Focus Spring 2010

Focus Spring 2010

the american school foundation, a.c.

THe Future IS HERE New Centers for the Arts & Sports Are Coming to the ASF Campus

How to use the ASF web site Parent involvement enters a new era Decking the halls with student art

A magazine for alumni, parents, students, faculty & friends

contents

20/ Q&A

Spring 2010

family forum

02/ From the Executive Director 03/ From the Editorial Board

With MS Head Allen Jackson

22/ A Site to Behold A tour of the ASF web site by aliki elias

24/ Parent Partnership Involvement beyond the bake sale

Campus Currents 26/ The Future is Here

04/ From the Board of Trustees

New spaces for the arts and sports

05/ News and Events

30/ ASF Community Talent Showcase

Books, toys and video tours (and other campus goings-on)

Departments & Divisions 10/ Early Childhood Center Young Givers by glynis frenkel

11/ Lower School World of Wonder by nina sachdev

12/ Middle School

ASF’s talent on display

32/ Going Public Making art for the halls

Student Voices 35/ Thank you, Muslims by rafaek zardain

Institutional Advancement

by allen jackson

36/ The Annual Scholarship Drive & the Capital Campaign

13/ Upper School

Alumni

Love and Limits

The Painted Lockers’ Lesson by paticia patterson

38/ Profile: Alex Venguer (’98)

14/ Athletics & Extended Learning

40/ Profile: Ruben Flores (’02)

Yoga for the Young by letitia tarno

Savoring Success

16/ The Arts Creatively Speaking

A sound career

Relief efforts

41/ Milestones Births and marriages

42/ Reunions

by leo trias

Who got together... and what they did

17/ Parent Association

44/ Class Notes

Here and There

Focus on education 18/ A World of Opportunity ASF Graduates Abroad by guy cheney

19/ Voices of Change Advocacy is evolving by robert walton

Keeping in touch with the ASF family, far and wide

45/ In Memoriam 45/ Save the Date! kids’ corner 46/ Ocean Life The ECC explores the sea

From the Executive Director

S

pring is here and it’s a time for change and renewal at The American School Foundation. In this issue, you will read about some major developments coming to our campus over the next months. Not only will we be breaking ground on our long-anticipated Fine Arts Center, but we will also begin construction on the Wellness Center. Once again, The American School is setting itself apart by our strong belief in educating our students in athletics and the arts, as well as academics.

ASF already has the talent among our students, teachers, families and others. Our community members deserve the best facilities so their talents and their appreciation of the arts and athletics can be developed to the fullest. We are seizing on a unique opportunity to make these two projects happen simultaneously. We know the construction will cause inconveniences in the short term, but we trust in our students, staff, faculty, families and alumni to stay enthusiastic and patient through this process. Someday you will look back and know you were part of some historical developments on campus!

We have accomplished much over the past few years towards the modernization of the ASF campus. From the underground transportation center to the Upper School renovation to the expansion of the Early Childhood Center, ASF continues to do everything necessary to match our spaces to the incredible minds developing inside. And our community members believe in our projects, with donors great and small making them happen.

Speaking of renewal, our faculty and staff have been hard at work all year preparing for this spring’s review by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). SACS is the body that assesses institutions such as ours, renewing accreditations every five years and keeping us in a constant process of improvement. The SACS team’s visit happens in late April, but the biggest part of this process is the self-review that takes place beforehand. I would like to take this opportunity once again to thank all those who served on SACS selfreview committees. The record levels of participation in the process this year have given us a view of our own strengths and needs in a way we never had before.

I wish you all a very happy spring and a vision of renewal in your own lives as well as in your commitment to ASF. Your involvement makes The American School what it is today –and what it will be in the future.

Paul Williams Executive Director

2 Focus

contributors PATRICIA PATTERSON Shown here in a self-portrait, Pat Patterson is a professional painter and ASF art teacher who introduces Upper School students to drawing, painting, printmaking and fashion design. She received her master’s degree from Michigan State University in 1991. After marrying a Mexican painter in 1998, Pat made her life in Mexico City. In addition to exhibiting her paintings, she worked in U.S. and Mexican museums for 15 years. Her current school priority is an ongoing public art project (pages 13 and 32). “I am determined to bring color and art back to the Upper School hallways,” she says.

RAFAEL ZARDAIN A 7th grade student who is seriously passionate about technology, robotics and aviation, Rafael Zardain is the first Middle School student to have his writing featured on the Student Voices page.

When he’s not making movies with special effects and learning to program, Javier keeps up with the news. “I like being well informed about current events and sharing my opinions about them,” he says. He says it’s important to know both sides of the stories and the history behind them, and both those priorities are evident in his essay “Thank you, Muslims” (page 35).

ROBERT WALTON started his career in education as a middle school special educator in his native Illinois and in Wisconsin. He has been a part of the ASF community for five years as a teacher, coach, administrator and friend/advocate for adolescents and the teachers charged with their development. He considers Mexico home and considers moving here to be one of the best decisions of his life.

From the EDITORIAL BOARD

W

elcome to the Spring 2010 online issue of Focus. In an effort to lessen our impact on the planet and reduce costs to the school, we have published this issue in an electronic format. We thank you, our community members, for your flexibility and willingness to adapt to the technological advances that are impacting all our lives today. Who knows what form Focus will take 10 or 20 years from now? We are excited about the possibilities but remain committed to this medium as a way to unite and inform our community about all the exciting things happening at ASF. There is no lack of exciting plans for 2010. The physical changes coming to campus will be an outward manifestation of ASF’s commitment to the arts and physical fitness. See pages 26-29 for details on our building plans, and how these projects fit into ASF’s larger plan for the development of our campus.

Another change coming up is one we experience every year –another class of seniors will graduate in a matter of weeks, bound for some of the best universities around the world. Mexico and the U.S. remain our graduates’ most popular choices for higher learning, but more and more Bears are considering heading to places like Europe, Asia and South America to continue their studies (see page 18).

When you think about it, we really shouldn’t expect any less from our global citizens.

Also in this issue, an alumni double feature. With accomplishments like winning a Grammy (page 38) and working in disaster relief in Haiti (page 40), we couldn’t pick just one distinguished alumnus to profile.

Focus Spring 2010

the american school foundation, a.c.

THe FuTure IS Here New Centers for the Arts & Sports Are Coming to the ASF Campus

How to use the ASF web site Parent involvement enters a new era Decking the halls with student art

A magazine for alumni, parents, students, faculty & friends

On the cover: Coming to campus: Centers for Wellness and the Fine Arts Photo: Moyao Arquitectos, S.A. de C.V.

ASF students and alumni would not be the successful people they are without the unwavering support of our dedicated parent population. The Parent Partnership is the latest way parents and school leaders are working together in the interest of raising responsible, healthy, strong children and young adults. See page 24-25 for a look at how these parent-school work groups came about, and what their goal is.

We hope this issue of Focus makes you proud to belong to the American School community. Please send any comments to communications@asf.edu.mx.

Sloane Starke, Head of Communications and the Focus Editorial Board

Focus

A magazine for ASF Alumni, Parents, Students, Faculty and Friends Spring 2010 Vol. VIII | No. 4 | Mexico City Paul Williams, Executive Director Susan Olivo, Head of Early Childhood Center Evan Hunt, Head of Lower School Allen Jackson, Head of Middle School Amy Gallie, Head of Upper School Board of Trustees Rosa (Marentes) Pisinger (’87), Chair Cathy Austin (’78), 1st Vice Chair Carlos Williamson, 2nd Vice Chair Carla Ormsbee, Secretary Joan Liechty, Treasurer César Buenrostro (’85) Murray Case Adolfo Crespo (’76) Patty Dillon Allman (’75) Alfonso De Angoitia (’80) Adolfo Fastlicht (’84) Fernando Franco Maria de Lourdes Galván Frances Huttanus Tito Vidaurri Martin Werner Editorial Board Adele Goldschmied, Cindy Tanaka (’91), Clementina Aguilar, Kenneth Andersen, Michele Beltran, Paul Williams, Xenia Castro (’96), José Segebre Juan de Jesús Breene Editorial Staff Sloane Starke, Editor-in-Chief & Chair of the Editorial Board Kelly Arthur Garrett, Editorial Consultant Daniela Graniel, Art Director José Luis Santa Cruz, Photography Staff Writers Kenneth Andersen, Leo Trias, José Segebre, Sloane Starke Alumni Relations María José Magallanes alumni@asf.edu.mx Parent Association Aliki Elias, President Blanca Santacruz, Vice President Advertising Sales: 5227 4942 FOCUS es una publicación trimestral editada por The American School Foundation, A.C., Sur 136 #135, Col. Las Américas, México, D.F., C.P. 01120.

Editora Responsable: Sloane Alexandria Starke. Derechos de Autor: Licitud de Título y de Contenido 16220. Reserva de Derecho: 04-2008111212240200-102. Distribuido por The American School Foundation, A.C. Sur 136 #135, Col. Las Américas, México, D.F., C.P. 01120. Imprenta MG Impresores, José Morán #139, Col. Daniel Garza, C.P. 11830 México, D.F. Se prohibe la reproducción total o parcial de los textos de esta revista sin previa autorización escrita de The American School Foundation, A.C.

Focus 3

FROM THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES

T

he upcoming months will bring changes to our campus designed to promote academic excellence. As you may be aware, since 2003 the school has been implementing an ambitious Master Building Plan to ensure that the physical spaces on campus are adequate for the advancement of learning.

Phase I was completed in December of 2004 with the opening of the football field and track facility built over the school’s new Lipu Transportation Center.

Phase II of the Master Building Plan focused first on the Upper School renovations and then the construction of a new Angeles Espinosa Yglesias Theater, as well as ongoing improvements to our sports facilities and other general areas.

Thanks to the generous donations from community members, the Upper School renovations are almost concluded and we have been moving forward with other projects. Two new classrooms were added to the ECC last summer, which allowed the school to offer a pre-kinder program. The cafeteria was remodeled to service the nutritional needs of our community.

During the winter, work began on the reconditioning of the swimming pool to allow our students to train in more adequate facilities and help our athletes develop a more competitive edge. Also, thanks to the generosity of Pepsico and Horacio McCoy, new bleachers will be built on the upper athletic field.

Now, because of the support of the Fundación Amparo, the school will soon begin construction of the Angeles Espinosa Yglesias Theater, which will give our students an opportunity to experience the arts more closely. This new Fine Arts Center, containing the theater, will be located where our Upper School Gym stands today.

Thanks to the generosity of The Mary Street Jenkins Foundation, the “Great Minds Need Great Spaces” campaign has received the monies to begin construction of the Wellness Center, a multipurpose gymnasium that will host the school’s indoor athletic programs. This generous donation will allow the school to construct both of these key elements of the Master Building Plan simultaneously.

At ASF, we are aware that education is a holistic undertaking where the arts and sports play an important role in the development of young minds and bodies. The upcoming changes that will result from the further implementation of our Master Building Plan will help us carry out that mission.

Rosa (Marentes) Pisinger Chair of the ASF Board of Trustees 4 Focus

NEWS & EVENTS

Three Days in March From March 10 through 12, more than 600 ASF Upper School students and visiting peers from six other Mexican schools debated urgent issues, dealt with international crises, defended national positions and passed some 50 resolutions on the most pressing problems facing the world today. It was all part of the 2010 ASF Model United Nations conference, a simulation of United Nations debates and activities.

The conference was organized and run by 20 standout ASF seniors. Renato Carregha functioned as the Secretary General, forming part of a three-person “Secretariat” along with Santiago Riviello and José Bermúdez. The other 17 served as heads of mock international committees, such as the World Trade Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund.

The Opening Ceremony set the tone for the event, emphasizing the conference motto of “Step into someone else’s shoes.” In his opening address, Roberto Newell, who heads the Mexican Institute of Competitiveness, reminded the students that leadership requires empathy for the plights of others. Speeches by Renato Carregha and José Bermúdez, as well as a video by students Rodrigo Collada and Rafael Fernández de Castro, further drove home the point.

“This year’s program featured a greater focus on discipline within committee sessions,” said ASF teacher and conference director Timothy Marlowe.

“This increased seriousness paid off, as the level of debate was extremely high throughout.”

Focus 5

NEWS & EVENTS A Prestigious Visit The new U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual, visited the ASF campus for the first time on December 14. After a tour of the campus, the ambassador met with ASF Executive Director Paul Williams, Chair of the Board of Trustees Rosa Pisinger and the Steering Committee for the Capital Campaign. In the past, ASF has depended on representatives from the U.S. Embassy for support in many areas, including the ongoing improvement of our facilities. School officials are looking forward to working with Ambassador Pascual and wish him success in his new role.

Lots of Libros Lower School kids and many of their older schoolmates flocked to the Lower School Multipurpose Room for three days in February to take advantage of a great selection of books in Spanish during the annual Spanish Book Fair, sponsored by the Parent Association. As usual about 20 publishers were represented. Every 100 pesos spent on books earned attendees a raffle ticket. This year the prize was a digital camera.

Next up on the ASF book fair circuit: The annual Used Book Fair, April 20 through 22. In the spirit of “reduce, reuse and recycle” the PA invites you to clean out your bookshelves and donate those extra books to the fair.

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual (center) talks with ASF Board member Frances Huttanus and Executive Director Paul Williams during a visit last December.

Flu Update A year has passed since the Influenza A (H1N1) outbreak forced ASF to suspend classes, but precautions continue. For example, visitors to the ASF campus up through early April were greeted by a faculty or staff member ready to take their temperature and dispense antibacterial hand gel. This measure was required by the Mexican Public Education Secretariat (SEP).

Trish Arzani, the school nurse, reports that no one has been sent home this semester due to trying to enter campus with a fever or other symptoms. At the height of the flu outbreak last spring, The American School had no confirmed cases of the flu. With the revival of the virus in the fall, however, reports of some flu cases began to trickle in. Some classrooms were closed under Mexican guidelines requiring students to stay home for a week if two or more of their classmates got the flu in one week.

From January through early March ASF had eight reported cases of the flu, and one classroom closure. With proper medical care and the observation of ASF’s strict rules on returning after an illness, all flu cases have been managed and the campus in general has remained open and operating as usual. Much of the credit goes to the Infirmary staff, the leadership team and those faculty and staff members who cared enough about the ASF community to volunteer for filter duty. These filters at the entrances to campus were suspended as of April 12th. Good work!

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A Grand Day at the ECC

The cornerstone of the former ASF campus was first laid on February 22, 1922 — 88 years to the day before this picture was taken.

