75,000

    year 3 2005-06 = $100,000

· actual fund-raising:

    year 1 2003-04 = $142,144

    year 2 2004-05 = $162,891

    year 3 2005-06 = $215,558

With such a proactive, successful initiative and in a school our size it is best practice (Independent School Management, Inc. 6/94, Sec. II, pg. eight) to have two dedicated professionals running the admissions and fundraising components as two discrete programs together under the umbrella of the institutional advancement office. Our school has recently contracted in-house services (versus the traditional outsourcing for the same cost) to bring into our team a highly-qualified expert who is now dedicating her time and efforts towards exactly what is required to continue to grow our school to capacity. Please join me in welcoming Ms. Keiko Hoshijima. Keiko’s desk is in the front office just behind the receptionist. Please extend your welcome and courtesies. You can send a note to Keiko at khoshi@stjohnsguam.com.

I am very motivated to get the word out about a new developing part of our school curriculum at SJS – expeditionary education. If you have heard about Outward Bound or other kinds of education outside the classroom you might want to read and consider the following description from one of our faculty about a new course for summer school:

“Young people of today spend far too little time playing in and experiencing the great outdoors.  This one week course will give students the opportunity to reconnect to the natural world through educational games and activities designed to help them develop an understanding and appreciation of the wild environment which is being so rapidly destroyed.  We will spend a week living in the vicinity of a pristine beach or a pond at the base of a waterfall.  While the students will have plenty of time to play games enjoy themselves, they will also explore and study the flora, fauna, and geology around them in an experiential way impossible in a conventional classroom.  This course follows the guidelines developed by Tom Henley, author of As If Earth Matters, which has proven very successful in developing an unexpected depth in young people and in showing them that education can actually be a lot of fun.  The students will get lots of exercise, eat healthy foods that they will help prepare themselves, and finish the course with memories that will last a lifetime.”

First Course:         July 10 to July 14

Second Course:    July 17 to 21

Leave a comment if you want to learn more…

When I wrote my weekly letter to parents last Friday, I commented that the EARCOS conference was “without a doubt the best educational conference I have ever attended.” Usually conferences are dedicated to one subject; i.e. Math Solutions, International Reading Association., AIMS Science, etc, but at EARCOS we were able to choose sessiosns in many different areas, and I did! The keynote speakers were diverse and all excellent.

The focus on Ecology and Environmental issues combined with Ethic Intelligence was eye-opening and timely.

The time I spent in sessions with Dr. Valerie Maxwell learning about current brain research, nutrition, and Ad/HS meds was well spent. The availability of The Learning Gym in L.A. has been passed on to a former St. John’s family desperate to help their child. Mel contacted them on Monday with the information. Many of Dr. Maxwell’s tips can be applied to my current classroom full of kids who either can’t or don’t listen! I have shared her web site with some parents.

I did attend several technology sessions, but to tell you the truth, we are pretty advanced ourselves! The one thing that the other schools were doing that I am not doing is getting the children’s work on-line. Rolly is working on me!

*******************************

For a few thoughts about the EARCOS conference, it was the best educational conference or seminar that I have ever attended. Specifically, I attended 4 workshops by Blaine Ray, a language specialist who advocates the teaching of English through storytelling.  I am going to be tutoring a Korean student after school at the learning center, and I do intend to try using this technique that Mr. Ray taught at EARCOS.  I also attended two PE sessions hosted by Heidi Oxley from ISManila and I will be talking … about maybe requesting the funds for some cardiovascular equipment that currently ISM and American School Shanghai is using.

In short, I must admit that I was a little disappointed when I found out that there would not be enough PD funds for the group of St. John’s teachers to attend EARCOS, and then for me to work at my summer camps in the States, but in retrospect, I would not hesitate to make the same decision again.  I only hope that some of us will have the opportunity to attend the Bangkok conference in 2007…
********************************

The EARCOS conference was a very worthwhile trip to the Philippines. There were so many workshops that I’d like to participate in but I can’t be in two places at the same time. It was an opportunity for me not only to learn from colleagues but also to meet new friends from other countries. It was very nice to hear teachers from other international schools, share their problems and successes in their own classroom, and with their students. This made me realize that no matter where we are, we face the same issues, and try to solve them, and improve on what we already have. In addition we learn about what makes each school unique. I especially like the first keynote speaker who talked about how we can learn from the tribal groups, and that to exploit them will also bring us to our doom. Yes, we have all the good intention to educate but we also need to be sensitive to our students’ culture and practices.

