Hi … when I last left you, CC and I were camping near Moab, Utah in the early part of May visiting Arches National Park. Since then we've been to several other National Parks … Canyonlands, Mesa Verde, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, and Zion Canyon. So, with my last blog entry during my 2009 -2010 sabbatical leave, I would like to share a few stories and some pictures (mostly pictures) of our visits to these wonderful SW U.S. desert National Parks.

Certainly one of the great things that our country has done is to create the National Park System of parks. They do an unbelievable job of preserving and educating visitors of the geology, the flora and fauna, and of the history of the people who have occupied the lands. I have to be honest that the Canyonlands, Mesa Verde, Grand Canyon, and Bryce Canyon National Parks were a challenge for me because of my severe acrophobia or as a dictionary defines this as an "… extreme or irrational fear of heights." I'm not sure if the word irrational belongs in that definition as it seems rational to me. Be that as it may, looking downward (when I dared to) brings a pretty intense reaction for me. It didn't help the cause when at 5:30 am on one of the mornings on the south rim of the Grand Canyon, there was a very loud siren that went off. After a few hours of wondering, we learned that it was the standard emergency alert for the park rangers when someone falls into the canyon. Apparently someone watching the sunrise at the rim fell in. Hope that he/she is okay, but I didn’t give them much hope …. Nor much hope of me overcoming the fear.

Mesa Verde (in the SW corner of Colorado) deserves special attention here, as this is where some of the ancient Puebloans (the Anasazis) lived between 800 and 1100 AD. They first built and occupied 'pithouses' on top of the Mesa while they were designing and building their more permanent dwellings in the cliffs where they lived for about 200 years. I hope that these pictures show what tremendous architects and builders that they were for their time. I was able to handle a visit to a few of the "milder" cliff dwellings, but there was one that CC had to go it alone, as you had to climb up and down several 30 – 60 ft ladders along the sheer cliff to get to and from the dwelling. I was perfectly content to read a book for an hour while CC risked her life.

The Grand Canyon is truly a remarkable geological formation that ironically is partially formed by water, a rare commodity in any desert. Obviously, erosion, wind, ice, etc. also had a lot to do with creating this canyon. CC and I hiked most of the rim trail and went on a couple of bike rides through the park. I visited the Gr. Canyon back in 1976 on an environment field studies trip when I was in college at Willamette University. On that trip, we were given an opportunity to hike the canyon. After looking down the 'Bright Angel Trail' on this current trip, I can't believe that I actually hiked that …. Oh, the days when we were young and reckless!

Bryce Canyon is a truly remarkable place that is well known for its Hoodoos or columns/pinnacles of weathered rock. This again is a place where you drive up above and looked down into the canyon. This is where I started to feel like I was preventing CC from doing the hiking that she loves to do because of my fear. So, we arranged for her to take a 3-hr horse trail ride down into the canyon. I was elated to see her take off on the ride and even more elated to see her return safe! It was very cold while we were there so it forced us to abandon the camping . We checked in to a hotel in Tropic, a small town just outside the park. We were glad we did as one morning we woke up to a couple of inches of snow on our car (May 24th). The people in Tropic were commenting on how short of a summer and fall that they had before winter set in again. This is where I started to feel like I was preventing CC from doing the hiking that she loves to do.

After a few days in Bryce, we set out for Zion National Park. It was certainly nice to drive through the inside base of the canyon and look up. Zion is yet another park with remarkable rock formations. We spent a good part of the day exploring and hiking inside the canyon. We ran into two couples traveling together on a tour that were from Hawaii. It was nice to connect with Hawaii people again.

After a quick visit for a day or so to catch up with some sleep and get a few necessary errands completed in Las Vegas, and a quick trip to visit CC's mom's cousin who is ill in Newport Beach, California, we find ourselves coming full circle by ending up once again visiting Kurt and Ruthann Reese in San Diego. We are VERY fortunate to have such good friends that will let us stay with them for a better part of a week so that we can organize ourselves for our trip HOME.

So the bikes are taken apart and boxed, the racks are off the top of our car, the car ready to be shipped, boxes are being shipped, laundry is being done, our bags are packed and most importantly, we have discovered some wonderful schools throughout the country that do some amazing things for their students. One thing I know for sure … there is no place that we've seen that offers so much range of electives and breath and depth to a core curriculum to so many students as Punahou. That is NOT to say that the schools we've visited have nothing of value for us at Punahou to learn. One the contrary, there is a lot for a large school, like Punahou, to learn from small schools that provide so much attention to the needs of their students. It is those things that I hope to share with my friends and colleagues at Punahou.

I hope that you've enjoyed following my blog on this unbelievable travel opportunity that CC and I have been blessed with, and that I haven't bored too many of you with the long descriptions of our school visitations. I also hope that, in some way, I have encouraged my colleagues at Punahou to go out and explore what other schools are doing. Even though one may hear a lot about the downfall of education in our country, there are a lot of fantastic examples of success stories across the country!

I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge my wonderful wife, Carolynn, who with great sacrifice took a leave from her job at ASSETS School, did the lion's share of logistical arrangements, and visited every school with me with her own agenda related to topics such as sustainability and accommodations for students with learning differences. Without her support and help this sabbatical would not have been possible. THANK YOU CC!!

Well, after touring Illinois with my mom and sister Kay and a revisit to Minneapolis (to pick up our bicycles and camping equipment), Carolynn and I have headed west in direction of home. On the way we stopped for visits with Mike and Tammy Pavich in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Mike and Tammy seem to doing very well and are getting prepared for yet another RAGBRAI (Registers Bike Ride Across, Iowa). We also made stops to visit Don and Pat Kingsley in Hastings, Nebraska and Nathan and Kathryn Scott in Ft. Collins, Colorado. Don and Pat are the parents of Katie Kingsley a good friend of ours in Honolulu. Nathan Scott is a Bell family friend (his parents whom we visited with in Washington, DC are Carolynn's godparents) and is the director of 'The SAGE Program' is a VERY interesting global program that works with schools across the country and specializes in educational overseas trip for teachers and their students in middle and high school.

Since my last blog entry, there have been no school related business (except for a parent informational meeting on a school's sex education program that I attended in Chicago and a lengthy discussion about The SAGE Program with Nathan Scott). There are no immediate plans for any visitations for the duration of our trip. We know that May, the last month of school, is a very busy month for schools and purposefully decided to leave schools alone. So, most of this blog entry is a brief description of the tour of my mom's birth state of Illinois, and our current trip in the Arches National Park.

It was an absolute joy for me to accompany my mother Elsie and sister Kay on a 5-day trip throughout my mother's birth state of Illinois. One of the highlights includes visiting Abraham Lincoln's home, museum and tomb in Springfield, Illinois. On this trip CC and I have visited many presidential museums, homes, tombs, libraries, etc., none better that The Lincoln Library. If ever in Illinois, it is worth the effort to see this amazing place. There is an interactive program with a live actor interacting with special effects and holograms describing Lincoln's library. Truly an amazing performance!

Other highlights of our Illinois tour included a visit to the Tuttle farm in Plainville, Illinois (just outside Quincy), visiting Illinois College (college that my parents attended and, interestingly enough, my colleague Terry Woody), visiting both sets of grandparent's graves in Quincy and Pinckneyville on the same day, and watching my mother interact with her cousin Dean and seeing a few of her elementary school friends in Pinckneyville. This trip ended with a quick visit to Campaign, Illinois for my mom to visit an old Illinois friend, Nan, and a very nice day and evening in downtown Chicago. If any of you are wondering where Carolynn was during this Illinois tour, I put her on a plane to Minneapolis to spend more time with her mom, on the day of my mom's arrival in Chicago. My sister and mom were able to spend a few more days in Chicago exploring museums as I drove back to Minneapolis. This Illinois tour will certainly be a week to remember!

While in Minneapolis, CC and I were able to spend more time with CC's mom, attend a Minnesota Twins baseball game, and get ourselves prepared for more camping out west.

Speaking of camping … currently, CC and I are camped just outside of Arches National Park in Utah. Yesterday we spent the day exploring the UNBELIEVABLE rock formations throughout the park. I'm certain that the accompanying photos do not come close to showing their true beauty. Today we plan to go back into the park to spend the day hiking. We will be in the Moab area for a few more days so that we can explore Canyonlands National Park that is just up the road. After leaving the Moab area, we plan to explore the American Indian cliff dwelling ruins of Mesa Verde, Colorado, spend four nights in the Grand Canyon area, and visit both Bryce and Zion National Parks in Utah before heading back to our starting point in San Diego. More on the National Parks experience later. Hope you enjoy the pictures of Arches National Park (below). Aloha ... looking forward to going home!

I guess that it's been awhile since my last entry.Schools on the east coast have been on spring break (some still are) as they seem to have their spring breaks later than the schools in Hawaii.Since my last entry Carolynn and I have been pretty busy.We've been to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, briefly back to Baltimore, on to the Boston area where we spent time in the Concord/Lexington area, walked part of the Freedom Trail in Boston, visited JFK's museum/library, and visited two schools (Buckingham, Browne, & Nichols and Shady Hill School), visited Maine for the weekend, and stayed in Cooperstown, NY (baseball hall of fame museum). So … there's a lot to tell you about.I know some of my blog entries have been long so I'll try to keep this a brief as possible.Let me start with the schools that we've visited.

On April 15th we visited two schools in Cambridge, Massachusetts: Shady Hill and Buckingham, Browne, & Nichols.Shady Hill is K – 8 School with 514 students (264 in the 5 - 8 middle school) located on about 14 acres of land in Cambridge, Massachusetts.They were in the middle of 'Flex Week,' which meant that both the 7th and 8th graders were off campus. The 7th graders were doing community service in various public schools and the 8th grade was on their annual NYC trip.Grades 1-6 were enjoying a week of exploration on campus involved in a variety of activities including creating a garden and a rotation of science activities.The centerpiece to their middle school curriculum is what they call "Central Subject," a study of people in a time and place in history.This is a year-long integration between History, Literature, Culture, and Geography where each grade level studies a different area of the world.The 5th grade focuses in on China, the 6th grade studies Africa with an emphasis on rites of passage, the 7th grade studies Colonial America with an independence theme, and the 8th graders study the foundation of the United States with an emphasis on immigration (thus their annual trip to NYC).

All middle school students belong to a small advisory/homeroom group and a T.O.A.D.(Talks On Adolescent Development) with an advisor or a teacher.The' TOAD' groups focus on their personal development as (pre) teenagers so that they better understand their own development physically and mentally.In addition, the 5 – 8 middle school gathers every Tuesday and Wednesday mornings for student led meetings that includes announcements, student presentations (i.e. poetry readings), and student declarations.

The science curriculum includes a study of simple machines /Physics (using Legos) and understanding Energy in the 5th grade, Earth Science in the 6th grade, Human Anatomy / Physiology in the 7th grade, and a choice of IPS (Intro to Physical Science), Earth Science, or Physics in the 8th grade.

As far as technology is concerned, Shady Hill has a wireless campus with Macs in a computer lab and two sets of computers on carts.The science classrooms were equipped with smart boards and LCD projection systems. In addition, they have a room called 'The Garage' for the IT department to use in educating the teachers in technology.It is a place similar to Punahou's sandbox, where teachers can learn and explore new technology.

Shady Hill is a great little school with very caring and dedicated teachers.If I had kids, I wouldn't hesitate to send my kids there if I could somehow afford the tuition ($30,000+).

Buckingham, Browne, and Nichols (BB&N) is a Pre-K – 12 school of about 1000 students (170 in their 7th – 8th middle school, class size 12-14) that was the former school of colleague Joanna Osorio.BB&N was founded in 1889 and is located on three campuses (K-6, 7-8, High School) fairly close together in Cambridge, Massachusetts.Because their middle school advisory program is treated as a 'core' subject, we spent a majority of our visit finding out more about their advisory program.Because the middle school includes only 7th and 8th graders, much of the advisory program helps students negotiate transitions. The advisories are organized by grade level with two advisories (one 7th and one 8th) often paired with each other. For 7th graders, the advisory group is an important transitional step beyond the homeroom-based Lower School. In the eighth grade, advisors help cultivate and foster a growing independence and responsibility, which leads students toward greater autonomy in the later grades. The Advisory Program includes core programs taught by advisors on such topics as group dynamics, communication, current events, and social issues. In addition, the Advisory Program is composed of mini-courses on many diverse subjects, including an orientation to studying and the Middle School program, health education, serving others, their place in the community, sexuality and relationships, and drug and alcohol education.Although the advisory is ungraded, advisors make comments about the student's progress on report cards.

The science curriculum in the 7th grade includes a physical science / natural science course that emphasizes measurement, scientific method, various forms of energy, and Newton's laws of Motion. The 8th grade is an introduction in Chemistry where developing lab techniques, atomic theory and structure, the periodic table, classification of matter, chemical bonding and reactions, and acids and bases are emphasized.

It is easy to see that BB&N is an excellent institution that serves its students very well!

In addition to visiting these schools, Carolynn and I spent a week with her family in the Outer Banks of North Carolina where we enjoyed some relaxing 'down time.'It felt great to see beaches again (although very different from Hawaii's beaches) and be able to sink our toes into the sand and take long walks exploring the beaches.It was nice to be able to celebrate CC's dad's 80th birthday and connect with CC's family that we don't get to see very often.