Remembering the Founders Every year on February 22, the ASF community and its friends celebrate Founders Day, a time to reflect on the important people who made ASF what it is today, and the values they held that continue to inspire.

The 2010 celebration of Founders Day included a special unveiling of the very cornerstone that marked the beginning of construction of the 1922 campus on San Luis Potosí and Insurgentes, The American School Foundation’s previous home. That cornerstone now has a permanent home at the entrance to the current Administration Building.

Along with assemblies and activities in each division, there was a special breakfast for the annual Founders Day award winners. Congratulations to the following winners: Early Childhood Center students — Cummings Award for leadership and Orrin Award for community spirit Piper Benson (Lower School) — Wright Award for generosity Bruno Araujo (Lower School) — Davis Award for risk-taking Mayte y Beatriz Li (Middle School) — Lamm Award for culture Yash Bajaj (Middle School) — Cain Award for appreciation of diversity Renato Carregha (Upper School) — Clifton Award for love of learning Alfredo Trueba (Upper School) — Files award for initiative Debbie Ramón — Teacher Award Janet Segura — Parent Award

Last January 26, a typical class size in the Early Childhood Center grew to a very un-ASF-like 60 students. But most of the “students” were four or more decades older than the rest, and they were there for only one day. That day was Grandparents/Grandfriends Day, now an annual tradition giving the older generation an up-close look at how the younger one spends its days at the ECC. The more than 500 visitors were there not just to watch but to participate. They joined their grandchildren in building structures, reading, decorating flowerpots and planting seeds. They also joined in the activities of the regularly scheduled music, physical education, art and library classes.

Adele Goldschmied, a former ASF teacher, parent and current grandparent who organized the event, unveiled a grandparents’ memory project in the form of a beautifully colored wall, consisting of (so far) 86 ceramic tiles permanently placed in the front patio with names of the grandparents and grandchild. Each tile represents a donation to the ASF Annual Scholarship Drive. Any ECC grandparents interested in adding a tile should e-mail Head of the Annual Scholarship Drive Xenia Castro at xenia@asf.edu.mx.

Got Plans for the Summer?

Registration is open for ASF’S summer programs.

There are six weekly sessions from Tuesday, June 22 through Friday, July 30.

This highly popular camp offers creative and physical activities in “tribes” for Kinder (the Kinder Cub Camp) and Lower School (the Youth Bear Camp).

Look for the new catalog at summer.asf.edu.mx.

Focus 7

NEWS & EVENTS

Lights, Camera, ASF! ASF is rolling out a new promotional video and virtual campus tour this spring that offer everyone from every corner of the globe a taste of the school, its programs and its values. The Office of Communications said it hopes the video and virtual tour will be especially helpful for prospective families and teachers. Both are posted on our web site at www.asf.edu.mx.

The production firm Origen, which worked with ASF, sent its crew into classrooms, onto playing fields and through offices for interviews and images. The producers, school video veterans, complimented ASF students for their excellent behavior and participation in class.

Silence, Please With a circus theme and a thousand lots up for bid, the 2010 Silent Auction was a great success.

More than 1,000 parents, alumni, faculty, staff and friends of the school attended the event, bidding on everything from food baskets to jewelry to gift certificates to vacations and plastic surgeries.

In the circus spirit of things, there were typical circus snacks such as popcorn, soft drinks and popsicles, as well as clowns making balloon animals for children.

The event raised more than 860,000 pesos for the Annual Scholarship Drive. That money will go to help families who would not otherwise be able to afford an ASF education. Look for more extensive coverage of the Silent Auction in the Summer 2010 issue of Focus.

Toys Are ASF On January 8 the ASF community brought holiday joy to needy kids in the Delegación Álvaro Obregón. This year’s toy drive brought in 1,200 toys, which were matched by 1,200 chocolate bars donated by Cadbury. Students from all divisions, their families, faculty and staff donated the toys throughout December. A small group of students handed them out to preselected recipients at a local park.

The toy drive is an annual tradition dating back seven years. It is a collaboration between the school and the delegation, which selects a different community each year to benefit. ASF gives the toys directly to the children, which is a gratifying first-hand experience for everyone involved.

8 Focus

A New Head for the Middle School The Middle School has kicked off 2010 with a new head. Allen Jackson, who came on board as interim academic dean for the first semester of this school year, took over the top role in January. Mr. Jackson brings a wealth of experience to the position, as a teacher, an administrator and much more (see page 20). He is working as a team with Veronika Saldaña, an ASF veteran who stepped in as interim head during the selection process and now fills the role of academic dean.

A Hoops Event for the Ages The ASF Varsity boys’ and girls’ basketball program hosted a four-day national tournament in early March that left the school community proud of their efforts. The Lady Bears were part of the ASOMEX (the Association of American Schools in Mexico) tournament, which brought in teams from ASF Monterrey, ASF Guadalajara and JFK Querétaro. The boys hosted an invitational tournament with ASF Monterrey, the American School of Puebla and cross-town rivals Vista Hermosa.

After round robin play, the Lady Bears earned a spot in the bronze medal game. Their third game of the tournament was particularly noteworthy because senior Kimberly Neidermire, in her penultimate ASOMEX game, scored a career high of 30 points. To put this feat in perspective, the Lady Bears, 4-1 in regular season play, had only scored 30 or more points as a team in a game twice this year. The Lady Bears enjoyed a comfortable lead throughout the bronze medal game in front of the home crowd. The girls from JFK Querétaro fought hard, but ASF’s size, depth and experience were overwhelming in the end.

On the boys’ side, the Bears lost only once in round robin play, to ASF Monterrey, in a game that was not decided until the last minute of play. Victories over Puebla and Vista Hermosa ensured a rematch in a final that those in attendance would not soon forget. Before the largest home crowd the players had seen, the game started in nightmarish fashion for the Bears. Though disciplined and patient, taking highpercentage shots, the Bears couldn’t buy a bucket and began the fourth quarter 20 points down. That’s when things began to change. Using the defensive intensity that had been their trademark all season long, the Bears began to chip away at the Monterrey lead. The score crept closer until the Bears had the ball in their hands, down only three, with a minute to go. The amazing comeback effort fell just short, but the crowd witnessed the game of their lives. The ASF community can be proud of both of their Varsity basketball teams. —Jonathan Chenier

A Proud Performance For the second year in a row, 7th grader Yuna Ishikawa represented the Middle School at one of the most prestigious international musical events for young people — the Association for Music in International Schools Junior Honor Orchestra Festival.

Yuna has been studying violin since age 6 when she fell in love with the instrument after being entranced by a solo at the first concert she ever attended. This year, she was First Violinist at the concert, which took place February 27 in London.

“We are very proud of Yuna, who so often represents ASF and the Middle School at concerts,” said Head of Middle School Allen Jackson. “She continues to be an excellent student and role model for us all.”

Yuna Ishikawa, shown here performing at last September’s Grito celebration with 6th grader Leonard Wacker.

Hosting MYP For three days in January, ASF hosted an official workshop for the Middle Years Programme of the International Baccalaureate. The workshops were geared toward teachers from across Latin America, and more than 300 visitors were on campus for the conference. ASF uses the Middle Years Programme in grades six through ten.

Focus 9

Divisions & Departments / Early Childhood center From the Head of School

WORDS THAT WORK Some people seem to have a special knack for getting children to cooperate. Most of us, however, need to work at it.

The key is setting limits. That means establishing clear guidelines, rules and definitions to help children understand which behaviors are acceptable. Young children need parents to set limits for them because they don’t have the experience to do it themselves. They’re curious, action-oriented and excitable —and they want what they want right now.

Without limits, their impulsiveness and impatience can lead to frustration or pain. Effective limit setting teaches cooperation, aiding social development. It promotes self-esteem as your child learns to successfully follow established rules. It provides security; in fact, some of the most anxious children are those who have never had any limits set for them.

Consistently applied, limits would let them know they can depend on their parents.

Of course, limit setting can have a negative effect if it’s harsh, belittling, over-controlling or punitive. But when limits are set positively they help children feel loved, safe and secure. So when you communicate limits to your child, state your directions in positive terms — “do this” instead of “don’t do that.” Be specific, brief, simple and to the point. Instead of threats, offer clear expectations and consequences.

Avoid authoritarian language or ambivalent or hard line. And try to offer choices, such as alternatives for unacceptable behavior.

Children, especially of ECC age, can get overwhelmed with too many changes at once. So set one limit at a time. Changing behavior through setting limits is hard work with no magic answers. But it’s one of the best things you can do for your child.

Susan Olivo Head of Early Childhood Center

10 Focus

ASF students from the ECC take turns at the piñata with children from the Lomas de Capula school during their Christmas visit.

Young Givers Room 3 children learn the value of community service at an early age.

By Glynis Frenkel, ECC Kinder 1 Teacher

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hy is community service important? What purpose does it serve?

ASF students and staff have numerous opportunities to explore those questions, especially since community service is an International Baccalaureate requirement. In Room 3, my Kinder 1 classroom, we have been doing community service for five years. It started when a mom, then president of Save the Children, introduced us to nearby school for underprivileged children that we call Capula, which I then “adopted.”

Our first yearly visit is at Christmas. Our children and moms serve lunch to the Capula children, followed by a piñata put together by the Room 3 children and stuffed with more than 80 bags of candies. For presents, our children are asked to give at least two of their own toys, in good condition, to the Capula children. This year most donated more than two gifts. Even more were donated by other classrooms, impressed with our project.

This year ECC parents donated school supplies. In previous years there have been donations of Spanish language books for the new library, big toys for the baby room and materials needed for daily activities.

The joy on the Capula children’s faces as they received their gifts was a gift in itself for the ASF children and their parents. Then seeing our children showing the others how to use the toys confirmed the value of our activity. The ASF children were caring, empathetic, respectful and cooperative.

The next yearly visit is for Valentine’s Day, which includes breakfast (served by the children), reading, making a mural, designing Valentine’s Day cards and decorating donated heart-shaped cookies.

For Children’s Day in April, we invite the Capula children to the ECC, providing them with round-trip transportation and breakfast. On previous visits the youngsters spent most of the day playing on our garden equipment.

It would be wonderful if more classrooms would take part in a community service activity similar to ours. There are many needy children who would love the opportunity.

Divisions & Departments / LOWER school From the Head of School

Communication and the Flags

ASF fifth graders, including article writer Nina Sachdev (left), gather near the spectacular Salto de Eyipantla waterfall in the state of Veracruz.

World of Wonder Visiting a tropical paradise, ASF fifth graders learned about nature’s diversity... and their own responsibility for protecting it.

By Nina Sachdev, 5th Grade Student

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Imagine seeing creatures hanging from trees, or feeling creepy critters crawling around you, or discovering muddy jungles in your path. Well, welcome to Catemaco, Veracruz, definitely a place to awaken your senses.

My class went to Catemaco in late October 2009 with three other 5th grade classes. I didn’t know what to expect because I’d never been to a tropical rainforest. After arriving, our fun Ecoclub counselors explained the rules and showed us where we would sleep. They led the way throughout this exciting five-day adventure.

After we got settled in, a trained biologist educated us about animals, jungles, plants and a lot more. We learned how important it is to protect the animals in danger of extinction in our world. Many of these species live in the tropical evergreen forest ecosystem.

Some of our friendly camp companions included geckos, leaf bugs and beetles. We even had a dramatic episode when an enormous, creepy, blackish-red beetle popped out of nowhere to visit us. After a lot of excitement and screams, our counselors helped to escort this unexpected visitor away.

Then we learned about primatology (the world of monkeys) in the Tuxtlas. We saw a variety of these quiet, hanging creatures, including spider monkeys, howler monkeys and macaques. Well, I bet they aren’t quiet all the time!

At La Playa del Huerto, we boarded boats to go to the Cerro de Mimiahua (a jungle area which is changing in an environmentally negative way).

Then it was on to the boats again to tour the Lake Catemaco islands of Agaltepec, Tanaspi and Tanaxpillo (home to several groups of monkeys).

During our workshop activities, we learned about making balloons, kites and natural soap (which involves using leaves and rocks). In La Jungla, an ecological park, we learned to listen to the sounds of the jungle in order to understand and respect it. At the village of Lake Sontecomapan, we studied the marine environment.

We were able to wade in a very shallow part of the sea with lifejackets on. (Thanks, counselors, for taking extra good care of us!)

On our last day, we visited a cigar factory to see the handiwork of cigars and cigar cases. But of course no one smoked anything... not a chance!

Then we went to see the spectacular waterfall of Salto de Eyipantla, where we learned about how water pollution affects these natural areas. That evening, we had a whole-group campfire and flew really cool, fire-lit Cantoya balloons.

I learned a lot about the nature of Catemaco and feel fortunate to have had such an experience in that amazing tropical world of wonder. I now realize that while people have the ability to damage the environment, they also have the power to heal it. It’s a responsibility we all share.

One of the ongoing challenges that any school faces is communication.

Improving communication —among students, teachers, administrators and parents— is a never-ending process and always a top priority.

You may already be aware of the many ways we keep the community informed about what is going on at the Lower School — such as the Thursday folders, the weekly letters, the Blackboard pages, the ASF Community web site, the parent-teacher coffees, conferences and informal workshops. But there is another event where valuable communication takes place: the weekly flag honors.

Every Monday at 7:45 a.m., Lower School students and faculty gather in the Multipurpose Room or blacktop area to honor the Mexican and American flags and sing both national anthems. Following the ceremony is a time for announcements, with various teachers and student groups taking advantage of having the entire student body and staff assembled to communicate important topics.

Clemen Aguilar, our SEP coordinator, usually speaks as well, informing us about issues relating to the Spanish-language educational program and to the surrounding communities in the Álvaro Obregón delegation.

Flag honors conclude with me addressing the gathering about a variety of subjects. Topics might include the importance of maintaining positive relationships, of being a risk taker, of making good choices and other character traits emphasized daily in our classrooms.

There is always a lot of information to be communicated, and I know it can be overwhelming at times. That’s why I encourage Lower School parents who have questions or concerns to make an appointment with their child’s teacher or an administrator so we can help.

Evan Hunt Head of Lower School Focus 11

Divisions & Departments / middle school

Love & Limits Children of all ages need to understand that there are boundaries for appropriate behavior. But establishing them is easier said than done, isn’t it?

By Allen Jackson, Head of Middle School

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Setting limits is an act of love. Working with your children to establish boundaries for appropriate behavior creates a bond of trust and helps them develop into responsible individuals. Being fair, firm and consistent as you have them obey rules and face the consequences of their actions demonstrates a deep love for your children.