The only regret I have about the trip is that we didn’t have enough time after the conference. For my case, I had to check out at 12:00 noon on Saturday, so I didn’t get to attend the last day of the conference. My family and I went straight to the airport after I checked out. We took the earlier flight to avoid the fully booked flight that evening. Using my husband’s flying benefit can also be a disadvantage because we are always on standby. I didn’t want to be stranded in Manila.

I’m already looking forward to next year’s conference. I hope that we will have this opportunity again. Next year I plan to take it as a course, if it is offered. Comparing EARCOS to the IRA convention I attended last May 2005, EARCOS is much better and worthwhile because it doesn’t just focus on the Language Arts but covers almost all subject and important issues teachers and students deal with.

*******************************

The EARCOS Conference in Manila, 2006

March 29 Preconference:

Theory of Knowledge Across the Curriculum, Richard van de Lagemaat

Though this presentation was geared toward new Theory of Knowledge teachers, it is always useful to get to teaching ideas by seeing how someone else teaches this course. Also, I have only taught the second half of the course over the past fourteen years, so a refresher on the first half was quite important since I may teach TOK to the juniors in the coming year.

Mr. Lagemaat started the session by having each of us write three sentences giving information about ourselves, two of them true, and one of them a lie. We then exchanged these sentences to a partner, who would then ask each other questions to try to determine which information was a lie. The idea behind this was to emphasize the difficulty of determining truth from falsehood. Discerning the false statement was especially difficult, if, as was often the case, the false statement was not totally false, but an exaggeration. For instance, Clinton’s assertion, “I did not have sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky,” is, from a narrow interpretation of the phrase, true. From this followed a discussion of all the false information with which we are constantly bombarded, especially via the Internet. While (some) adults have acquired the necessary skills for discerning what is likely to be true from what is not, it is the nature of young students to be more gullible. One of the major purposes behind TOK is to teach judgment skills.

Another exercise we did was to read a paragraph describing a robbery, and then analyze several statements to determine whether the statement was true, false, or uncertain. One’s first response was to mark all of the statements as true with the exception of the one that was definitely false, but upon closer inspection, it became clear that every one of the statements was actually ambiguous. The purpose of this exercise was to emphasize how often inferences are necessarily made with regard to information we receive, and that often such inferences are made unconsciously and erroneously. We then discussed several examples of statements that naturally lead to false inferences. As one simple example, the very name of “the Patriot Act” implies that to be opposed to it is unpatriotic.

We did other exercises that demonstrated the difficulty of relaying instructions and information to people who are in a different frame of reference (or paradigm), and the ways in which the observer necessarily affects the situation being observed. All in all, this was a useful and impressive beginning to the EARCOS conference.

March 30:

Lessons From the Illiterate, Tom Henley (Keynote Speaker)

One main point Tom Henley made in his presentation was that technologically primitive societies, such as the Moken, were better prepared for the December 26th tsunami of last year than modern people because they’re educated by stories dating back thousands of years; The Moken saved themselves by simply climbing cocoanut trees, which have adapted to withstand typhoons and tsunamis, but college educated tourists and even the native islanders educated in the western tradition did not even recognize the signs of a tsunami, and would not have known how to save themselves if they had. Currently, with deforestation and other modern encroachments into wilderness areas, primitive peoples with all their knowledge of natural medicines and alternative perspectives of life have almost all disappeared. Henley is taking children accustomed to the ways of civilization to meet and be educated by these traditional people. I found his presentation quite inspiring. I also felt envious of his ability to accomplish the things he has.

Amusement Park Physics/ Basics of Electronic Data Collection (April 1), Clarence Bakkken/ Inquiry and Effective Technology in Physics, Purnell

I will clump these three sessions together because they were all essentially on the same topic, namely the use of electronic probes as a means of facilitating inquiry-based learning, in which the students construct new ideas and gain knowledge from their own experiences and by solving real problems, rather than just following cookbook laboratory handouts. Since most of these sessions could easily have been expanded into at least a whole day or more, it was really fortunate that all three sessions dealt with the use of these recently developed Probe-Ware devices – by the last one I was finally understanding what was going on. In some ways, these sessions were almost like a commercial demonstration for Vernier, but I do not mean that cynically. With this instrument and all of its sensor probes, students can see the wave-shape of such sounds as their own voice, musical instruments, or whatever, as well as distance/ time graphs of the motion of laboratory carts or themselves, or force/acceleration graphs of exploding rockets. It did impress me as a way of bringing physics immediately alive, and would naturally encourage students to want to try to solve problems of their own devising.