Our Boston experience was terrific!We enjoyed seeing the 'Tea Party" members (and a few protestors) in Boston Commons while we waited to go on the Freedom Trail tour of Boston.It was a beautiful day with a lot of'crazy people' watching as they were leaving the Commons after a Sarah Palin speech. The Freedom Trail tour was excellent as we learned more about the beginnings of the Revolutionary War.

While in the Boston area we also saw the Lexington and Concord area and learned more about the 'shot heard around the world,' about Paul Revere's (Dawes and Prescott too) ride, and the running battle that the Colonists and the British waged between the two towns.Once again, I felt like I must have fallen asleep during my American History classes, as I learned a lot that I probably should have known …. a bit embarrassing!

We also were able to slip in a visit in to the JFK museum and library just before leaving Boston.What a terrific setting for a museum that displays JFK's accomplishments both before and during his administration.It is truly amazing to see all that he accomplished in just 1000 days of his presidency before he was assassinated.

On our way to Maine, we stopped and spent a night with a former pastor of Central Union Church, George Harris and his family in New Briton, Conn.Although it was a short visit, it certainly was great to connect with George and Lourdes again and to see how much Abigail has grown.

In Maine, we stayed the weekend with Bob and Nancy Hallett where we enjoyed the beautiful coastal area of Harpswell.The Hallett's house is on the water located very close to Brunswick (home of Bowdoin College).Being on the coast of Maine gave us an opportunity to get fresh lobster for our first of several memorable meals with the Halletts.Bob is CC's former boss during her time teaching at St. Paul's Boys School in Baltimore.Bob is now the executive director of the E.E. Ford Foundation that does such great work in providing funds for independent schools who are creating new innovative programs for their students. It was a chance for me to get to know both Bob and Nancy a bit more and to be able to 'pick' Bob's brain for what he has seen in the 50+ schools that he visits annually.While in Maine, we spent a rainy afternoon driving to Waterville to visit Colby College where CC went to school.A beautiful setting!

After visiting Maine, we took a long beautiful day driving through New Hampshire and Vermont to Cooperstown in upstate New York.It has been a long dream of mine to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame Museum in Cooperstown.Many of you know that I am a fantasy baseball nut (CC calls me sick!), so being able to spend a day in the museum was fantastic for me.Cooperstown is a beautiful town nestled in Cherry Valley not too far from Albany, N.Y.Much of what we saw was baseball related, but the town itself was very picturesque.If it weren't for all the snow and cold weather that I know it gets, I could live in Cooperstown.

Yesterday (4/21), we spent a very long day driving from Cooperstown to Columbus, Ohio.Here we are staying with Dr. Ken and Shirley Doolittle who are long-time friends of Carolynn's dad.Ken is a retired doctor who graduated from Punahou School in the 40's.We will be here with them for a couple of days before we continue our way west. We will go back through Minneapolis (to pick up our camping gear and bicycles and to catch a Twins game) before we set out in the direction of the National Parks of the southwest US for some camping before we head home.More about those adventures later.I hope that this blog entry finds all of you well.Please feel free to email or click on the 'comment' button to send me a message.

Last week, Carolynn and I drove to Norfolk, Virginia to visit her brother and his family for the weekend.We decided to visit Monticello (Thomas Jefferson's home) and Colonial Williamsburg while we were in the area.In addition, we scheduled a visit to Norfolk Academy.

Norfolk Academy (chartered in 1728) is a 1st – 12th grade school sitting on 75 acres of land with 1,230 students (360 in the middle school, class size is between 14-18).This is the first 7th - 9th grade middle school that we've encountered on this trip.Wonder if this exists anywhere else? When asked why a 7th - 9th middle school instead of a traditional 5th or 6th – 8th, the middle school head said that kids seems to grow up too quickly these days with lots of social pressures in a tough environment and that grouping them with 7th and 8th graders (instead of 11th and 12th graders) allows them to "slow down a bit" and be influenced in a more positive way. It seems to work for them.

Norfolk Academy's advisory program meets only once a month for a lunch period plus a 45-minute period after lunch (12-13 advisees per advisory).Topics covered in during the advisory include middle school survival skills (for 7th graders only), time management, the use of planners, the development of study skills, and a variety of fun activities.The advisors briefly "touch bases" with each of their individuals in their advisory once a day to make sure everything is going smoothly.

The science curriculum at Norfolk Academy includes a 6th grade general science, 7th grade life science, 8th grade physical science, and 9th grade biology.The high school is not an AP school but offers chemistry and physics followed up by 'advanced' classes in biology, chemistry and physics.

Although Norfolk Academy seems to have a project-based curriculum, the amount of integration between disciplines is limited but "evolving."It is entirely up to the teachers getting together on their own to look for 'natural' overlapping concepts that they could integrate.Admittedly, they haven't maximized their potential for integration yet.One of the projects that was mentioned was their 'Ophelia' project that the 7th grade girls participate in.It is an integrated project where the girls look at body image and the impact it has on their overall well-being.They are looking for ways to expand the project to include the boys.

Norfolk Academy's middle school is completely wireless and has 4 computer labs filled with PC desktops.They seem to be a bit concerned that technology may "… detract from the personal experience of education" and are somewhat leery of a one-to-one laptop program.They certainly have enough computers that are available to both teachers and students to use for whatever projects that they are involved in their classes.Most of the classrooms have the smart board technology to use in their activities.N.A. has a system in place called T.I.P. (Technology Innovative Program) to support teachers (and their students) in any innovative program that requires a new technology purchase.

Admittedly, Norfolk Academy " … doesn't deal substantially with students with learning differences."They seem to do a good job in accommodating ANYONE (L.D. or not) who needs the support.Their curriculum claims to be highly individualized that accommodates students with the basics of support, like tutoring and providing extended time for students who need it.There are grade level chairs that organize a grade level meeting once a week where part of the meeting is devoted to red flagging students who need special help and accommodations.If there are significant problems, a teacher is assigned (chosen) to the student and contacts the parents.The teacher is chosen based on how well they know the student and whether the student identifies well with the teacher, rather than just having the student's advisor be their advocate.

Norfolk is a well-endowed school with an impressive campus that supports their students admirably.

Besides this school visit, CC and I have been enjoying learning more about the history of our country while here on in the east coast.I've mentioned this before on previous blog entries and mention it again as we had the opportunity to recently visit Monticello, James Madison's home, Colonial Williamsburg, and the White House.

We visited Colonial Williamsburg on a gorgeous day (temps in the 70's …YEA!!).We witnessed a fascinating speech by Thomas Jefferson (reenactment) in the back yard of the Governor's mansion.He talked about his views on education and religion, among other topics.He opened it up to questions after the speech where he answered questions about national health care reform, slavery, and his opinion on having an African American (or a woman) as President of the United States.He did a fabulous and humorous job of staying in character while answering these contemporary questions.This was certainly the highlight of the visit for me.

Monticello is an impressive piece of land near Charlottesville, Virginia.The tour showed that Thomas Jefferson certainly was a lot more sustainable in his lifestyle than most would think.He was also a 'gadget' man as there were a lot of ingenious inventions that were used in his house.The main clock above the front entrance was run completely by a weight system that even showed the day of the week. The past Presidents of our country sure know how to live once they leave office.

For those of you who have been on the White House tour in Washington, D.C. may be interested to find out that the tour now is a self-guided tour.We walked through the many of the rooms of the White House, including the room on the east side of the building that was used the day before for the signing of the 'National Health Care.'The media circus surrounding that event was long gone.

Our school visits for the Mid-Atlantic area are completed and we will now head down to the outer banks of North Carolina at the end of the week to spend time with CC's family.Her dad, Douglas, has rented a house on the beach where he, CC's brother (and family) and CC's sister will meet up with us to relax for a week.After that, we will head up to the NE (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, etc.). We have plans to visit a few schools in the Boston area while we are there. I certainly hope that this blog entry finds you all well.Please feel free to comment or say hi by either emailing me or by pressing the comment button below.

Last Monday (3/8), Carolynn and I had the pleasure of visiting a very delightful school in Brooklynville (a suburb of Baltimore) called The Park School. This 100-acre school is a progressive, project-oriented K – 12 school of 875 students with 200 of them in the 6 – 8 gr. middle school. A central theme defines each grade level in which the teachers work hard to create integrated curriculum that relates to the respective grade level themes. For example, in the 6th grade their core subjects include Geography, Literature, and Ecology that all relate to the theme of 'Community.' In the 7th grade, the central theme to their curriculum is 'Identity' and in the 8th grade the theme is 'Advocacy.' These three themes seem to make perfect sense for youngsters ages 11 -14 years to latch on.


The Park School's advisory program is centered on team building and developing relationships between students and between students and teachers. The advisory groups are a mixture of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders, a mix that seems to be popular with several other schools that we've visited on this trip. The advisory meets four times per week: twice for 15-minutes, once for 20-minutes, and once for 30-minutes. The faculty advisor for each group stays with the same group of students throughout the entire middle school experience. The advisors keep tabs on each of their advisee's academics and are the primary communicators with parents (included with that are two parent conferences per year). The advisors use Google docs to keep a constant line of communication open with each student's teachers on their progress.


Each year students at The Park School takes a 'Life Skills' class. In the 6th grade, this class centers on transitioning into middle school life, values education (Who are you?), healthy lifestyles, and alcohol education. The 7th grade focuses on inviting a variety of speakers with topics related to developing the idea of identity, whereas the 8th graders focus on making choices, human relationships, and community service. In addition, sex education is part of both the 7th and 8th grade 'Life Skills' class. The idea of offering a 'Life Skills' class outside the advisory arena seems to be a trend in many of the schools that we've visited.
The Park School has both computers on carts and dedicated computer labs with a mixture of both PCs and Apples. In addition, each classroom is equipped with an LED projector for class presentations. All students take a technology class that includes keyboarding skills (word processing, spreadsheets, databases), movie making, and programming.
Here are a few other interesting aspects to The Park School:
1. They do not issue grades on their report cards until the 9th grade.
2. They have a learning resource teacher that writes learning plans for students who need the support.
3. They have a high ropes challenge course on campus.
4. They offer summer grants to teachers who would like to develop campus programs or curriculum within the school.
5. They offer a 'new faculty' forum to transition new teachers into their school.
The Park School does a wide range of terrific things for a school of its size. I wouldn't hesitate to send my child to this wonderful school. At the end of our visit, we had a very insightful discussion over lunch that certainly demonstrated the dedication of their teachers and administrators, the love that they have for their students, and the mutual appreciation that they have for each others work. This is certainly a school that I could feel at home with!



This past week, Carolynn and I took the time to drive to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to see the National Military Park. We did the smart thing by hiring a guide that drove with us on a two-hour drive through the battlefields and monuments. Our guide certainly brought the three-day battle to life for us! I must sadly admit that I didn't know much about the Battle of Gettysburg before the tour, but came away with a much greater understanding and felt the gravity of the events that took place at Gettysburg in July 1863. As we drove and listened to our guide describe all the major events of three bloodiest days on American soil, I tried to imagine what it must have been like to be there during that time, both from the North and South perspectives. I followed up on our visit by watching the movie "Gettysburg" over the last two days. I thought the film did a great job of matching up with what our guide explained to us and in offering both perspectives very well. I certainly have a greater appreciation for that battle. After the visit, we wandered around the town of Gettysburg for a while and had lunch in a wonderful old tavern that occupied a building that survived the battle in 1863. The tavern is run by descendants of the original landowner of the property whose last name was Dobbin. It was interesting for me to find out that Dobbin and his wife had 10 children (lots of kids to help with the daily chores). Soon after, his wife died leaving him with all those children. Astonishing enough, a few year later he married a women with nine children…. imagine 19 children in one family!! I feel for his second wife, as he then died a few years later and left her with a sizable family. I told many of my colleagues at Punahou that I would not do a "Norm Cox" and explain to you all the great eateries that we are discovering on this trip. However, the food was very good at the 'Dobbin Tavern.'

On Thursday (2/25), Carolynn and I visited Garrison Forest School, a small K–12 girls school in Owings Mills, Md. There are 183 girls (class size = 16, 80 students at each grade level) in their 6 - 8 grade middle school that is housed in a new LEEDS certified (silver award) sustainable building. This school is well known in the Baltimore area for their tradition in teaching the 'classics' and for their tremendous equestrian programs that are available for their students. They are also a boarding school that has about 20% of their high school student body living on campus. There is even a handful of 8th graders that come from overseas and board at the school.
All middle school students have a PC Tablet that the family has purchased to use in their classes (the school supports the families with software and tech support). Each classroom has a ceiling mounted wireless projection system but I didn't see any smart boards. In addition to the one-to-one PC laptop program, they have a very nice computer lab filled with Macs to support middle school productions such as the school newspaper, film-making, podcasting, and songwriting.


Garrison Forest seems to have a solid advisory program that meets daily for 15-minutes at the end of the day (called G.I.T. = get it together) and a 40-minute weekly gathering either for the 8-10 advisees to meet or a larger grade level gathering. The G.I.T. at the end of the day is to make sure students planners are in order and that they have plan of action for completing whatever work they have to accomplish and to address any issues that may have come up during the day that needs attention before going home. During the 40-minute weekly advisory, the activities are geared toward the specific issues including social justice, teaching tolerance, building rapport, and collaborative group work.