But it’s never easy. And there is no perfect system; each child responds differently. That’s especially true with Middle School-age children, who are changing so much in every imaginable way. I can, however, share some guidelines that I as an educator and parent have found effective: Set the stage with humor. It sends a message: “We can work this out together.”

Setting limits with children of all ages prepares them for success in school and beyond.

Make eye contact. This conveys that, despite the humor, you are serious. And it ensures that you have your child’s attention.

Be direct. Just point out what needs to happen and when. Leave no opening for discussion. Do not say “okay” when you give a direction (“Pick up your clothes, okay?”). Do not nag, lecture or preach.

Don’t look back. Literally. Your body language should signal that you have full confidence that your child is going to comply. So once you give instructions, turn around and walk away.

The Truth About Consequences Setting limits implies establishing consequences for crossing them. Here are some

approaches to applying consequences that have worked for me: Set the limits and consequences together.

Having your child be a part of the rule-setting process helps him or her understand it better.

Keep emotion out of it. Once it’s time to implement the consequences, do it unemotionally and without discussion.

Make the consequences stick. Consistent application gives the child a feeling of security in knowing that your word is real.

I know these guidelines are easier to say than to carry out. But with sincere intent, these methods yield solid results in the long term.

At the very least, they can provide you with a framework in which to operate.

From the Head of School

The Three P’s I’d like to share with you a little bit about how we assess student work. The three aspects of assessment are collectively known as the Three P’s. Understanding them will help parents and students focus on the criteria used to assess them.

• Product criteria address what students know and are able to use at a particular point in time. These criteria measure a student’s specific proficiency or achievement. The “products” are usually in the form of final examinations, final reports, projects or portfolios.

• Process criteria relate to students’ behaviors in reaching their current level of achievement and proficiency. By “behaviors” I mean effort, conduct, class participation, turning in assignments on time and work habits. This is where teachers also take into account daily work, quizzes and homework.

• Progress criteria consider how much students improve or gain from their learning experiences. They focus on how far students have advanced, rather than where they are.

Combined, these assessment categories ascertain where students are and how to get them to where they need to be. The Three P’s help us make sure that each child is learning.

Allen Jackson Head of Middle School 12 Focus

Divisions & Departments / upper school

The Painted Lockers’ Lesson Memories of missing murals remind us that nothing is permanent. But that doesn’t mean student art cannot be preserved.

By Patricia Patterson, Upper School Art Teacher

R

emember the painted lockers?

Most of us do. We recall with fondness the “murals” that once turned the Upper School’s first floor locker rows into displays of student art. The themes were sometimes comic, sometimes serious and sometimes made reference to famous paintings in art history. But they were always creative.

Those locker rows, as well as display cases on the walls, gave voice to student artists, who made the school their own by leaving a mark on the wall —an artistic mark with a purpose.

The painted lockers also injected personality into the hallways. They took a lot of physical abuse over the years (and some verbal abuse as well) but most people felt they were worth keeping. They gave continuity to the school.

Most of us took for granted that those rows of painted lockers, into which so many teachers and students had invested a part of their hearts and souls, would be a part of ASF history. But when the Upper School building was renovated, the painted lockers were removed. We now had a clean, gray building with uniform lockers. It felt like a new beginning. But it also felt a little... cold.

After the renovation was completed last year, several Upper School teachers expressed their concern about the disappearance of the locker paintings and the display cases of student art. Even some returning alums commented.

Maribel Avila, Class of 2010, contributes a graduation-themed painting to the public art project: “We will all take different paths.”

Paulina García de Alba, Class of 2011, unveils her work on an Upper School wall: “When they see it they will realize that it’s time to be alive.”

So an informal committee for the beautification of the school was organized. One of its goals was to get artwork back on display on the school grounds and in its buildings. Another was to raise awareness among the ASF community about the importance of documenting, protecting and preserving works of arts created by students on campus.

The consensus, shared by Amy Gallie, head of the Upper School, is that the campus needs color, expression and a student voice. That means restoring exhibition areas, building display cases and creating new murals. The creation of the Art III public art unit, that I teach, reflects the school’s commitment to putting student art on permanent display. That commitment bore fruit on February 22, when my students’ work was unveiled on some Upper School walls as part of the Founders Day activities. You can read (and see) more about this public art event starting on page 32.

What should never be forgotten is that ASF students care about what happens to their work.

One of my students whose work went on display, Marisol Saavedra, made that clear when she asked me sincerely, “If they ever want to take my painting down, can you call me? I will come get it.”

From the Head of School

GOOD ADVICE One of the projects that we’re planning for the next school year is an advisory program that will allow small groups of students to spend time with a caring adult in a non-academic setting.

We’ll be using the term “adviser” a little differently than its usual connotation referring to an expert in a particular field. All of the Upper School teachers, counselors, librarians and administrators —more than 80 people— will serve as advisers to students. The only expertise that the advisers will have in common is a bit more experience than the students.

What we can do is share our visions and life skills with the kids as they make their way through four years of Upper School. We will lend students an ear, create a forum for discussion, facilitate communication and occasionally share an insight or two.

In the program’s initial design for the year 2010-11, one 40-minute advisory session will be set aside each week. The way that advisors and advisees use this time will vary from week to week, grade to grade and group to group. What will remain constant is the advisers’ charge of listening to the advisees and meeting their needs.

We are striving for the creation of “authentic advisers,” a term that implies formal training of faculty and staff members as advisers, and the use of structured activities in the group setting. Even when that goal is reached, however, the program will be run with flexibility. Advisers will be allowed to change plans in response to student concerns and to run each session based on being in the “now” of students’ lives.

Yes, the task is daunting, but the idea of creating structures to improve communication between Upper School adults and students is quite exciting.

Amy Gallie Head of Upper School

Focus 13

Divisions & Departments / Athletics & extendED learning

Yoga for the Young A new after-school activity helps students calm down, unleash their creativity and achive success.

By Letitia Tarno, ASF Children’s Yoga Guide

“Y

oga makes you feel good.” That may be the simplest way to explain this activity’s appeal to young people. Children are natural yogis; when they play they take poses and experience their bodies moving in different ways. In a sense, the goal of yoga is to maintain children’s natural joy.

The word yoga means “union.” For thousands of years, yoga has united the physical, mental and spiritual aspects of human beings to keep them healthy and happy. The practice aims at awakening an inner creative energy called “kundal,” thought to be the source of beauty and meaning in life.

At ASF, yoga classes focus on three principal activities:

Breathing exercises: Teaching young people to breathe properly helps them control their minds and achieve a calming effect. In class I often ask, “Did you know that lungs are like two big balloons inside you? When you inhale the balloons inflate with new fresh air and when you exhale the balloons let go of old air.”

Poses and movements: These yoga “games” develop children’s flexibility, strength, balance and posture. For example, the Mountain position is good for digestion and the nervous system, and helps release anger. The Tree position helps align the vertebrae. And the Cobra position helps liberate muscular tension.

Meditation: It calms children so they can learn to listen to themselves and recognize how they feel. In this way, they can consciously change their feelings from unhappiness to peace, from anger or fear to love. One visualization exercise I enjoy doing with the kids is having them lie down on the floor with their eyes closed and then telling them: “Try not to think, but simply observe whatever comes to your mind. Imagine that you are very happy. How do you feel in your body when you are happy? What makes you happy? Are you happy with yourself?” After a few minutes they open their eyes and we discuss their experiences.

ASF yoga guide Letitia Tarno helps youngsters maintain their natural joy and experience calmness through breathing techniques and simple postures.

ASF’s trust and respect for yoga is paying off in its positive effect on the students who attend yoga class after school. They are learning that recognizing and accepting the many different feelings they can have gives them a clearer idea of who they are. That in turn allows them to use their creativity and achieve their potential.

From the Head of Athletics & Extended Learning

INTERIOR CONNECTION The growing popularity of yoga and meditation in mainstream society is a curious phenomenon. An attempt to turn off the brain, experience a moment of timelessness, connect with the interior with little or no external stimulation to find peace and acceptance – it stands in start contrast to the accelerated pace, media saturation, over-stimulation and competitiveness of urban life. Perhaps it’s a good sign for humanity.

At ASF we are pleased to be offering more yoga then ever, and we hope this trend continues. The article on this page by Letitia Tarno, former ASF student and current instructor of dance, yoga and corporal expression, provides a snapshot of what this experience is like for children.

Kenneth Andersen Head of Athletics & Extended Learning 14 Focus

Divisions & Departments / Athletics & extendED learning

Savoring Success “I am very proud to be the captain of such an amazing and determined team. This season’s training was harder than any of my previous seasons; we trained six days a week and most days we had morning and afternoon practices. The culmination of our season, the National Championship, was both tough and exciting. Time cuts were harder to reach and many National Championship and Mexican records were broken. Nevertheless, with our training and our dedicated coach, we were able to represent the ASF stronger than ever.”

The ASF swim team competed at the always tough National Championship meet.

ASF swimmers trained hard and came out strong to compete in the National Championship.

E

or three years in a row, the ASF swim team has qualified for and competed in the National Championship of the Mexican Swimming Federation. The meet is held in mid-December, forcing swimmers to miss part of their winter vacation. But each of these student-athletes strives for this opportunity to compete with the best of the best. In 2007, one ASF team member attended the meet, in 2008 there were four and this past December we took six. Here are some thoughts on the competition from senior Paulina Garcia-Lascurain, our team captain and a qualifier for both the National Championship and the Olimpiada Nacional:

A new coach and a strong team unity led the undefeated Bears to another football crown.

still leaving some time to fool around. This year the key to success was that we were more than a team. We were a family, and we had a dream of becoming champions. The loss of our teammate Pato looked like a huge obstacle for our team to overcome. But instead, it unified the team even more.

An example of this is when we played the Broncos, a team that was hoping to end our perfect streak, but with Pato’s number 50 on our helmets and in our hearts, we dominated the game and defeated them 50-0. Being a part of this team was a great honor and I know that my best years of high school will be remembered wearing a helmet and pads under the lights.”

T

he ASF Varsity football team finished an undefeated season with a victory over the UACH Toros Salvajes for their second league championship in four years. First-year Head Coach Juan Carlos Delgadillo, known as “Ciclón,” led them through this dream season, marred only by the tragic loss of recent team member Patricio (“Pato”) García in an off-campus accident. Senior Juan José Suárez shares some thoughts about his new head coach, his teammates and what it was like to be part of this championship team.

“Though we were disappointed at the departure of coach Eric Fisher, Ciclón was more than up to the task of filling his shoes. He became not only our coach, but a friend and mentor as well. Along with his staff —Mike, Aaron, Dan, Chuy and Javi— he disciplined the team by making us work hard, but

The Varsity football team celebrated an undefeated, championship season.

From the Coordinator

ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING The objective for our beginning-level athletics is for our athletes to develop the skills needed to progress to our Varsity programs, while learning a love for the sport. To meet those twin goals, attitude is everything. But the attitude in question is not just the student-athlete’s. An authority figure’s attitude frequently dictates the attitude of the athlete. The influence could come from the rolling of a parent’s eyes when he or she hears the family will have to stay in the city for a weekend. It could be a coach showing up to practice every day because he or she has to, not because he or she wants to. Young people subconsciously absorb these powerful messages about the desires and feelings of their adult role models. To foster positive attitudes, coaches must provide constructive criticism while understanding the differences between one athlete and another. Parents must provide unconditional love, recognition and encouragement. Coaches and parents need to work together to give athletes a positive experience. If they don’t, the kids will never reach their full potential.

Noah Randall Athletics Coordinator

Focus 15

Divisions & Departments / the arts

Creatively Speaking All students have a potential for creativity.

The art teacher’s challenge is to provide an environment that will bring it out.

By Leo Trias, Visual Arts Coordinator

P

art of my daily duty as a visual arts teacher at the Upper School level is to help students become aware of their own creative capacities. It is also up to me to develop a stimulating environment in which they can find ways to exercise those capacities.

Something that has concerned me recently is how often students choose ideas for art projects that are simply copies of somebody else’s image —a painting, for example, or a photograph or something from a comic book. Young people today seem to appropriate these or other images almost unconsciously.

I recognize that the act of copying a painting can be an excellent exercise in learning how to draw and how to apply the laws of space. Even better, copying a natural object in an observational drawing is also a valuable learning tool. There is nothing wrong with practicing your drawing or painting skills by copying from nature.

My concern however, is that a large percentage of the student population is simply borrowing pictures from the Internet. This can only represent a lack of interest in creating a unique piece, or perhaps an aversion to the challenge of developing a personal work of art.

Or could it indicate, in the worst-case scenario, that some people simply lack creativity? Help in answering that question comes from Abraham Maslow, the great 20th-century humanistic psychologist. Maslow insisted that the key question isn’t “What fosters creativity?” but rather “Why in God’s name isn’t everyone creative?”

His point was that creativity is something we’re born with, but for some reason don’t always use. “Where was the human potential lost?” he asked. “How was it crippled?”

One answer comes from Robert Epstein, the former Psychology Today editor-in-chief who wrote in his 1996 book Creativity Games for Trainers, “When children are very young, they all express creativity, but by the end of the first grade, very few do so. This is because of so16 Focus

Left: Paintings by ASF visual arts student Paola Quintero.

Below: Painting by ASF visual arts student Seoyoon Moon.

cialization. They learn in school to stay in task and to stop daydreaming and asking silly questions. As a result, the expression of new ideas is largely shut down.”

So the primordial task of art educators is to promote the development of a human potential that is already there. Teresa M. Amabile, a leading researcher in the psychology of creativity, gives us an idea of how to do that. Her “Intrinsic Motivation Principle of Creativity” tells us that people of all ages are most creative when they feel motivated by their own interest, enjoyment, satisfaction or the challenge of the work itself —but not when the motivation comes from external pressure.

Facilitating this intrinsic motivation in our students is a big challenge in the school setting, because of the external pressures of due dates, grades and obligatory assignments. But as the great French painter Henri Matisse once put it, “Creativity takes courage.” With courage, passion and practice —on the part of teachers as well as students— everyone is capable of developing his or her creative talents.

From the Coordinator

Creativity In addition to my duties as the ASF visual arts coordinator, I am an art teacher and an artist. In all three activities, I am of course very interested in the human capacity we call creativity. The accompanying article on this page is my attempt to share with you some of the issues art educators face as they seek to help students tap into their creative potential. It’s an important and timely topic, and as always I welcome your comments.

Leo Trias Visual Arts Coordinator

Divisions & Departments / parents association

Here & There Students living permanently outside the country of their nationality face certain challenges, even as they enjoy special benefits.

Just about any gathering of ASF students, such as a recent Stepping Up ceremony shown here, includes kids from a number of countries.