March 31:

Gifted Education: Why Give “More” to Those Who “Have It Already?” Miraca Gross (Keynote Speaker)

Miraca Gross’s presentation pointed out that although we already have extensive and expensive programs for those students who are gifted in sports, society nonetheless has the attitude that it is elitist and anti-democratic to provide special attention for those students in the top 15% academically. However, studies show that such children need special attention if they are not to be stunted in their development. An obvious fact that most teachers struggle with but seldom address effectively is that in a class of children of, say, a chronological age of twelve, the children will have a developmental range of from nine to fifteen. It only makes sense that educators place students where they can most effectively learn for the advantage of the “gifted” (who are really just normal children) as well as the ones who learn and mature at a slower pace.

Critical Thinking and the War on Terrorism, Richard van de Lagemaat

In this presentation, van de Lagemaat emphasized the fact that thinking is inherently conservative so people naturally steer away from controversial issues. Most of what we believe, we believe because that is what appeals to us. Moreover, we are largely unconscious of the reasons why we find those things appealing, and hardly even know how to question our beliefs. There are multitudes of conspiracy theories, ranging from “the Jews bombed the World Trade Center, and this is ‘proven’ by the fact that all the Jews who worked there received phone calls warning them not to go in to work that day,” to David Ray Griffin’s current book, The New Pearl Harbor, in which he assures his readers, and seemingly provides lots of hard evidence to back up his assertion, that the Bush Administration was responsible because they needed an excuse to invade Iraq. Our task as teachers, of course, is to help students be at least aware of the different beliefs that are out there, why people find these beliefs so attractive, and how they can evaluate the validity of their own beliefs with these “strange” beliefs. We can point out some of the reasons why changing our opinions is so difficult. We are imprisoned by consistency; to change our minds, we may have to completely redefine who we are.

Talking/Teaching About Terrorism, Mark Felstehausen

Mr. Felstehausen’s session approached the problem of terrorism from the fundamental assumption, or hope, that there is an identifiable difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter. While one wants to address the question of whether terrorism ever actually accomplishes its stated goals, one also wants to distinguish between stated goals and actual goals. Why is there a difference between terrorists targeting and killing three thousand civilians, and bombing raids targeting military centers but “accidentally” killing six thousand civilians. Who is it that determines that there is a difference? These are questions for which there is unlikely to be any definitive answer, but at least we can make students aware of all of the different mindsets that make people want to believe whatever they believe.

As If Earth Mattered, Tom Henley

This presentation had the same title as Henley’s book, which I immediately bought after his keynote speech on “Lessons From the Illiterate.” Tom Henley highlighted the fact that environmental awareness has not inspired meaningful action to preserve Earth in a form that can support human life. The fact is that too many of today’s children have no experience of the wilderness, and hence have neither affection nor respect for the wilderness. The idea of his lecture, and of his book, is to inspire teachers to start wilderness awareness programs with students, preferably young students, so that they develop a natural love of nature. This is, of course, one of the things I am trying to accomplish with the Hiking Club, with the arduous all-class hikes that St. John’s has recently implemented. Henley describes several exercises in his book that are designed to develop a sense, not only of interest in and respect for the wilderness, but of belonging within it, so that stewardship will hopefully become a heartfelt service rather than a chore.

April 1:

The Sense of Humor, Jim Winter (Keynote Speaker)

This session was a lot of fun, as it involved lots of jokes and laughing session in which we sang the Lone Ranger Theme Song with “Ho ho ho ho ho ho ha ha.” It emphasized that humor is a higher order thinking skill, dependent upon divergent of lateral thinking, in which different frames of reference making a surprising collision. Mr. Winter presented several interesting definitions, and different ways of assessing the value of humor, such as: “Laughter is a force for democracy,” “Laughter is mental jogging,” and “Laughter is where enemies become friends.” Humor, of course, reduces stress, helps create rapport with one’s students, and enhances their enthusiasm for learning.

Enhance and Support Learning in Your Classroom Using Brain Gym, Kathy Derrick

Ms. Derrick showed us a series of very simple exercises that are supposed to make students more alert and eager to learn, in part by bringing the right and left hemispheres of the brain into harmony. We started out by drinking water, because water is necessary for effective circulation of oxygenated blood to the brain. The exercises were so simple that I felt somewhat skeptical of the marvelous benefits to students’ performance that were claimed to follow, though Ms. Derrick did have several impressive examples of student’s work before and after doing these exercises. Apparently, she had one student who was completely unable to focus his eyes, and was thus unable to learn how to read, but this problem was completely cleared up with these simple exercises. I hope to teach an elective in yoga this coming year. I will incorporate some of these exercises into this class and look for results.

