Focus issue 1, 2016

ISSUE 1, 2016

Focus Issue 1, 2016

06

16

20

24

32

34

36

38

02 From the Executive Director 03 From the Editor

24 Your attention, please ASF faculty learn mindfulness techniques

Alumni

By Andrew Livingstone

By Kelly Arthur Garrett

30 Student Voices Technology + Education = Success

04 From the Board of Trustees

36 Mónica Bauer (’96) Corporate success, social awareness

06 A look at what’s been happening in and around campus

By Enrique Elias

38 Changing lanes ASF Talks brings former students back to school

Features

Institutional Advancement 32 Three generations united Grandparents’ Day celebrated in the Early Childhood Center

44 Class notes and Milestones

News and Events

16 But… How do you know?

What is Theory of Knowledge and why is it important?

48 Kids’ Corner

By Andrew Livingstone

By Andrew Livingstone

20 MUN Behind the scenes For two days Upper School students debated global issues

34 Racing for glory ASF’s annual Run for Education was virtually – and literally – a success

By Andrew Livingstone

By Kelly Arthur Garrett

VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 1

FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Dear ASF Community, Spring is in the air in Mexico and at The American School Foundation, and it’s a busy time both inside and outside of the classroom. Students are enjoying camps, competing in sports tournaments, rehearsing for the upcoming theatrical production and of course, studying for upcoming tests and exams.

The last few months have also been packed full of events too. But what really strikes me about the buzz of activity in and around ASF is that every sector of our diverse community takes part, working together to promote the academic, sporting, cultural and social aspect of ASF life.

We have a fantastic Parent Association, which has worked tirelessly to raise money for financial aid and brighten campus with activities like the Spanish Book Fair in February. The PA is always looking for more volunteers, and all current ASF parents are automatically members, so if you are interested in getting involved, send an email to pa@asf.edu.mx.

Another strong sector of our community is our alumni. ASF Talks, held in midFebruary, was a great chance for former students of all ages to reunite and reminisce.

The event was organized by alumni and featured alumni as speakers and food providers.

Our students showed their drive and initiative with the Personal Project Fair, Model United Nations and even organizing Think Different, a series of on-campus discussions about current issues.

You can read about all these events and much more inside. I hope you enjoy this issue of Focus, and remember, as a member of the ASF community, we always welcome you to get involved in some of the huge range of events happening on campus.

Paul Williams Executive Director

2 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

FROM THE EDITOR

FOCUS

A magazine for the ASF community Vol. XV | Issue 1 | Mexico City Paul Williams Executive Director Susan Olivo Head of Early Childhood Center Tara Fitzgerald Head of Lower School Robert Lewis Head of Middle School Amy Gallie Head of Upper School Robert Wilson Head of Athletics & Extended Learning

Dear Readers, One of my favorite things about The American School Foundation is how we here in the school community never satisfied to sit back and believe that because things are running well our job is done – we are always looking to do more and to find an improvement somewhere.

It starts at the top, where the Board of Trustees is working on the school’s long-term future in a bid to continue to improve infrastructure and ensure financial viability in an uncertain economic environment. School leadership and the human resources department work diligently to find the best teaching staff possible and we are always looking for ways to improve the curriculum. Our website is undergoing an overhaul to present a cleaner and friendlier face to our community online.

This year we’ve made great progress on the academic front, achieving full accreditation from the Southern Association of Independent Schools (SAIS) and our faculty is learning about new techniques to improve attention in the classroom.

But what’s really impressive is the extra mile we go to in an effort to really extend learning outside of the classroom. ASF Talks – an event completely organized by our alumni community – is an inspiring example of this. Our Parent Association helped to organize a number of fundraising efforts like the book fair. In fact, outside observers have commented specifically on what great support we receive from ASF parents.

EDITORIAL STAFF Violeta Ayala, Director of Communications Andrew Livingstone, Editor-in-Chief Kelly Arthur Garrett, Editorial Consultant Daniela Graniel, Art Director Álvar Martínez, Photography PARENT ASSOCIATION Christina Moguel (’90), President Marissa Russell (’92), Vice President ALUMNI RELATIONS María José Martínez (’06) Advertising Sales: 5227-4942 FOCUS es una publicación cuatrimestral editada por The American School Foundation, A.C., Bondojito Núm. 215, Col. Las Américas, Ciudad de México, C.P. 01120. Editor Responsable: Andrew Livingstone. Derechos de Autor: Licitud de Título y de Contenido 16220. Reserva de Derecho: 04-2003012414445500-102. Distribuido por The American School Foundation, A.C. Bondojito 215, Col. Las Américas, Ciudad de México, C.P. 01120. Se prohibe la reproducción total o parcial de los textos de esta revista sin previa autorización escrita de The American School Foundation, A.C.

Meanwhile, in our libraries, students are exploring how they can use new technology to create all sorts of things in three dimensions, on the sports fields and courts – and in the swimming pool – our young athletes are pushing their personal boundaries, and in the theater young musicians and actors are creating and performing.

Education models of the past, where students sat to copy notes from a teacher, have been replaced by much more creative, physical and interactive ways to learn. There’s so much more to student life at ASF than meets what meets the eye, and I hope this issue of Focus helps demonstrate some of that diversity.

Finally, as always, feel free to contact me at livingstonea@asf.edu.mx for any comments or feedback.

Thanks for reading.

Andrew Livingstone Editor-in-Chief

ON THE COVER: Jorge Alanis, Tara Fitzgerald and Valeria Fonseca from the Lower School with Founders’ Day awards.

Photo: Álvar Martínez

VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 3

FROM THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Recently I came across a line by C.S. Lewis that made me think of the time that I have been volunteering for ASF. The quote was the following: “Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different.”

Reading that quote led me to look back at the ambitious strategic plan that the Board of Trustees approved five years ago for ASF. In order to accomplish the plan, it was broken down into five interacting “pillars” that would allow the vision of the school to become a reality. For the past five years, the Board of Trustees and the administration have been working hand in hand to accomplish synergy between these “pillars” and give students at ASF the best possible education.

These are the five “pillars:” • An inclusive community made up of a caring and diverse student body • Academic excellence • Talented teachers and leadership • Modern infrastructure • Sound financials Over the past five years, there has been significant growth in the diversity of students that attend ASF. This is reflected in the steady increase of registered students who from different nationalities and religions, as well as the growth in the number of students receiving financial aid.

ASF is also a caring community because parents and alumni participate in the improvement of the school. This is reflected in the number of parents who are volunteering for the ASF Parent Association or through the Bear Boosters club. All of them participate because they understand that community members working together create a better school for their kids.

Through the Alumni Council, graduates return home to help create a better institution. Even the fundraising goals for each year have been reached and surpassed.

As people walk onto our campus, the most noticeable changes they note are the new buildings and the carefully maintained campus.

Few people notice that the buildings are LEED-certified, meaning they are energy efficient. They implicitly teach students to care for the environment. Even the Lower School field today is being watered with water that comes from a treatment plant on campus.

Most importantly, the newly redesigned buildings have allowed teachers to implement more ambitious and effective curriculums, better preparing students. As proof of this, ASF students constantly score above world averages in standardized testing. They are also accepted to the universities of their choice, demonstrating that they are well prepared to face the future challenges that await them.

Athletic teams that prepare and train in the school facilities are constantly winning championships. Students who are interested in the performing or visual arts also have spaces where they can experiment and learn about their interests. The art subjects even include technological design.

In short, there is a place and space for each one of the students to follow their passions and learn from the talented faculty and staff that are an integral part of the community.

Technology has also been an important area of investment for ASF. Recent years have seen a fast-paced evolution in the use of technology. Technology investments have allowed access to information, strengthened the curriculum, allowed for differentiated learning, promoted communication between community members and aided students in their acquisition of knowledge and problemsolving abilities. It has served the faculty to gather data required for decision-making in strengthening academic programs.

On the administrative side, technology use has streamlined and facilitated administrative tasks. Even the increased bandwidth that we have today is the result of the generosity of community members who donated toward its implementation.

Everything that is done in school has a financial implication. Conservative financial planning and responsible stewardship has allowed the school to improve academic programs, execute campus renovations, implement technology, attract and retain faculty and continue to recruit students who will increase the community’s diversity. All these actions make it possible for ASF to remain a financially solid institution.

Going back to the quote with which I began this letter, sometimes we go through the daily grind of our lives without stopping to appreciate all the hard work that we do each day to make our community better. There are many improvements that have taken place in the school over the past five years. But they have taken place in such a way that we often take them for granted. So I encourage everybody to pause and reflect on the improvements that we have accomplished together.

ASF is entering its 128th year of operations and I sometimes think about if the school’s founders would be proud of what we have all accomplished. I like to think they would be. Just from looking back on the past five years, I know I am!

Rosa Marentes de Pisinger (’87) Chair of the ASF Board of Trustees

4 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

NEWS & EVENTS Arts

Thespians explore grief in a poignant show

A group of Upper School students put on a wholly student-led theatrical show for peers and parents when they performed in the Thespian Society’s debut show in February.

The Thespian Society was established by students who wanted to experiment in acting beyond musical theater, under the guidance of Cultural Affairs Coordinator Teruhi Yoshioka and former ASF student Isaac Richter. The student members explored playwriting, adapting scripts, stage and costume design, direction and acting to bring together the show.

The group performed an adaptation of a play called “One of Your Own,” a mosaic of unrelated stories linked by the funeral of a common friend of all the characters. The characters, brought to life by a group of Upper School students, share their personal stories and fears with the audience before concluding that they must do the best with the time they have on this earth.

Other skits the Thespian Society performed include a monologue written by grade 12 student Berenice Rosales about a girl who decides to be herself, even if it means risking social isolation, and a story about a runaway girl who decides to go to the police to report abuse by her brother.

6 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

Lower School

Libraries are a space for all kinds of learning

The idea of a library as a quiet and boring space for nothing more than reading and research is an antiquated one, and Lower School students and staff have turned their library into a truly modern learning environment. A great example of the library as a true learning center is the Lower School Library’s “Maker Space” project, where students explore three dimensions.

During the first session, students grades 1-5 made their own 3-D glasses, which they tested by watching 3-D videos online. Future sessions will include designing and making objects in three dimensions, using special 3-D printers.

Maker Space gives students an indoors recreation option during recess for those who prefer exploring technology and craft to outdoor pursuits, and is designed to spark creativity.

Early Childhood Center

Kids under arrest

Sirens sounded and police officers swarmed the Early Childhood Center in February – but there was no crime committed. Police were there to chat to young students about their role in society.

Students in K2 were learning about how a community is composed of people with specialized roles, and Mexico City police came along to talk about their role in society, explaining how they help people and telling kids how they, in turn, can help police do their job.

As well as talking about their role in protecting public spaces and transport links, police taught kids about the values they strive to uphold – values which they want to impart to students too, including bravery and honesty. The K2 students and police established a friendship through fun and educational ball games, art and of course the highlight – showing off a patrol car and letting the kids take turns to use the siren, lights and loudspeaker.

VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 7

All ASF

Tons of junk turn into treasure

Have you ever noticed those plastic containers with tabs from aluminum cans in offices around ASF and wondered what was the point of collecting those tabs? Years of diligent collection, in a joint effort by ASF, HP, Tec de Monterrey and the ABC Hospital’s Pink Ladies, have turned 3,200 kilograms of aluminum can tabs into a specially designed stroller for a child in need.

The stroller was donated to 19-month-old Jonathan Téllez in front of the entire Lower School, which, under the leadership and guidance of teacher Ana María Solorio, had led the collection effort. Jonathan suffers from cerebral paralysis and will be unable to perform many tasks people take for granted, like walking and feeding himself.

Jonathan’s parents expressed their gratitude to ASF and all who helped to collect tabs. The tabs were cleaned and sold for reuse and recycling and the money collected over three years was used to import a specially built stroller from Germany. The stroller will last young Jonathan for around 10 years, as it is designed to expand as he grows.

It just goes to show that no matter how small the item or effort, if enough people are dedicated to helping out, great results can follow.

All ASF

Valentine’s Day love is shared at ASF

Flowers, candy and hearts helped paint the ASF campus pink and red on a Friday in mid-February, as students and staff celebrated Valentine’s Day. While chocolates and bouquets of flowers were delivered, students sent candy grams and enjoyed heart-shaped snacks.

People were invited to sign a “marriage certificate” with friends. Employees worked together to assemble a series of jigsaw puzzles showing their respect for each other and for their workplace.

A stage was set up for what is now an Upper School tradition – the “Mr. ASF” competition, a fun chance for students to nominate their favorite male classmate and a way of turning beauty pageants on their head.

8 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

Upper School

Students spend a week in the great outdoors

Adventurous grade 9 students spent a week in February hiking, camping, cooking, and experiencing life away from the comforts of home in the annual Week Without Walls.

Three groups travelled to three varied locations. One group visited Oaxaca, where they participated in service-learning activities, which involved volunteering in a local hospital and studying the state’s rich indigenous culture, from art to food and lifestyle. As well as community service, the group visited the impressive preColumbian Zapotec ruins at Monte Albán.

In Veracruz, another bunch of students took part in team building and problem solving activities to promote group work.

They also had time to go rafting and rappelling. A third group spent four days hiking in the Sierra Gorda in Querétaro state, carrying their food and equipment in packs, and cooking and setting up camp each night. The Week Without Walls is important for building a sense of risktaking in young people – an important learning objective promoted by the school’s International Baccalaureate curriculum.

Arts

Students channel the bard

Shakespeare’s comedies and tragedies came to life in the Fine Arts Center in early March, as nine students from the Middle and Upper School vied for the chance to represent ASF at the national Shakespeare Competition.

The students, who had been preparing since last November, each performed a 20-line monologue from a Shakespearian play, as well as one of the bard’s sonnets.

Caroline Tattersfield and Annabella Phillips Machnizh were named joint winners by the three-person judging panel.

Caroline performed a monologue by Helena from a Midsommer night’s dream, while Annabella took on the role of Juliet from Romeo and Juliet.

Both girls went on the the nationals, hosted by the AngloMexican Foundation at Teatro Helénico on March 17. Winners of the national competition go to the Midsummer Conservatory Program based at Oxford University in the United Kingdom.

VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 9

Upper School

Diploma students show the extent of their learning

Creativity, action and service were the focus of Upper School projects at the Creativity, Action and Service Fair – or CAS Fair for short.

The CAS fair is an essential component of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, the top academic program offered at ASF. Students are asked to undertake new challenges, increase their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth, and finally plan and initiate activities, demonstrating creativity, action, and some form of service.

During the fair, IB diploma students showed off their projects, explaining what they learnt and the challenges they faced, all of which was also meticulously detailed in diary form. Parents, teachers and peers were also invited to evaluate how they thought the students’ projects demonstrated personal growth.

Lower School

Book Week promotes literature

The American School showed off its bilingual credentials during Lower School Book Week in February, with a range of reading-themed activities.

Central to the week was the “Feria del Libro en Español” – the Spanishlanguage Book Fair. With the help of Gandhi bookstores, the Lower School Multipurpose Room was filled with children’s books, young adult fiction, adult novels, non-fiction and reference materials of all types and for all ages.

Volunteers from the Parent Association generously donated their time to help with organization and book sales, generating a profit that was donated to the Endowment Fund for Financial Aid, as well as making sure everyone found something to inspire them to read.

During the week, Mexican writers Catalina Kuhne and Marcos Almada Rivero visited students to read their popular books. Book Week culminated with Edible Books on the Friday, where students showed off edible artistic creations inspired by some of their favorite literature.

10 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

Upper School

Grade 10 students show their creativity

How do you bring clean water to a remote community? Why should you adopt and not buy a pet? What surfaces contain the most germs, and how do you avoid getting sick from them? Just how viable is solar power as an energy source? These questions and many more sparked the investigations that grade 10 students presented during the Personal Project Fair in February.

The Fine Arts Center came alive with music, film, models, and every type of presentation as students showed the results of the inquiry-based approach that the IB Middle Years Programme takes to education. It was also a chance for students to show off something that they are passionate about —or even to find a new passion they didn’t know they had. Some students said they found the Personal Project to be the single most difficult but rewarding piece of work they have undertaken during their time at ASF. VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 11

All ASF

The American School celebrates its founders

February 22 is a very special day at ASF – it’s the anniversary of the placing of the cornerstone at ASF’s former location on San Luis Potosí and Insurgentes Avenues 94 years ago. While the school had already been established 34 years earlier, this date has become the day The American School celebrates its founders and their unique vision for a place that brings American independent education to Mexico City.

To celebrate Founders’ Day, the school rewards an outstanding faculty member and parent volunteer, as well as several students who represent important ASF values, by handing out awards named after the schools founders. ASF mother Andrea Legorreta was recognized for the time she has generously donated to school causes, while Middle School Activities Specialist Diane Clement received the Irene Anzaldúa faculty

All ASF

An influential Board member makes his final mark on campus

Late Board member David Ehrenreich was remembered on campus in February with the unveiling of a plaque in his honor. The ceremony took place on Founders’ Day, recognizing a man who was the true embodiment of The American School founders’ spirit. David’s wife Carolina Jules was in attendance and spoke about his memory and influence on the school.

Current Board member Frances Huttanus also paid tribute to the man who, back in the 80s, was instrumental in establishing what is now the Endowment Fund for Financial Aid in a time of economic crisis in Mexico. The current 13 percent — and future 20 percent — of the student body that receives financial aid have David Ehrenreich to thank.

12 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

award. The Early Childhood Center was congratulated for its efforts to promote culture and diversity with the Lamm and Cain awards.

The following students were also recognized with Founders’ Day awards: Jorge Alanis (grade 5) received the Clifton award for promoting a love of learning, Valeria Fonseca (grade 5) received the Files award for promoting initiative, Luis de la Rosa (grade 8 ) received the Davis award for promoting risk taking, Mariana Icaza (grade 7) received the Wright award for promoting generosity, Camila Migoya (grade 12) received the Cummings award for promoting leadership and Patricia Garza (grade 12) received the Orrin award for promoting community.

Congratulations to the winners and all who exemplify these values at ASF and in the wider community.

All ASF

A holiday magic show

Children from ASF and neighboring schools were wowed by magic and music before the winter holidays.

The holiday magic show featured musician Konstantin Lunehov, who dazzled and entertained in the Ángeles Espinosa Yglesias Fine Arts Center. His magic magic tricks and illusions made objects fly and people disappear. He even brought young people up onstage to take part in the magic. The Arco y Lira Clásico quintet provided a classical music background for the show.

Organizers had invited students from local schools to enjoy the show in a demonstration of the ASF holiday spirit. All money raised from ticket sales was given to the Endowment Fund for Financial Aid, which will be used to provide financial aid to deserving ASF students.

Arts

Bands put on a show

The year was still young when Middle and Upper School musicians gathered in the Fine Arts Center to show off the tunes they’d been practicing since before the holidays began.

Both the junior and senior bands played a solid repertoire for parents and fellow students lasting almost two hours. The Upper School Jazz Band – the most senior musical group at ASF – highlighted the show with their performances, during which each member of the band had a chance to perform an improvised solo on their instrument.

VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 13

Lower School

Students learn about roles and teamwork by putting on a show

Months of planning, writing, advertising and rehearsing paid off in late February and early March as grade 4 students performed their musicals for enthusiastic audiences of parents and friends. The grade 4 musicals — formerly known as operas — are a well-established tradition, and for many students, they are the highlight of their time in the Lower School. They started with the help of a U.S.-based educational provider that helps students to make their own opera company. The change to musicals reflects the reality of the work, which emphasizes

Middle School

Grade 7 students take adventure to new heights

The green hills of Veracruz were a fitting setting for a range of outdoor pursuits, real-world learning and community service when grade 7 went on camp to Jalcomulco in February.

Students stayed four nights in tents at the site of the México Verde ecoresort, where all activities reflected their surrounding natural and cultural environment. In the mornings, groups took turns ziplining, canyoning, rock climbing and – a student favorite – rafting. The afternoons were a mix of community and academic activities.

Students played with kids at a nearby preschool and spent time painting the buildings. Math and science involved observation and measurement of animal life and geography around the camp, while for social studies, students debated a real proposal to build a dam on the local river, weighing up the economic and electricity-generation benefits against the possible environmental and cultural consequences.

14 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

not only singing, but every single aspect of putting on a theatrical production – and everything is done by students.

Each of the eight grade 4 classes started with a theme, assigned roles (production manager, stage manager, costume designers, historians, make-up artists, electricians, set designers, writers, performs and public relations) and set about making a show that truly reflected them. The goal for students is to learn to express themselves and to discover how a team can work together, with each member specializing in a different role, to make something that no one person could accomplish individually.

Upper School

Experts present a different view on marijuana

A group of students and community members gathered in the Fine Arts Center in late January to hear two of the four men who successfully took on Mexico’s marijuana prohibition law speak about creating a safer country.

The student-led club Think Different – a kind of ASF TED talks organization – invited Armando Santacruz and Juan Francisco Torres Landa to propose “A Different Approach to the War on Drugs.” The men are from México Unido Contra la Delincuencia, a group dedicated to promoting laws and social programs that can lower the crime rate in Mexico.

They, along with two colleagues, were granted the right to produce and consume marijuana by a Mexican court. The case was, for the men, purely symbolic, as they said they have no interest in using the drug; rather, they wanted to bring attention to the issue.

Middle School

Santacruz and Torres Landa emphasized that current drug prohibition policy is hurting Mexico, mainly because it provides a lucrative business for criminal organizations and completely fails to keep drugs off the streets and out of the hands of minors.