A

SF parent Donald Dickson recently led a Parent Association conference on Third Culture Kids, whose lives are partially defined by growing up in a country other than their nationality. Though hardly a new phenomenon at ASF, “TCKs” have become a subject of increasing interest among sociologists and educators as their numbers grow with globalization. For those who missed Mr. Dickson’s talk, here’s a brief overview of this fascinating and relevant topic: Third Culture Kids are pretty much like other kids, with some notable exceptions. Researchers who coined the term have defined a TCK as a “person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture.”

Two key phrases in that definition are “significant part” and “parents’ culture.” An exchange student who spends a single semester unaccompanied in a foreign country has had a life-changing experience, but is by no means a TCK. On the other hand, a child who does most or all of his or her growing up with his or her birth parents overseas may not feel a traditional sense of home in either country. Since he or she is likely to build relationships to both cultures without having full ownership of either, a “third culture” develops that adapts aspects of the first two to his or her unique situation. That’s a Third Culture Kid. All TCKs experience a cross-cultural upbringing that may consist of visits to a home country that doesn’t feel like one (one book on the subject is entitled According to My Passport, I’m Coming Home). Many, however, live in an even more mobile world because they are frequently changing residence from one foreign country to another, each time adapting to a new surrounding culture. Because they often attend international schools —where much coming and going is common— they are constantly experiencing the loss of teachers, friends and other people who matter in their lives.

These losses are challenges for TCKs, as are a diminished sense of any home culture, conflicted national loyalties and the difficulty of answering a simple question like, “Where are you from?”

Partly because of the third culture they have developed, TCKs can usually turn those challenges into life-enhancing benefits. They can be global citizens with an expanded world view, a cross-cultural consciousness, a well-developed capacity to adapt, finely honed social skills and, of course, language abilities that the rest of us can only wish we had.

For an international school such as ASF, Third Culture Kids are a highly valued part of the student body. The very presence on campus of students with so rich a life experience brings to the school a cultural asset that could not have been acquired any other way.

From the President

SPRING NEWS I am proud to announce that the Parent Association has committed to donate the stage and curtains in the new Angeles Espinosa Yglesias Theater planned for our campus. We have already made the first of three payments. Also, in our continued effort to support the Annual Scholarship Fund, the PA has matched donations made by faculty and staff during the holiday season. In February we presented a check to the Fundación Irene Anzaldua IAP. We look forward to continuing this important support and are set to donate full scholarships this June.

At our February General Meeting we were visited by Fundación Cim*ab, and got an eye-opening conference on breast cancer awareness and prevention. February was also when we sponsored a very successful Spanish Book Fair. The month closed with a guided visit to the National Anthropology Museum.

March started off with an interesting conference on Third Culture Kids, which are children who spend many of their formative years outside the country of their nationality. Read the accompanying article on this page for more on this group at ASF – a growing group in the world.

Much of March was dedicated to preparing for major events scheduled for April. Be sure to mark the week of April 19–25 in your calendars, which is when we will celebrate our planet during the annual Turn Off Your Screens Go Green Week. That week will also feature other favorite annual events, including the Used Book Fair April 20-22. In the spirit of “reduce, reuse and recycle,” be sure to clean up your bookshelves and bring your donated books to the PA office before the fair begins. And ASF goes to La Feria de Chapultepec on Wednesday, April 21, from 12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

I welcome all of you to springtime at ASF, and I look forward to seeing you around campus.

Aliki Elias Parent Association President Focus 17

[focus on education]

A World of Opportunity Graduating seniors have the option of pursuing their studies abroad.

By Guy Cheney, English Department Head

O

n June 19, the lives of some 160 new ASF graduates —the Class of 2010— will change forever. They will move on to new challenges, new pursuits, new horizons. For virtually all of them, their new daily routine will soon focus on continued studies at a prestigious institution of higher education. For many of them, that institution will be located somewhere other than Mexico or the United States.

Since 2007, about 13 percent of graduating ASF seniors have chosen to pursue their higher education abroad. Of course, for some international students, the word “abroad” doesn’t apply literally, since they will be returning to their birth country to continue their studies. And the 13 percent figure, though significant, lags behind those who prefer a Mexican university (the choice of 41 percent) or to study in the United States (36 percent).

Still, as students and their families sit around desks and dinner tables to discuss the “what next?” question as graduation nears, the option of studying abroad is a growing part of the equation. Given ASF’s international emphasis and foreign universities’ increasing interest in its graduates, more students are at least giving thought to taking the road less traveled. Those who do choose to attend a foreign university will join a global network of alumni studying in such countries as the United Kingdom, Spain, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, South Korea, the Netherlands and Argentina, among others.

One of the pleasures of teaching is the opportunity to talk to students about their plans.

As I set out recently to talk to ASF seniors who were considering studying abroad, the combined weight of their anticipation and anxiety was evident. Though many were pensive and nervous, the most clearly expressed emotion was excitement about their future.

When I asked why they were interested in studying abroad, common themes emerged — competitive costs, quality programs, travel opportunities and cultural enrichment. Financial considerations play an especially important role in the students’ decisions. For example, the cost of universities in the UK system is less than many U.S. schools.

18 Focus

Another UK advantage, pointed out by ASF senior Sergio Betancourt, is that students with an International Baccalaureate diploma can skip the first year and graduate in three years. In the United States you have two years of general studies,” he added. “But in the UK you get right into your specific area.”

Inés Carrasco, who has been accepted into King’s College London, also found the threeyear program appealing, but emphasized how the travel opportunities that come with living in London would enhance her studies in history or art history (she hadn’t decided which yet). “Everything in Europe is in close proximity so it’s easier to travel,” she said. “You can see history in a different country on the weekend.”

For students interested in international issues, the choice to attend university abroad seems natural. Diego Balbuena, planning to study international relations, is considering Canada’s University of British Columbia. He cited as selling points the school’s international reputation and the availability of scholarships

for foreign students, as well as “the great location of Vancouver.”

Choices about studying abroad are seldom cut and dry, and seniors will usually keep their options open as they approach their momentous decision. Diego, for example, was still awaiting an acceptance letter from UBC when we talked.

His nerves were tempered by a more philosophical stance. “Yeah, well, if UBC doesn’t work out, I’ve also considered the possibility of a gap year in China to study Mandarin,” he said.

Paola Salcedo had already received an offer from St. Andrew’s in Scotland before our interview. But although she was attracted by the UK’s “great support for international students,” she was holding out for more offers before committing herself. “I’m looking all over,” she said, “the UK, the U.S. and here (Mexico).” For Paola, Diego and many others, the possibility of studying abroad greatly expands their opportunities, even if it complicates the decision process a bit. When it comes to pursuing higher education, today’s ASF grads enjoy, quite literally, a world of options.

Future ASF grads —such as Sergio Betancourt, Paola Salcedo, Alejandro Garcia Velarde and Ines Carrasco pictured here— are increasingly considering the possibility of pursuing their studies in Europe or Asia.

Voices of Change The Advocacy program encourages students to share their opinions.

And because they do, Advocacy itself is evolving.

By Robert Walton, Middle School Dean of Students

Two Teachers, Two Sessions

O

ne of the many joys of working with adolescents is hearing Middle School students advocate for themselves and their peers. When all is not right in their world, students share their views. The ASF Middle School Advocacy program encourages them to do just that, and sets aside time during the school day to build a sense within each child that he or she is an important person within the community.

Many of the student suggestions deal with the minutiae of the day, such as the length of lunchtime or the number of breaks in the school day.

Some clearly fall within the category of growing pains experienced in the school environment by opinionated adolescents, and are taken with a grain of salt. Others, however, serve as a call to action for educators. One such call can be seen in the recent shift in how the Advocacy program is implemented. Here, the student voice was the impetus for change.

It started toward the end of the 2008-2009 school year, when students in Hugo Salcedo’s 7th grade civics classes conducted interviews with teachers and administrators about ideas that they, the students, had to improve the Middle School. A number of proposals for retooling the Advocacy program surfaced, the principal student recommendations being to use Advocacy as a time to get a head start on their academic responsibilities and as a time to reconnect with one another in the company of a caring adult.

The student observations were astute. In proposing that students be academically supported while simultaneously nurturing caring relationships with adults and peers, Mr. Salcedo’s students sounded like scholars of the latest thinking in the field of middle school advocacy. Their voices prompted a reevaluation of the Advocacy program here at the ASF Middle School. And during the 2009-2010 school year, changes to a few components are being implemented.

One planned change is for the students to work with two teachers in the advocacy program instead of one. One will be a general education teacher and the other an exploratory (art, music, technology, etc.) teacher. Pairing teachers across disciplines gives students the chance to have an adult know them as more than an academic learner. In concert with their academic identity, they can be seen as actors, athletes, technophiles, artists or whatever the case may be.

A second change involves the focus of the Advocacy sessions. Advocacy remains a part of the Middle School program twice a week —30 minutes on Monday and 30 minutes on Thursday.

Now, however, in order to increase Advocacy’s impact on academic success, Monday sessions will be dedicated to organizing academic responsibilities. In the company of 22 classmates, and working with two teachers, students use their agendas to record important academic events for the week.

During these Monday sessions, the expectation is that all students understand the challenges they face in a given week and create a plan of action for success. Under the supervision of teachers who know each student’s academic needs, any remaining time is used for study hall and academic-enrichment activities.

Thursday sessions will have two focuses. One is additional academic assistance for those who need it. They receive academic counseling and work with the teacher on maintaining solid study habits and completing assignments.

Those on firm academic footing, however, participate in what’s known as an affective curriculum, which deals with emotional and developmental issues associated with the various stages of adolescence. Led by one teacher of the advocacy pair, these students engage in small-group activities.

For example, 6th grade students focus on study habits, organizational skills and the International Baccalaureate learner profile (what it means to be a risk-taker, an inquirer, a communicator and so on). Seventh-grade students discuss interpersonal relationships, peer pressure, drugs and alcohol. The 8th grade generation talks about the upcoming transition from Middle School to Upper School, drug and alcohol awareness and maintaining healthy relationships.

The goal of these improvements is to help assure that our Advocacy program meets the diversity of needs within the Middle School population. As it evolves over the next few years, one central idea must never be lost: Advocacy must be student-centered and stimulate the hearts and minds of the adolescents it is meant to serve. The lesson we learned from Mr. Salcedo’s class must serve as a constant reminder of this point.

Focus 19

[focus on education]

Q&A If new Middle School Head Allen Jackson ever made a bad decision in his long and energetic career, it came in 2002. That’s when he tried retirement in San Miguel de Allende after a long career in with the U.S. Marines (including active duty in Vietnam, with bravery decorations) and a second long career heading up a recruitment agency serving Fortune 500 clients. “Retirement is not what you might think,” he says. “For me personally, it was boring.”

So he asked Mexican authorities to revalidate the teaching credentials that he had somehow found time to earn — along with degrees in mathematics, English, political science and business administration, and a full retinue of training courses for teachers and administrators in the International Baccalaureate program — and started a third full-time career as a teacher/administrator at international schools in the states of Querétaro and Guanajuato.

Which is not to say he was new to teaching. Mr. Jackson had taught in the Marine Corps, at the Republic of Korea’s Mountain Warfare School and as a volunteer at a Florida high school, as well as serving as principal at a school for gifted children.

If you’re keeping score, Mr. Jackson has taught the following subjects in the United States, Mexico and overseas: physics, English, biology, writing, mathematics, ethics, economics, baseball, football, basketball and swimming.

Not surprisingly, given his background, Mr. Jackson brought a palpable enthusiasm to the ASF Middle School when he was brought on board as interim academic dean at the start of the 2009-10 school year — an enthusiasm he now applies, as head of school, as much to the placement of the recycling bins as to the finer points of educational theory in the ASF student experience. It was with the latter in mind that ASF parent and Focus editorial consultant Kelly Arthur Garrett sat down with Mr. Jackson recently for the following interview. The Middle School head started right in with an observation about the changing role of international and American schools.

20 Focus

Allen Jackson In the new Middle School head’s view, teachers are always learning and students are always teaching.

Allen Jackson: The idea of an American school in a foreign country was originally to provide parents living abroad with certainty about the continuity of their children’s education. If their child finishes the seventh grade here, he or she will be able to return to a U.S. school and pick right up in the eighth grade.

That’s still true, but the world has grown much smaller. So now what is happening is we have people from many countries. Somebody from Peru, for example, may be working in one country, and then get transferred to Argentina, and then to Colombia, but one day will return to Peru. The commonality in each of the countries is an American school, so their children’s education can progress uninterrupted.

Focus: ASF certainly fills that role.

AJ: And on top of everything else, it brings us a population mix like never before. Imagine being in a classroom where you may have a boy from India, a girl from Tibet, someone else from Japan or South Korea, and several others from other countries, along with children from Mexico and the United States. We are truly a bilingual school, but many of our children speak three or four languages fluently.

Focus: I take it you consider that a plus.

AJ: All the students in the population mix bring a lot to each other —not just the depth and breadth that comes from being from different countries, but also many have traveled extensively, lived in a number of countries, and they bring that experience to our school. Forget the teachers and administrators, just the exposure to their peers challenges ASF students in a way that wouldn’t happen otherwise.

Focus: You’ve seen the world, both academically and otherwise. From that perspective, how do you see ASF? AJ: We’re on the edge of being one of the best schools in the world. Just a few more tweaks and we’re there. And we’re doing it in Mexico.

You don’t have to send your child to Switzerland or some other place in Europe to get this kind of education. It’s right here in Mexico City.

Focus: What makes ASF so good?

AJ: Besides the diversity and the tremendous

academic program that has been built up over more than 120 years, it’s that here we prepare children to take advantage of any opportunity they want. We tell them there’s nothing they can’t do. The profile of encouraging our students to be risk-takers, inquirers, all of that — it’s real. They can think anything they want, but they have to justify it. You hate Isabel Allende?

Great. Now tell me why.

Focus: How does that approach play out in the classroom?

AJ: Our kids do not receive traditional lecture classes. In a 40- or 80-minute session, the teacher may talk for 20 minutes. The rest of the time the students are in groups, or paired, and they learn a lot from each other — with the teacher’s guidance, of course. What’s unique here is that the teacher doesn’t take on the old attitude of “listen to me, I’m The One.” There’s a lot of back and forth, with the teacher asking questions. It’s a Socratic method.

Focus: Education conservatives may wonder how that methodology squares with the “rigorous academics” the school is known for.

AJ: On the contrary, we are constantly being evaluated by several different accrediting institutions. For example there’s the International Baccalaureate, from which we get the Primary Years Programme for the Lower School, the Middle Years Programme for the Middle School through 10th grade, and the IB Diploma Programme for Upper School juniors and seniors.