*******************************

If nothing else, it was a renewal…. energizer….. group builder. However, it was a great deal more. The entire conference was very well done. The presenters and the keynote speakers were entertaining, but more importantly, full of information. Some things were new, but discounting the Aha idea is bad. Many times I said “Aha” they feel that way, too…. or they tried it and it worked. Maybe I need to investigate again…… I really enjoyed the keynote with the HOHo, HAHA, HeHe. Silly but fun. Great to see all the smiling faces. The best news is the conference we found in Chicago this summer. Hoping we can hear more. Thank you for the opportunity, (PS Being with Mel is always wonderful and a real HOOT!

******************************

Some of the important concepts I obtained from EARCOS were about working with children with ADD, using the brain exercises and nutrition from Dr. Maxwell and her SOI program. I also enjoyed the keynote speakers–Tom Henley discussed important concepts about literacy and how cultures can be destroyed by the western world ideals about reading and writing, Jim Winter’s use of humor in the classroom was very good and gave ideas about how to use humor in the classroom for levity. The curriculum and instruction workshop discussed many of the concerns we have at our school, and discussed the use of “mapping” using the Rubicon program. This program can place unit plans on the computer and organize a flow chart for the school’s curriculum. I also attended workshops that help teachers control stress. This was helpful in that it made it more clear that health was important to maintain as well as relieving stress for teachers and students. One of the most important aspects was that as a faculty we were able to just relax with each other and enjoy each others company. The conference allowed us to be away from work at school and home to enjoy each other and learn more about one another (I never knew Buck could/would dance). Overall I felt the conference was very successful and worth attending during spring break.

*******************************

Good morning. I’ve briefly shared my thoughts with a couple of board members already. I have thanked them for giving us this wonderful opportunity. My thanks to you, too. The conference was professionally rejuvenating for me. Anyone visiting my class or having a conversation with my students will notice that they are immersed with learning about the American symbols. They are researching the symbol of their choice and planning out a project that will depict their symbol. Their natural curiosity has taken over and students are bringing in books and internet articles on their own! This disposition of seeking out information that my students are experiencing, is the direct result of my attending two sessions with EARCOS speaker, Lillian Katz. I have more to say, but need to get ready for work. I will be more than happy to share more.

*******************************

Having taught for 32 years, and having quite a bit of experience with the British O & A-level systems, the US Advanced Placement program and the International Baccalaureate, as well as having attended numerous conferences of this sort in the past, I did not really find much “new”. Mostly what I found was an affirmation of what I believe good teaching to be. I was pleased to see the encouragement to accelerate students capable of being accelerated and to provide assistance to those who need it. For many years at St John’s, I have been regarded by most students, quite a number of parents, and a few teachers, to be “too hard”. I felt quite vindicated by other teachers at EARCOS who felt that we need to raise our standards, and quit “babying” students. If we are truly a college prep school, then we should be preparing students for college, where they will be expected to work hard.

I attended one session called “Looking at Student’s Work” – I was amazed to find that some teachers never look at their students’ work.

I attended another session that provided a rubric for grading a Problem of the Week. According to this teacher’s rubric, very few students, in fact, the rare exception, would receive an A. When asked by attendees how the presenter felt about giving only a few As in a class, she replied that A meant excellent, and only a few students in a given class were excellent. Most were good and received Bs. I smiled inside.

The two sessions I attended on updates to the AP exams, PSAT and SAT re-affirmed my belief that St John’s would be best serving its students by providing them with the opportunity to obtain the AP International Diploma, which I was assured on two separate occasions that Guam qualifies for.

Most of the other sessions I attended were aimed towards students with special needs and angry and depressed students. Unfortunately I did not get any encouraging information from these sessions. Most of the others in attendance seemed to be as lost as we are, although I was amazed at the resource staff most already had at their schools.

The most interesting thing I got out of this conference was from private conversations with other math teachers. There was an over-whelming feeling among them, that the IB Higher Level math was too elitist and way too difficult for even a quite capable student. For every teacher I spoke with, who had experience in both programs, ALL wanted to switch to AP Calculus from IB Higher Math. The one exception was a British teacher who had only IB or A level experience, but who did comment that a C was a good grade and required quite an effort by the student to get. Our parents wouldn’t like him, although a true IB program would grade similarly.

As I explained the system we have for Math at SJS, most said we had a great system, especially allowing two years for AP Calculus AB and BC. They were also quite complimentary towards our Math Review program.