They convinced attendees that drugs should be treated as a health issue and not a criminal one, and legalization, regulation and taxation of marijuana would be a step toward lowering crime in Mexico.

History and culture come alive in grade 8

Grade 8 students have spent their humanities class immersed in pre-Hispanic American cultures this year, and they had the chance to see how our civilization is quite literally built right on top of one of these cultures, when they visited the Templo Mayor earlier this year. Students were accompanied by advocacy teachers at the historic site right in the heart of Mexico City, where some of the most important temples in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán are now surrounded by the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral and National Palace.

The students spent their humanities class studying Mesoamerican cultures, including the places where these settled, the crops they grew and their religious beliefs. The last culture they studied was the Aztec culture, culminating with a visit to Templo Mayor. Students also visited the adjacent Templo Mayor museum, where they were tasked with finding several pieces and writing a short story inspired by these artifacts.

VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 15

FEATURE

Yes… but how do you know?

It’s the flagship course of the most rigorous academic program at The American School — and it makes students question everything they know. The Theory of Knowledge class invites students to challenge their own beliefs. The aim is to help them become more analytical and empathetic adults.

W

By Andrew Livingstone

hen many of us older readers went to school, we sat in class and listened to the teacher and read the texts. That’s how we learned.

We had to take it for granted that what the book and the teachers said was true. As my old math teacher would explain: “I’m the teacher because I know more than you.”

Few of us thought to ask our teachers how they knew what they told us, or even less to question the facts in our textbooks. To do so would be to invite disciplinary action.

But for the grade 11 and 12 students taking the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, that’s exactly what’s expected. They are asked to question everything they know, to find out how and why they know it in the Theory of Knowledge course — known as ToK for short.

That breaking down of knowledge can be a tough concept to get your head around, and it’s a tough one to explain.

Think of it like this: How do you know what I’m telling you is true? Do you believe these words you see on this page? You the reader trust that I have no reason to lie to you about Theory of Knowledge (at least I hope you trust me), and that I am faithfully quoting the people I interviewed and other sources of information (once again, I hope so). I, in turn, trust my sources to have provided me with accurate information.

The ToK class is mandatory as part of the IB Diploma. In fact it’s the only class that must be taken by all students as part of the course.

It’s one of three core elements of the program, together with a 4,000word university-style extended essay on a topic of the student’s choice and a Creativity, Action and Service (CAS) project. (You can read more about CAS on page 10).

According to the IB, the Theory of Knowledge course “encourages students to be knowledgeable and inquiring, but also caring and compassionate.”

It also encourages students “to think about the nature of knowledge, to reflect on the process of learning in all the subjects they study as part of their Diploma Programme course, and to make connections across them.”

That’s done by breaking the three-semester course up into two sections: How We Know and What We Know.

16 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

HOW WE KNOW The first part of the class looks at how we know things. It’s based on what are known as the eight “ways of knowing”: language, sensory perception, emotion, reason, imagination, faith, intuition and memory.

Theory of Knowledge teacher Bret Sikkink says that these eight ways of knowing are interconnected and together they play a part in justifying the choices we make. He says that while all are discussed in the course, he chooses to concentrate four specific ways of knowing for more in-depth study: reason, emotion, sensory perception and language.

“We look at reason and emotion and how those interplay, then we study how senses give you information on an everyday basis, then we talk about language,” Mr. Sikkink says.

Of course some ways of knowing can be more reliable than others, and that’s a big theme of the course. Reason can be very strong, as long as the logic is based on sound premises.

Memory has been proven to be unreliable in many situations (just ask a defense lawyer) and faith — while a bit of faith is necessary to stop us disbelieving everything — is not the best source of knowledge about our world.

So when Mr. SIkkink talks about Theory of Knowledge, and I relate that information in this article, we are relying on our senses — that is, our eyes when we read — our language skills to interpret the words, our reasoning ability to process the information and even a bit of faith when we believe this article and incorporate it into what we know about academics at ASF. WHAT WE KNOW Once students are well aware of how they know things, they take a step back and look into what they know. It’s here the course starts to really play mind games with people.

What we know is based on eight “areas of knowledge”: mathematics, the natural sciences, the human sciences, history, ethics, the arts, religious knowledge systems and indigenous knowledge systems.

As you may have noticed, there’s a definite progression from what you may want to call most objectively true to most questionable. That’s the way these subjects are covered.

“We move from the most logical and rational to the least rational and the most subjective and emotional,” says Mr. Sikkink. As he teaches it at ASF, that is a journey from mathematics to the arts.

So new mathematical truths can be deduced by proofs built on more simple mathematical truths — once you know the basic operations, you can use them to prove more complicated formulas. That’s what Mr. Sikkink would call a very rational way of knowing.

In most natural sciences, however, knowledge is come across by a method of developing hypotheses and testing them, and relies more on observation. So evolutionary biologists, for example, can never prove mathematically their theories, instead they make thousands of observations of fossils and animal behaviors to come up with evidence. That’s clearly relying on the senses as well as a bit of rational thinking.

Then as we move into the human sciences — think the likes of economics and sociology — and further into history, finding out what we really know relies on a more complex mix of skills. We have to interpret biases and judge information that cannot be tested.

And knowledge gained from the arts is even more subjective, relying more on emotions transmitted through a range of media.

Mr. Sikkink likes to use the layout of ASF’s Upper School to illustrate his point.

“On the first floor, in English class, we’re going to be using more of our emotional brains and sensory perception and our language to transmit ideas,” he says. “How do I learn something through literature? You can empathize with the characters. That’s an emotional response.

VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 17

“On the second floor, we don’t tell stories so often. We’re usually talking about historical facts, or historical interpretations of facts … or we’re looking at social studies.” That’s taking the emotion out of it and replacing it with more reason.

“Finally, upstairs we have math and science where we get down to individual data to try to tell a bigger story.

“So as we move from the top floor down, we move from deductive reasoning – that is, using measurement to establish what we know, to inductive reasoning – using generalizations and interpretations to come up with knowledge, and finally to emotion – where our knowledge comes from how we feel or relate to things.”

USING YOUR KNOWLEDGE One of the key questions students are encouraged to ask themselves in Theory of Knowledge is “How do we know whether (insert course of action here) is the right thing to do?”

Using knowledge to make ethical decisions is a large focus during the course, and an inspiration for many of the student presentations, one of two pieces of assessment along with a 1,600-word essay. Working individually or in small groups, student presentations typically last 15-25 minutes and, other than taking a real-world piece of information and analyzing on both what we know and how we know it, are open to almost anything.

18 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

A lot of students get their example from the media, says Mr. Sikkink, but some of the more memorable projects start with simple things.

“I had a student who did their presentation on a text message she received from her mom that she misinterpreted,” he says.

This simple example was broadened into an examination of whether modern communication technology impedes the ability of language to accurately transmit knowledge.

Another group studied narco corridos, a song style typical in Mexico’s north, and looked at how they reflect people’s knowledge. This was expanded to examine how art in general can be used to diffuse information.

Many presentations ask the question of whether a certain action is right, and even if we can know if our actions are morally right?

One of the main aims of Theory of Knowledge is that students understand that knowledge brings responsibility which leads to commitment and action. So this class is not meant to exist in isolation, it’s supposed to help provide young people with the tools to question and analyze information, to look at things from many different perspectives and make sound decisions, and above all else, act in ways that reflect So, as Bret Sikkink explains, as students come to the end of the course, they are expected to ponder how thinking about knowing

ToK is the class where you get to talk about things that other classes don’t get to.” bret sikkink, tok teacher

influences their everyday lives in terms of what they do creatively in their own time, the actions they take and how they help other people. Creativity, Action and Service.

He adds that by the time students have finished their presentations and neared the end of the course, they are changed people.

“They’re a bit calmer because they know that they’re prepared to go to university and they’ve already been introduced to many concepts new at university — the big research paper, the seminar-style class, the English is more holistic — so I think that they are a bit calmer about their future.”

PASSING ON THE KNOWLEDGE Just as the theoretical concepts in ToK can be a challenge, it is also a challenge to guide students through this journey of thinking about thinking. Upper School teacher Hannah Naylor says she enjoys the freedom the course gives instructors.

“One of my favorite things about teaching ToK is having discussions with my students and hearing what sort of ideas and questions they have.”

As for Mr. Sikkink, who is the head of Theory of Knowledge at ASF, he knew he wanted to teach the subject the moment he learned about it.

“ToK is the class where you get to talk about things that other classes don’t get to. There are amazing and interesting

discussions in economics for example (a subject Mr. Sikkink also teaches) but I don’t have time to cover that – we have to prepare for an exam.”

But the most rewarding thing, teachers agree, is watching students finally reach a sort of intellectual enlightenment.

“It’s funny,” says Mr. Sikkink, “There are the stages of ToK. At first there’s the slightly alarmed 11th grader with the deer in the headlights look, thinking ‘this is going to be so hard’.

“Then there’s the mind blown phase where we’re really thinking about thinking for the first time and students are starting to question their beliefs and where they came from.

“Then there’s the oppositional defiance stage, where they start to question everything and class gets a bit hard as every time you say something they say ‘how do you know that?’ For some, this leads to the skeptical ‘we can’t know anything’ nihilism phase.

“Finally they get to the enlightened phase, where people understand that they should be skeptical of their knowledge and shouldn’t just trusts what they know through intuition. Generally by the end of the third semester when they’ve done ToK and written their extended essay and they’ve taken a whole bunch of IB classes, they are extraordinarily well-trained students.”

The real key to ToK is in learning that one must be skeptical and understand where different aspects of knowledge come from. So if you don’t believe this article, find out for yourself ...”

VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 19

FEATURE

Behind the scenes at

Model United Nations The two-day ASF MUN conference is one of the school’s most important learning experiences. It’s student-run and student-organized, and is the culmination of months of preparation and organization.

By Kelly Arthur Garrett, ASF Parent

20 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

T

he opening ceremony of the Model United Nations conference at The American School Foundation is always one of the more thrilling gatherings of the school year. It’s colorful, musical, smart and invigorating, with banners, flags, signs, parades and all participants dressed to the nines.

This year’s version was enhanced by words from Mexico’s Foreign Relations Secretary Claudia Ruiz Massieu, an appropriate speaker for a MUN inauguration if there ever was one.

“You’re part of the generation that is more educated, healthier, better communicated, more equal and more free than any other in the history of humanity,” the secretary told the students. “If this realization does not send shivers down your spine, it should.”

Then she charged the students with saving the world: “You are the best hope, the best shot we have to build a future of peace and prosperity, tolerance and liberty. You’re pioneers sent to create a new and better world.”

They were uplifting words that underscored the international relations emphasis of the Model United Nations program, which for good measure was operating under the theme of “Globalization” in this academic year’s incarnation of MUN at the Upper School level. ASF’s commitment to educating global citizens was on full display.