The science sequence of classes in Garrison Forest's middle school include Earth science in the 6th grade, Life science in the 7th grade, and Astronomy in the 8th grade. The science department seems to weave technology into their curriculum very nicely. Interestingly enough, all of their core classes (Math, Science, English, Social Studies) meet for 80-minutes while all other classes meet for 40-minutes. All students take two languages, Latin and a choice of French, Spanish, or Chinese. I'm still finding it interesting that a great many schools we are visiting offer Chinese, even without much of a Chinese population in the vicinity.
Garrison Forest offers a 'Minimester' for a week in between semesters that includes exploratory mixed-grade level mini courses that includes a wide variety of activities from musical theater to CSI forensic science. These mini courses change from year to year based on the expertise of the teachers and the interests of their students.
Teachers have a grade level meeting once a week built into their daily schedule specifically to talk about the students in their classes and to share ideas on how to best support them. In addition, teachers meet once every three weeks to specifically plan and implement integrated curriculum.


Garrison Forest secured a grant from the E.E. Ford Foundation to create 'The James Center for Public Purpose." Although this center is in it's infancy, they have already set up four areas of focus that includes, (1) Partnering with Johns Hopkins University in 'Women in Science, Engineering, and Public Health'; (2) 'Civic Literacy, Public Policy and Service'; (3) 'Financial Literacy and Social Entrepreneurship; and (4) 'Pathways to Leadership.' Individual or groups of teachers are encouraged to tap into this 'Center' to create new curriculum on campus and new partnerships off campus to enhance the learning of their students. This sounds a little like Punahou's 'Luke Center for Public Purpose', only with a slightly different focus.
Last Tuesday (3/1), Carolynn and I drove down to Washington, D.C. to stay with her godparents David and Corrine Scott (Carolynn's middle name is Corrine … thus the nickname CC). They have a townhouse just a few blocks from the National Mall where most of the museums and monuments are located. What a convenience for us to be able to get around to all the popular attractions here in DC. While here, besides all the wonderful attractions in area (more on this later), we have visited Sidwell Friends School and Georgetown Day School over the past two days.

After negotiating the CRAZY morning traffic of Washington, D.C. we arrived at Sidwell Friends School. Some of you probably know that they have gotten some press lately regarding President Obama's kids enrollment AND for their LEEDS certified building (Platinum level) that was completed as an add-on to their school about four years ago. Certainly their new building is the most interesting part of our visit. It was a VERY busy day at Sidwell Friends, so our visitation was somewhat limited.
The middle school is composed of students in grades 5th through 8th with the 5th and 6th grade experience fairly different than the 7th and 8th grade experience. While the 5th/6th gr. students have a homeroom experience each day, the 7th/8th graders have a mixed advisory that meets once a week. This mixed advisory includes 11 or 12 7th and 8th grade students that stay together for two years (students also stay on the same team for two years). They seem to have a very strong Advisory program that is centered on the topics of the meaning of friendship, racism, equality and stereotypes, stress and time management, substance use and abuse, conflict resolution, adolescent sexuality, and self-esteem and body issues.
The science curriculum at Sidwell Friends includes a general science class (emphasis on Earth Sci. and weather) at the 5th grade level, Physical science in the 6th grade, Human Biology and Life science in 7th grade, and Environmental Science in the 8th grade. Part of the 8th grade science curriculum is a two week unit on the sustainably using their building as a focus. After this unit, several students take turns leading the many building tours that are conducted by the school each year (they have several hundred requests for tour each year because of their building). We were led on such a tour that showed aspects such as heating and cooling systems, the use of natural lighting, automatic movement sensitive classroom lighting, recycling of runoff water, water treatment system, a living roof, etc. Overall a very impressive building with impressive students who know how their building works and how sustainable it is. It is obvious that the students are proud of their school.



From a technology standpoint, all of their classrooms have a smart board and a projection system that are used daily. They started a one-to-one laptop pilot program last year with their 7th graders (using PC's … Toshiba) and continued with the program this year with the 7th graders using the Companion Touch computers. They are currently at the crossroads as to whether they will continue with the one-to-one laptop program, although I got the feeling that the "horse is out of the barn" and that they will continue it in some fashion next year. They are concerned about how much this program costs the families even with using a much cheaper laptop in the form of the Companion Touch ($400).


The most interesting integrated unit that we heard about at Sidwell Friends was in the form of setting up an urban ecology research station in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institute. In this program students and teachers capture and monitor a selection of bee population that occupies their campus. The students capture the bees and "pin" them while the Smithsonian identifies the bees. Through this program they integrate the use of Google maps and end the unit with a research paper and an oral data presentation. Impressively enough, they have documented 14 varieties of native bees that have never been documented.
While in the Washington, D.C. area we also visited Georgetown Day School. It is a school with two campuses of about 1090 students with 230 of them in the middle school. This school was founded by friends of Eleanor Roosevelt who wanted to see schools integrate students from diverse backgrounds. This diversity is still very evident today during our visitation to Georgetown Day School. Its diversity shows up in its curriculum as it offers French, Spanish, Latin, Chinese (starting next year), and Arabic. It is Impressive to see so many languages being offered in such a small middle school. In addition, they make it a point to stress equality, freedom, and justice throughout their curriculum.


We were very fortunate to visit the school on "Science Day." There were several science activities going on throughout the 7th and 8th grade rooms where demonstrations by the visiting Georgetown High School students were being conducted. There were several 'rocket' demonstrations going both in the classrooms and out on their athletic field. We attended an 8th grade demo on the electromagnetic spectrum and the energy that light/atoms can create, by the High School AP chemistry class. We saw very interactive activities that utilized spectroscopes, student made robots with solar panels on top and being moved by light energy, and a demonstration of electrolysis and its tie in with the hydrogen fuel cells. It was a very impressive display of H.S. students teaching and the intelligent responses from the 8th grade audience. The science curriculum in their middle school includes a general science class in the 6th grade, Biology in 7th, and Chemistry in 8th grade.


It is interesting to see that most schools, like Georgetown Day, who use PCs in their computer labs, also have a small computer lab with Apples for movie making, year books, podcasting, etc. In addition to the three computer labs, Georgetown Day also has 2 sets of classroom laptops that are checked out by classroom teachers for their projects. They have a 7th and 8th grade integrated project each year that integrates Science, technology, and English. Each student chooses a native species of animals in the Chesapeake Bay and researches the animal. They then partner with a local organization that helps the students learn more about them through the research they do in the bay. It culminates in a student computer generated pamphlet of their organism.
Georgetown Day has a 7th and 8th grade advisory program with 10 students in each advisory that meets three times a week for 30 minutes. It is centered around the idea that teachers are the students advocate and helps to track their progress in developing the necessary skills to be a good student. The 7th grade advisory has a ten-week period where students study their own heritage through various family members. This activity includes a 'Heritage Lunch' on ten consecutive Thursday lunches where each student prepares a lunch that represents their heritage and shares the food (and recipes) with other members of their advisory.
Service learning is very important facet of their advisory/curriculum. There is some sort of service learning project going on throughout the school year as there is a scheduled 2-hour block of time devoted to service learning every Wednesday for all middle school students. Projects are held on campus as well as at off campus locations.
Other items of interest at Georgetown Day include:
1. All students in the middle school rotate through all the arts programs (vocal, visual, and performing art) during the school year.
2. The middle school has a dedicated learning specialist that coordinates with teachers in supporting students that are struggling or that have a learning difference.
3. All members of the school community are called by their first names, from the head of school to the kindergartners.

Now that the 'school' business is completed of this blog entry, I can now briefly tell you some of the other wonderful things that CC and I have experienced lately. We have visited Harper's Ferry, The Hampton house (in Baltimore), Mt. Vernon, The National Museum of the American Indian, and (briefly) the National Art Gallery. Here are a few of my observations/impression/pictures:
1. To learn more about John Brown's takeover of the armory at Harper's Ferry is very fascinating. He was thought of as sort of a crackpot back then and is now is a well-respected abolitionist.



2. We took advantage of our annual 'National Parks' pass and visited one of the old plantations of the Baltimore area called the Hampton House. A very impressive history of the Ridgely Family who built the largest house in the US (at the time - 1790).
3. George Washington certainly found a beautiful place in Mt. Vernon along the Potomac River. We went on a tour of the mansion and then walked around the rest of the grounds at our leisure. The view of the Potomac is spectacular, to say the least.




4. The National Museum of the American Indian, a relatively new museum was very impressive in the display of so many Indian cultures. It actually includes some of the Indians in South America and Canada.
5. Although I'm not much into Art Galleries, the National Art Gallery was spectacular. We, very briefly, went into the museum to see some fabulous impressionist paintings by Degas, Monet, Picasso, and Cassat (among others). I can’t believe I'm saying this, but we need to go back for a longer look at this gallery.
6. Even though it wasn't open to visit, we stopped to see the National Cathedral. Now that is what I call a church ... I'm running out of adjectives ... but is SPECTACULAR!! It easily rivals some of the churches I saw in Europe.



CC and I continue to say to each other how truly lucky we are to have this opportunity to visit these wonderful schools and to take in the history and the beauty of our country!!

Both Carolynn and I have settled in nicely after the onslaught of two blizzards, house sitting for an old friend of Carolynn's in a townhouse in Towson, Maryland (a suburb of Baltimore). Baltimore didn't seem as well prepared for all the snow that we got (over 5 feet of snow). The schools were closed for the entire week, so we weren't able to connect with schools to plan any visits. All the schools (private and public) seemed to all be open again by the middle of last week. We had an opportunity to spend a day visiting St. Paul's Boys School last Friday and The Friends School of Baltimore yesterday. St. Paul's Boys School is a school that Carolynn taught at for ten years (1991 – 2001), where she started and developed the Japanese language and culture program. By the time that she left St. Paul's in 2001 there was a sequential Japanese language program through the 10th grade.


St. Paul's Boys School is a K – 12 School with about 700 students (270 in the 5-8 Middle School). Once again we are visiting a school where an entire grade level is considered a 'team.' Punahou is truly unique in its size having enough students to have 4 teams at each of the 7th and 8th grade level (3 in the 6th grade). I was impressed with the technology that they've integrated into the middle school at St. Paul's. They use mostly PCs where selected classrooms have a bank of computers for the students to use daily. One of the English teachers uses a bank of Apples instead. Some of the classrooms have a smart board with a document camera and a projection system. The science classroom that I visited also used Smart Technology's Senteo interactive response system. They use this system mainly as an assessment tool, but as they demonstrated it to me, I began to see some of the other uses that it could provide for a classroom beyond just assessment. They had 25 student handheld Senteo devices (and accompanying software) that cost them about $1,400. It seemed to me a very impressive system. This interactive system could perhaps enhance the use of our Smart boards at Punahou. Look out capital budget! The most impressive technology initiative that St. Paul's has is a student run 24-hour radio station where there is a mixture of live and recorded programming. Students air daily radio shows (each about 15 minutes in length) that is looped continually throughout the day. These programs are interspersed with music that is run off an Apple iTunes list. They have a transmitter that is able to reach radio listeners on an FM frequency within a 1-mile radius of the school. They have set up outside speakers in the pick up areas so that waiting students and parents can hear the broadcast. The broadcasts include programs that briefly explain what major projects that students may be working on to live broadcasting of athletic events. They also stream these broadcasts on the school website: http://www.stpaulsschool.org/home/index.aspx

St. Paul's Middle School science curriculum includes a mixture of several sciences at the 5th grade including physical science, health, earth science, and plant/animal science. The 6th grade offering is Health Science where students study cells, human systems, nutrition, sex education, and decision-making skills. The 7th grade is a year of Earth Science and the 8th grade is Chemistry. This sequence of topics through the middle school seems to be unique when comparing it to others schools that we've visited on this sabbatical trip.

St. Paul's School seems to have several programs in place to help students with their learning differences. They have a dedicated learning specialist for the middle school that has several things in place to support struggling students. As with all the middle schools we've visited, they have a weekly teachers meeting at each grade level specifically to talk about the progress of their students. The 'red flagged' students are then talked about at the weekly administrative meeting. All middle school students that do not take a foreign language, have a learning difference or an executive function problem are required to take a 'Seminar' class (size = 4-8) that provides them with some academic coaching and study skills help. In addition, there is a more individualized study skill help provided by the learning specialist. All-in-all, there is seems to be a lot help given to the students who need it … kids don’t seem to fall between the cracks at St. Paul's.


Admittedly, St. Paul's Advisory program is a work in progress. There are 10 - 11 students in each advisory that only meets twice a month for 40-minutes (some would like to meet more often … once a week at least). The themes of their Advisory includes developing responsibility in the 6th grade, "Who am I?" in the 7th grade, and leadership / "Who are We" in the 8th grade. There are also programs in place throughout the advisory days that develop character, relationships, and school spirit.
St. Paul's Boys Middle School seems to do a great job in educating their students and in some respects much like a small Punahou. Although the 5th grade is part of the Middle School, their experience is different from the 6 - 8 grade experience. The 5th grade, instead of having one teacher for each of the core subjects, they (like Punahou) have a pair of switch teachers … one for Math/Science, the other for Language Arts and Social Studies.
Yesterday Carolynn and I had the pleasure of visiting our first "Friends" School in this area. We visited a fabulous little school called The Friends School of Baltimore that was recommended by good friend David Mallory. David and I had a scheduled meet planned next month in Philadelphia, but sadly David past away last month.