I spent most of my time trying to get information on the problems we are experiencing with AP vs IB, special needs, etc. I didn’t learn much new, but I did come out of the conference feeling that I am doing things right.

***************************************

I went to EARCOS expecting to be totally blown away and amazed by what others are doing with technology in their schools. I suppose I was expecting the caliber of presentations [and the conference in general] to be the same as those I’ve been to in the mainland.

To be fair, there were lots of technical difficulties/problems at the hotel — lack of computers for one hands-on session that I went to (more of absence of computers) and reliable internet connection. Nevertheless, I was still quite disappointed with the quantity and quality of the technology-themed presentations. The scheduling of the technology presentations wasn’t efficient as well. There were times when there were no technology presentations, and times when there were 4 or so concurrent sessions! Some sessions were also more of a means for the presenters to “sell” their product or Master’s Degree program.

I still learned quite a few things from sessions I attended and from technology-minded folks that I talked to. I learned that:

our technology situation is not so different from other schools other international schools have WORSE technology issues (very old computers, terrible internet service, horrible support) some international schools have also been very successful with their technology — such as each student having access to an iBook in one school in Hong Kong, all teachers having iBooks, and so on… some schools are really putting in a lot of resources – funding, time, and energy – into developing their technology infrastructure, programs, and curricula swe are not so far behind other schools that are tops in their technology implementations — given that there’s really only one person at SJS that is heavily involved in technology implementation, support, and professional development — this doesn’t mean, however, that we should stop improving our technology situation, other schools (some smaller than SJS) actually have a technology team of at least five people that are involved in technology implementation, training, support, repair, and so on and so forth — full time people!

The keynote talks were very good — but some fell flat because of lack of technology support from the organizers or lack of proper technology use. The overhead projector and transparency presentation could have been improved with a simple KeyNote presentation on an iBook. The slide show could have been made fantastic by a simple iMovie. But those are just the bells and whistles — bottom line: the keynote topics were well-chosen.

A few sessions were very helpful for me, such as the one on technology projects. I went away with ideas that I could implement in lower school computing classes.

Many of the sessions I went to were presentations of technology activities that we are already involved in at St. John’s — Moodle, blogging, web site content management systems, digital video, podcasting, and so on and so forth. We are already doing many of these, but not yet to the breadth and width of influence that I have been dreaming of.

I was also able to make connections with a few international schools folks who were interested in what we were doing with handhelds, blogging, podcasting, and so on.

Overall, the conference was a great way to meet people from different schools and countries and to view St. John’s from a different perspective. It was a wonderful opportunity to listen to ideas of various presenters and to see what other schools are doing — at least in my case — more specifically in the area of technology. Some presentations were not very stimulating or properly delivered. Some presenters barely had experience with the technology tools/ideas they were touting. From what I saw, I’d like to contribute to the body of knowledge and experience that is EARCOS by presenting things that we do at St. John’s — on ubiquitous computing, blogging, moodling, etc. — in collaboration with other teachers who are doing the same.

Just a few of my honest thoughts on EARCOS 2006

*******************************

Session 1: Critical Thinking through Internet Conspiracy Theories- Great ideas about how to get kids to look at internet reporting and its reliability.

Session 3: Philippine History (By the Grandson of the President during WWII) Great session about trends in Philippine History. Useful in analyzing our looks at history, as the view from a colonized nation.

Session 4: SPICE Stanford’s effort to reach to high schools by giving some lecture and other program in curricular packages. Neat idea, but costs money. A few packages might be interesting

Session 5: Using The Simpsons to illustrate topics in social studies, Bad overall, but good exchange ideas regarding other tv/video ideas.

Session 6 an 9: Collegeboard updates on its program and the AP products. MyRoad (student tool for college planning is now free)

Session 7: Weblogs and Podcasts in the curriculum; A look at how other schools use these ideas. Helpful for the future planning

Session 8: The Senior Retreat, a Shanghai American school program for a way to disseminate info to the seniors and guide their application process. Applicable here with a few different ideas.