It needs to be remembered, however, that the pomp and circumstance of the opening ceremony is the MUN’s packaging, not its full content. After the show’s over, the students get to work in rooms that have been converted into venues of international diplomacy.

The events of those two days required months of organization and preparation, almost all of it carried out by the students themselves.

This is the bulk of the MUN project, but not many non-students or non-teachers witness it. So it might be worthwhile to briefly run down what goes into a MUN conference.

HOW MUN WORKS The Model United Nations is an educational exercise with some academic competition thrown in, in which students simulate United Nations procedures to experience firsthand what diplomacy and international relations are all about.

Most of the students do this by acting as delegates for a country their Advocacy class has chosen to represent. As such, they participate in committees, where they deal with topics chosen by organizers. They must remain true to the positions that their country would have, which they will have researched in advance.

These MUN simulations — complex and rigidly organized — take place worldwide and are quite popular in Mexico, and even more so at ASF. They dovetail smoothly with ASF’s mission and philosophy, and hence are taken very seriously.

“MUN teaches students important fundamentals for success in an increasingly dynamic and interconnected global community,” says Perri Devon-Sands, who, as the teacher of a MUN class for selected students with a special interest in international relations, was involved with the organization of this year’s MUN, from the faculty side of things.

“They learn problem-solving and resolution-writing on worldwide issues, trends and risks, as well as the importance of examining internationalism and global-mindedness from multiple perspectives. Plus, all students have the opportunity to hone their publicspeaking and debate skills through conference participation.”

VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 21

THE COMMITTEES Every delegate belongs to a committee. The 20 committees are the real meat of the MUN, as just a partial list of them will indicate: The Security Council, the Economic and Social Council (EcSoc in MUN parlance), the General Assembly First Committee: Disarmament and International Security, the General Assembly Second Committee: Economical and Financial, the General Assembly Third Committee: Social, Humanitarian and Cultural.

Relevant topics each committee deals with are described thoroughly to the students. To give an idea of just how deeply the MUN participants are immersed in current affairs, it’s worth quoting at length from one of them, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Executive Committee, which, as the description points out, has been at the center of hugely important world events over the last year.

Here’s an excerpt from the description: “Refugees escaping their countries, especially coming from the Middle East and Africa, are looking for refuge and a better life in European countries. Countries such as Germany are offering asylum to migrants and are anticipating more than 800,000 refugees in the future. So far 650,000 refugees have arrived in Europe by sea alone. Due to political instability, military conflicts, and terrorist acts, the migrant crisis that the world faces today is the worst seen since World War II ...

“This demonstrates how the interconnectedness of countries can have a negative effect when a country, such as Syria, has a high level of conflicts and terrorism. However, it also demonstrates how globalization can aid individuals by providing them with economic and political relief when such conflicts arise.”

THE THEME The theme of this year’s MUN program was Globalization. That shows up in the committee work.

The long process starts with the choosing of countries to represent, which happens at the Advocacy (homeroom) level. All the students in any one Advocacy class share the one country, so there may be anywhere from five to 14 or so delegates advocating for the same country and its positions.

They spend much of the school year getting to know their nation. The framework of that knowledge consists of 30 facts they gather through research. Many of those facts are what you might expect — population, area, GDP, exports, imports, trading partners, literacy, system of government, life expectancy and the like.

But the students are also required to internalize more interpretive elements. That includes their country’s allies, its recent international conflicts, the various cultures that may co-exist within the country, non-governmental organizations operating within the country, and more.

The idea is to know your country so well that you can faithfully defend its position in committee — even when you personally don’t like it in real life.

“That’s when it gets interesting because you have to defend the viewpoint of a country you don’t necessarily agree with,” says Renata Brockmann, a member of Ms. Devon-Sands’ MUN class who acted as secretary general, no less, of the ASF version of the U.N. this school year.

“That’s one of the aims of the MUN, trying to get people to think a different way than they normally would.”

22 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

Previous page: MUN leaders Alec Edid, Renata Brockmann and Regina Abán with Foreign Relations Secretary Claudia Ruiz Massieu.

Below: MUN teacher Perri DevonSands is also an organizer of the MUN conference.

“All of the committees are somehow related to globalization,” Renata said before the event. “You realize how embedded globalization is in our society. You realize how difficult it is to solve problems with so many different parties. So we wanted to focus on Globalization for the debates in the conference.

The committee debates can be jarred by simulations of suddenly arising issues. Alec Edid, another member of the MUN class who acted as deputy secretary-general for simulations, explained how that works.

“We basically give them problems to solve,” he said, “We come up with some crises and we present them to the committees and they have to find a way to solve the problem.”

That puts the student-delegates’ months of preparation to the test.

“We mimic the way things would happen,” Renata said.

“Something could arise in the middle of the night and you’d have to react to that.”

THE MUN CLASS The MUN conference stands out as an activity that the entire Upper School student body participates in. (There is also a separate Middle School version).

There’s teamwork during the research and preparation, but the students’ act individually as delegates when the committees are in session — although, as Alec pointed out, “The ninth graders work in pairs so they won’t be intimidated.”

But some of the students who are especially interested in international relations are enrolled in the MUN class. It’s not easy to get into it — there are requirements — but those who do get in benefit from intense study of current events and of international relations, and, of course, of the United Nations itself.

These students — 23 this semester — travel to major

international MUN events in such cities as Chicago, Philadelphia and The Hague.

All students at the school are exposed to globalization issues and international perspectives. That’s part of attending ASF. But those in Ms. Devon-Sands’ MUN class are intensely involved in those issues. Their interests led them there.

For Regina Abán, who served as the conference’s deputy secretary general for logistics, a class inspired her.

“I came here a year ago from Chile, and I had taken an international relations class there that got me interested,” she said.

“We had debates and that really got me into it.”

For Alec it’s all about problem solving. “I first wanted to study economics, then I wanted to go into international economics, and that related to politics, which often get in the way of policies,” he said. “So that got my attention. I wanted to see how countries could work together and find solutions to problems.

So I got into MUN.” Renata’s main interest is filmmaking. The connection with international relations may not seem obvious, but it’s there.

“I took a government and politics class and I realized that it’s a very important aspect of filmmaking,” she said. “So many films attempt to tackle some kind of political issue. I want to make films related to that. So I’ve continued with MUN throughout high school.”

As you may have guessed from the titles and above-mentioned activities of those three students, the MUN class members are the ones who organize and manage the conference. All the committees, for example, are run by students in the MUN class.

The MUN conference, then, is mostly a student-run event.

“Ms. Devon-Sands makes sure we do our jobs,” Alec said.

“And we make sure everybody else is doing their job.”

VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 23

FEATURE

Your attention, please You learn better when you’re more attentive. Which is why the ASF faculty and staff are hard at work on a new mindfulness initiative to help students and teachers achieve more focused attention in the classroom. You’ll be hearing a lot about it in the coming months and years

By Kelly Arthur Garrett, ASF Parent

H

as anybody ever gone to school without at least once being told, usually with some implied admonition, to “pay attention”?

Probably not.

But how many of those so warned ever answered back, “I want to pay attention, teacher, but I don’t know how”?

Considerably fewer, no doubt.

But those are the kids who are on to something.

MIND OVER CHATTER You can’t learn if you’re not paying attention. That’s obvious. What’s not as obvious is what “paying attention” —really paying attention— actually consists of.

Ask a student what it means to pay attention in class and you’ll usually get some variation on the following: Not talking to my friends. Not poking around my cellphone. Not looking out the window when the teacher is speaking.

Those behaviors clearly do impede attention. But their absence doesn’t by itself constitute attention.

24 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

All teachers know that when they’re trying to teach, there’s a whole world going on inside the students’ heads. daniela labra, trainer

VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 25

To truly embody mindfulness and effectively teach it, teachers need to understand and explore the practice for themselves. chris muller of the cte

That’s because external distractors — the friends, the cellphone, the window — are only the most easily named and easily dealt with obstacles to true attention.

Harder to pin down but much more important factors in the attention equation are the internal distractions — the ones inside the mind.

“All teachers know that when they’re trying to teach, there’s a whole world going on inside the students’ heads,” says Daniela Labra Cardero, a professional in what might be called the paying-attention field. “They’re bringing with them their own problems, their own likes and dislikes, their own emotions.”

Those thoughts and emotions are perfectly natural, of course. Students are doing nothing wrong by having them.

Leaders in education have come to realize, however, that they influence a student’s capacity (or lack of capacity) to pay enough attention in class — or, as the experts would say, to “attend” to the lesson voluntarily.

Optimum learning happens when that internal chatter is replaced by true, purposeful attentiveness. That doesn’t mean eliminating thoughts and emotions. It 26 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

means recognizing, locating and calming them to make room for the kind of in-themoment, self-aware focused attention — mindfulness, if you will — that makes learning not only more effective but also more enjoyable.

As it turns out, everybody has the capacity to do that, including students. But it doesn’t happen just because you want it to. You have to be taught to recognize your capacity for attending to the moment.

Then you have to be trained to use it.

The American School Foundation has decided that such teaching and training is well worth the effort.

“Students who have mastered basic mindful practices can attend better, which means better learning,” says Juan Breene, ASF’s academic affairs director.

“Whereas a teacher in my generation at school may have just said ‘pay attention!’ the schools of tomorrow will be expected to teach students techniques on how to focus, how to live in the now, how to give names to distraction factors, and the like.”

That’s why the ASF faculty recently spent three months worth of Professional Development Days — the teachertraining days with no classes — exploring

mindfulness techniques, guided by Ms. Labra. The school is going all-in on what it considers an essential soft skill.

ASF, as we know, is on a constant quest to find and use the best in pedagogical practices. Leading the search is the Center for Teaching Excellence. Much of the CTE’s work has involved taking advantage of technological advancement, but this time it’s turning inward.

The focus, says CTE team member Christopher Muller, who has been heavily involved in the new mindfulness initiative, is on “creating positive learning spaces for children through mindful practices.”

At its heart, mindfulness integration will improve the classroom experience for teacher and student. It will be a big step forward in the development of healthy, happy and successful graduates. So it’s a logical direction for ASF taking, and you’re going to be hearing a lot about it in the coming months and years.

“The implications are huge,” Mr. Breene says. “You need to be able to fully attend to learn optimally. So I think families will soon be expecting schools to help students be mindful.”

SO, WHAT IS MINDFULNESS? Describing mindfulness is a little like writing tasting notes for wine. Since there’s no familiar vocabulary for either, you have to resort to a kind of poetry, using metaphor and association to impart a notion. So wine writers talk about a hint of raspberry or a nutty undertone, even though there’s no raspberry or nut in sight.

Mindfulness advocates and trainers don’t even have the luxury of using such concrete nouns. They’re dealing in abstractions of the mind, which pose a challenge for anyone trying to describe mindfulness (and, it might be added, for anyone trying to write an article about it).