The Friends School of Baltimore has a 6 - 8 grade Middle School with 250 students that seemed to have a lot going on in terms of technology and curriculum integration. Their curriculum is very researched based and project oriented that emphasizes thinking skills and balances both independent and group work. We had the pleasure of seeing the beginning stages of a 6th grade week long integrated Math and Science project called 'Business Math.' Each student was given a fictitious job with a monthly salary and a family situation ranging from being single to a wife/husband (they actually called them 'partners') and 4 children. They were tasked with running a business and balancing their family's budget (including the check book). Along they way they had to make many choices including renting a house (or buying), buying a car (or using public transportation), and daily food choices. The science connection in this project seemed to revolve around nutrition. Students study the nutritional value of the food available in the local grocery stores, caloric intake, reading food labels, and the cost of each food item. Some of the students were also tasked with running a grocery store, a car dealership, or a Real Estate Company. Several parents running those types of businesses were brought in to help students understand some of the intricacies of operating those businesses.

In addition to this integrated unit, there are three other main integrated units offered that seemed to define each grade level. In addition to this 'Business Math' unit, the 6th grade is also involved in a much longer project called 'Create a Culture.' This curriculum is a study of various countries of the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa; its history, government, clothing, music, and socioeconomic situation. Students then created their own fictitious country that were included on a map that is displayed in the hallway so that they could all see where they were located in relation to the other countries. Obvious relationships (like trade relations) began to emerge between countries that were adjacent to each other. This project culminates in 'Create a Culture Day' where students dress up in their native (sustainably made) clothing and performed a previously composed national anthem for their country. At the conclusion of the day, they all shared the food that they created that represented their country. CC and I both wished that we could've have been around during that culture day.

The 7th grade defining integrated curriculum is called 'Neighborhoods,' where students study the socioeconomic aspects of existing neighborhoods with the Baltimore area. CC and I didn't learn as much about this project as we spent the majority of our time understanding the other projects. The 8th grade's defining unit is a research-based U.S. History group project that culminates in a 10-minute video documentary (and a story board display) for any important event in history since World War II. The use of technology, research (esp. the discernment of legitimate internet sites), and group work seem to be the major components of this project. At the end of the presentation of all of the documentaries, there is an Academy award program that celebrates different aspects of the documentaries (i.e. best video, best narration, etc.).
In addition to two computer labs (one Macs, one PCs), each classroom has a smart board, document camera, and projection systems. Virtually all the smart boards were in use as we visited various classrooms.

The Friends School of Baltimore seems to have a well-established advisory that meets everyday for 10-15 minutes (more like a homeroom) and for 45-minutes every Friday. Each advisory group is composed of 10-12 students that are a mixture of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. Their advisor stays with them for the 3 years of Middle School. Their advisory program centers around community service, student led assembly presentations, and selected movies (with open-ended questions that follow up in a small group setting).

I can’t end this blog entry without telling you about two other significant opportunities that we've had. We spent part of a day last week touring Fort McHenry and understanding more about the War of 1812. The tour started with a 5-minute movie describing the fort and the war from the perspective of an American doctor and ended with a description the creation of a poem written by Francis Scott Key that, as I'm sure you know, became our National Anthem in the 1930s. As the movie ended the curtains of the auditorium opened up to a great view of Ft McHenry (w/ the Flag waving in the wind) and a men's chorus singing an acapella version of our national anthem. A very moving, patriotic moment for me! The pictures of the fort below show what we saw.
This is what it probably looked like back in 1812:

The other opportunity (thanks to my wonderful sister Kay) was to attend the 'Celtic Women' concert. The best concert I have ever been to. If you have never seen or heard the Celtic Women sing/perform, you are certainly missing one of the pleasures in the world. Maybe this link to a you tube video will suffice for now … Enjoy … it's worth the four and half minutes to see this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faKFcfytlxU&feature=related

ALOHA!

Aloha from Baltimore!! We're here after several long days of driving just before two huge winter storms hit the east coast dumping over 4 feet of snow on us. We've been snowed in for the last several days and are digging our way out today under sunny skies (I should say CC is digging us out as I'm still in rehab).


We left Minneapolis on Tuesday morning (2/1) and spent the day driving to Chicago where we stayed with our friends, the Johnsons. What a truly amazing family!! Murray and Diana Johnson's have four terrific kids, Megan and Maren (twins), Troy, and Trent … all transplanted from India. We had a terrific time with them as we celebrated CC's birthday a little early. We were disappointed not to be able to have much time with them, to visit schools, or to see a couple of RAGBRAI (Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa) friends Steve and Janet. We hope that we will have time to do that on our way back west some time in late April. Blame the delay on me that I caused by falling on the ice. I am recovering nicely in my rehab. Since I was able to start my rehab a week after surgery, my right hand does not need its splint anymore, even though it isn't completely healed yet. The plates and screws are holding it together nicely (don't worry, I won't post anymore "gross" x-rays or pictures). I still have to wear the removable splint on my left wrist for another month. I continue to spend several hours a day with stretching and strengthening exercises on both right hand and left wrist. There is still a long way to go until I return to normal … I'm making measurable gains each day!
After leaving Chicago, we drove to Pittsburg where we stayed with Greg Bell, a former teacher (w/ CC) at ASSETS School. We had a great time catching up with Greg over a wonderful dinner that he cooked for us the night we arrived. While in Pittsburg, we were told of a winter storm that was approaching the east coast, so we knew that we had to get going fairly quickly to beat the storm to Baltimore. CC and I had heard of a great little school in Pittsburg from CC's former boss Bob Hallett who is currently the Executive Director of the E.E. Ford Foundation. After numerous on-line Weather Channel updates, we decided to take a chance and spend a few hours at Winchester Thurston School before leaving Pittsburg for Baltimore. It certainly was a good choice as Winchester Thurston is a terrific little school with some innovative programs in place.
Winchester Thurston (WT) is a preK -12 urban school on the outskirts of Pittsburg that has an enrollment of 639 students (average class size – 16). We went to visit because we'd heard great things about their "City as Our Campus" program that has just expanded at the high school level due to a large grant from the E.E. Ford Foundation. The programs goal is to include various resources within the city to offer " …unique learning experiences that instill a life long love of learning in their students…" and at the same time provide needed services to their immediate community. This includes developing an internship at the Carnegie Museum of Art, partnering with the Pittsburgh Public Theater, and developing a joint middle and high school internship at the Pittsburgh Zoo's KidScience program. They also have future plans to reach out further into the various Pittsburg communities. While talking with students that led us on a tour of the school, it was evident that this program was having a very positive impact on their learning while developing a need to do community service work. A very impressive program!
I know that this was a bit of a departure for me on my quest to seeing the best practices of middles schools. In fact I would have passed this visitation because of the approaching storm and the need to get to Baltimore before its onslaught. I'm glad that CC pressed me to visit. I now wished I had time to see more of what the middle school has to offer. I did find out a little about their science curriculum. Their curriculum includes an Introduction to Chemistry, Microorganisms, Ecology, and the Earth's history in the 6th grade, Meteorology, Animal Science, Human Body and Genetics in the 7th grade, and Oceanography, Marine Biology, Astronomy, and Plate Tectonics in the 8th grade. I found that to be a very different progression of the curriculum compared to most schools that we've visited. Other aspects of the school that stood out for me included: (1) A very strong Performing Arts Program (esp. Dance); (2) A middle and high school Robotics program; and 3) A wide range of elective offerings from Leadership to study skills, from animation to movie making, and from Mock Trials to 'Zines (a print making elective). I was very impressed with the range of unique electives that don’t seem to be in place at most schools that we've visited.

The most impressive aspect of WT Middle School is the way that they've integrated their curriculum. Two examples of current integration at WT include, "The 13 Colonies" in the 7th grade and "The Holocaust and Modern Genocide" in the 8th grade. The entire 7th grade is divided up into 13 groups to represent each of the original colonies. This project was a collaboration between English, Social Studies, and Art. Each colony discovered that they couldn't successfully survive on their own and began developing relationships that culminated in a Declaration of Independence. The Holocaust project was a collaborative effort between History, English, and Art. It culminated in an Art show that was created and designed by the students themselves. Other schools in the area were invited to visit the display and were so moved by it that one school in particular began studying Darfur that included fund raising efforts to send support to the children affected by genocide.
I must admit, I've missed being at the Punahou Carnival this year. The food and seeing old friends is what I missed the most! Oh well, I guess that there will be other carnivals in my future. I heard that because Carnival Friday coincided with a 'Furlough Friday' in our Public Schools, that the crowds we incredibly large. I would assume that it would translate into greater proceeds from the carnival. If that turns out to be true, perhaps it would be a good gesture for Punahou to pass on some of the increased proceeds to the public schools to help ease their financial difficulties. Just a suggestion!

I'm sorry that it's been so long since my last blog entry. Since my accident and subsequent surgeries, I've not been able to do very much except rest, read (mostly fantasy baseball stuff), rehab, and an occasional doctors visit.
I had surgery to insert a metal plate and 7 screws in my left wrist (broken in three places) and another metal plate with 6 screws in my right hand (4th metacarpal) on January 7th. It was a bit unfortunate to injure both sides but VERY fortunate to find an orthopedic surgeon that specializes in hands and wrists and that could perform both surgeries on the same day. Having the plates and screws to hold things together while the bones heal allows me to rehabilitate the soft tissue (muscles, tendons, and ligaments) much sooner and more aggressively (than w/o the metal).


I'm sorry if the x-rays above are a bit of 'TMI' (Too Much Information) for some of you. I thought it might be interesting for some of you (esp. my former students). Instead of fiberglass casts, I have two hard-plastic splints that I can take off to do my rehab. It amazes me that my therapist got me going on moving and stretching both the wrist and hand so SOON (one-week after the surgeries). As a result of stretching about 4-5 hrs a day on my wrist and hand (I certainly have the time), I'm now able to make a fist with both hands and have improved the movement in my left wrist quite a bit. There is a lot of stiffness in my right hand but no real pain. The rehab my left wrist is a bit painful to move in all the different directions that the therapist requires. Percocet and Aleve help me get through the therapy that I need. Both the doctor and therapist are very pleased with the progress and will release us to continue on our sabbatical journey in about a week and a half. I'll have a therapist and a doctor to check in with in Baltimore.
We will continue to visit middle schools when we arrive in Baltimore where we are going to be house sitting for a friend for a couple of months. Our scheduled visits to a few Chicago schools were postponed until our return trip back across the country in April.
While in Minneapolis, it's been very easy to get caught up in the Vikings mania. This town is absolutely crazy for their football team. We will enjoy watching the Minnesota / New Orleans game this evening. This town is also nuts for Hockey. The U.S. Pond Hockey Championships are being help this weekend just a few blocks for where we are staying. There are thousands of hockey players (some much too old to be playing) that show up for this age-group event. The lake that it is held on has 25 hockey rinks carved out for the hundreds of games that take place over the weekend. Pretty amazing stuff!

I continue to really enjoy all the comments and emails that I've been getting. It has really helped be get through all this therapy. I especially love hearing from my former students like Sayu, Jamps, and Sarah. Rick, and Allison have now joined in to comment too…. Thanks guys! ALOHA!

I certainly hope that all of you had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!! With schools not in session over the last two weeks, there is nothing to report on anything related to my 'educational' sabbatical. However, there are some other interesting things that CC and I have done that might be of interest to some of you. Along with CC's brother Steve (and his two sons) I experienced my first Ice Hockey game. The tickets (cost and availability) of the U. of Minnesota and the Minnesota Wild (the NHL team) were a bit outrageous so we settled for attending an elite high school tournament. As it turns out, it was a good choice. The games were surprisingly fast-paced and very enjoyable to watch. The games were very clean w/o any of the violence that you would often see in an NHL game. I've become a bit more interested in the game and actually watched the Boston Bruins / Philadelphia Flyers game from Fenway Park yesterday. I enjoyed the high school games much more!
CC, her mom, and I went to see the display of the Titanic at the Science Museum of Minnesota across the Mississippi in St. Paul. It was a very impressive display of photos and artifacts from the sinking of the Titanic. What was most impressive was the personal stories that have emerged over the years after the sinking. Most of the stories that you and I have heard were stories from the affluent people on board. There are even better stories that few people have heard about that came from the less affluent. As we entered the exhibit, we were each given a boarding pass similar to the ones given to the actual passengers. The last room of the exhibit had a display of all the names of the people on board and whether they lived or not. This really seemed to give this exhibit a very human perspective as everyone had to find you whether 'you survived or not'. This exhibit is one of the highlights to our visit here in Minnesota.

The snow and the cold weather came with a vengeance here in Minneapolis. We had a VERY white Christmas with some excellent conditions for sledding (we enjoyed several days of that). One of the days right after Christmas it warmed up to over 30o and some of the snow started to melt which, of course, froze again very quickly as the temperature dropped the next day. As I'm sure most of you know, this sheet of ice creates some hazards just getting around. It then snowed again adding a layer over the ice giving it some traction to be able to go on some walks (and runs) around the lake. I waited until I saw others out running before I ventured out on another run.