…here are the universities who have already accepted St. John’s students this year:

1. American U.

2. Amherst College

3. Antioch U.

4. Art Institute of San Francisco

5. Boston College

6. Boston U.

7. Brown U.

8. Cal Institute of Technology

9. Cal State Long Beach

10. Cal State Los Angeles

11. Cal State Sacramento

12. Catholic U. of America

13. Chaminade U.

14. Columbia U.

15. Cornell U.

16. De Anza College

17. DePaul U.

18. Duke U.

19. Emory U.

20. Georgetown U.

21. Georgia U. of Technology

22. Harvey Mudd College

23. Hawaii Pacific U.

24. Hofstra U.

25. Ithaca College

26. Johns Hopkins U.

27. Marquette U.

28. Mesa College

29. Northeastern U.

30. Northwestern U.

31. Occidental College

32. Pitzer College

33. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

34. Rice U.

35. Rochester Institute of Technology

36. Santa Clara U.

37. Scripps College

38. Seattle U.

39. Sophia U.

40. Stanford U.

41. Syracuse U.

42. Texas A & M

43. U. C. Berkeley

44. U. C. Irvine

45. U. C. Los Angeles

46. U. C. San Diego

47. U. C. Santa Barbara

48. U. of Guam

49. U. of Maryland-College Park

50. U. of Miami

51. U. of North Carolina

52. U. of Oregon

53. U. of Pennsylvania

54. U. of Portland

55. U. of Puget Sound

56. U. of Redlands

57. U. of San Diego

58. U. of San Francisco

59. U. of Southern California

60. U. of the Pacific

61. U. of Virginia

62. U. of Washington

63. Washington U. of St. Louis

64. Williams

65. Worcester Polytechnic

66. Yale

Stay tuned for more of the same to come!

Go Knights – so far!!!

Greetings from the East Asia Regional Council of Overseas Schools (EARCOS) annual teacher’s conference in Manila. We are the 100th school (just invited this year) to be included in this august body of accredited international schools throughout the Asia Pacific region. See http://www.earcos.org/about.html for more information.

As the 100th school to enjoy membership in EARCOS we are 39 faculty strong in attendance in Manila and it is my desire that this conference will bring some low hanging fruit of continued celebration of SJS’s diversity, our mission of outreach and collaboration as well as a sense of “we’re not alone” on Guam and the region. This year’s professional development funds were dedicated to sending as many faculty as possible to this intense and, hopefully, well received convention so we move forward with continual improvements for the sake of the children.

I am currently between sessions. This a.m. I co-presented a 3 hour workshop on the how “Millennials” are a unique generation of students we are teaching on a daily basis and how to help meet their unique set of needs (versus the GI generation of the mid 40’s to mid 50’s, the Silent Generation of the 50’s to mid 60’s, the Baby Boomers of the mid 60’s to mid 70’s, the Generation X from mid 70’s to mid 80’s etc.).

Tomorrow I will be co-presenting a technology-based workshop with a St. John’s church member, Mr. Andrew Kerr, who is also our PTA Treasurer as well as a father of two SJS students and the husband of one of our faculty members (see http://www.earcos.org/etc2006/workshop.html#jorge for more).

We are getting ready to paint the roof, thanks to the joint work of the Building and Grounds committee and the PTA, who is sponsoring $10K in funds for the project.

The Mock Trial team won first place and is going to Oklahoma City for the National competition. Our Math Counts teams placed 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 8th, and 14^th and the top four are going to Virginia in May for the National Competition.

We have already graduates getting ready to go to: Amherst, Antioch, Cornell, DePaul, Hofstra, Ithaca, U of Portland, Rochester Inst. Of Tech., Santa Clara, Seattle U., Sofia U., U. of Puget Sound, U. of Redlands, U. of San Francisco, U. of Southern California, U. of Washington, Williams.

Our enrollment as of Wednesday, March 15, 2006 now numbers 538 total students – up two from last month.

We have selected and hired Loni, our new fulltime accountant who started last week. She is highly qualified and is already helping out as planned.

40 faculty members are being included in the conference in Manila as the 100^th school in the East Asia Regional Council of Overseas Schools (EARCOS).

HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS

Third quarter sports are wrapping up and I have seen see each team working hard and getting better everyday after school. JV Boys’ Basketball, coached by John Pangilinan finished their season with a win over Harvest.. Varsity Boys’ Basketball, coached by Fred Peters, also finished the regular season with a win over Harvest. They won a playoff game to advance to the quarterfinals, where they lost to FD. The Varsity team was playing really well at the end of the season.

Girls’ Softball, coached by 2nd coach Rita Benavente, will start the playoffs this Thursday with a tough game at Southern High School. The team has improved greatly and is looking for the upset.

Boys’ and Girls’ Golf, coached by Chris Shepherd, finished another successful season. The boys’ finished second with a 6-3-1 record. Eugene Park and Josh Camacho played superb all season. The girls’ finished with a 9-0-1 record to win their third consecutive title. Helen Chung and Esther Chung paced the girls’ team. This Saturday, 3/18, will be the All-Island Golf Tournament. Players will be competing for individual honors.