So you’ll hear a lot about in-the-moment, about the here-and-now, about focused attention. They’re abstractions, but you get the idea. “Mindfulness” itself is on the abstract side, but most people seem to grasp it.

It’s not Ms. Labra’s favorite word for her work. “Mindfulness has become this fashionable word that can mean so many things,” she says. The name of the consulting/training company she’s part of is Atentamente, which can be translated as mindfully or attentively, and is something of a play on words. The “mente” serves as

the -ly adverbially suffix, but on its own it means “mind.”

Given the above challenges, can we come up with a pithy definition of mindfulness? Many have. Here’s one from one of the top mindfulness researchers, MIT’s Jon Kabat-Zinn: “...the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment.”

That phrase “on purpose” matters. Intentionality is key to attending. Just “letting” yourself be attentive doesn’t cut it. As Ms. Labra puts it, “You need to be aware that you’re being aware.”

She might have some quibbles with Dr. Kabat-Zinn’s definition, at least as it applies to education. We can see them via another definition, this one from the U.S. organization Association for Mindfulness in Education, or AME: “Mindfulness is paying attention here and now with kindness and curiosity.”

Notice how the word “curiosity” conflicts slightly with “nonjudgmental.” Says Ms. Labra, “There is a judgment. The mental awareness can be a discerning one.”

She still might not be satisfied with the AME version either, this time in reference

to the “here and now” limitation, or “present moment” from Kabat-Zinn.

“The quality of mindfulness has a much broader capacity,” she says. “You can be attentive to something you’re looking at or hearing, but also to something that you are thinking about, and it can be in the past or the future.”

That can be a distinction without a difference, since when you’re thinking about something in the past or future, you’re thinking about it here and now. But for Ms. Labra, what’s important is that mindfulness is not too narrowly defined.

THE GLITTER BALL Details aside, the common thread among the definitions is that a certain mental clarity is a prerequisite for mindfulness and better learning. Again, we all have the capacity to get there, but the path must be shown. That’s why ASF teachers have been doing breathing routines and mental exercises. That’s the training. The teachers are working hard.

“With clarity we can focus on one thing so we can use our mind in the best way possible,” Ms. Labra says. “The training takes us to where we can sustain that clarity and mental awareness together.”

Students who have mastered basic mindful practices can attend better, which means better learning. juan breene, director of academic affairs

VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 27

Ms. Labra uses a visual aid to demonstrate this mental clarity. She calls it a glitter ball, which in this case consists of a cantaloupe-sized glass ball filled with transparent liquid — or, more accurately, liquid that would be transparent if hundred of little flecks that may have once glittered weren’t flittering through it like a swarm of aquatic gnats.

“Our mind has a natural capacity for calmness,” she says, shaking the ball. “But we usually have so many thoughts and emotions agitating us that we get caught up in them. That doesn’t allow us to use the clarity of our minds.”

The flecks are our thoughts. Ms. Labra allows them to settle, forming a sentiment on the inside bottom of the ball. The liquid is now clear. You can see through the ball.

Her point is taken.

“With the training, we can allow our minds to settle and regain that natural clarity,” she says. “The thoughts are still there, just like the glitter is still there.

We don’t want to get rid of our thoughts.

They’re very useful. But we want to calm them so we can use our minds in the best way possible.”

THE FRONT LINE It’s not hard to accept that more attentive students are better learners. Even if it weren’t self-evident, there’s plenty of literature — including in the field of neuroscience — to support the connection.

And to be sure, ASF is not the first school to adopt it.

So a question suggests itself: Why is it that the teachers are getting the mindfulness training, rather than the students?

There are a couple of reasons. One is that the teachers benefit from mindfulness skills, just as any employee in any field will. That’s why, as the AME points out, Fortune 500 companies provide mindfulness instruction to their employees to reduce on-the-job stress, and hundreds of hospitals refer patients to courses in mindfulness-based stress reduction to develop skills to cope with physical and emotional pain.

But it’s especially useful to the professional development of teachers as teachers. There’s such a thing as mindful teaching as well as mindful learning.

Here’s a quote from the AME literature that will surely strike a chord with teachers from ASF or anywhere else: “We ask an awful lot of teachers these days...Beyond just conveying the course 28 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

material, teachers are supposed to provide a nurturing learning environment, be responsive to students, parents and colleagues, juggle the demands of standardized testing, coach students through conflicts with peers, be exemplars of emotion regulation, handle disruptive behavior and generally be great role models;...the problem is we rarely give teachers training or resources for any of them.”

Well, now we do. And that’s in addition to all the other CTE-organized training provided to the ASF faculty.

But there’s also a strategic reason for the teachers-first approach. Like just about everything else that happens for students at ASF, it’s the teachers who will be imparting it. They’re the ones who are at ground zero, where learning takes place.

“We made a conscious decision to give faculty a year to get their arms around this before doing it with the kids,” Mr. Breene says.

Mr. Muller of the CTE puts it this way: “To truly embody mindfulness and effectively teach it, teachers need to understand and explore the practice for themselves.”

There’s also an academic factor in the strategy. True, teachers need to be practicing mindfulness, but like any other subject, they need to study and research it as well before teaching it.

“ASF did not want to ask teachers to implement mindful practices without adequate preparation,” says Mr. Muller. “So the faculty have been learning about how to be more mindful as individuals through looking at research available on the topic and learning about ways to apply stressreduction and awareness practices such as meditation or reflection during this academic year.”

Says Mr. Breene, “Schools sometimes jump into the ‘what’ or ‘how’ before giving people a chance to explore the ‘why.’ That is what we have tried to do this year.”

Tennis coach Lorena Arias incorporates mindfulness techniques into lessons.

In athletics, mindfulness means staying in the moment. You don’t dwell on what’s already taken place. robert wilson, asf head of athletics and extended learning

The next phase will be for teachers to receive training specifically on how to apply mindful practices to the classroom in order to improve the learning enviroment for ASF students.

“That’s been the goal all along,” Mr. Muller says. “But we needed to begin with gaining an understanding of why mindfulness belongs in schools before we attempt to implement it.”

Some teachers — “early adopters,” Mr. Breene calls them — have already brought mindful practice into their classrooms.

“That’s the hallmark of the ASF faculty,” Mr. Breene says. “They take every opportunity they can for their students to be at their best.”

SPORTSMANSHIP One ASF division that quickly began availing itself of at least some mindfulness concepts is Athletics and Extended Learning. As Yogi Berra said of baseball, “Ninety percent of this game is half-mental.” That goes for all the sports offered at ASF. A&EL head Robert Wilson has focused on one particular aspect of mindfulness through this school year, instilling it in

the coaches who in turn model it for the student-athletes.

“In athletics, mindfulness means staying in the moment,” Mr. Wilson says. “You don’t dwell on what’s already taken place.

You stay right in the moment of the game.”

That’s sometimes easier said than done. It takes a focused effort and a clear mind to forget about a bad call or a bad play and move on. That’s where mindfulness comes in.

“You might have a disagreement with a referee, and you’re free to express that,” Mr. Wilson says. “But you’re not going to let it stay there with you. You move with the game.”

For Mr. Wilson, there’s a word for the kind of behavior that focuses a player or coach’s attention on the here and now.

“I call it sportsmanship,” he says. “It’s good sportsmanship through staying in the moment.”

THE ASF WAY “The mindfulness program makes a lot of sense for ASF to implement considering its vast wellness program initiative,” says Mr. Muller. “With our recent endorsement as a Great Place to Work, and health

awareness programs made available through the Human Capital department, promoting healthy minds and interactions among ASF faculty fit well into the model of wellness.”

Indeed, bringing mindfulness into the classroom seems a perfect fit for ASF. It dovetails with the notion that teaching is about more than just imparting knowledge and skills.

“We’re not teaching a recording machine that listens to the information and then plays it back,” says Ms. Labra. “We’re teaching people — people who want to grow up to be full human beings. So we also need to give them the soft skills — emotional skills, social skills.”

Mr. Muller sums up the role of mindfulness in giving students what they ultimately really want.

“These mindful practices allows one to step back, reflect, and respond to a situation more skillfully,” he says. “That’s why it’s the new trend in education. Research shows that it is an effective way to increase self-awareness, enhance emotional intelligence, handle unpleasant thoughts and feelings, and reduce stress for adults and students.”

VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 29

STUDENT VOICES

Technology +Education

=Success

By Enrique Elias (’16)

30 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

sk what is my most prized possession. Ask me on what I depend every day. Ask me what is the most important material thing I own. My answer would be one of the following: my iPhone, my iPad, or my Macbook Pro. I use all these devices for just about everything I do, from sending emails and projects to my teachers, to texting my friends or simply watching “Game of Thrones” on Sunday nights.

We live in an era where we all depend on some type of smart device, a Wi-Fi connection, battery life and cellular coverage to get the bare minimum of our work done. Essentially, my cellphone is a tiny computer where I can get all my work done and the new Microsoft phones can be connected to a desktop monitor and you basically have a top of the line desktop computer running the latest version of Windows. If you don’t believe me, find a wireless keyboard, connect it to your phone via Bluetooth or NFC (Near Field Communication), download a word processing software program like Microsoft Word, Pages or Google Docs, place your phone horizontally against a wall or a binder and type away. You can write a paper on whatever you want. You are getting work done on what is basically a computer with a small screen.

Now, what is the most important thing you have ever received?

My answer is definitely an education. Without an education, I am 99.9% sure you would not be reading this, because I wouldn’t be able to write, and even if I could, you probably wouldn’t be able to read. It sounds harsh, but it’s true. However, an education is not only being able to read or write, it is the ability to learn how to analyze problems and solve them; it is the ability to be able to learn new skills and apply them outside of the classroom in the real world. An education should probably be everybody’s most prized possession.

Education is an issue of particular interest to me, because it is the most valuable thing anybody can receive. Technology on the other hand, has produced some of the most helpful educational tools. But when you combine these two things, is it a blessing, or a curse? Is it helping us as humans get things done, or is it hurting us by allowing us to forget some of the most basic skillswe learned in elementary school like writing on paper?

A few months ago I asked my basketball coach John Powell, who also used to be my teacher, what he thought about technology and education. He told me that when he was my age finishing high school, he couldn’t imagine having a phone or a tablet that could basically do all the things his computer did. He also told me that now, the students have access to all the information they need as long as they know how to use a search engine like Google.

With that said, the advantages technology brings to education

are limitless. An assignment that may have taken a student of the 70’s or 80’s 30 hours to complete, with trips to the library to read encyclopedias and books, today’s students can complete in a fraction of the time, thanks to the Internet. Not only that, but a library is no longer as necessary because with the Internet, you can basically research and write anything anywhere.

Another example of how great technology is for education, is that us students can learn from multiple sources - not just from our teachers and maybe a book or two. With the Internet, students can have multiple sources of knowledge besides the teacher, especially when there are programs and projects like Google Library, in which Google has pledged to digitize all books that exist. See, more than a few sources of knowledge.