Last Wednesday I decided to go a run and was being very careful about the ice. About 3.5 miles into the run I took a fall. To make a very long story short, after a trip to the emergency room, I was told that I had broken my right hand (4th metacarpal) and a broken left wrist. I have an appointment to see an orthopedic surgeon on Monday to schedule some surgeries as the ER docs told me that both hand and wrist will need to be pinned. I'm hoping that the doctor will tell me something better than that … but we'll just have to wait and see. I'm actually feeling very fortunate, as it could've been a lot worse!! We all learn from whatever we experience and I'm sure that there is a lot that I can learn from this experience. For my older Punahou colleagues, I'm sure that you remember fellow science teacher Harold Lee breaking both wrists playing tennis many years ago. I can now get a taste of what it was like for him. Needless to say, this is cramping my style a bit (and CC's too … poor thing) and will delay our travels east. We are still planning to continue on our sabbatical plan as much as possible. I'm feeling as good as can be expected and will be just fine. CC is an absolute gem it taking care of the things that I can't … she is truly amazing!
For those of you who think I've been a little long winded in my blog entries, this set back will certainly fix that problem. I'll let you know more about my recovery and subsequent travel plans as they unfold. Don't ever take the human hand for granted! ALOHA!

I know that the first day of winter is December 21st, but sure feels like winter has already arrived. I'll put it this way – it has warmed up enough to snow again. (yes you're reading it correctly). We got another 4 inches of snow two nights ago. After waking up in sub-zero temperatures several mornings in a row, it has now warmed up to the teens, this afternoon. Having snow all around certainly makes the bare landscape look much nicer!

Since my last blog entry, Carolynn and I have visited two schools, Providence Academy, and Minnehaha Academy.


Providence Academy is a new independent PreK – 12 school that offers a traditional Catholic education for about 900 students (205 in the middle school). They seem to offer a good education but nothing really unique or special about it. It's probably because they are new and still trying figure out the best programs to offer. A lot seems to be in flux. It was started in 2001 with the idea that they wanted to develop a Catholic school with a more rigorous education. They thought that the other Catholic schools in this area had too much emphasis on athletics and not enough on a basic college prep education.




Providence Academy has a newly renovated facility that is VERY nice (as you hopefully see in the pictures). They have wide hallways, wonderful student gathering space (looks like a very large living room with a fireplace), a very nice gym, and spacious classrooms with old style traditional dark wooden desks and chairs. The facility seems to be patterned after prep schools that I imagine exist in the northeast. Religion is core class (along with Math, English, Science, and Social Studies) that is offered at each grade level every other day. This is where their character education is taught. With most schools that we visit, it is the advisory program that offers the character development activities for their students. Providence Academy has a program called 'Ultima' that carves out time for guest speakers, clubs, mini-courses, and service projects. They have Ultima everyday at the end of the school day for a homework check and organizational time before they head home from school. They have and extended Ultima every Wednesday for their other activities. Providence Academy teaches a once-a week course in study skills at each grade level. The 6th grade focuses on time management, organization, and test preparation; the 7th grade focuses on the book, 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens"; and the 8th grade focuses on how to write a research paper (including formatting, internet research, plagiarism, etc.). Providence admittedly has limited technology. Their technology amounts to having two computer labs (PCs) and a cart of wireless laptops which they use primarily to teach the kids how to use Word, Excel, Power Point, and a little bit of web page design … not much else is done. Being a young school they don’t have an endowment and thus have limited resources for technology and scholarships. As far as students with learning differences, although there are accommodation plans in place, there is no learning specialist in the school. Every other school that we've visited has had at least one full-time learning specialist to support students and teachers. There is no teaming in place for the students but there are teams of teachers with kids in common where they talk about supporting their students and brainstorm class activities. In science, their department follows the 'Core Knowledge Science Curriculum' with the 6th grade covering Earth Science and a little of the human body (lymphatic and immune systems); the 7th grade covers some beginning Chemistry and Cell Biology; and the 8th grade curriculum includes Physics (laws of motion), Electricity, Sound, and Food Chemistry. I promised some of my foreign language colleagues at Punahou that I would ask about language offerings. Interestingly enough all of the schools that we've visited in Minneapolis, except Providence Academy, offers Chinese, Spanish, and French. Providence offers Spanish, French and Latin. Spanish and French seem the standard language offerings, but I wonder why Chinese as there is not a large Chinese community in Minneapolis. My Science colleague and friend at Punahou will jokingly tell you that it is just another sign that the Chinese are taking over the world.


Minnehaha Academy is a PreK – 12 School on three separate campuses where two of the campuses are set along the Mississippi River (literally across the street). Their 6-8 Middle School has 225 students (100 of them in the 8th grade). Their Advisory program is central to their Middle School as we spent just about all of our time with their Counselor and Advisory guru talking about advisories. Minnehaha Academy's advisory meets four times a week for 30-minutes with admittedly too many students (20) in each advisory. Ideally they would like to have 12 in each advisory but the tough economic times have hit them pretty hard. They have a carefully coordinated advisory so that all students at a particular grade level have a common experience. Their advisory activities include all the usual activities that you'd expect: community service, study skill development, team building, daily homework check, time management, etc. Within their advisory, they also include a fully integrate project at each grade level based on a particular agreed upon theme. It is then up to each core teacher to find a connection to that theme. This years' themes include 'Winter' (6th grade), 'The River' (7th grade), and 'Careers' (8th grade). As an example, in the 'River' unit, the English teacher has the students read Tom Sawyer, the science and math teacher takes the students down to the Mississippi River to collect data and to calculate information related to the speed of the currents, and the Social Studies teacher does activities to help the kids understand how the Mississippi River supports the cities of Minneapolis and St Paul. Because our conversations were so much about their advisory program, I left without knowing much about their science curriculum other than 6th grade is general science, 7th grade is life science, and 8th grade is earth science. I found it interesting and unique to find out that teams of teachers meet before school, from 7:30 – 8:30, to talk about their students and to discuss their advisory activities. Any parent conference that might be needed is completed during that time (the school day is from 8:45 – 3:05). Minnehaha Academy is a well-established independent school that seems to have as good an advisory program as any of the schools that we visited so far on this trip.



Christmas is right around the corner, so I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and I hope that you have a lot of quality time to spend with your families during your winter break. I will miss all of the Punahou excitement as school ends for the Christmas break this week. I will also miss being with my mom, sister (although I will see her soon), and brother and his family this Christmas. Mele Kalikimaka!

Happy December! I certainly can tell that winter is approaching as it is snowing outside as we speak (or as I write). The snow flurries started yesterday morning with the temperatures dropping down into the teens. It makes it a bit more difficult to get outside to run (impossible and dangerous to bike), so CC and I have made it a point to go for a walk each day. The only real problem is that it takes about 20 minutes just to get dressed to go outside. The daily temperature is expected to stay below freezing so I'm sure that the snow will stick around … probably throughout the duration of our stay here in Minneapolis. We were able to get out to visit a school yesterday … Mounds Park Academy in St. Paul. Before I get to the school visitation, let me tell you about some of the 'other' things that we've been up to.

Besides going on daily walks (or runs) around one of the many lakes that Minneapolis offers, I've been doing a lot or reading. Most of it is what some people would call junk fiction (The Wrecker and Blue Medusa by Clive Cussler; The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen; I, Alex Cross by James Patterson; etc.). I am also reading some 'real' stuff like Brain Rules by John Medina. This book was suggested reading by our Middle School Principal Mike Walker about a year ago. CC and I are both finding Brain Rules fascinating and enjoyable. It explains the twelve guiding principles for thriving in a work setting, your home life, and in school. Whether you are a teacher, parent, or just someone who wants to learn more about how the human brain functions without too much of the confusing science behind it, I would highly recommend it. I've seen it on the bookshelves of several school administrators as we visit schools.



The other day CC and I went on a walk around Lake Harriet and spotted a bald eagle. It seemed to be all alone and hungry so a local fisherman was tempting it with a fish as it was being harassed by other birds in the area. Sometimes you hope to see a bald eagle when out in the wilderness, but to see one so close to civilization seems a bit odd.
On one of our walks along the Mississippi River we run across the jumbled mess of steel from the bridge that collapsed about a year and a half ago and within a few steps we can see the 'new' bridge that was built in it's place. The twisted steel that you see in the pictures will be used in creating a memorial sculpture.





Some of the Canadian Geese are still here fatting up before they take flight for warmer pastures in the south. I'm surprised that they are still here as it must be pretty cold for them.

Yesterday CC and I visited Mounds Park Academy (MPA) just on the other side of the Mississippi River in St. Paul. It is a fairly new school (1982) that was started by a small group of teachers from Blake School (that I reported on in an early blog entry). It is a K -12 school that has about 600 students (188 in the 5-8 middle school). Probably the most interesting aspect to MPA is the way that they have organized their advisory program. The 5th grade advisory experience seems to be a bit different than 6-8 as they have 20 in each advisory that meets every afternoon for 35 minutes. The 6th grade has 12 students in an advisory that is separated by gender that also meets everyday for 35 minutes. In the 7th and 8th advisories, they also have 12 students separated by gender that meets every other day for 35 minutes. When asked about why they separate the advisory by gender, the middle school head explained that they discovered that the activities they do and issues that come up for them have better results with a single gender advisory. They've done it both ways (mixed gender and separate gender) and with their current students they have better success. They continue to review
that each year as a new crop of students passes through the middle school. The advisory activities include a lot of the usual areas that most middle schools address … academic checkup, team building, group projects, community service, etc. They have a monthly middle school combined advisory (assembly) where they will showcase some of the current student work projects.

In terms of technology at MPA, it didn't seem as advanced as most of the school that we have visited. I didn't see any smart boards and they don't have a one-to-one laptop program in the middle school. The do have computer (Apple) labs for the elementary and middle school students and some laptops on a cart that teachers can check out for classroom work. They do have a one-to-one laptop program in the high school. All classrooms, both at the middle and upper levels had a projection system to use.
The science curriculum for their middle school included general science in 5th and 6th, physical science in 7th, and life science in the 8th. Visiting an 8th grade science class showed students working on hands on activities related to evolution comparing man with chimpanzees. I also saw results of and 8th grade science project of creating a large skeleton of a dinosaur using foam boards and construction paper that was very impressive.
They don’t seem to integrate their core subjects very much at MPA, but teachers seem to be working towards integrating their subject matter in future projects.





MPA is still a relatively young school that is working together with their parents in taking steps to improve the educational experience for their students.
As I finish this blog entry, know that it is still snowing outside and that those of you in Hawaii should be very grateful for the fabulous weather that you have, even with the flash flood warnings that I understand that have been fairly frequent this fall. One of the things that CC and I continually talk about is, if we didn't live in Hawaii, what place that we've visited could we live in (maybe in our retirement). Although we've visited many beautiful places, so far Hawaii is still the best place to be! Aloha!

Life has slowed down a bit for us while in Minneapolis. During the last two weeks since my last blog entry, Carolynn and I have visited two schools (that I'll get to soon), done a lot of reading, gone on a few bicycle rides, gone on a run every other day, and have shared meals with friends and family. The weather here has remained very mild with temperatures above normal (by Minneapolis standards … not MY standards). Although the temperatures have ranged from the mid 20s to the low 50s, I'm still waiting for the first real snowfall (coming as early as tomorrow). The Canadian geese are still hanging around getting fat and making a lot of noise before they head further south. Carolynn and I spent an entire afternoon raking all the leaves that have fallen off the trees in her mom's yard and bagged them up. I've been told that even though it is a lot of work to rake leaves, shoveling snow is worse … I guess I'll find out soon enough. My guess is that back home in Honolulu, it is pretty muggy (typical of October/November), my colleagues at school are in the midst of the long process of report cards, and that the North Shore surf will be rolling in soon.
Before I get to the school visitations, I have to tell you that CC and I had a wonderful lunch with Jot and Mary Turner. Jot is a '72 graduate of Punahou, a fellow choir member at Central Union Church, and older brother to good friend, David Turner (Punahou '75). I don’t think that I've seen Jot since high school (except for possible Punahou reunion). It was truly great to see Jot and Mary. He says that he loves wintery weather … something that is difficult for some to understand. Other than living now in Minneapolis, he has lived in Colorado and North Dakota. He seems to be in his element!
Carolynn and I visited two interesting schools in the last week, Groves Academy and St. Paul Academy. Here are some things we observed at each of the two schools:
Groves Academy is a school specifically for students with learning differences (L.D.). It does fabulous things for students that need support in their learning and in social settings. They consider themselves a transitional school providing students with coping and adapting skills before they move back into a traditional school. The class size is no bigger than 8 students with each student in the upper and middle schools each having their own PC laptop. Groves Academy has a very unique post-secondary program (grades 13 and 14) for some of their High School graduates to help support them in their community college courses and to provide a work internship. In addition, Groves Academy does a tremendous job in creating an outreach program for non-Groves students with L.D. and their families. Their head of school, John Alexander, has done a very impressive job increasing their endowment three-fold in the last several years and has just finished one phase of capital improvements to the physical plant. Groves is a very impressive school with terrific support for students with various forms of L.D.

St. Paul Academy (St. Paul, Minnesota), like Punahou, has a fairly new Middle School. It was converted to a 6 – 8 Middle School in 2000 with about 230 students (about 80 at each grade level, average class size = 15). I spent a significant amount of time with the Middle School technology coordinator, the Middle School head, and their lead science teacher. Here are some things that I learned about St. Paul Academy:
1. The centerpiece to their advisory (and their core subjects) is a program called 'Developmental Designs.' This is a program developed by a local organization called 'Origins.' The foundation to 'Developmental Designs' seems to adhere to the idea that for middle school students, relationship skills are equally important as the academics. This student-centered program that involves a form of communication between students and teachers provides a balance of freedom and responsibility, along with high academic expectations. Because there is much more involved in this program and that I see some possibilities for Case Middle School, here is an attachment that is an article that provides the six principles of 'Developmental Designs' (and the research behind it)
and a link to 'Origins,' the local Minneapolis non-profit organization that developed this program (www.originsonline.org/dd_index.php). For our Middle School administrators and interested teachers, it's certainly worth a good look!
2. All middle school students have the use of their own laptops called 'Netbook' (Nobi) and use the application called 'One Note' that is part of the PC Microsoft Office bundle) in all of their classes. Their technology coordinator is one of Apple's Distinguished Educators and was the person who, interestingly enough, convinced the administration to adopt these computers. With this technology, most of the work is done electronically and submitted to teachers without a drop box (a push of a button instead). Students can also instantly download all handouts/worksheets, teacher's class notes, and power point presentations. I saw this at work in a math class and was very impressed.