MIDDLE SCHOOL SPORTS:

Third quarter sports have ended. Boys’ Basketball, led by 2nd-year coach Jose Cajigal, had a successful season. They finished the year with a 4-6 record. Many 1st year players joined basketball this year. They had a few games, on the road, decided by one point.

Rhoda Bamba took over the direction of the girls’ soccer program. After a slow start, the girls really started playing well and finished with a 5-4 record.

4th quarter sports will be starting soon. They include:

High School Boys’ Volleyball coached by Chris Shepherd and Andy Yao.

High School Girls’ Soccer coached by Kyung Quan.

High School Boys’ & Girls’ Paddling coached by Melina Mantanona.

Middle School Boys’ and Girls’ Cross Country coached by Brian Feeley.

Middle School Boys’ and Girls’ Rugby coached by Ross Morrison.

That’s about all for now. See you next month, Chris Shepherd St. John’s Athletic Director

Performing Arts –Our Glee Club students have successfully fundraised for the upcoming trip to Paris/London and are flying right now to Europe. Bishop Whalon, Dean Fleetwood and the music ministry at the American Cathedral in Paris has informed us that we will be invited to attend services in the Paris Cathedral.

The Child Study Team, headed by Mrs. Michelle Untalan, has begun the lengthy and involved process of creating the process for helping the entire school through the special needs issues.

Good Evening.

I am both honored and flattered to have been asked to speak for this wonderful occasion.

I congratulate each of you and your parents.

Your achievements in the realms of Scholarship, Leadership, Community Service, and Character are being honored here tonight by your induction into this prestigious society.

An honor such as this is a wonderful way for the school and community to recognize and celebrate the choices, and sometimes the sacrifices, you have made.

But I believe that what should make you and your parents the most proud is not the actual honor itself, but what you had to do to get it. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.” Any recognition is just the icing on the cake, not to be expected but definitely to be enjoyed.

However, I challenge you not to rest on your laurels but to continue to strive towards even loftier goals.

The four requirements for membership in which you have excelled: scholarship, leadership, community service, and character were not chosen at random.

They are the core of a fulfilled and fulfilling life.

The most important thing to remember is that each of these characteristics are the sum of many individual decisions. They embody a positive attitude backed by purpose. The only way to achieve your purpose is to take small actions everyday. In the end, they all add up. My hope for you is that you will cultivate this attitude backed by purpose in your own life.

Scholarship is much more than just getting straight A’s. It is a life-long love of learning. In the end it is a sum of small choices. Each time you decide you WANT to learn something, the experience will be so rewarding that the next time becomes easier.

Soon learning becomes a habit. At that point, your desire to learn makes getting A’s easier while taking the focus off of grades. The knowledge can still be hard to gain, but knowing you’ve mastered a difficult subject is an awesome reward. Suddenly the world around you becomes richer, full of learning opportunities

Leadership is not about being elected or appointed to an office. The office does not teach someone how to be a leader. Leadership is an attitude cultivated over time.

Are you one to stand up for what you believe in and ‘face the music’ even when that music happens to be unpleasant? Do you have a purpose and follow that purpose to get the ends you desire? Do you have a vision? These are all questions that true leaders answer in the affirmative. But how do you become a leader?

Each small decision you make takes you one step closer. Remember the goal is not to get power, but to get your vision and your purpose across. Leaders without visions can be likened to driving in a strange town without a road map: you are going to wind up somewhere, it just might not be in the best part of town.

Many see community service as a means to an end. Some might see it as a way to get service points while socializing, while others may view it as an unfortunate (and often inconvenient) necessity of high school life. But is that true community service?

Once again true community service is an attitude. Are you doing it for the right reasons? I’m not saying there won’t be Saturday mornings when you would rather sleep your heart out than paint your heart out.

What I’m talking about is that in the end, when it is all done, and you are once again well-rested, you can look back and realize that you did something worthwhile. That you helped your fellow man in some way. Remember as John Donne said, “No man is an island entire of himself.”

Finally, character.

If there is any one thing that is evidenced by your daily choices it is your character.

I truly believe what Thomas Macaulay said, “The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.”

What do you do when no one’s around? The teacher steps out of the room for a moment while you are taking a test after school. You know exactly where in your notes the answer to question 23 is. Do you look? Minimal chance of being caught!

The answer to this question is the key to your true character.

For while being honest and honorable when others are watching is important, being true to yourself is tantamount.

And in the end, these private day-to-day decisions will eventually reveal your true character to the world.

All in all, are making the tough choices worth it?

Yes.