There are, however, a couple of disadvantages the rise of technology has brought to the classroom. I see two very important problems. Firstly, with the rise of technology, young children grow up with smart devices. You might think this is great, but have you ever thought about what is actually happening to the children? I did not want to believe it and I still don’t want to believe it, but while talking to Ms Glynis Frenkel and Ms Brenda Santander from the ASF Early Childhood Center, they both told me the same two things. First off, children do not know how to write on paper. Ms Glynis believes that in the future, everyone will have doctor’s handwriting syndrome. Another thing both of these teachers told me is that children of the 21st Century lack imagination. With all the apps that kids can use and the screens available to passively watch, they no longer have the need to think creatively to come up with games to play. For this reason, many kids these days seem to lack imagination and creativeness.

With all the advantages and disadvantages technology has brought to education, I still firmly believe that technology is a positive force in learning. If it wasn’t for technology, I would not have the achieved the grades I have right now, because I would not have been able to get the extra help I needed to do well on exams and projects. So to me, technology is a blessing when used for educational purposes, not a curse, as some others see it. I invite you to look at technology and how it is used in your life and education. Compare all the pros and cons about education and technology, and think for yourself... Is technology a blessing or a curse for education?

Enrique Elias is a member of the class of 2016 who was born in Mexico City and is an ASF old timer. Enrique has always been very involved at school as part of the Lower School house council and a member of the basketball team since Middle School. In the Upper School he was one of the founding members of the Tech Club and has been involved in the production of Les Misérables and Into the Woods. This year he is helping produce Fame. Next fall, Enrique will attend the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey at the Santa Fe campus, where he intends to major in Industrial Engineering.

VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 31

INSTITUTIONAL ADVANCEMENT

Refugees and Human Rights

By Pablo Guarneros (’18)

Grandparents’ Day unites three generations T he young and the not so young strengthened generational bonds in February at one of the Early Childhood Center’s best-loved events – Grandparents’ Day. After gathering at the Fine Arts Center for a welcome ceremony and introduction from Head of Early Childhood Center Susan Olivo, grandparents and grandfriends crossed the road to visit their loved ones in the comfortable surrounds of the ECC. There, they enjoyed an entertainment program designed to promote interaction between grandparents and grandchildren while utilizing the educational and recreational facilities at ASF, rotating around three different activities. Music teacher Luis Betancourt led young and old in a sing-along on the Tricycle Patio, while in the Finance Garden, students taught their grandparents how to make crafts.

32 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

Grandparents also took the opportunity to visit classrooms, seeing their grandchildren’s academic and artistic works adorning the walls, meeting their teachers, eating snacks and helping to write journals.

Some grandparents also bought specially designed tiles — some of which you can see below— celebrating their relationship with their grandchildren, which are proudly displayed in the Turtle Patio in the center of the Early Childhood Center.

This is the ninth time that the Early Childhood Center has formally hosted grandparents with this event. Former teacher Adele Goldschmied was a founder of the Grandparents’ Day back in 2008. She says the idea was to build a feeling of community and giving at ASF. “I had heard from my sister about an event called Grandparents’ Day at the Chicago Children’s Museum,

From left to right: Samantha Rianhard was joined by three grandparents to celebrate Grandparents’ Day. Bárbara Quiroga Hegyi is a third-generation ASF student. Here she celebrates Grandparents’ Day with mother Maggie Hegyi from the class of ’94, and grandparents Ernesto and Aurora Terrazas. Ernesto graduated from ASF in the class of ’67. Santiago Reynoso Troice was surrounded by family who were excited to visit the ASF campus and see how it keeps changing year on year.

and thought it was a great idea,” Goldschmied says. “After I stopped teaching I had time to organize it.”

THREE GENERATIONS With four grandchildren still studying at ASF —some of whom were in the ECC when the first Grandparents’ Day was held — Goldschmied is the perfect link between the school and its grandparents, and over the last few years, the event has grown significantly.

“It’s gotten better every year,” she said, “The teachers are the ones who really make it work.

“One teacher even had 42 grandparents in her classroom.

That’s more or less two for each student. It’s great to see how happy the grandparents are when they leave.”

Grandparents who have been involved at ASF for many years remarked on what they called the amazing growth of the school.

Jo Rianhard has two grandchildren at ASF; Daniel in grade 2 and Samantha in the ECC. She’s been a part of the ASF community for around 50 years and reminisced about how the school has developed so much over that time, pointing out that the arts department is one area that has particularly strengthened. Grandfather Ernesto Terrazas graduated from ASF in the class of 1967, so he remembers the school as it was more than 50 years ago. He says he likes not only seeing his grandchildren attend ASF, but has also enjoyed attending the Art Fair and Back to School Nights for several years, which he did back when his daughter Maggie was a student, and now again with his granddaughter Bárbara.

VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 33

INSTITUTIONAL ADVANCEMENT

Pounding the pavement

A

for a cause

By Andrew Livingstone

thousand eager runners got an early start on a Sunday morning to come to school and enjoy a fun – or competitive – race, all in the name of charity.

Hundreds of competitive runners from professional and recreational teams, ASF students – including ASF’s own running team – teachers, staff members, parents and alumni strove to beat their best time or to just enjoy the run at a more sedate pace. The course, now well established, left the

5K

Coach Colman Field and passed the ABC Hospital, crossed Constituyentes Avenue and looped through a scenic section of Chapultepec Park, before returning for a finish in front of the ASF bleachers.

The seventh annual race held to raise money for the Endowment Fund for Financial Aid was held in clear but chilly conditions - perfect for an early morning run. The day soon warmed up as the sun rose and by the time the kids’ races rolled around it was warm on the Upper School track.

10K 34 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

Among the 997 runners were 250 students and 140 alumni, along with hundreds of parents and other community members. All runners were presented with a medal to recognize their participation and thank them for their contribution to a fund that will be used to help provide an ASF education to those who would otherwise be unable to afford one. First, second and third place getters in each age category also received trophies, as did overall winners, who sprayed an appreciative crowd with celebratory bubbly.

VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 35

) 6 9 ’ (

ALUMNI | PROFILE

ue r

Ba

Mónica 36 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

M

ónica Bauer graduated from The American School Foundation in 1996. Five years later, she was the director of institutional development for Casa de la Amistad, Mexico City’s highly successful and respected support home for children with cancer.

Not long after that, she became the director of the Sabritas Foundation, a philanthropic wing of PepsiCo México.

Today, still on the right side of 40, she is PepsiCo Latin America’s vice president of corporate affairs. She is also the mother of two, which counts for at least as much, probably more.

Hers is a remarkable success story, both in business and in life.

She is an alumna of which the school can be especially proud.

It should go without saying (but we’ll say it anyway) that the fulfillment she has found in life can in no way be “attributed” to ASF. The credit for Mónica Bauer’s success belongs to Mónica Bauer.

Still, as is the case with pretty much all ASF alumni, The American School experience gave her a head start.

“I got a lot of inspiration at ASF for what would happen next in my life,” Mónica says. “I have the best of memories.”

She cites one particular ASF offering as by far the most influential in her life. We’ll get to that in a minute — giving you time to guess what it was. Meanwhile, we’ll start with the runners-up.

One, of course, was the English-language instruction, an obvious boon.

Mónica spoke English before enrolling at ASF in the 10th grade. “But I spoke it a lot better by the time I graduated,” she says.

Then there are the lasting friendships that ASF if known to cultivate more than most schools.

“ASF provides the opportunity for building really strong and close friendships, not only for the time at ASF but afterwards,” she says. “So I do have very close friends from the school and we’ve been close for decades now.”

ASF’s vaunted diversity was another factor. “It was really exciting to study in a community that was so multinational,” she says. “With people from different backgrounds, people with different interests.”

She had transferred for her high school years from another Mexico City international institution that was more, let us say, “old school” than ASF. “Imagine transferring from a very conservative school to ASF, which is so much more interactive, fresh, fun and open,” she says.

That openness, Mónica believes, is a vital component of an ASF education. “What was amazing about the school is that you had the flexibility to find your place, to pursue whatever you were passionate about.” she says.

“That’s something I took advantage of.

“Either you find your place here or you have the ability to go and create something that will fit your interest. That’s when, even as a student, you start becoming an entrepreneur, because it’s when you start building empowerment.”

In Mónica’s case, the ASF model also helped her find what was not her place.

“It’s funny because I always wanted to be a pediatrician ever since kindergarten,” she recalls. “But in the biology course I had at ASF I really hated cutting up the animal corpses. The teacher would give me a pass to the library so I wouldn’t have to do it.

“That helped me appreciate that my interest in people was more from a social perspective than a medical one.”

Inspi red b y

he r

AS

Fe du ca ti o

ue Ba

Which leads us to what n, she considers her most influential M experience at ASF. Have you guessed it ón yet? We’ll let Mónica herself reveal it: ic a “The best thing that happened for me at ASF was the Model United Nations. I went to participate on the trips, to the Harvard U.N., to the Michigan U.N. Because of the Model U.N. I became really interested in supporting communities and making change by influencing public policy. And it was actually the MUN that influenced me to study international relations at ITAM.” MUN participants — which is to say, virtually all ASF students — soon realize that the study of international relations yields benefits far beyond current events and global politics. It’s about living in the world.

“It broadens your perspective,” Mónica points out. “It provides the ability to interact in an international scenario, both privately and publicly. You understand other cultures.”

That said, Mónica actually did some internships at embassies, but soon realized that her interest lay elsewhere: “I was more interested in the social component than a career in the foreign service. That’s why I was passionate about going to Casa de la Amistad.”

She took over the organization’s fundraising, no minor task. “It was a very challenging professional experience,” she says “I was young and it was a very robust institution. We had — and the institution still has — very aggressive fundraising targets.”

One can imagine the emotional impact of such work. “The offices are located right on the premises, so you see the impact of your work every single day,” Mónica says. “You have lunch with the kids, you see their moms, you talk to them. It’s as tangible as it gets.”

The shift from Casa de la Amsted to the corporate world was not as radical as it may sound. For one thing, PepsiCo was a major donor to the home. And the position she was offered was to head up its foundation that helped marginalized school children.

“I came to the corporate world with a very strong community engagement component, and into a job that was dedicated to that,” she says.

After a year she took a hiatus to study in Spain for a master’s degree. With it came a career crossroads.

“I considered the option of studying something more related to public policy, perhaps children’s rights,” she says. “But I had enjoyed the corporate world after a year at PepsiCo so I decided against narrowing things down so that the only thing I could do as I moved forward would have to be related to community affairs.”

Instead she earned an MBA as she looked to expand her role at PepsiCo. The rest, as they say, is history. Mónica Bauer’s role indeed expanded, reaching what it is now — a top-level vice president position at one of the biggest and best-known companies in Mexico and the world.

But she has by no means left ASF behind. You can see her at events like the Art Fair, and her nephew is an ASF student.

Her involvement is about to take a giant leap.