There’s the Advanced Placement program, which allows students to skip ahead to more challenging classes in college if they pass tests.

We also belong to ASOMEX [the Association of American Schools in Mexico]. And soon, in April, SACS [the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, a U.S. Department of Education-recognized educational accreditation agency that operates in 11 states and throughout Latin America] will be here. So it’s not just us beating our chests about how great we are. The school has chosen to have not one but several outsiders come in on a regular basis and take a hard look at what we do. And trust me, they do. You can’t fool these folks, or buy them or negotiate with them.

Focus: As effective as the progressive teaching methods may be, ASF students want to go on to college, with acceptance depending in a large part on grades. And grades imply tests, don’t they?

AJ: The standard exam is a rote exercise that evaluates how well you regurgitate back the facts that you mostly memorized. That almost does not exist here. Instead, we use what we call core assessments, and they can come in many forms. Maybe it’s a speech. Maybe it’s a project you do with a group of classmates. Maybe it’s an essay, or a piece of artwork, or a lab experiment that you did individually or with partners.

doesn’t know the child. It only knows what the child knows. Then it does an amazing series of computations and comparisons that we can use to outline a class, since we now know each individual student’s knowledge base. It lets us know what we need to do to bring the whole class back together.

Focus: I look around the Middle School and it’s amazing that you bring anything together. Some students seem so young, others like they’re ready for their driver’s license.

AJ: It’s in this 10-14 year-old age range when they change more than at any other time in their lives, except for the first 18 months. And we have to be

“We’re on the edge of being one of the best schools in the world.

Just a few more tweaks and we’re there.”

Focus: But surely there are tests.

AJ: The tests here are unique as well. It’s very important that a student’s education, including the grade, is not teacher-dependent — that is to say, that it doesn’t vary according to which teacher you happen to get. So each teacher follows the exact same curriculum as the others teaching the same subject at the same level. And we do common assessments, which means that several times a year a team of four “core teachers” for each subject in each grade gets together and designs a common exam that every student studying that subject will take regardless of which teacher he or she has.

Then core team grades all the tests. Each teacher grades the same test and we see if we all come up with the same score.

Focus: Do you?

AJ: Often not at first, though eventually we do.

With math, there are right answers, so to speak. But what about literature? What about lab procedures?

One teacher may see something different than what another is seeing. So we talk to each other to find out why. And over time the team gels.

Focus: And then there are diagnostic tests as well.

AJ: In the Middle School we use the Northwest Evaluation Association test, which is more a knowledge inventory than an exam. For the student it’s not even standardized. The minute he or she presses the first key to give an answer, the computer starts talking directly to that student, peeling the onion, so to speak, to see what that student’s current knowledge base is in every possible category.

Focus: What can a test like that tell you that a teacher can’t?

AJ: There’s no bias, no emotion. The computer

careful about that, because the change process can mask what an academic problem might really be for a child. These things we’ve been talking about help take away those masks.

Focus: How? AJ: In math or science, for example, the NWEA test may tell us that the child understands procedures but not practices. Or we may learn that the child understands things conceptually but is missing some basics. And then the computer shows us exactly what those missing basics are. Maybe the student memorized what he or she was supposed to know about the number line in math, but never really understood it. The test shows us that. Knowing where the gaps are for each individual student lets us go back in and fill them. So we can help all of them get to the same level.

Focus: But how? You might have 20 kids in a class. You can’t give 20 private classes based on knowledge level.

AJ: It’s called differentiated instruction. Here’s what happens. With these results, I can see where every child in my class is along a range, divided into what are called RIT bands. So I differentiate my instruction, doing things like adjusting homework assignments based on where they are on the RIT band map. I can see that I need to give more advanced work to Sally, who’s way over on the right, but I need to help Harry over there on the left fill in certain gaps.

Focus: Sounds like a piece of work for the teachers.

AJ: It’s not easy. But that goes back to the beauty of this school. We have teachers who have been at the school for two, three decades. Over all those years they have been able to develop various ways

to help students, and that includes a stack of tools for differentiated instruction.

Focus: That kind of longevity seems surprising in an international school like ASF. AJ: It’s almost unheard of. Of course, there are also those who come and go. Which is wonderful too. They come from all over and bring their experiences. So we learn from that set of teachers as well. It’s like having a constant supply of new doctors with fresh medicines.

Focus: Keeps everyone on their toes.

AJ: Education is a living organism. A teacher’s training is never finished. They are always learning more in terms of the subject matter and the methodology. They read the literature in their field. Many belong to professional organizations, in math, say, or science or Spanish. And the school puts a lot of emphasis on professional development of all sorts.

Teachers are constantly sent to seminars and conferences and other kinds of development activities to stay abreast of what’s new in teaching, like constructivism. And when they come back, they must teach the other teachers what they learned. It’s required. Teachers also have to keep up with changes in the world around them, which happen very fast.

Not that long ago there were no BlackBerrys.

Focus: A classroom distraction if there ever was one.

AJ: But also they provide instant information.

They can verify anything you say, instantly. Imagine how intimidating that can be for a teacher. The point is that teachers have to stay on the leading edge of the world at large, and of the way children are changing, how sophisticated they are, how much they’re exposed to. Their world is so different than what ours was.

Focus 21

[family forum]

A Site to Behold The ASF web site makes it easy for parents to stay informed and up-to-date about what’s going on with their child’s education. Here’s how it works.

By Aliki Elias, Parent Association President

2

1

M

any of us remember how our kindergarten teacher would pin notes to our sweaters informing our parents of upcoming events or anything else they should know about.

That was then. Now, in 2010, ASF parents log onto www. asf.edu.mx and find out everything. This amazingly versatile and comprehensive ASF web site not only communicates to the outside world what the school is all about, it serves to connect the entire ASF community —including parents, teachers and students. The site gives you instant access to just about anything relevant to your child’s ASF education— from homework assignments to letters from the teachers, from up-to-date grades to upcoming events.

Still, it doesn’t always come naturally for many ASF parents to get in the habit of using a computer every day to keep track of the goings-on at their child’s school. And, as is the case for many sites, it’s sometimes difficult the first time you log in to figure out where all the information is. But the truth is it’s really quite simple. So here are a few easy tips for beginners to find everything they need to stay informed.

When you first log on to the web site, the general home page will fill your screen. A lot of good background about ASF is just a click away on this page, including admissions and financial aid information, a history of the school, an explanation of the school’s mission and philosophy and background on such topics as school clubs, the recycling program, the Parent Association and so on. If you haven’t already done so, it’s worth taking a look around this introductory section.

Then you want to click on the “Community” section. This is your entry into the insider world of ASF, http://community.asf.edu.mx, including information aimed specifically at currently enrolled students and their parents. You will be asked for your user name and password, which you 22 Focus

were given at the beginning of the school year. (If for some reason you don’t have a user name and password contact the Help Desk at helpdesk@ asf.edu.mx or call extension 4204 between 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.)

Once you have that window open, you’re in your home page. Probably the first thing you’ll notice here is a video tutorial of the Community site. This is exactly what it sounds like —a tour of the site that will help you use it.

The tutorial is a part of the “All ASF News and Bulletins” section on the left-hand side. Here you’ll find the e-mail bulletin that everyone receives on Tuesdays and Fridays with all the school announcements.

Here, too, are useful downloads such as the Family Handbook and the school calendar.

Directly below the news and bulletins are the “ASF Links.” You’ll probably use these links more than any others on the site. First on the list is PowerSchool & Academic Applications. Click on the + sign at the left and you’ll get another list, the first four items of which are PowerSchool applications. One is for administrators, one for teachers, one for parents and one for students. These are where Middle School and Upper School parents and students can track their academic progress.

Next is the one that those of us in the Lower School probably use the most — the Blackboard teacher sites. Click on your child’s school and then on the teacher’s name and you find your child’s homework assignments, letters from the teacher and other pertinent course information.

In that same links section you’ll find the links to all four schools libraries, Athletics & Extended Learning and the Help Desk.

Below the ASF Links you’ll find there your ASF e-mail account, including your inbox. New this year, all parents and students have been assigned a Google-based school e-mail account to send and receive messages. The twice-weekly school bulletins will arrive here.

www.asf.edu.mx

4

3 Finally, at the bottom left, you’ll see the ASF events section. Scroll down to see all the events taking place on campus through the end of the year.

Now, all the way to the right, look for the feature called “Add stuff.”

Click on that and you’ll find lots of items that you can add to your home page so you don’t have to poke around to find them. For instance, I have a child in the Lower School and one in the Middle School so I have added both those sections to my home page so I can easily and quickly read the news from those divisions. I also have the Parent Association, the ASF Libraries and the Picture of the Day gadgets added to my home page.

There are lots of others to choose from, ranging from the Infirmary to Athletics to even Classified Ads. Sometimes, the technology team puts up new fun stuff so be on the lookout for surprises. To add any gadget, all you do is 1) Click on “Add stuff” and then click on whatever it is you want to add.

Then just go back to your home page and there it will be. Remember that if you add anything you don’t want, or if you change your mind, all you do is click on the X to get rid of it.

There’s more to the ASF web site, of course.

What I’ve just described are the basics, the most pertinent features for ASF parents. So go ahead and browse around and familiarize yourself with this essential tool.

Focus 23

[family forum]

The Parent Partnership It’s no secret that today’s adolescents are surrounded by risk. Parents and the school need to work together as partners to keep them healthy and safe.

By Kelly Arthur Garrett, ASF Parent

O

nce every month this school year, scores of ASF parents fill a meeting room on campus, sometimes spilling out into the hallway. They’re not there for the coffee and cookies. Nor are they there to complain, to petition or to be told what to do. They’re there to improve the well being of all American School students.

And they’re doing something else at the same time. They’re helping to forge an entirely new kind of relationship between parents and the school.

It’s called the Parent Partnership. It’s based on the idea that parents and school staff should be coequal partners in deciding what’s best for students.

This is especially true when it comes to social and behavioral issues, and that’s where ASF’s fledgling Parent Partnership is focusing its efforts.

24 Focus

“The purpose of the Parent Partnership is to help keep our kids healthy and safe,” says Amy Gallie, head of the Upper School.

Ms. Gallie, along with Upper School Dean of Students Omar Ugalde, are leaders in ASF’s transition to what is known as a “partnership school,” but they are also active participants.

Both not only attend the meetings but also act as facilitators of the smaller work groups where the parents discuss specific topics.

A list of those topics gives a pretty good idea of what the Parent Partnership is all about: Addictionfree environments, healthy eating habits, smart personal choices, safe parties and trips, supportive peer relationships. No parent is untouched by those concerns, which clearly are not limited to either the home or school environment.

Parent Partnership formation is taking place from ECC through 12th grade, but the Upper School is blazing the trail. The reason for that is simple —that’s where the need is the greatest, at least when it comes to the health and safety issues that are the main focus.

“The Upper School years are the time of the highest risk for a lot of these issues,” Mr. Ugalde says. “And entering the ninth grade is the riskiest time of all.” But here’s the problem. Traditionally, parents’ involvement tends to taper off precisely as their children reach the Upper School level. In other words, when their input is most needed, it’s hardest to find.

“This year we’re trying to change that,” Mr. Ugalde says. “We’re asking parents to come to school to work together with us.”

They’ve been doing exactly that. The parents’ work has two specific aims this school year. One is to finish a survey of student behavior, with the results set to be released on the school web site in April — perhaps right around the time you’re reading this issue of Focus. The other is to come up with a set of recommended actions that parents and school officials can follow to encourage the kind of choices and behaviors that promote healthy, safe students. Those recommendations will be submitted to administration officials, including Executive Director Paul Williams and the Board of Trustees, for consideration in the formation of school policy for the 2010-11 school year.

Acting essentially as policy advisers on such important — sometimes even life and death — issues can be a tall order for parents. To quote the title from the seminal text in the partnership school movement, this level of parent involvement goes “beyond the bake sale.” But one of the basic tenets of the Parent Partnership is that not knowing the details of how school administration works is no reason for parents to withhold their input. And it’s certainly no reason for school officials to dismiss that input. After all, we’re talking about a partnership here, and how many school officials know as much about what goes on in students’ homes as the students’ parents do?

Plus, the ASF parents aren’t working in a vacuum. Besides the participating administrators and teachers, the school has enlisted the aid of consultants from Freedom from Chemical Dependency (FCD), a service organization familiar with strategies for averting risky behavior in young people.

The outside help also ensures a meaningful survey; the pros have tools for spotting red flags and inconsistencies so the data can be adjusted accordingly to yield more accurate information. But the consultants are there as a resource, not a determiner. “It’s you the parents who have the critical role in this,” Alejandro Lobo of the FCD told a Parent Partnership gathering recently.

As in so many projects, Partnership parents have discovered that the very process of putting together a proposal yields its own benefits long before the work is done. For example, most parents understand that ASF kids, including their own, are not immune to the dangers that surround adolescents. And most parents understand that they have a role to play in protecting their kids from random pitfalls as well as poor choices and their consequences. But knowing what to do about it is another matter.

Participation in the Parent Partnership exposes parents to all kinds of possible strategies, most of them emanating from their fellow mothers and fathers. The meetings and the group work amount to

intense brainstorming sessions that stimulate not only ideas for action but also (just as important) a sense of camaraderie among parents.

The hands-on involvement of the Partnership also helps foster a more can-do approach to the issue of student health and safety. In other words, actually doing something to help kids stay healthy and safe is an effective antidote to the defeatism that can result from a steady diet of sensational media reports and uninformed gossip.

A good indication of that will come out with the student behavior survey. Although the final results await official release, those closely involved with the survey report that the incidence of drug and alcohol abuse among ASF students is a tiny fraction of what some people assume and many parents fear. The risks are real, but they’re by no means inevitable.

We always hear from our kids that ‘everybody’s doing it,’ whatever it is,” said one parent at the March meeting. “Now we know that not everybody’s doing it.”

Ms. Gallie will unveil the student behavior survey results at the Upper School Parent Partnership on April 16 at 8:00 a.m. in US Room 304. The results will be posted on-line as well.

All Upper School parents — mothers and fathers —are urged to attend, and interested friends are also welcome.”

Focus 25

[campus currents] All images courtesy of Moyao Arquitectos, S.A. de C.V.

The Future is Here A new fine arts center, including a theater and remodeled classrooms, and a new indoor sports facility will take ASF students’ education to a new level.