3. St. Paul, like Punahou, works off of a six-day schedule that has a 30-minute advisory built in every day (and up to 50-minutes if they decide to use their break/recess time). Assemblies, community service, studying, free reading, etc. are all built into this advisory time. Three of the days of advisory per week are designed activities to help build 'community' within the school.
4. The science curriculum in their Middle School includes a study of 'Science Method and Exploration' in the 6th grade; Life Science in the 7th grade, and Introductory to Physical Science (IPS) at the 8th grade level. The IPS curriculum is their adaptation of the old IPS program of the 70's and 80's. I was given the entire 8th grade curriculum (and their self made textbook) to share when I return.
5. Miscellaneous: All teachers have a desk/cubbyhole out in the team gathering space where students can easily get in touch with them. In Math class, all students sit on a huge 'gymnastic ball' as their chair (with a certain understanding of how they are treated). On the students 2nd trimester report card, instead of teachers writing the comments, students write a reflection and teachers quickly comment on the reflections. Teachers have weekly team meetings for Kidtalk.


St. Paul Academy is a terrific school where kids truly enjoy each other, enjoy and respect their teachers, and seem to take ownership of their own learning. Most of this seems to be due to the 'Developmental Designs' program.
Friends and family have asked repeatedly whether I'm homesick or not as they know I have a hard time being away from Hawaii for any more that a two-week vacation. I DO miss being at home, my family, my cat, the beach, the day-to-day teaching (that my colleagues will remind me of when I'm in the middle of report cards again), and the warm weather. But … I'm not ready to come home yet as there is much more to look forward to on this amazing trip. Seeing more of the US by car, the east coast experience, more schools to visit, the 'Baseball Hall of Fame' in Cooperstown (I had to slip that in), etc. There is just much more to see and do! Aloha for now.

Hi again from Minneapolis, Minnesota! For those of you that have been asking about the weather (I'm sure you are anticipating how frigid it is and are laughing at me), I have to tell you that it has been pretty mild by Minnesota standards. It's mostly been in the 40s and 50s (even got into the 60's last weekend). I've actually been out on my bicycle on some really nice rides and not been too cold. Everyone here is anticipating that it'll get real cold soon enough. I'm looking forward to a little snow.
On my last blog entry I described the events of the first two days of the NSTA (National Science Teachers Association) convention and promised to include the events of the third day on this entry. The third day (Sat. Oct 31st) of the convention was pretty uneventful. The convention only went until noon, so there were very few sessions available that morning. I guess the last day was only a half-day so that local teachers would have a least part of the weekend with family and that those who traveled would have a chance to get home. I attended two sessions:
1. Project Based Life Science as an Anchor in Developing Integrated Units – I was excited to attend this session as it seemed to be in line with part of my sabbatical goals … integrated curriculum. I was very disappointed as it was a 'talk at you' session with very little substance. I tried to pick out a few things from the session that I could share with others about integration: (1) If a school is struggling with getting teachers to integrate their curriculum, pull a teacher out of a classroom for a year to coach other teams to develop integrated units of study. The team I'm on tried this with the idea of integrating the concept of Global Warming. Although I remember it being interesting and fun, we had mixed success with the process and didn't fully follow through on the idea … mainly because of time; (2) Devote an extra team meeting each week (or perhaps devote one of the existing faculty meetings a month) to the topic of integration. As an 8th grade faculty, I remember us doing that a few times over the last couple of years; (3) When sharing curriculum in a team meeting, always look for commonalities. This is something, I think, that most, if not all the teams at Punahou do already. Seems to me there could have been a lot more to this session to help teams integrate … too bad☹.
2. Fun Experiments using Polymers– This session was a fun, hands-on session with a retired teacher with tons of experience that actually had very little to do with polymers. It seemed to center on fun things to do in the elementary science classroom. It demostrated fairly common activities like the Cartesian Diver, fun with sodium polyacrylate (a polymer) and it's ability to absorb water (200-300 times it's weight), and Dancing Raisins (she called it 'sewer lice'), etc.. This was fun, but I didn't really learn anything that I didn’t already know.
All-in-all, the NSTA convention was very worthwhile for me. I would encourage my middle school science colleagues to attend sometime in the near future.



Last Friday (11/6), Carolynn and I went to visit Breck School here in Minneapolis. Breck is a K-12 school with 1200 students (360 in their 5th – 8th middle school). They were founded by the Episcopal Church and have chapel once a week. They joke a bit about their Episcopalian roots saying that their student body is about 10% Episcopalian. Part of their mission is to emphasize to their students, "Who do you want to be?" rather than "Who are you?" Like most of the schools we are visiting, each grade level is equivalent to one of our teams (about 90 students). The core subjects at Breck include Math, Science, English, Social Studies, AND Foreign language (I'm sure our FL teachers will be glad to hear about that!). The languages offered include: Chinese, Spanish, and French, with hopes of offering Arabic in the future (sorry Monaco sensei … no Japanese☹). Their average class size is 17 students with the teachers teaching 5 out of the 6 periods in a typical day. The teams (grade level) meet weekly for an hour to identify 'red flag students' (those that need immediate help), celebrate the good things happening, and to develop their integrated units. Breck practices what one of the sessions at the NSTA convention suggested … devote regular team meeting time to curricular integration development. In addition, one of the faculty meetings each month is devoted to integrating the curriculum. What seemed most integrated at Breck is their advisory program. They have advisory four times a week for 30-minutes, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. It seems to be a fairly set advisory program so that students all have a common experience. Character education and community service are the main threads in the advisory. The community service component takes all students off-campus six times a year. They have a desire to link their advisory to their weekly chapels a bit more, so I recommended that they take a look at John Heidel and Marion Lyman-Mesereau's books on character education. I also shared with them the 'value of the month' (with a Hawaiian perspective) that helps to link our chapel program to other aspects of the curriculum at Punahou.
For my science colleagues, Breck's middle school science curriculum is as follows:
5th grade – Space and Earth as a system (not Earth Science) w/ Robotics
6th grade – Physical Science / Energy alternatives
7th grade – Life Science
8th grade – Earth Science (emphasis on mapping, tectonics, orienteering, and geocaching)
The science gateway course in their high school is physics (as opposed to Biology or Chemistry that most school have). Part of their 8th grade experience is to choose a professional paper (topic is their choice), translate it (into jargon that 8th graders can understand), create a podcast reporting on it, and present to a larger community of students and parents. The goal is to give them some "real science" and be able to read and understand a professional paper. This project seems to be one of their culminating science experiences in the 8th grade.
Breck has a course that all middle school students take every other day called 'Life Skills.' This course is a combination of Health, Physical Education, Religion and Project Adventure. Some of you may know that Project Adventure is a mostly outdoor curriculum that is base on challenge by choice that includes a ropes course.
Breck seems to support the students with learning differences very well. Among other things, they will assign a student (w/ a LD) to their learning specialist by pulling them out of a non-core subject.
As part of the 'Teaching Tolerance'' curriculum, Breck joins about 8000 schools across the country where students create a 'Mix it up Day.' Students from across the K-12 grade levels share a meal (typically lunch) with small group of students from all grade levels. They mix students up that don’t normally eat or hang out with each other. I noticed at Breck that the kindergarten classrooms are right next to the high school area … the elementary school rooms are in between the high school and middle school areas … very interesting!!




Last Monday (11/9), Carolynn and I visited Blake School, also here in Minneapolis. Blake has a very unique situation in that they have three campuses. One that houses the high school (downtown Minneapolis), one that houses half of their PreK - 5th grade (in a suburb), and the other houses the other half of the PreK – 5th grades and the 6-8 middle school (in a different suburb). It seems like a challenge for their head of school and their elementary administrators, but they seem to make it work well. They say they can draw students from a wider area than most schools. Their retention rate is very high with a good size portion of their student body staying at Blake for 14 years. Blake's middle school has a student body of 335 (102 in 6th, 107 in 7th, and 126 in 8th) and an average class size of 16 students. As with most schools that we are visiting, their grade level equates with one of our teams. Like Breck, Blake includes foreign language as a core class along with Math, Science, English, and Social Studies. Foreign language is taught as early as kindergarten, ascribing to research that suggests that an early acquisition of a second language enhances learning (in other areas) throughout their lives.
Blake's advisory program seems to be very centered on service learning (as opposed to community service). There are 11 students in each advisory that meets once a week for an hour. There doesn't seem to be a set advisory curriculum that everyone follows throughout the year but rather based on meeting the needs of their current students. They use the handbook: "Need a Hand with Advising? … Here's a Handbook" (created by Garrison Forest School in Owings Mill, Maryland) as resource for some of their activities. All of their advisory groups raise money and some distribute the money as a micro loan through KIVA. Along with that, each advisory group during the first semester creates a mini business that raises money for their advisory. This culminates in what they call 'Business Day' where each advisory creates a product that they advertise through an iMovie (Technology commercial) and print work advertisement (that gets placed on the wall of the hallways of the school). The 'Business Day' is when they sell their product to the rest of the student body. Products range from the simple bake sale to selling graphics to stuffed animals that they've created themselves.
Blake has what they call a 'Tutorial' for 30-minutes four times a week built into their schedule. This period is the second to last period of the day where students can get extra help with a teacher, free read, students with a learning difference check in with a learning specialist, study hall, work on group projects, etc.
Blake's science curriculum is a bit different than most schools that we've visited:
6th Grade - Astronomy / Human Body and Health (I thought an interesting combination)
7th grade - Physical Science and Earth Science
8th Grade – Chemistry and Environmental Science
They seem to use a lot of Vernier probes in their lab investigations. They seem to use the heart rate, pH, temp, air pressure probes the most in their activities. The data collection, analysis, and graphing are pretty amazing! I think that is something that we should look into a bit more at Punahou.


Now that I have the 'school' business out of the way for this blog entry, I can tell you that I went to the Minnesota High School State Cross Country Championships last Saturday at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota (45 minutes south of Minneapolis). It was a beautiful day (clear and in the 60s) for the meet that was expertly administered. The course for the runners was well set up with a huge starting line area, a figure eight course that was entirely roped off on both sides of the course, and some challenging hills (a short steep uphill 100 meters from the finish line). Nothing like hitting them with a hill when they are exhausted! There were four races, two boys and two girls (1A and 2A divisions), each with about 200 runners. Girls run 4000 meters and the boys 5000 meters. In Minnesota, surprisingly, they allow runners as early as 7th grade to run in the varsity division including in the state meet. All races were hotly contested with a 9th grader winning the girls 2A division race … very impressive runners!

I hope that this blog entry finds everyone in good spirits! Please keep the comments coming. I love the comments from everyone, but especially from my former students! Aloha!