Her eldest son has been accepted as an ASF student and will be entering the school in August. In just a matter of months, Mónica Bauer will be not just an ASF alumna but also an ASF parent.

rh

as

in mb co

m ed

od erho oth ternational perspective,a socia , an in

l com pon e n t an

d c or p o r at e

s u cc e

VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 37

. ss

By

l ly Ke

rG thu Ar

Pa ASF ett, a rr

rent

FEATURE

ASF Talks

The alumni-organized series of inspirational presentations has become one of The American School’s most prestigious, energizing and entertaining events.

The most recent version — featuring four alums, two students and one ASF parent — showed us why.

By Kelly Arthur Garrett, ASF Parent

38 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

O

n Thursday evening, Feb. 18, hundreds of people filed into the Fine Arts Center theater to witness a confirmation of everything that The American School Foundation stands for.

They were there for the third annual ASF Talks event, a series of presentations organized by the school’s Alumni Council and patterned after the global conferences known as TED Talks, whose aim is to present “ideas worth spreading.”

The ideas this night came from ASF community members — four alumni, two current students and one ASF parent. The theme for the evening was “Changing Lanes,” which turned out to be a fertile topic, being specific enough to mean something, and vague enough to encourage interpretation.

What it means is a little more than a simple career shift, implying as it does continued movement forward and a conscious, in-control decision. As for its interpretation, well, that’s what unfolded during the evening, as seven successful, highly intelligent, and entertaining speakers told their stories to a rapt audience INSPIRATION In their aggregate, the talks served as a sort of dramatization of ASF values, as though such priorities as risk-taking (an IB learner trait), living purposefully (from the mission statement), entrepreneurship (a diversity initiative category) and global citizenship (in the motto) had come to life right there on the Fine Arts Center stage.

All the speakers had found a certain success, three of them as entrepreneurs (in the sense of creating and maintaining an economically viable entity).

But they weren’t there to talk about making money. They were there to share the attitudes, life skills and character traits that helped them find satisfaction and meaning in what they were doing with their lives.

In other words, the participating alums were there to inspire.

And judging from the enthusiastic reception, they did a good job of it.

And that’s the point, says María José Martínez (’06), ASF’s alumni-relations specialist.

“The audience learned about new projects being carried out with the core values that ASF instills in its students,” she said after the event. “But they were also being reminded that all of us have the potential to achieve greatness, and are capable of pursuing our own projects that will inspire people the way all of the ASF Talks speakers have over the past three years.”

ASF Talks was also a way for the participating alums to give a little bit back to the school that provided the onramp to their multi-laned highways of life. They all credited the school for preparing their success, but perhaps Alejandro Souza (’05), the first speaker of the night, summed it up best: “ASF offers an enabling environment where diversity, tolerance, openness and the freedom to pursue choice and opportunity are at the core of its educational philosophy.”

It’s not heretical to say that events like ASF Talks are not what make ASF special. What makes ASF special is what goes on every day on campus from 7:45 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. and on into the afternoon.

ASF Talks and other such events are the fruits, the reward, of ASF’s special approach to the education of young people.

“It reminds us that being part of this community is a great asset,” María José says. “It’s a tool that we will always have to our advantage.”

THE SIXTH SLICE Talk about a global citizen. After graduation in 2006 Alejandro Souza launched a language training institute in Rwanda, implemented a technology distribution system for peanut farmers in Uganda, helped with the government’s five-year education

Opposite page: Ana Isabel Lagos works with husband Jerónimo Prieto to provide alternatives to shark hunting. This page, clockwise starting above: ASF parent Damian Fraser swapped the life of an international correspondent for a career in banking.

Alejandro Souza’s Pixza restaurant is driving social change. Sergio Gabriel’s love of music and the theater inspired him to start his own production company.

VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 39

plan in Bhutan, and published a remarkable book consisting of the daily letters he wrote to a close relative who was suddenly imprisoned. But his ASF Talks presentation that night wasn’t about any of those achievements. He had changed lanes.

His new lane led to starting a pizza parlor. There’s more to that than it sounds, but first let’s look at what changing lanes means to him.

It means, he told the audience, three things: An attitude, a mindset and a choice. The attitude is of allowance. The mindset is of freedom. The choice is to innovate.

Alejandro had his listeners spellbound as he walked them through the significance of that formula, interweaving it with his own endeavors. What they learned, at the risk of oversimplifying, is that allowing yourself the freedom to choose to innovate has the effect on your life of, in Alejandro’s words, “replacing order with meaning.”

Chew on that for a while.

Would you rather have it the other way around, order without meaning? Some would. They weren’t in the Fine Arts Center that night.

The rest of us see the appeal of the innovative path. “You begin to leave your mark on this earth in a very joyful way,” Alejandro said.

Alejandro Souza is leaving his mark on this earth with pizza.

Not just any pizza, mind you, but the world’s first blue corn pizza made out of 100% Mexican ingredients.

“It’s my latest crazy example of changing lanes,” he says of Pixza, his pizza joint in the Juárez area of Mexico City.

“It’s a social empowerment platform disguised as a pizza restaurant.”

40 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

Here’s what he means by that. At Pixza, for every five slices of pizza sold, a sixth is given to a young adult homeless person, who, if he volunteers, can eventually receive more pizza, a t-shirt, a shower, a medical appointment, a haircut and a lifeskills training course. If all goes well, a graduate of that course is offered a job at the restaurant.

“This job allows graduates to come back to life and society with meaning, purpose, a steady income, and the tools they need to become the change they care about,” Alejandro said.

Note Pixza’s business model. “It’s a for-profit social business that uses empowerment, not charity, to generate social change,” Alejandro said during his talk.

Does it work?

Well, five young adults have graduated from the program, and two are still working at Pixza. Plus they’ve given away more than a thousand slices of pizza.

That’s a pretty good illustration of why it pays to change lanes.

“As an entrepreneur, the only option that I’ve had is to change lanes constantly,” Alejandro said. “In fact, most of the time, there haven’t been any lanes at all and I’ve had to define them as I went along.”

And in parting, he urged the attendees to trade order for meaning.

“Choose to allow yourself the freedom to innovate,” he said.

“And with a smile on your face, go forth and change the world.”

SWIMMING WITH THE SHARKS Jerónimo Prieto (’05) and Ana Isabel Lagos (’05) made their lane change under water. Both worked in the business world

after graduation, but Jerónimo, a diving trainer, founded an ocean conservation organization called Pelagic Life. Ana soon joined in, and the two of them and a Pelagic Life crew began producing a documentary of Mexico’s rich and beautiful marine world.

The film (which you can find on YouTube), was originally conceived as a visually breathtaking tour of underwater wonders. But while filming off the Baja California coast, they found themselves witnessing a crude shark fishing operation. The experience changed their lives (or, if you will, their lanes).

The film became a part of a mission. The mission was to save sharks, at least in that part of Baja to begin with.

It wouldn’t be easy. Many of the townspeople there depended on shark fishing for their livelihood.

“It took us two years to win their trust,” Jerónimo said. “We finally won them over by doing something crazy. We offered to buy any fish they caught. Once we paid, we jumped into the water and freed them with our own hands.”

They freed a lot of sharks that way. But they realized that ransoming sharks is hardly a sustainable business model.

“We needed to find an alternative solution,” Jerónimo said.

“How could we protect our sharks and the economy of the local community at the same time?”

They thought the best chance was to offer shark watching expeditions. In 2013 they got a grant to fund research into how and if shark fishing in that Baja area could be replaced by tourism.

It turned out it could be. In 2015, Pelagic Life’s Call of the Shark project took out 48 tourists to look for sharks, and then get in the water with them once they showed up. The tourists, who paid 10,000 pesos apiece to swim with sharks, loved the

adventure. The money stayed in the community, and the sharks stayed in the water.

“Let’s be realistic” Ana said. “So far we’re only talking about a few hundred sharks in one small place. But we believe tourism will slowly replace shark fishing. The sharks will be worth more alive.”

DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY Nicolás Santacruz (’03), the Alumni Council member who served as MC at this year’s ASF Talks, insisted during his introduction of Sergio Gabriel (’00) that Sergio could be found in the front row of every single performance of the Mexican pop singer Gloria Trevi. Not most of the concerts, or almost all of them, but all of them.

Even allowing for a hint of hyperbole, we can conclude that Sergio was a dedicated fan.

He was also a theater buff who was a mainstay on the ASF stages of his day. Those stages were a notch or more below the one he was speaking on during his ASF Talk, but his talent didn’t suffer for it.

He was best-known at ASF, however, for his performances in the hallways, where he would always be singing.

“The thing is,” he said during his talk, “nobody ever told me to stop.” His lane change came when he moved from performing on stage to producing the performances and managing the performers.

Sergio moved up and down the FAC stage as he spoke, talking excitedly in two languages, proudly displaying posters for the theater and music performances he’s produced, mostly under the aegis of his own production company, SG Producciones.

VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 41

His enthusiasm was infectious. Here was a man clearly happy with his work and his life.

“The most important thing is to be happy,” was his advice.

“That’s one of the secrets of my professional success. I’m always enjoying what I’m doing.”

One of his sources of happiness may have something to do with the fact that since 2013 he has been producing the concerts of one of Mexico’s most popular singers. Her name is Gloria Trevi.

EXISTENTIALLY SPEAKING “You’re probably wondering what two 17-year-old girls can tell you about life that you don’t know already.”

That came from Khazana Nguyen (’16), one of two students speaking at ASF Talks. The other was Sarah Hatch (’16), who was born in Venezuela and came to ASF for her senior year after three years in a Dallas high school.

The question was unnecessary. One part of adult wisdom is the recognition that there is much to be learned from young people.

It turned out that both had plenty to tell us about life skills because they’d been making an extended effort to develop them.

One of their sources was a class in existentialism, where the need for such skills was posited. Another came with life-altering events — the death of a loved one, being uprooted in your last year of high school — what might be called forced lane changes.

And then of course there are the slings and arrows of adolescence, the most relentless teachers of all.

Their investigation yielded a regimen that the audience seemed to take to immediately. It consists of four skills, as follows: Be inspired by others. But don’t imitate them, the students warned. Draw from them, but become the person you want to be.

View yourself from a birds-eye view. Meaning to take a step back instead of blowing whatever obstacle you face out of proportion. Grow from it instead.

Remember, this nugget came from a girl who just months earlier had suddenly found herself in a new school in a new country.

Did she grow from it? Well, there she was, standing on the huge stage of her new school, teaching grown-ups from her new country about life skills.

Value each breath. “We have to take the immense happiness 42 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

and the unbearable pain and everything in between as a gift,” Khazana told the audience. Her point was that life is finite. They say you shouldn’t sweat the small stuff, but you can appreciate it.

It all counts.

Be mindful. Which is to say, train your mind to focus on the present. To give them an idea of how to get there, the girls led the audience in a mindfulness exercise, involving breathing and body awareness.