By Kelly Arthur Garrett, ASF Parent

26 Focus

W

hen construction crews break ground this coming autumn on new on-campus arts and indoor sports facilities, it will mark the beginning of a new era of educational excellence at ASF. Culminating nearly two decades of careful planning, vigorous fundraising and a painstaking public input process, the ultra-modern Fine Arts Center and state-of-the-art Wellness Center will solidify ASF’s position as a superior 21st century international institution.

They will also raise ASF’s profile as a center of cultural and athletic activity for the greater school community, for the surrounding area and for Mexico City as a whole. That’s because the Fine Arts Center will include the Ángeles Espinosa Yglesias Theater, a much-needed performing arts venue for displaying the remarkable talent associated with the ASF community and student body. At the same time, the Wellness Center will offer expanded, modern competition and meeting spaces.

But the advent of the new facilities has nothing to do with position and profile, and everything to do with the education of ASF students, present and future.

The school has long recognized that a thorough preparation for adult life puts the arts and physical education on a par with the core academic studies in such areas as language arts and science. The coming additions to the campus infrastructure provide the physical spaces for those pursuits. That’s why they’re being built.

“The function of the new buildings is for learning and teaching,” says Rosa Pisinger, chair of the ASF Board of Trustees. “Like every improvement made on campus, they are there to maximize the use of space for fulfilling the mission of the school.”

Fine Arts Center, coming in 2012.

The Fine Arts Center The Ángeles Espinosa Yglesias Theater and the rest of the Fine Arts Center building will occupy the space where the current Upper School Gym sits, adjoining the building behind it commonly known as “the ramp.” In this way, it will “greet” visitors and anybody else who walks through the main entrance to campus.

Designed by architect José de Arimatea Moyao López, the center will provide a consolidated site for most art activity, be it in the classroom, the rehearsal room, the art gallery or the performance venue. That alone will have a major positive impact on the ASF student experience, since, for the first time, the school’s physical facilities will match its commitment to world-class arts education.

Factoring in the theater itself takes the new construction’s benefits to an even higher level. The seating arrangement will be flexible, with a capacity for between 300 and about 1,000 people, depending on the configuration chosen. That capacity for shape-shifting will help the Ángeles Espinosa Yglesias Theater serve as a cultural venue not only for ASF performances but also for the collaborative outreach projects with the surrounding community (which includes the ABC Hospital and various schools and churches).

As ASF Executive Director Paul Williams points out, the theater and the rest of the Fine Arts Center should not be thought of as playing separate roles. The performing arts, after all, exist to be performed, just as the visual arts are created to be seen. After three years without even a basic auditorium on the ASF campus, the theater will fill that curricular gap. “It will also enrich the curriculum by allowing us to bring back classes like dance production,” Mr. Williams says.

Focus 27

[campus currents]

The Wellness Center The new indoor athletic facility will be built almost simultaneously with the Fine Arts Center, rising where the tennis courts are today. In fact, the tennis courts will occupy the roof of the new building, as though lifted up two stories into the air. That location offers right-next-door access for both the Middle School and Upper School.

The building is currently being referred to as the Wellness Center, reflecting the school’s longstanding belief that physical education is not only about competitive sports but lifelong learning through the overall physical development of young bodies. It will house the Office of Athletics and Extended Learning and include an ample, modern fitness facility with free weights, strength-training machines and cardio equipment overlooking the baseball field.

Not that competitive sports will be overlooked. The new gymnasium (or sports arena, if you prefer) will have flexible seating to accommodate those drawn to see the ASF basketball and volleyball teams that have competed so successfully in recent years. But as always, priority will be given to regular use by ASF students.

Both the Fine Arts Center and the Wellness Center will be green buildings, following the lead of the recently completed Upper School renovation. “Green” doesn’t mean a cursory nod to vague environmental notions.

The centers will conform to LEED (Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design) standards of energy efficiency, use of recycled materials and minimum ecological impact. It also means lower maintenance and energy costs for the school budget.

The Master Building Plan Although the desirability of new arts and physical education spaces was recognized more than a decade ago, the ASF Board of Trustees and administration leaders recognized the importance of orderly, gradual needsbased growth. Rather than waiting to react to pressing needs, the school has followed a long-range planning approach.“It isn’t just about what we need today, but allowing for what we might need in the future,” says Cyndi DeLong, the school’s chief administrative and finance officer.

“Change happens fast these days and that’s a challenge we have to meet.”

The Fine Arts and Wellness Centers, then, are part of the latest phase of the Master Building Plan that is currently in force, guiding the physical development of the school. The order of its implementation is important.The first phase was finished in 2004 with the completion of the underground Lipu Transportation Center, which houses the more than 75 school buses that get ASF students to and from school every day. The other important improvement in this phase was the football and track facility that sits atop the Transportation Center.

The main feature of the second phase was the renovation of the Upper School —a renovation so thorough that it is often referred to as the “new” building. This improvement, which included creating space for the school’s administrative offices, was completed last year.

28 Focus

Construction will start on the Wellness Center later this year.

Now come the Fine Arts Center and the Wellness Center, in addition to new outdoor bleachers as called for in the Master Building Plan. Though the plan guides development, it of course doesn’t provide details on what the buildings will be like. Deciding the specifics required another process, which consisted mainly of input from all those who would be involved with the additions —that is to say, pretty much everyone belonging to the ASF community. Those people included faculty, staff, students, parents, alumni, donors, prospects, Foundation members and the community at large.

“It was a collaborative process based on needs,” Ms. DeLong says.

The Funding Planning for a new theater and sports complex is one thing; paying for it is quite another. ASF operates on a break-even budget, meaning every peso of student tuition fees goes to providing their education. So capital improvements must be funded by separate contributions, by donors large and small. Focus readers are well aware of how energetic the involvement by the entire ASF community has been in raising money for the appropriately named “Great Minds Need Great Spaces” campaign. From the Early Childhood Center rooms to flexible meeting spaces, the widespread commitment is the reason these two facilities are getting built.

That’s worth thinking about for a moment. Because people care enough to help raise money or give it directly —usually without anything in it for them personally— countless young people in future years will have better lives and be better prepared to make a contribution to the world.

The turning point came when two education-minded foundations committed to large contributions that put the school over the top in its capital improvement fundraising goals. The generosity of the Mary Street Jenkins Foundation has made it possible to start work on the Wellness Center at about the same time as the Fine Arts Center, rather than after the latter’s completion as originally assumed. That significantly reduces the time the school will be without an adequate indoor sports facility.

Mary Street Jenkins was the wife of Guillermo O. Jenkins Biddle, a prominent businessman and philanthropist in Puebla. The foundation supports the development of diverse projects that offer educational and cultural opportunities to young people.

The major funding for the Fine Arts Center comes from the Fundación Amparo, which was founded many years ago by prominent banker Manuel Espinosa Yglesias in honor of his late wife, Amparo Rugarcía. His daughter Ángeles, who passed away recently, was president of the foundation and an important leader in the study and preservation of Mexico’s cultural history.

It is for her that the new Ángeles Espinosa Yglesias Theater is named. (See page 36 for more information on major backers of the project.)

In addition, Pepsico, Horacio McCoy (‘57), numerous other alumni and the Parent Association made generous donations toward the construction of new bleachers on Coach Colman Field, which will also take place in the next year.

The Construction Both the new buildings should be ready in 2012. Construction on the Wellness Center is scheduled to begin in October of this year and take about a year to finish. Work on the Fine Arts Center starts in December and is expected to last 18 months. So clearly, things are going to be a little different on campus during the next school year. There will be an emotional experience when the existing Upper School Gym starts to come down. It’s been the site of many memories.

Then there will be the matter of negotiating the school day around two construction sites. Noisy work will not be allowed during the school day, and arrangements are being made for sharing facilities (both on and off campus) during the transition. Nobody doubts it will all be worth it.

“There might be some inconveniences for students and faculty for a while,” says Ms. Pisinger. “But it will guarantee a future of excellence in the arts and athletics programs offered by our school.”

Focus 29

[campus currents]

ASF Community Talent Showcase The ASF community’s artistic gifts were on display at the annual talent showcase. So was its family spirit.

By José Segebre, ASF Communications Assistant

I

t’s become a campus tradition to gather once a year on a school night to enjoy the talent that is so widespread in the extended ASF community. Students, teachers, alumni and ASF families fill the stage as well as the seats, sharing their artistic gifts in an atmosphere of celebration and support, organized once again by Lower School’s Beth Swanberg.

One thing that sets ACTS (the ASF Community Talent Showcase) apart from most on-campus events is that it takes place off campus.

That contradiction is going to change. With construction of ASF’s Fine Arts Center set to begin at the end of this year, future talent showcases should take place in the new Ángeles Espinosa Yglesias Theater where performers will enjoy simultaneously a state-of-the-art venue and home court advantage.

30 Focus

But that’s the future. This year, on a Monday night in late January, we trekked across the congested D.F. streets to the Centro Cultural Telmex to reward the dedication and encourage the efforts of our coworkers, friends, classmates, family members and acquaintances.

Informality set this cultural affair apart from most, but the relaxed mood only enhanced the remarkable proficiency of the performers. For example, ASF teacher and alumnus Carlos Balam Vázquez (’97) delighted the audience with an elaborate piano rendering of D.F.-based composer Arturo Márquez’ airy blend of mariachi beats and Veracruz rhythms. Amidst loosely connected and extended notes violently followed by staccato passages, a baby’s bawl resonated throughout the auditorium. Far from scandalized, the unflinching audience kept following the performance without a shh or a side-eye —a testament both to the performer’s ability and the nature of an ASF audience.

That particular nature can be described as tolerant, but it’s also nurturing. No matter the age of the performer, the audience responded in a supportive, appreciative manner.

Aside from the palpable but unspoken communication between performer and spectator, what stood out at this annual cultural exposition was diversity. Not only diversity in the level of experience, but also in style, influence and medium. Hybrid forms were the order of the night.

In Crank It Up, seventh grader Mariana Ibarra concocted a dance performance that incorporated basic ballet moves, break-dancing and dance types that originated out of hip-hop and street culture. Mariana was able to juxtapose so-called high art forms that value certain conceptions of elegance and femininity with the rudeness and confrontational motions of a type of dance usually associated with males.

In a similar vein, Raquel Haiat, another seventh grader, performed Danza Arabe to a mélange of musical traditions, using a contemporary pop song infused with percussive beats from the popular Middle Eastern goblet drum doumbek. Raquel gracefully consolidated these styles and adapted traditional belly dancing to the more electronic sounds while always handsomely isolating the brusque movements of her shoulders and hips by intercalating extravagant undulations of her chest and arms.

Another event that stood out, mainly for being the only of its kind, were the pop-punk rockers of the wittily named band Los Delfines de la Muerte. They performed their own material and inundated the venue with heavy basslines under an overall guitar rock aesthetic. The audience did giggle at the kitschy extravagance of their opening dolphin sounds, but the

performers seemed comfortable with their countercultural ironies. It was refreshing to see original music of this kind performed live in an acoustically conscious space as opposed to performing the masterpieces of the western musical canon.

Another change in pace came toward the end of the evening with an aerial acrobatic performance by the aptly named ninth grader Ariela Rudy.

There was something majestic about a black-clad figure standing in midair holding on to nothing more than a luscious stripe of red fabric. The aesthetics of it were impressive, not to mention the ease with which Ariela glided through the air. The spectators were captivated, looking up in awe with heads tilted back and eyes wide open at the paradox of finding something that looks so dangerous also being so soothing and aesthetically pleasing.

The night ended with Handel’s demanding Sonata in D Minor performed by acclaimed and internationally renowned musicians Miguel Salazar and Eleanor Weingartner. Though both are accustomed to concert halls in Europe, the United States and Mexico, they were able to take advantage of this setting to enchant us with their oboe and clarinet performance, respectively. They’re both ASF parents and their daughter Eva shared a stage with them that same night during her violin solo.

After the event, the Salazar-Weingartner family was standing near the backstage entrance, holding their instrument cases. They are a family, they are performers, but they are also proactive members of the ASF community. Of the experience of performing in such an atmosphere, Eleanor said, “It was a nice change to see how eager and exited everyone was.”

Focus 31

[campus currents]

Going Public When Upper School students decided to create works of art for permanent display in the halls, they discovered the challenges inherent in the “public” part of public art.

By Patricia Patterson, Upper School Art Teacher

S

tudents, staff and visitors strolling the halls of the Upper School will notice some artwork now on permanent display on the walls of the freshly remodeled building.

The contributions are from my Art III class, the first group of students to have the chance to leave a mark that will endure long after they’ve moved on with their lives and careers.

The project began last fall, not with painting but with thinking. As part of a unit on public art, my students were asked to think about how the school environment could be improved through artwork. All agreed that the school walls needed more presence, more color, more life. Instead of a group mural project, each student wanted to work on her own painting, with the aim of leaving her own contribution behind for future students.

It was decided that the works should be portable, with wooden supports. That way they could be temporarily removed when the walls need cleaning or painting. And unlike the painted lockers that once decorated the first floor hallways, these works would hopefully survive any future remodeling.

My students knew what they wanted to do —but public art is for the public, not the artists. If we were going to do this right, we would have to do a lot of thinking about the kinds of ideas that would transcend our individual desires. Simply put, each student needed to do something that would be appreciated by the ASF community. There were countless practical considerations as well. Anything we did would of course require the approval of the administration. Materials would have to be ordered and prepared, not to mention paid for. The students came to understand that any large-scale public project must follow a logical series of steps if it’s really going to happen.

Each student prepared a proposal that included a written description of her art idea, sketches and a detailed budget. They also had to select a hallway location for displaying their work.

All of this was subject to approval. Upon my invitation, Amy Gallie, head of the Upper School, reviewed the proposals and found all of them appropriate for the school’s needs. Funding, however, would be a problem. To overcome that obstacle, we resorted to some improvised creativity. Searching around the school, mostly in the garbage, I was able to find enough usable recycled material to meet the needs of four of the seven projects. Ms. Gallie found money for the other three. >> 32 Focus

Focus 33

[campus currents] Leaving their Mark To say that the students were enthusiastic about the project would be an understatement. Excerpts from their project proposals clearly reflect that enthusiasm: Marisol Saavedra: For this project I want to emphasize Mexican culture in my mural. I want to do this because even though we live in Mexico City, we are surrounded by modern buildings, technology and foreign cars —we just simply forget that our country has an amazing culture. We are more interested in other cultures and don’t even take the time to notice that our roots have tons of magnificent history. I was really inspired by Frida Kahlo because she was a woman who in spite of everything —her harsh life, the accident and more— kept on painting in her bed. I am going to use an image based on the photograph by Nicolas Murray. For Frida’s face I want to use very bright colors. The painting of Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol also inspires me. In the background I want to paint clouds like Frida did in her paintings “La Columna Rota,” “El Camion,” “Las Dos Fridas” and “Los Frutos de la Tierra.”