While it would be easier to slide through life without a purpose, without a code, it would not be fulfilling. Only by setting difficult goals and achieving them can we find true self-worth.

One final thing, each person’s goals are different, and what comes easy to one may be difficult for another. Therefore, do not squash others’ dreams. This is a surefire way to know that you aren’t working towards fulfilling your own.

In conclusion, I congratulate you for this honor. You are truly the best of the best. Enjoy yourself, and remember as Mother Teresa said, “Life is a promise; fulfill it.”

Technology can sometimes completely change your world. The internal combustion engine, the electric light bulb, the pasteurization of the milk, the development of the atom bomb, Gutenberg’s printing press, the personal computer, using a clock to determine longitude, Teflon, etc., etc., etc. These are examples of technologies that, in some large or small way, changed the modern world.

Technology can sometimes change your own private world in a minor but compelling way as well. For example, I am writing this blog entirely with a microphone hooked up to my laptop while I watch my daughter practicing for the sport of her choice at St. John’s school. While I get to enjoy her practice, at the same time I am dictating into a headset microphone this blog so I can communicate to you my thoughts about recent issues or improvements for suggestions at St. John’s school. This new technology gives me the freedom to multitask, use stream of consciousness dictation practices, allow my wrists, fingers and hands to relax for a change, and enjoy the novelty of a new form of technology that works about 95% of the time.

As I speak into the microphone the computer is using a translation software that takes my voice and turns it into text, self-correcting any kind of anomaly in my pronunciation for a best fit according to the vocabulary dictionary that I have already entered into the software, and more often than not the translation is almost perfect. This automatic “Dicta-Phone” seems to be worth the trade-off in time versus cost benefit. I probably have spent maybe two or three hours maximum working with the software and now all I have to do is talk and it listens, translates, types and self corrects almost every word and grammatical phrase according to my desire.

Stop by my office and pop your head in, ask me for a quick demo and I will show you how easily this new technology has helped me to improve my communication skills and maybe you will become a convert as well. I remember about five years ago sharing with a parent a new web site called Google.com. It was fun to share this new kind of search engine as someone had shared that web site with me and, well, you know the rest of the story about Google.

Good morning. I’ll let you in on a little secret of mine. I secretly feel in my heart of hearts that all of you today are going to be big winners in what ever you put your heart and mind to do in your future – winners in this game we call Life. This game is sometimes fair and obvious, sometimes murky and hidden, sometimes easy and fun, sometimes hard and cruel – but it is a game that has the odds stacked in all of your favor because this school with the talented faculty, good resources and tough curriculum prepares you for the future in ways that most others can only dream of. All of you have so much to celebrate – so much to be proud of that we salute all of you today.

Now, having said that, we are gathered together to celebrate the milestone passed of some very difficult achievements by a select few of you today. You are to be tapped into the National Honor Society.

To become a member of NHS means giving up on the myriad distractions along the way as you make your way to the goal. The best things in life are sometimes the hardest to complete. You have so little time and so many things to take up that precious time. But never, ever give up on your quest. After literally thousands of trials the light bulb finally became a reality and today we should still give thanks to the tenacity of Thomas Edison who once said, “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

Such tenacity means work, work, work, work, work, work, work. All of that work can and will add up to something great someday. And when you achieve something great, remember to combine it – temper it, if you will, with a good sense of humility. Some of the greatest works of art today are attributed to Michelangelo, who once said, “If you knew how much work went into it, you wouldn’t call it genius.”

Choose the path wisely. Be true to yourself and come to know your own self. Knowing your capabilities as you begin to know yourself will help you focus on that which is not only possible but probable to achieve. As he was working on inventing the light bulb, Thomas Edison knew in his heart of hearts that he was capable of such a task and driven to it. He said, “If we did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves.”

But to realize those ambitions we need to combine the vision of the desired outcome with the courage to follow through with all that is needed to complete the task. Task completion is one of the true signs of a leader who can make it happen all the way through. Walt Disney told us that, “All our dreams can come true – if we have the courage to pursue them.”

As those dreams can keep coming and coming, with the courage to fulfill each and every one of them we can keep achieving and achieving while we keep strong and focused. One of the great leaders of the 20^th century, Winston Churchill stated, “Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. It is courage that counts.”

In closing, all of you have the opportunity to make a big difference in life and if you decide to live your life to the fullest, well then in your life you should:

·        have the tenacity to never give up,

·        know your capabilities, and

·        have the courage to go for it 100%

One of the most admired people of the 20^th century and one of the greatest minds in all of Christendom, Albert Einstein gave us a choice on how to live. “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”