Aloha from Minneapolis, Minnesota! We've been here for a week now and I'm sorry that it has been a while (10/16) since I've added an entry to my sabbatical blog. You are probably wondering what we've been up (or not). Well … CC and I left Kansas and drove up to Council Bluffs, Iowa to visit Mike and Tammy Pavich. Some you know that Mike is a retired Punahou teacher/coach and is now coaching football and track at Western Iowa Community College. In addition to his coaching activities he is doing a great service tutoring his athletes daily so that they can achieve more in the classroom. Tammy, along with her brother Pete, runs the Pork Belly Ventures (PBV), a charter service for cyclists riding RAGBRAI (Registers Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa). As many of you know, this is an annual bicycle ride across Iowa during the last full week of July. The charter service has grown nicely over the years, so it is now almost a full time job for Tammy. In addition, Tammy is currently writing her doctorate thesis and is a couple of months from completion (she hopes!). It was great spending quality time with Mike and Tammy as was seeing Tammy's mom, who had us over for dinner. Nothing like a home cooked meal while on the road!!
We left Iowa on a rainy/snowy day to drive to Minneapolis. The roads were wet but not icy (thank goodness) during the 6-hr drive to the Twin Cities. It has been great being on the road, but it is also nice to get to Minneapolis to see CC's mom and to be able to unpack our stuff for a few months. We will be here through the Christmas holidays, so I'm sure my wish of a snowy winter will come true. While here in Minneapolis, I've been attending the NSTA (National Science Teachers Association) convention. Today was the second of the three-day convention with a lot of good science and technology ideas shared. Here is a list of sessions that I've attended:
Day 1-
1. Chemistry and the Atom – This was help in learning some new ideas on how to get the abstract concept of atoms across to middle schoolers who are mostly concrete learners.
2. Inquiry Investigation: Using Technology in the Science Classroom – This was a hands on session where we learned the basic of using Frey Scientific's Data Loggers and Virtual Lab technology.
3. Enhancing the Cell Unit with Models and Manipulatives – An elementary (mostly boring) sessions using magnetic pictures (magnetic to a white board) and stuffed models to teach concepts regarding cellular structure and function.
4. Forensics Science Across the Curriculum – This session taught us how to use TI graphing calculators the gathering and analysis of data collected for a Forensics Crime Scene unit. We specifically learned how to determine the time of death using a simulated dead body at a murder scene.
5. Digital Microscopy – We learned (saw) how to use Swift's digital microscopes (and software) to display cells to class. We also learned how to use the microscopes in determining various aspects of cells such as cell count on a slide, cell diameter, cell volume and cell circumference. Data collected automatically is organized in a spreadsheet, which can be exported to Excel.
Day 2-
1. Digital Microscopy in the Classroom – A little redundant from the last session listed above, but using Boreal digital microscopes and Motic 2.0 software. A nicer setup for Macs than the Swift microscopes. Microscopes come with or without a digital camera. Attachable cameras can also be purchased and easily attaches to the any microscope. These scopes have a lifetime warranty and, with the software, seems to be able to accomplish more than Swift's set up. These digital microscopes can take still pictures and video. The trend seems to be to take photos and videos to include in a lab report rather students drawing the cells. There is also an optical staining feature instead of staining the cells (killing the cells) themselves. Nice set up that is relatively affordable… I'm already preparing my next capital budget list!
2. Stop Faking It: Chemistry and the Periodic Table – A very dynamic speaker that gave us several ideas of demos and labs to convince students (esp. the concrete learners) of how we know that subatomic particles exist. The presenter was obviously trying to sell his 'Stop Faking It' books. I checked the books out at the HSTA bookstore … seemed to be very good!!
3. Tough Topics in Chemistry, States of Matter – This was a Pitsco Co. presentation that allowed us to use there new handheld 'Spark' technology that contains all the lab procedure, data collection and essential questions all built in together. A very nice system to use … worth looking in to.
4. Frog Dissection – This was a 'hands on' Carolina Biological Supply sponsored presentation where we dissected frogs that were preserved by a new product called 'Perfect,' a better alternative to other specimen preservatives. I've many frog dissections in class, but not for a few years now. It was nice to dissect again and share what I knew with others, including the presenter, of what I've done in class. The nice perk in this session was we all got t-shirts and were allowed to keep all the utensils and the dissecting pan (all top quality stuff!).
5. Web Adventures, Online Forensics and Biological Effects of Alcohol – This was showing a FREE online forensic simulations (with built-in games) called 'Web Adventures' designed by Rice University. A good idea worth exploring (http://webadventures.rice.edu), but a very presentation (sorry for the commentary … but these presenters are supposed to be teachers!!).


Tomorrow brings another half day of presentations. I'll report to you on those in my next blog entry in a few days. Next week, I will be setting up school visitations around the Twin Cities area.
For those that are interested, the weather here has been mostly drizzling and chilly (30's – 50's). We have had a few partly cloudy days w/o rain and even one gorgeous day where CC and I actually cycled about 35 miles. In my experience, there isn't a better city to cycle in. Miles and miles of dedicated bike paths (some rails to trails program) without ever having to mix it up with cars. I say this even after I was stopped by the police (no ticket, just a warning) for not coming to a complete stop. I guess you actually have to put a foot on the ground to indicate a complete stop. Some of us cyclists with true skills, can come to a complete stop and be completely still (and balanced) without having to place a foot on the ground. In any case, I'm afraid that there will not be many more cycling days left (if any). I hope that you are finding these blog entries interesting. As always, I love to hear your comments … so please keep them coming! Special props goes to one of my former students, Emily Jampel, who seems to be faithfully following my blog and commenting each time (sorry Jamps, you're probably very embarrassed by this). I hope more of my students read and respond!

Hi again from Kansas City! Well, actually Carolynn and I are staying with her WONDERFUL Aunt Margaret (1953 Punahou grad.) and her significant other 'Snow' (gotta love that name!) in Lawrence, Kansas just a 30-minute drive from KC. This town is absolutely crazy for KU (University of Kansas) basketball. Oh, before I forget, Carolynn got on my case about the comment in my last blog entry about how there isn't much in western/central Kansas (I called it 'Nowhere, Kansas'). She pointed out to me that every farmer in Kansas produces enough food for 128 people. There may not be that much to see in western Kansas, but their farms provide a significant contribution to our food supply.
While in the area, we visited two wonderful private independent schools in Kansas City, Pembroke Hill Academy and The Barstow School. Both are schools located in the suburbs of Kansas City and offer unique student-oriented program.


Pembroke Hill (home of pro-golfer Tom Watson) is a PreK – 12 school with 1200 students over two campuses. Their middle school (6th – 8th) has about 80 students per grade level (team) with a very organized and strong advisory program. Many educators will say that an advisory program is the core of a good middle school. I can certainly say that this is the case for Pembroke Hill Academy. Their everyday advisory is organized in two ways. Each student is a member of an advisory composed of 9 other students in the same grade level. Each student is also a member of an advisory that is composed of students from all the middle school grade levels (6th – 8th). I thought that this is a unique and effective idea to purposefully mix the advisories for various 'across the grade level' activities. As with several teams at Punahou, Pembroke Hill Middle School (actually called Boocock Middle School) has an advisory theme for each month. These monthly advisory themes include leadership, kindness, goal setting, integrity/honesty, responsibility, and team building. When visiting a few science classes I saw a small class size of 15 very engaged students. The middle school science curricular sequence showed pretty much the same trend as I'm seeing in most schools that we visit, life science is taught at the 7th grade level with 6th and 8th grades focusing on the physical sciences. In the area of technology, the science classrooms have smart boards and several classroom computers for the students to use in collecting data. I did not see any students with their own laptops, but the school has a computer lab in their library that was composed of PCs. Pembroke Hill Academy has a new head of the middle school with, from what I saw, very dedicated and passionate teachers that truly has the student's best interest at heart.



The Barstow School (also a PreK – 12 school) has a slightly smaller 6th – 8th grade middle school (compared to Pembroke Hill) with between 50 and 60 students per grade level. Like, Pembroke Hill, Barstow School seems to have an emphasis on their advisory program (four advisories per grade level). Their advisory meets every day for 25 minutes and seems to focus on a variety of topics with an emphasis on study / planning skills and character education issues. In the area of technology, Barstow has a one-to-one laptop program in the middle school using the PC tablets. Each family purchases their own computer with all the applications that the school requires for the students (i.e. 'One Note'). They are also exploring the lease-to-own method of managing their computers. In visiting a variety of classes, the students were all actively engaged in using their PCs in a wide variety of activities. Their science curriculum, once again, follows the trend I'm seeing of offering the life sciences in the 7th grade. Barstow's sequence is: 6th grade – physical science; 7th grade life science; and 8th grade earth science. It might be of interest for my math colleagues to know that their math sequence is as follows: 7th grade foundations of math ("typical 6th grade math"); 7th grade splits into a pre-algebra class and an algebra class (depending on the results of their 6th grade math year); 8th grade is split into one algebra class and one geometry class. In the 9th grade, all students take algebra 2. For me, the most impressive aspect to The Barstow School is the curricular integration. Most of the integration that was shared with us centered around class trips that the students take with their teachers and chaperones. One long-standing trip is to take their 8th graders to Boston that encompasses the study of history (an obvious connection), literature (they visit Walden Pond), and even geometry as they visit various architecture examples and measure angles to the buildings. At the end of the trip, each student creates a power point presentation that includes what they've learned on the trip. Another impressive example of integration is the newly formed 7th grade trip to the Heifer International facility in Perryville, Arkansas. In short, each group of students live for several days in Heifer's global village that includes a Guatemala home, an Appalachian house, a Thai house, a Zambia house, urban slums, and a refugee camp. Each group of students (a family) is given a resource bucket (with very limited resources) that a typical family in that area of the world might have. In addition, each student within a group was given a role to play, including one student being pregnant, one being blind, one being maimed, etc. Students, over a period of a couple of days had to problem solve and co-operate to get through the night and morning. Many students went to bed hungry and on solid ground. The experiences helped students realize cultural differences and allowed them to get a glimpse what it takes to survive in many parts of the world in tough conditions. When they return to school, each student then writes about their experience. A few of the essays where shared with us … a very impressive program with impressionable results on the students. Makes me think about some possibilities for our 8th grade Mokuleia experience.
Besides the school visitations in the KC area, CC and I visited the Truman museum and home in Independence, Mo. Although not as impressive as the Eisenhower in Abilene, Kansas, the Truman museum had a lot to offer. Truman, had some very important and scary decisions during his presidency such as the use of the atomic bomb during and the events of the cold war. Not the proudest moments in our country's history. It seemed that Truman couldn't wait to get back to his roots in Missouri after his presidency was completed. As we toured his house (actually Bess's childhood home), we heard several stories from a stuffy, self-absorbed national park volunteer about Truman's battle with the secret service over his personal privacy and his close relationship with the community of Independence.




CC and I will be in the Kansas City/Lawrence area until next Tuesday where we will continue to enjoy visiting with CC's aunt and cousins. On Tuesday we will leave Kansas/Missouri to travel up to Council Bluffs, Iowa to stay with Mike and Tammy Pavich for a few days. Many of you know that Mike is a former Punahou math teacher and coach. This visit will allow me to visit with my adopted Iowa family (the Phiilips family … Tammy's parents) that I was blessed with during my RAGBRAI days (the bike ride across Iowa). Bye for now!

Hi from Kansas City, Kansas. Some of you may be thinking that Kansas City is in Missouri. Well, it is, but part of the city is actually on the Kansas side of the border … something I did not know until this visit. We are currently staying with the Shook Family (Gary, Paula, their daughter Carson, and their three very cute dogs) and will later stay with the members of CC's family of relatives later in the week. Before we left the Denver area we had plans to visit two more schools, Kent Denver and Alexander Dawson Schools. Because of a tragedy in the Kent Denver School community, we had to cancel out visitation. However, we were able to visit another wonderful school in the Boulder area (actually in Lafayette, Co.) called Alexander Dawson (A.D.) School. A.D. School in located in a rural area within the farmlands of Colorado on about 95 acres of land. It is a K – 12 School that has 420 students with 166 in the middle school. Their class size is 15:1 (as with most schools that we've visited) and student teacher ratio of 7:1. For those of you who remember Greg Foster, Punahou's Academy principal for a few years (after the Win Healy years), he was the head of school at Alexander Dawson for a few years after leaving Punahou. Here are a few of my random observations from Alexander Dawson School:

1. They have a similar daily schedule as Punahou. They don’t use the modular schedule, but they do have a 7-day rotating schedule much like Punahou's 6-day 'A' through 'F' day schedule. This is so that they can rotate the time of day that each class meets. Each of their classes meets at different times of the day during the cycle. Their cycle days are M-U-S-T-A-N-G, spelling out the mascot of their school.
2. The middle school is a 5-8 middle school with 2 divisions. The 5th and 6th grades make up the lower middle school and the 7th and 8th grades make up their upper middle school.
3. A.D. has a very strong advisory program in the middle school that meets everyday, each with a different purpose. The purposes range from class meetings (about 40-45 kids in class/grade) twice a week, to teaching health, to community service, to a rotation of several topics discussion groups (with 14 kids in each advisory), each cycle. Some of the topics are much the same as the topics that are discussed on our teams at Punahou, like plagiarism and cheating, internet safety, team building, etc. In addition, they include library skills, leadership, public speaking, rocketry, and American sign language into their advisory program.
4. Their science curriculum sequence through middle school includes spiraling all major sciences (in a wheel) in both the 5th and 6th grades, the life sciences in the 7th grade and earth science in the 8th grade. I'm starting to see a trend with small independent middle schools teaching the life sciences in the 7th grade so that the student don’t experience successive years of life science in the 8th and 9th grade years.
5. They are a very environmentally minded school. The cafeteria has developed into a 'zero waste' dining hall. A very impressive feat helped by the fact that the county has included an unused food waste pickup as part of the garbage and recycling pickup each week. Even with that help, it is impressive to have everything recycled or reused.
6. They added a position to their faculty to help stimulate the integration of technology into their various curricula. I spent some time talking to Jeff Ellenbogen (their tech. specialist) about some of what they are working on to integrate technology. His role is much that same as Tedd Landgraf and Dee Ching in Case Middle School only on much smaller scale.
7. They do not have a one-to-one-laptop program and I saw only a few students that have their own laptops. They are 100% Apple Mac School with several computer labs set up in their libraries. They are starting to experiment with Smart boards, as their tech. specialist (Jeff) is the first in the school to have one.
8. Together, the middle and high school divisions at A.D. has a very strong program that they call 'Winterim.' This is a program that takes place the week before their spring break in March where teachers (usually in pairs) design some sort of a meaningful experience for small groups of students. Most the Winterim experiences include travel away from school to places as far as the Galapagos (to study evolution), Florida (marine science), a ski/snowboarding school at a ski resort, San Diego (diversity of species), etc. . They've also been known to go on service learning trips to Guatemala and Costa Rica. For students who can't afford extensive trips, there are scholarships or Winterim experiences on campus during that week. It is certainly a popular event for their kids and an impressive undertaking for the school!
Alexander Dawson School is a very impressive small school that has a lot to offer their students. They have wanted to increase their enrollment, but this desire to increase has been handcuffed by the local county government (long-story!).