Paulina García de Alba: In this project I chose to analyze one of our vital organs: the heart. I think that it is primordial to have a sense of what runs through our bodies. It is a mural that will give energy to the people and when they see it, they will realize that it’s time to live, to stop wasting our time and be alive, to have energy and enjoy the beauty of life. This painting will give life to the building and express a positive vibration for the Upper School and ASF community.

Maribel Ávila: My proposal for artwork for the school consists of images related to the beach because they would bring peace and tranquility to our school. I chose a photograph that I made of footprints on the beach.

Different paths are formed on the beach when different people walk through them. This image brings out the theme that we will all someday graduate from this school and we shall all take different paths through life. The school is preparing us for the future and helping us open doors in order to someday take and create the path that we desire to follow. Hopefully people will enjoy my picture and consider it a great contribution in art for our beloved school.

Noa Radosh: “The Birth of Venus” is a painting by Sandro Botticelli.

It shows the goddess emerging from the sea as a grown woman. My proposal for a mural painting is to paint Venus, as she is in the original, but with tattoos and piercings all over her body. My goal is to transmit the mixture of two cultures: the Italian Renaissance with tattoos used today.

Venus has just been born and she is corrupted by society. The meaning of her ideal beauty is in contrast with, or complements, the meaning of the tattoos. It also speaks to the importance of tattoos in our society.

34 Focus

Paulina Leipen: For my project I want to make my version of Ellsworth Kelly’s color field paintings. I think that they would give a lot of color and positive energy to a space, while being simple and minimalist. It will be a timeless piece that is very modern and cheerful.

Fanny Adler: I am a person who is in love with perspective drawing. Due to this, when I grow up I would like to be an architect. I would like to make a painting for the school that would include perspective, comparing modern architecture with historic architecture. I would like to paint this on wood so that it is more precise. I want to do this because I believe that the Upper School building is in need of decoration, to make it more friendly and inviting.

Down to Work The students worked for over two months on their paintings, from collaborating with the school’s carpenters to applying the paint. There were moments when one student would have all of her materials while others were waiting for things to be delivered. Sometimes we weren’t sure we would finish by the end of the semester. It really impressed me to see friends helping each other. They stretched each other’s canvases or assisted filling in background colors when needed.

Technical difficulties were a natural occurrence. Students had to choose colors, make samples and then mix large quantities of paint. These were the biggest works they had ever been involved with and the sheer size was almost overwhelming for some.

For example, mixing the correct skin tone for a modern Venus was a challenge for Noa Radosh. We worked together, testing and trying colors, until she found something that corresponded to her idea. She agonized over the application of the tattoos and even came back during the second semester to complete her project.

Senior Marisol Saavedra worked for weeks on the clouds behind Frida Kahlo’s head. (She managed in the meantime to submit a portfolio for a talent scholarship to Universidad Anáhuac, which she eventually won.)

Paulina García de Alba had to cover the recycled wooden boards with layers of collaged paper and acrylic gel to get rid of the lettering on the discarded sign that we used.

Fanny Adler, a perfectionist, struggled to get the perspective on her building sketch correct, making a measuring tool out of a piece of wood, duct tape and a meter stick.

Ximena González had to wait a long time for her stretcher to be delivered and spent her time making an additional painting for her room. When the stretcher arrived she painted her idea in a surprisingly quick three days’ time.

I asked students to put their names on the back of the paintings so that someday they might be contacted if the paintings had to come down for any reason.

We decided to hang the works on Founders Day, hopefully inspiring a commitment to the preservation and protection of student artwork in the school.

[student voices]

Thank You, Muslims

By Rafael Zardain, 7th Grade Student

W

hen you drink your morning coffee, take a painkiller for a headache, turn on your computer, visit someone at the hospital or wash your hands, you might want to thank the Muslim community. Muslims gave those things, and many more, to the world.Islam is practiced by 1.6 billion people today. During the Middle Ages, Muslims controlled a very large part of the world. At that time, the Muslim community was an advanced group compared to the European feudal community. It was a brilliant community that helped to improve the world. Muslims built great cities and wonderful communities of mutual help. They imported and exported goods and knowledge to the rest of the world.

The history of Islam started in the Arabian Peninsula. In the middle of self-governed, polytheistic Bedouin nomad tribes, Muhammad was born. He was widely known as a peacekeeper, and was trusted to move the sacred black rock when the Kaaba (a sacred building) was renovated. One night when he was in a cave, the Archangel Gabriel revealed a message that turned into the Qur’an.

Then Muhammad started to spread the word of Allah, but not everyone was happy with the idea of just one god so he and his followers migrated to Medina that marks the beginning of the Islamic era. While at Medina, he spread the word of Allah. In Medina he gained followers and decided to take Mecca. The problem was that the Meccans had a lot of very strong men and Muhammad had fewer, and they were old or too young. But later more and more Bedouin tribes joined his army and finally after one month he took the city and destroyed all the idols so Islam could flourish in Mecca.

Later he returned to Medina and made a “Farewell Pilgrimage� to Mecca. His every action in this pilgrimage was recorded and every Muslim has to do the same pilgrimage once in their lives.

Over the centuries, Muslims brought to the world a lot of great knowledge of navigation, time, mapping and climate. Without the creation of algebra and their advances in trigonometry, maybe today a lot of things would be very different. Technology would be very hard to develop without algebra or even very complex mathematical problems and equations would be nearly impossible.

Muslims made numerous advances in teaching. They had the first universities, the first compilation of data in their almanacs and the first idea for an organized hospital, with quarantines so the sick would not transmit diseases. Their medical contributions included much development in the study of plants to use as medicines, the plaster cast, blood circulation and a number of improvements in surgical techniques. Their studies on eye anatomy are still valid today.

Muslims helped design cameras. In chemistry they perfected the distillation process that is used today to obtain many substances, and in making alcoholic beverages. They also made the first bar soaps. Coffee is a drink they developed and traded.

And they made important advances in architecture.

With this issue, the Student Voices page opens up to Middle School writers as well as those from the Upper School. To submit an essay, opinion piece or work of fiction, send the manuscript to the Office of Communications at communications@asf.edu.mx.

Focus 35

institutional advancement

Art to Art O

ne of the nicest events at the 40th Annual Art Fair last fall was the art auction in the Upper School Gymnasium. Parents, faculty, friends, staff and relatives enjoyed the opportunity to bring home words of art from ASF students at all levels, while helping to support the fine arts at ASF with the proceeds of the auction.

The popular project paid off a few months later when Parent Association representatives, faculty and staff members and student artists handed over a check for 300,000 pesos to help finance the soon-tobegin construction of the Fine Arts Center, home of the Angeles Espinosa Yglesias Theater.

A Row of Honor T

hanks to a generous donation from the Fundación Cultural Mexico-Estados Unidos we are a row of seats closer to being done with the Angeles Espinosa Yglesias Theater. Construction of the Fine Arts Center starts at the end of 2010, and a row of seats will be named in honor of the Fundación. This center will enrich the cultural atmosphere of the campus, and enhance the arts appreciation of the entire community and neighborhood. Shown here are (left to right) John Bruton of the Fundación Cultural MéxicoEstados Unidos, ASF Executive Director Paul Williams, Carlos Huerta, also of the Fundación, and ASF Institutional Advancement Director Michele Beltrán.

A Perfect Match T

he Parent Association has matched the generosity of more than 108 staff and faculty members who chose to make a holiday donation to the Annual Scholarship Drive. The PA offered faculty and staff members three choices for their traditional holiday gift: a turkey, a box of chocolates or the chance to donate the value of the gift to scholarships – with the PA then matching the value. The donation option started with a small group of motivated teachers last year and was a very popular choice in 2009. The total came to $43,200 pesos.

36 Focus

Founders Keepers F

ounders Day was a perfect time for Lower and Middle School students to remember and emulate the generosity of ASF’s founders. Lower School students (shown in the photo) had held a soccer tournament and made a donation of more than 43,000 pesos to the Annual Scholarship Drive, while Middle School students donated 6,000 pesos raised in a toy car race.

Time to Give!

H

ave you made your donation to the ASF Giving Program? Please remember that every donation counts and brings us closer to our goals! And it’s easy to do. Just go to: www.asf.edu.mx/support.

Focus 37

alumni / profile

A Sound Choice Alex Venguer (’98) went on from ASF to become a Grammy-winning sound engineer. Here’s his story in his own words.

38 Focus

Going back to my years at ASF, where I started in kindergarten, I can tell you that I joined the school’s choir during Middle School and had my own band in high school: Oompa Loompa.

I

’ve been a music lover ever since I can remember. I grew up in a house surrounded by music and all kinds of musical experiences. Soon enough I was playing guitar and analyzing the way in which bands (the Beatles, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, among others) produced and recorded their records. In high school, when we started recording our own band’s album, I realized how interesting the whole recording process was.

When I was accepted at Berklee College of Music in Boston, I intended to be a producer, not an engineer. However, the more music sessions I worked on, the more passionate I felt about music engineering. And so I decided to pursue the profession of sound engineering.

My professional career in the music world started at Sound On Sound, a well-known recording studio in New York City. (The studio’s current name is Manhattan Sound Recording Studios.) I started as a general assistant, which basically implies doing whatever needs to be done — answering the studio’s phone calls, taking out the garbage, cleaning the facilities and helping to do set up for recording sessions, to name a few duties. I worked as a general assistant for two and a half years while also working on personal projects and assisting at sessions under the supervision of the more experienced senior assistants.

Eventually I was promoted to assistant. As such, my responsibility was to support engineers by organizing, setting up and backing up their sessions. During this period, I had the opportunity to assist several of the most admired engineers in the music industry, learning from them different techniques and skills. In the meantime, I carried out my own independent projects. Little by little, the directors at Sound On Sound started calling me to be the main engineer at more and more sessions.

Two and a half years later, feeling that I was ready in terms of knowledge, experience and number of clients, I decided it was time to go independent.

Nowadays, I am a free-lance engineer working in all sorts of sessions around New York City.

What does a sound engineer do? Basically, we are in charge of all technical decisions. This means we supervise every detail so that a recording can take place. For example, we decide the position of each musician within the recording studio; select the microphones and their location. We are also responsible for processing sound so that it is taken to its final stage — in this case, the record itself.

A fundamental part of a sound engineer’s job is to make artists and producers feel comfortable at all times. We need to keep the session flowing and to be able to interpret the artists’ and producers’ abstract ideas, translating them into the sounds they want to hear. It also implies keeping the workplace as organized as possible, being able to delegate responsibilities to your assistants, developing the ability to detect those takes that the artist/producer likes the best or the worst and mastering the art of paperwork. Of course, we must pay special attention to anything that is going on in the session and we must master all equipment so as to avoid mistakes.

Although it is considered a technical job, sound engineering is also a very artistic job. At the end of the day you must be as much of an artist and a musician as those writing and performing the music itself.

This year I won a Grammy award for engineering the work of the artist Loudon Wainwright, for his album: “High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project.” I feel honored because it means the professional recognition of my work by the music industry, but particularly because it is music I believe in.

Going back to my years at ASF, where I started in kindergarten, I can tell you that I joined the school’s choir during Middle School and had my own band in high school. As “Oompa Loompa,” my band mates and I played in all kinds of school-sponsored music events and also many, many off-site “tocadas.” ASF always supported us so that we could evolve and believe in music. Occasionally, when the school band’s guitarist couldn’t make it, I would join in. Also, during my high school years, I was a student in one of the school’s music theory courses.

If you are thinking of studying for a career in music, I urge you to go ahead and do it —as long as you are willing to change the role of music in your life from hobby to work. You should be fully aware that such a career will demand a great amount of compromise.

Pursuing a career in music will demand from you passion, discipline and sacrifice, but at the same time it will make you feel that you are investing your time and energy in something that you truly love. You will definitely live through some very hard moments, but you will also have plenty of interesting, passionate and fun times.

If you have already made your choice, I hope you always remember that even during those times —usually after long hours of work— when all you want is silence, your love for music must never die, only grow.

Focus 39

alumni / profile

Focus: What inspired you to start NYC Medics?

Ruben Flores: We founded NYC Medics in 2005 after watching how the Pakistan earthquake received a few days of coverage and then disappeared from the media. Over 80,000 people died and 2 million were left homeless; the UN Undersecretary General was saying Pakistan was worse than the tsunami, but after a few days, the cameras turned off. After 9/11 and the catastrophic response to Katrina, we just couldn’t stand by and watch.

Focus: What was it like in Pakistan?

RF: When our small group of doctors and paramedics from New York City landed in Kashmir, we were just a group of clinicians tired of being on the sidelines. Now we found ourselves center stage, operating mobile clinics in some of the most remote regions of Kashmir in an extremely hostile, unforgiving environment, surrounded by destruction left and right. And we were mostly all by ourselves working with Pakistan’s armed forces. It was weeks before other aid organizations arrived, and our team was able to save hundred of lives. There was nothing special about the care we delivered. But we were there when no one else was. And out of that experience NYC Medics was born as an ongoing organization. Our mission is to deploy small, very flexible teams to care for those patients in the aftermath of catastrophe who are isolated by geography or injury, acting in coordination with the larger relief agencies.

Focus: What was your work in Haiti?

RF: When the Haiti earthquake happened, we were ready. Our first volunteer was on the ground in Santo Domingo within 24 hours of the earthquake trying to figure out logistics. We knew the airport in Port-au-Prince would be impossible, so we decided to drive in from the Dominican 40 Focus

Relief Effort Ruben Flores (‘02) co-founded a rapid-response medical team that challenges assumptions as it saves lives.

As a paramedic, Ruben Flores (‘02) is the co-founder and director of operations of NYC Medics, a non-governmental organization that deploys rapid-response emergency medical and surgical teams in the aftermath of catastrophes worldwide. NYC Medics was featured in an Emmy award-winning CBS ‘60 Minutes’ segment for its work in Pakistan following the 2005 earthquake there, and is currently actively engaged with the Haiti relief effort. To find out more about NYC Medics, visit www.nycmedics.org.

Republic. Within five days, we had a surgical response team operating 16 hours every day at a hospital that had received hundreds of patients and no help. Over the following eight weeks, NYC Medics deployed nearly 60 volunteer doctors, paramedics and nurses who treated over 20,000 patients in some of Port-au-Prince’s most dangerous slums, as well as in the sprawling tent cities. Instead of just waiting on the outskirts for people to come to them, our teams went tent by tent to find the most injured or sick and evacuate them. At the same time, by bringing care to the people where they lived, we were able to keep them from overcrowding the tent field hospitals.