There’s plenty to read on mindfulness as it relates to education in this issue of Focus (see page 24). That night, the students connected it with happiness, via a quote from Hanh Nhat Thich, the Princeton-educated Buddhist monk and author of the intriguingly titled “Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames.” His observation: “Mindfulness helps you go home to the present. And every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes.”

They also had a memorable quote of their own: “Life’s a mess. Our purpose in life is to find meaning in the mess.”

BE YOURSELF Damian Fraser, an ASF parent, began his keynote address with a caveat that perhaps the notion of changing lanes didn’t apply to his career.

He then proceeded to relate two major lane changes that applied to his career. So much for the caveat.

The first was moving from England to Mexico as an adult.

Yes, lots of people do it. It’s major for all of them, no matter what they say.

The other was his subsequent career change from journalist to banker. If that’s not a lane change, nothing is.

Damian told how he interviewed for the job of Mexico correspondent with Sir Geoffrey Howe, the Financial Times editor, and an imposing figure. Damian had no Spanish at the time, no knowledge of Mexico and not all that much journalism experience. What he did have was a smooth ability to think on his feet.

When the inevitable question came up — “How’s your Spanish?” — Damian responded with a question of his own: “Sir Geoffrey, do you want me to continue this interview in Spanish?” Sir Geoffrey, of course, said no, that won’t be necessary. The matter of language never came up again.

He arrived in Mexico in the early 90s, a vibrant time for a journalist — the Colosio assassination, the Zaptista uprising, the peso crisis, the implementation of NAFTA. He took a wife, became bureau chief and settled in.

But the Financial Times (and many other foreign publications) doesn’t want its foreign correspondents to settle in. So, like Hamlet, he found himself sent to England. That didn’t go over well with Mrs. Fraser.

Which is how lane changes present themselves.

“I either had to change wives or change jobs,” Damian said. “It was easier to change jobs.”

His ticket back to Mexico was a new career in banking. That required some study and professional development. What it mostly required, though, was patience.

“If you change careers you have to be patient,” he told the audience. “You’re not going to start out at the same level where you were before.”

His most pertinent tip, at least for the expats in the audience, may have been in reference to the cultural adaptation required of a transplantee — in his case a Brit — in Mexico. By all means adapt, he said, but don’t overdo it.

“What we’re talking about here is more like merging lanes than changing lanes,” he said. “It’s important that you don’t lose touch with your past, with your own country, with the people who remember you when you were young.”

He concluded with an observation that had been hanging in the air throughout the evening of ASF Talks: “Be yourself and you’ll be better off.”

THEY MADE IT HAPPEN The third ASF Talks was entirely an alumni-led event organized by the Alumni Council. Participation was by no means limited to the presenters on stage.

Here’s a list — aspiring to be complete — of the ASF alumni who shone on that very special February night: Raffaella Freyere (’03) was this year’s ASF Talks featured artist, whose work was displayed in the lobby outside the theater.

Raffaella is a lane-changer herself; she gave up her career in marketing and advertising to pursue her passion for painting in Italy.

Alexia Carmil (’00) has an art consulting office called Sugar Art Services that caters to the needs of private collectors. She

has curated many important exhibitions in Mexico, including the show by Raffaella Freyre on the night of ASF Talks.

Isabel Contreras (’17), an ASF junior and a five-year member of the Drama Club who will be singing in the ASF production of “Fame,” provided a musical interlude.

Arturo Martínez (’00), who spoke at the first ASF Talks in 2014 about his music business enterprises, helped organize the music for the evening and was a member of the Production Committee.

Sofia Gómez Díaz Barreiro (’09), Christian Hassig (’03): Production Committee members Mauricio Arguelles (’00), Alexia Camil (’00), Claudia Debler (’95), Daniela Escalante (’02), Janet Huerta (’03), Santiago Kneeland (’98), Rodrigo Gutiérrez (’97), María José Martínez (’06), León Marikanskas (’93), Nicolás Santacruz (’03), María Vidal (’03): The Alumni Council The after-event gathering outside the FAC was top-notch and well-attended. “The cocktail party was so enjoyable that the guests didn’t leave until around midnight this year,” María José said. Here are the food and drink folks that made it all possible: Robert Craig (’98) Founder of Operadora Bajo de la Tintorera, owner and operator of 12 restaurants in Mexico City including Porco Rosso.

Alejandra Rico (’09) Founder of Hortensia, a bakery selling goods exclusively from her own recipes.

Chris Mir (’99) Creative art director for Mezcal Machetazo, distillers of 100% handcrafted mescal from Guerrero.

Eduardo Pérez (’08) Co-owner of Buna, Café Rico, along with four other ASF alums from the Class of 2008.

Alejandro Diez Barroso (’01) A venture capitalist whose many success stories include Cervecería Hércules, a 100% Mexican artisanal beer.

Linda Jaramillo (’03) Owner of Bodegga Verde, a healthy food concept petit restaurant.

Mark Hojel (’86) and Ricardo Hojel (’84) Board members of Monte Xanic (Ricardo was a co-founder), Mexico’s most prestigious winery.

Yvonne Kneeland (’01), David Akle (’08), Linda Alamillo (’03), Santiago Herrera (’08), Alberto Rivera-Torres (’08), Eduardo Pérez Varona (’08): Members of the Culinary Committee for the 2016 ASF Talks.”

VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 43

ALUMNI | CLASS NOTES

Julio Márquez sends this letter from New York City: “I am an alumnus of ASF (Class of 1980) and really enjoyed reading your article about my band teacher and music mentor, Larry Russell. I have the privilege of knowing him and of having played as his drummer during my entire high school experience at AHS. What a great guy Larry is, ASF should always strive to hire musicians of his caliber.

“I experienced firsthand the events described in the article, most importantly the renaissance of the high school band brought about by Mr. Russell, as well as the creation of the AHS jazz band. And if anyone needs soundtracks of the music then, I have many recordings, including the new version Mr. Russell introduced for the AHS Bear fight song, based on the Caribbean hit St. Thomas and played every time the team scored a touchdown.

“Mr Russell also created original compositions in order to feature members of the band! Fresh in my mind are “Genevieve’s Stomp” (for Genevieve Spielberg (‘80), who played the flute and is now an accomplished music producer in NYC), “Irving’s Blues” (for Irving Olsen (‘78), who played a bass clarinet) and a drum-solo-filled “Julio’s Dilemma,” for yours truly.

“Thanks for publishing the piece!”

ASF would like to thank those sponsors who generously donated resources to make ASF Talks possible

44 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

’76

The ASF Class of 1976 will have its 40-year reunion this May in Acapulco! For more info contact Sonia Arakelian: sonishka00@hotmail.com

WHERE ARE YOU? If you ever attended ASF, we’re looking for you! Please update your information by sending an email to alumni@asf.edu.mx right away.

We want to keep you up to date on all the ASF news as well as informed about upcoming alumni events. Keep in touch!

’03

Tania de Regil had wanted to be a professional writer ever since she was a little girl. Sebastián y la Isla Tut is her first picture book published by Ediciones Castillo, a Macmillan Education company. It’s a wordless book that tells the story of a boy filled with wonder. When he finds a mysterious feather floating in the ocean he decides to embark on a journey and learn who it may belong to. It’s a story about curiosity, courage and unexpected discoveries.

Tania’s illustrations are heartwarming and full of interesting details for everyone to discover. The story was inspired by her love of the sea and the mysteries it beholds.

The book can be found in various bookstores around Mexico such as; Librerías Gandhi, Fondo de Cultura Económica, El Sotano, Librerías Porrúa and El Péndulo. She hopes her books will someday inspire children the same way such books inspired her.

All years Wagner (’74) sends the following message to ASF alumni from all class years, especially those of the 60s and 70s: “All interested AHS alumni are invited to attend a reunion honoring former math teacher, athletic director, and basketball coach Clark Kirkpatrick.

“Coach Kirkpatrick worked at AHS from 1966 to1973 and was a huge influence on many of us. He was really the one who started the quality sports program at the American High School. During his last complete season the AHS Bears went 19-0 and may have been the top team in Mexico. “Coach now lives in North Dakota with his wife Bonnie. “The reunion will take place at the Loew’s Chicago O’Hare Hotel. We will have dinner at 6:00 p.m. on April 29 at the hotel’s restaurant. The following day, Saturday we will have a banquet at 6:00 p.m. “If you have any questions or plan on attending, please call Wilford Wagner at 630-200-9864 or email wwagner@aztectourz.com.

“We hope to see many of you there!”

VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 45

ALUMNI | MILESTONES

Eliza Honey (’03) and Nick Keegan were married on Nov. 6, 2015, in La Paz, Baja California Sur. The wedding took place at El Mangle, where Eliza’s brother, James Honey (‘93) works. “We live in London,” Eliza says. “I’m a freelance web editor at goop.com, among other sites.”

Nicole Sokol (’03) and Ricardo Rábago were married on Jan. 31 in Acapulco. The newlyweds live in Kuala Lumpur.

José Cortés (’03) and his wife María José Ricalde Martínez welcomed their first baby boy, José Pablo Cortés Ricalde, on Dec. 12, 2015. Congratulations to father, mother and child.

ASF would like to thank those sponsors who generously donated resources to make ASF Talks possible

46 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016

Ruy Villamil (’00) and Vero Caso (’00) were married in Cuernavaca in November.

The ceremony was lively and a very happy one. Many ASF alumni attended, and no wonder — both bride and groom were members of the Class of 2000. We wish the couple all the best.

Enrique Aguilar (’05) and Andrea Marina were married on Nov. 28, 2015, at the Rancho San Juan Totoltepec in Mexico City. “It was an incredible event,” Enrique tells us. “We had the opportunity to share it with many ASF students, past and present. Thanks to everybody for making the moment so special.”

Melissa Veytia (’06) married Jorge León de la Barra on Nov. 21, 2015, in an ecofriendly wedding. Jorge, the groom, attended ASF briefly and would have been in the graduating class of 2002.

José Pedro Garcia Pérez (’06) and Julia Lagos (’10) were married on Dec. 5, 2015. Best wishes to these ASF alumni members.

VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016 | 47

KIDS’ CORNER

K3

students express their creativity As they prepare to finish their Early Childhood Center education and move into the Lower School, K3 students have been experimenting with using a range of different media to express themselves, in an aspect of their IB Primary Years Programme called “My Creative Self.”

ECC art teacher Danielle Schnell emphasizes that creativity involves brainstorming and planning, so students took inspiration from music and visual art, before developing their own ideas for expressing themselves using the medium of clay. Upper School students acted as mentors, helping the K3 kids to form clay into their chosen concept. Their artworks ranged from the realistic – faces and scenes – to the completely abstract – patterns, forms and shapes.

After molding the clay, the works were fired in a kiln, and later painted, with students using their choice of color to further express the uniqueness of their creations.

48 | VOLUME XV, ISSUE 1, 2016