Focus: What was your first impression when you arrived?

RF: One word —apocalypse. The devastation in Pakistan was offset by the natural beauty of the mountains and valleys; Port-au-Prince was one massive, oppressively hot, smelly pile of rubble.

Despite it all, the strength and joy and songs of the Haitian people never ceased to inspire.

Focus: How did ASF prepare you to serve others at times like this?

RF: Whether it was clipping newspaper articles about foreign affairs in Middle School, or participating in Model UN in high school, or being forced to interact with people from different nationalities every single day, ASF made the world small and manageable. At the same time, from classes on postmodern theory, to reading Howard Zinn in U.S. history, ASF always reinforced one message to me: be irreverent to convention, always question the party line. It never struck me that going halfway around the world after a disaster to challenge a convention —that only large aid agencies can do it right— would raise eyebrows. At ASF, that type of out-of-the-box thinking is quite ordinary. In the field, that type of thinking can mean the difference between life and death.

alumni / milestones

What Are You Up To? Let Focus be your way of letting the ASF community know what’s been going on in your life after you moved on from the school. Send information to María José Magallanes, ASF’s Alumni Relations Coordinator, at magallanesm@asf.edu.mx or mail it to the school.

Don’t forget to include a photo!

Fernanda Gamboa (’97) and Gabriel Holschneider (’97) were married April 19, 2008, and became parents to Allan Holschneider Gamboa on May 5, 2009.

Antonio Pedroza Franco (’98) is engaged to Alejandra González.

Lucy Beltrán (‘99), Elisa Souza (‘99), Maria Hank (‘99), Camila Diez Barroso (‘99).

Mariana Martínez (’03) is engaged to Fabian Mondragón.

Elisa Souza (’99) was married to Mauricio Pedroza on December 12, 2009.

Focus 41

alumni / reunions

1959: UNFORGETTABLE

T

he 50-year reunion of the Class of ’59 last October in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca was a major event and an organizational wonder. Here are some alumni comments and photos to add to those that ran in the previous issue of Focus: Writes Sylvia Fong from Ohio: “ After spending a day in Mexico City with my family, I safely returned to Ohio. I want to thank each and every one of my 1959 classmates, especially Manena Davo, her dear brother Herman, Eugenia, her sister-in-law, Lalo Solares and his dear wife Maria, for your kind hospitality. I would also like to thank my good friend Héctor Arellano, who through his hard work —together with that of Mariana Carmona, Biby Contreras, Álvaro Rodríguez, Diana Zykofsky, the Pérez Vargas family and Linda Litchi, amongst others— helped consolidate the Alumni Association. Without their efforts to start an alumni directory we would have been unable to locate many classmates. Thanks again, Héctor. for entertaining us with your magnificent voice.

Writes Héctor Mario Arellano: “It’s not possible to put into words the emotions brought to the surface by the three days spent in Puerto Escondido. I’m sure we all feel the same way.

I’m thankful for having been able to take part in this unique event. I’d like to thank Lalo, Maria and Manena for their commitment and hard work planning the reunion. The invitation to Herman and Eugenia’s ranch and the subsequent gathering surpassed any expectations we may have had. In relation to the start of the Alumni Association in July 1983, laying the foundations and doing the grass-rooting amongst alumni was the most challenging aspect. The foundation of the Alumni Association was a collective effort in which board members were able to set aside their personal agendas for the sake of the organization, thus allowing this association to prevail. Those before us had unsuccessfully tried many times. The alumni directory required a lot of hard work and the participation of many. Cross-generational efforts of many alumni made it possible for we as a class to meet 50 years later. Even though it was a lot of work and stress, I can only conclude it was completely worth it. I appreciate all the compliments about my performance on Friday and Saturday. I also enjoyed myself a lot. A hug to all of those who were there as well as to those who were unable to attend. The memories we made at this reunion are unforgettable, and I hope we can organize many more while health permits. I hope it does not take another 50 years to do so.”

42 Focus

1979: Enthusiasm O

ur 30-year reunion took place in Acapulco, Guerrero from October 23 to October 25, 2009. Our enthusiastic group met at the Pierre Marqués Hotel, and the highlight was the official disco dancing party at Baby’O on Saturday night, October 24th. Great music from the 1970s was played and danced to, while a big sign that read: “Bienvenidos Colegio Americano-Generación 1979” kept flashing on the screens. We had so much fun that we are already planning our 40th Class reunion for 2019! As you can see, the “official” picture has 28 attendees. Not in the picture, but also having attended, are Harvey Wellman, Michel Gilles and Yvonne Berger.

1986:

Lunch & Laughs

C

lass of ’86 alumni got together on Thursday, December 17, 2009, at the restaurant La Tablita (also known as Loma Linda), a popular steakhouse and hangout for a lot of chilangos, ASF alumni and others who live in the Lomas de Chapultepec area.

The get-together rounded up about 25 members of this class. Severino Pérez, Mossy Farca, Daniel Rihan, David Atherton, Ale de Angoitia, Karen Ehrenwald, Manolo Muñoz, Fernanda Simón and Stevie Said, among others, showed up to have a nice lunch and lots of laughs. The Class of ’86 is a diverse group of people, and includes some celebrities like Jenny Nacif and Verónica Martínez, who are regulars on several TV and radio talk shows in Mexico City (Televisa and Radio Fórmula). They are just as good-looking in person as behind the camera and microphone.

Plans are being drawn up for the 25th class reunion sometime in 2011.

Mossy Farca suggested a possible trip to a beach destination somewhere in Mexico. Please feel free to contact the ASF Alumni Office for details or Joe Gutiérrez at jose_g@millermexico. com for details.

Mossy Farca, Daniel Rihan and José “Joe” Gutiérrez.

Most of the 1986 reunion attendees smile for the camera at La Tablita.

Severino Pérez, Manolo Muñoz and Jenny Nacif.

Fernando González Saiffe, Karen Ehrenwald, Jackie Kalach, Ale de Angoitia and Fernanda Simón.

Raymundo Solis and Memo Álvarez.

Focus 43

alumni / class notes

’50

The Class of 1950’s 60th class reunion is being planned for October 6-10, 2010, in San Antonio and San Marcos, Texas. The main event will be a gathering in San Marcos on Saturday, October 9, at the home of Eleanor Ireton Stewart. For more information, contact Eleanor at elliestewart@grandecom.net or at 512-392-7205.

’58

’75

“Arranca La Reunión 35 del ’75: Acapulco 2010!” The 35year reunion is scheduled for June 2528, 2010, at the Fairmont Pierre Marques in Acapulco, Guerrero. This promises to be a very special reunion with a perfect balance of reventón and relaxation in the sun. For the most up-to-date information, go to www.studiotejas.com/z_reunion/2010_reunion or contact Uriel at urielmuller@yahoo.com.

John Christian writes from Texas: “I am sending this image of a native plant, made in the alley that runs past my humble home and studio. The colors remind me of winter in Texas. I see this image as special for several reasons; one being that it is found on both sides of the Rio Grande or Rio Bravo. Its name, cucuri, comes from the Nahuatl language. This winter chile plant sparks our lives. Although it has been my keenest interest to try to visit the Colegio Americano, I feel sending my images is one of the best ways that I can keep in touch.”

’76

’58

Bill Streun writes: “I am attaching a photo of my cousin John Christian and myself taken at my home in Seguin, Texas, on Thanksgiving Day 2009.”

Emilie Boon’s children’s book, Peterkin Meets A Star, has been released as an iPhone application available on iTunes. Emilie has published more than 20 books for young children since graduating from the Royal Academy of Art at The Hague. Her books have been translated into Japanese, French, Spanish and other languages. You can view Emilie’s illustrations and publications at www. emilieboon.com. She lives and teaches in the Boston area.

’88

Alberto Garcia Aguilar is living in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, and working for Motorola.

’89

Andrés Jiménez (andresj_ dc@yahoo.com) writes from Bogota, Colombia: “New job. Been studying to become a regression therapist since college. Finally started in 2009.”

’90

Mark your calendars! The location (Acapulco) and date (weekend of September 4) of the 20year reunion are settled. Please join our Facebook Group: — ASF Class of ’90 — for further information. 1-2-3 Bears!

’95

Sandra López León has published Toma mi mano y vuela conmigo, about her adventures and travels in Mexico City as a med student, in Israel, where she did her residence and in South America. The book is available at www.amazon.com.

’65

Enrique Novi, aka Enrique Rabinovich, is working on a new series for TV Azteca called “Drenaje Profundo,” scheduled to air in September.

’65

The Class of 1965 is planning a reunion for 2012 with the theme “Class of ’65 turns 65.” The reunion is open to all the Anglo schools which were active in 1965. At this point, we are trying to contact alumni from all schools. If you can assist, or for more information, please contact Nena Gottfried Wiley at CoyoteArz@aol.com.

44 Focus

’80

The Class of 1980 will celebrate its 30-year reunion from Friday, May 28, 2010 through Sunday, May 30 at Dreams Riviera Cancun in Puerto Morelos, Quintana Roo. For details on hotel reservations, reunion events and payment options, click here or contact Sue MacIntosh at suemac@ san.rr.com. This fantastic “Pachanga 2010” in the Riviera Maya will be well worth the wait!

’06/09

Frank and Alina Mandal write: “After almost 11 years in this beautiful and challenging country, the Mandals are leaving to return to the United States.

It’s a mixed bundle of emotions but we’re happy to have accomplished one of our most important life goals by seeing both our sons, Rafiq Mandal (’06) and Rahim Mandal (’09), graduate from ASF, which we think is the best school

in Mexico and probably one of the best in the world. The people we have met through ASF have left an impression and we will never forget them. Thanks to all who touched our lives and our sons’ lives.We can be reached at losmandal@ hotmail.com.”

’42-52 A Multi-Class Reunion.

Some ASF graduates are planning a reunion of the classes of 1942 to 1952, to be held in San Marcos, Texas, about 40 miles north of San Antonio, Texas, in a private residence on October 9th, 2010. It will be a luncheon and get-together just to see old friends and classmates. However, there are a lot of things to do in San Antonio and San Marcos...there is a very extensive and famous shopping mall in San Marcos, and we are sure you will want to see the fabulous River Walk in San Antonio. We will be glad to see y’all! If you are interested and need further details please e-mail or call Jim Meehan (’44) at 210-656-1767 or jmeehan1@ satx.rr.com.

Focus welcomes your thoughts. Send your letter via e-mail to communications@asf. edu.mx, or by regular mail to The Office of Communications, The American School Foundation, Bondojito 215, Col. Las Américas, México, D.F. 01120, México.

Ricardo Trejo Morales 1992-2009 Junior student Ricardo Trejo passed away early the morning of December 4, 2009.

Classmates and teachers remembered Ricardo at a memorial service on campus December 9. His friends describe Ricardo as happy, funny and outgoing, a practical joker with an easy smile. Those who knew him admired his ability to look for the bright side of any situation and to be amazed at the simple things in life. Ricardo also loved soccer (especially the Gallos de Querétaro) and playing the bass.

Ricardo’s sister Cristina is a 9th grader and his brother Francisco graduated in 2009. Ricardo’s death was a great shock to the junior class, which had already lost a former classmate, Patricio García, in October.

Save the date!

Mark your calendar for the upcoming ASF events in 2010.

thursday

May 27

Alumni Networking Night will take place on Thursday, May 27, 2010.

For further information, please contact the Alumni Office alumni@asf.edu.mx or 5227 4900 ext. 4183

saturday

IN MEMORIAM...

• ALBERT LIEURANCE Albert Lieurance, the beloved husband of Wilda Wright (‘66), passed away on January 12, 2010. He was 74 years old.

• JUAN CÁRDENAS (’57) Juan Cárdenas died peacefully at home after a battle with pancreatic cancer on February 11, 2010. He is survived by his beloved wife Deanna; her beautiful family; his very loving children Juan Miguel, Linda Subias, Joe, Vicki, Samantha, Tony and Jessica; and his very loving granddaughters Caroline and Natalie. He is also survived by sisters Lolita (’64) and Betty (’68) and brother Alex (’70) and their families. Juan was born in Mexico on November 12, 1939, and immigrated to the United States at age 17. Juan lived life to the fullest, enjoying family, friends, cooking, traveling, dancing, reading, swimming, music, theater and art. He was an ambassador of friendship who, along with his dear wife Deanna, visited many ASF friends and always found a way to bring the Class of ’59 together.

• MIKE SEIFERT (’69) Mike Seifert passed away in February 2010. Mike is remembered as a kind and gentle person with a big heart full of love for family and friends.

• FLORENCIO ACOSTA Florencio Acosta, beloved husband of Magda Urquidi (’42) has passed away. He will be dearly missed.

• TED MARKARIAN Of interest to those who were in my class, I wish to report with great sorrow, the demise in Fresno, California of Ted Markarian, wonderful husband of our dear Jasmine Odabashian. The Markarians had celebrated 69 years of a happy marriage. Their two devoted children now share with Jasmine the memory of an exceptional husband and father. They have our thoughts and prayers.

— Frank J. Meckel (’39)

August 7

ASF Alumni Bowl 2010 has been confirmed for Saturday, August 7, 2010, when ASF alumni will return for a football game on Coach Colman Field.

Please contact Carlos Cohen (’05) cohenleon. carlos@hotmail.com or the ASF Alumni Office alumni@asf.edu.mx if you would like to participate in or receive more information about the game.

monday

October 25

ASF’s 8th Annual Golf Tournament at the Club de Golf Bosque Real is set for October 25, 2010.

sunday

November 14

Don’t miss ASF’s First 5K/10K. Mark your calendars for November 14th, 2010.

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kids’ corner

Ocean Life As part of their exploration of “Sharing the Planet” (a Primary Years Program unit of inquiry) Miss Helen’s and Miss Lorena’s ECC class discussed ecosystems and had the honor of welcoming artist Francisco Coronado to the classroom. With his guidance, the children were able to create impressive drawings representing ocean life. Here we present three examples, along with comments by the young artists.

Santiago Senderos y’re born very tiny. t they don’t die because the tha so s tle tur t tec pro st We mu oceans and the planet.

We must take care of the

Elián Arau Crabs mus th into the se ave clean water so a. they don’t die. And w e must no t throw tr ash

Emiliano Sánche z Sharks eat fIsh. We shouldn’t bo ther them, or throw things in to the ocean.

Young artists, left to right: Santiago Senderos, Elián Arau, Emiliano Sánchez

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