Last Wednesday (10/7), CC and I drove from Denver towards Lawrence, Kansas over a two-day period. After the long 13 plus hour drive that we took from Yellowstone, Montana to Vail, Colorado, we vowed to break the long driving days up a bit. We stayed overnight in Hays, Kansas. I'll spare you any of the details of that stay as it was out in the middle of Nowhere, Kansas (my apologies to anyone from Kansas, but most would agree that there isn't much there). Between Hays, Kansas and our destination, Lawrence. Kansas, there is a small town called Abilene. For those that don't already know, Abilene is the hometown of Dwight Eisenhower. CC and I decided to visit Abilene and tour the Eisenhower boyhood home and museum. It was VERY impressive! Eisenhower was one of six boys in his family. How they ever fit a family of that size in that little house is amazing. The Eisenhower museum shows how truly impressive his military and political career was. The artifacts, especially the personal letters that he wrote and all the gifts that he received from other heads of states, were amazing! I highly recommend that if you ever find yourself in Kansas, you should visit the Abilene.

Yesterday we visited the World War 1 Memorial in Kansas City. I certainly learned more about that war that I ever knew from any history class that I didn't pay attention in. The artifacts, the letters from soldiers, the movies, and the audio tapes that played throughout the museum, certainly made it come alive for me.

I can certainly tell that winter is on its way, as it has gotten pretty cold (30's and 40's here in Kansas City … they say about 10-20 degrees cooler that usual at this time of the year). The leaves are turning colors and starting to fall off of the trees. It doesn't measure up to the coloration of the trees in the Northeast, but it is still very beautiful. I don’t see many cyclist out riding, so I won’t venture out on my bike for fear of becoming a frozen 'popcycle' (sorry for the bad humor), but I think I'll try going on a run today.
We are mainly in the Kansas to spend time with CC's wonderful relatives, but we've planned a visitation to Pembroke Hill Academy (on Tuesday) and are also hoping to visit Barstow School while we are here. Please keep the comments to my blog coming by clicking on 'comments' button on the bottom right of each entry or simply email me: <tuttle.dan7@gmail.com>. ALOHA.

Hi from Denver Colorado. On Monday (9/28), Carolynn and I spent the entire day in the car driving from West Yellowstone, Montana to Edwards, Colorado (near Vail). We entered Yellowstone National Park's west entrance and drove south out of the park, through part of Grand Teton National Park, and through Wyoming (Rawlins, Laramie, and Cheyenne). We then turned south entering Colorado to Denver where we turned west toward Vail. It certainly was a long day (and into the night) of driving made longer by running into three road construction delays. We stayed with Carolynn's cousin, Gus, and his wife Claire, who by the way, makes a terrific Banana bread (Mary Ann, you've got some competition in the dessert area!). While we were there Gus, Carolynn, and I cycled through Glennwood Canyon on a bright sunny day as the Aspen leaves turned bright yellow. The canyon has a dedicated bike path right along hwy 70 through the canyon. What a wonderful ride and a great guide!

After a few wonderful nights with Gus and Claire, we drove to Denver to stay with Carolynn's Camp Menogyn, (and Minneapolis) friends, the Wagners so that we could visit four schools that were recommended to us. In this blog entry I'll briefly describe two school visits, one to Denver Academy and the other to Colorado Academy (the other schools will come on the next entry). For those of you who would prefer to not read about the 'school stuff', skip over the next couple of paragraphs to get to more of our travel experiences.


Denver Academyis a K-12 school with 400 students (80 in the middle school) that is well designed to meet the needs of students that need a different approach in reaching their potential. The 'traditional' approach that most schools take in education does not fit the needs of 'Denver Academy' student. The teachers employed at Denver Academy are required to do an internship (with a mentor teacher) for a year before they are allowed to 'go it alone' in the classroom. Teachers must be able to teach each concept in their curriculum in four different ways in order to be assured to reach each type of learner in their class. All teachers (even the experienced) receive a tremendous amount of in-service training each year so that, over time, they become well versed in 'differential teaching' as there is a wide range in learning styles within each classroom. Denver Academy places a lot of emphasis in supporting their students with learning differences (or as they call it "unique learning profile"). They group their middle school students into pods (2 pods per grade) of students with similar learning differences and place them with teachers that best suit their needs. They utilize several computer applications (like Dragons Naturally Speaking) and use both Macs and PCs that assists students in their learning. Denver Academy prefers to remediate their students in the classroom rather than using individualized tutoring. The day's scheduling did not permit me to sit in on a class, but we were taken on a tour that visited several classrooms. I was very impressed with the way each classroom was designed. There were obvious differences between rooms of different subject matters, but each room had three distinct spaces. Each classroom (about 1000 sq. ft.) has a couple of couches for a relaxed feeling, rows of traditional classroom seating (for 14-16 in each class), and several larger tables grouped together in a 'family' setting. In addition, each classroom has a smart board to use. Although it was a nice to place to see and learn about supporting students with different learning styles, the visit didn't much address the goals of my sabbatical visitations, which are middle school teaming, curricular integration, advisory programs, and using technology in science.

While in Denver we also visited Colorado Academy. It is a Pre-K – 12 school that is set on 95-acres of picturesque land that includes a main building for each division (elementary, middle and high schools), a few smaller building for admissions /administration / development, an art building, a music building, and a building that contained two gyms. They have an enrollment of 900 students (220 in the middle school) and a class size of 15-17. During the visit, I was able to sit in on a science class and an advisory class. In addition, I was able to visit with the three science teachers in the middle school, the lead advisory teacher, and the head of the middle school. Their science curricular sequence included 6th graders taking Earth Science, 7th graders taking Biology, and 8th graders taking Physical Science (a modern version of the old IPS curriculum). They admittedly do not teach forces and motion in the middle school. I sensed that they wished they had time to teach it and are going to try to add it in the future. Some middle school literature has stated that the centerpiece of any good middle school should be an Advisory Program. Colorado Academy seems to agree with that philosophy, as they have a very extensive advisory program in their middle school. Their advisory program runs everyday of the week for 20 minutes each day with the exception of a 45-minute period every Friday. At each grade level, their advisory program has a slightly different focus for their 45-min Friday meetings. The 6th grade focuses on developing study skills, the 7th grade focuses on character education, and the 8th grade advisory is a teacher-designed program that is based on Sean Covey's book, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens." Woven into the Covey 8th grade advisory program are five 4-wk mini courses that include: (1) Drugs / Alcohol; (2) Healthy communication; (3) Wellness/Nutrition; (4) Tolerance and Diversity; and (5) Friendly and Romantic Relationships (incl. sex ed.). Interestingly enough, there are five advisory teachers that teach each of these topics with the students rotating around to each teacher rather than each advisory teacher teaching all five topics. During the 20-min. Monday through Thursday advisory meetings, the teachers have developed a routine that is consistent throughout the middle school. It goes as follows: Monday – character education, Tuesday – team building / fun and games, Wednesday – silent reading, Thursday – study hall. In addition, at some point in the year the 8th graders go to Outward Bound School for four days and three nights that includes, high ropes, individual and group challenges, and even a optional solo night on the last night of the trip. Of all the schools that I've seen so far, Colorado Academy seems to do the most with Advisories.

To close out my comments on Colorado Academy here are a few interesting tidbits:
1. They have a daily child-care center that will baby-sit faculty children (for a relatively smaller fee). I know that a several of my Punahou colleagues wished that we had one too.
2. They do not have a one-to-one laptop program but students can check out a computer (all PCs) for personal use. In addition, the school will lend a student a PC for the year for those deemed in need.
3. They have an after school program, much like Punahou's, but on a much smaller scale. I haven't seen that at any other school that we've visited to date.
4. Teachers meet together on three levels. Advisory teams meet once each week, Grade levels meet twice a month specifically to talk about specific students (our version of kidtalk), and once a month as a department or as a cross curricular group (whatever is needed at the time).

While in Denver, CC (if you haven’t figured it out by now that's Carolynn) and I had the joy of buying a couple of Colorado Rockies baseball tickets and attending the last home game of the year. It just so happened it was the game where the Rockies clinched a National League playoff berth. It was very exciting to see a bunch of grown up men act like kids when they won the game. I also had the pleasure of meeting a good friend, Chuck Jamison on the famous 16th St mall in downtown Denver at the Rock Bottom Microbrewery for a drink (Okay … yes I actually had a beer … surprise!! For my former students reading this, I'm actually old enough to have a beer). After almost 2 months on the mainland it was really was nice to sit with a Hawaii friend, especially Chuck.
As I alluded earlier in this blog, CC and I are staying with Kent and Holly Wagner in a suburb of Denver near Littleton. Kent and Holly have two very enjoyable boys, Kirby and Noel, that both run Cross-Country for their high school. Folks … this is one REALLY nice family that spends as much time together as they can, like hike/ski/bike together on the weekends and summers and actually eat dinners together (something that many families don't do as much of these days). It truly seems to be a very close family and is obvious that the boys adore their parents and cherish the time that they have with each other even though they are 16 and 14 yrs old. They both have their own special gifts, Kirby is a gifted artist and history student and Noel is an emerging running talent. We were lucky enough to go hiking with them last weekend at Roxborough Park a few miles south of Denver. This hike really showed evidence of the uplifting process that is a part of how the Rocky Mountains were formed.

CC and I also drove up to Estes Park and in to the Rocky Mountain National Park this past weekend. The elk herds were certainly on display as we entered the park. While in the park, we drove to Bear Lake where we experienced our first snowfall of our journey. On the way back towards Boulder and Denver, we experienced a lot more snow. We stopped at an amazingly beautiful catholic church that is build completely out of stone. As the story goes, the Pope was driving by during a visit to Colorado and was so intrigued by this church that he had to stop and look around. Some of my Punahou colleagues that went to a middle school conference called the 'Nuts and Bolts' conference a number of years ago may remember our visit to the very same church.


Tomorrow we visit Alexander Dawson School north of Denver and on Wednesday we visit Kent Denver School. I'll fill you in on our visitations on my next blog entry. In the meantime keep the comments and emails coming. Aloha for now!

Aloha from Yellowstone National Park. Before I get to the description of what we are doing now, I'd like to share a few things with you about two schools that we visited in Seattle and one school in Tacoma. For those of you who are only interested in Yellowstone, jump down the page a bit.
In Seattle we visited Northwest School and Seattle Academy of the Arts and Sciences. Northwest School is a small urban 6th - 12th grade school located in one building on the edge of downtown Seattle. It has 467 students (130 in the middle school) that includes 45 international boarding students that dorm a block away from the school. One of the school's primary missions is to integrate their international students with their domestic students. Because they occupy only one building, there is a lot of integration between their high school and middle school students in a peer mentoring style. For example, as part of their environmental program, the high school students mentor the younger students in keeping their building clean by collectively spending 20-minutes three times a week helping up-keep their building. It seems to really give the students a sense of ownership to the building. One of the founders of the school believed that students wouldn't care about their extended environment until they cared about their immediate environment. An impressive aspect to Northwest School is that they include art as a core subject requiring students to attend art twice a day. They feel art helps to support their students with learning differences. Northwest School seems to give their teachers a lot of leeway in the area of technology. Teachers choose whatever technology that they deem necessary for their curriculum and their subject matter. The school supports their initiatives very well. There are a few computer labs throughout the school (i.e. library) with smart boards in a few classrooms. The assistant head of the school notices that teachers with technology integrated in their classrooms are more engaged in their own learning thus making their classes more engaging for their students. Teachers choose their technology rather that being forced to use it.

Seattle Academy of the Arts and Sciences located a few blocks from Northwest School in urban Seattle is also a 6th – 12th grade school with 600 students. Their campus is split with the middle school and high school buildings 2 blocks from each other. The buildings that that make up Seattle Academy are buildings that began with a different purpose as these have been purchased from local businesses (i.e one of the buildings is a former Cadillac dealership). They seem to convert these buildings to suit their classroom and office needs as best as they can. Teaming is a very strong part of their middle school whereas the high school has more of a departmental approach. Like Northwest School, art (many forms of art) seems to be a very important part of their curriculum as everywhere you look there is art on display or a listing of scheduled performances. Part of their school's mission is to 'build a culture of performance'. Seattle Academy is an impressive college prep school that makes it a goal to include students with learning differences into their admission process. Anywhere from 15-20% of the students admitted have a known learning difference. They seem to have a terrific support system for these students as they attend a learning support class each day. Seattle Academy has admittedly scaled back their middle school advisory program. Their philosophy seems to be that the most important aspect is to develop a one-to-one advisor/advisee relationship rather than to implement a set advisory program. It is left up to each teacher how to develop that relationship.
Tucked away in a suburb of Tacoma (University Place), there is a wonderful little school called Charles Wright Academy (CWA). There is a stark difference between their campus compared to Northwest and Seattle Academies. CWA is on a gorgeous piece of land with their buildings spread out amongst trees with large amounts of green space. CWA's 6th – 8th middle school has about 170 students (50 in 6th and 60 in both the 7th and 8th grades) organized into three or four smaller pods (or teams) at each grade level. They have 18 students per class and 10-12 in their advisories. Their advisory program seems to be a fairly set program so that all students at a grade level have a common experience. Their advisory topics differ slightly from year to year to fit the needs of their current students. Typically their topics include: drugs and alcohol, harassment, honesty and integrity, and internet etiquette. My Punahou colleagues probably see some similarities with Punahou's advisory topics. I visited 3 science classes while at CWA one each at the 4th, 7th, and 8th grade levels. It's been a long time since I've been in an elementary school science classroom. Here I saw a very dynamic young teacher (2nd year) who is doing a fabulous job. He's the only science teacher at the elementary level, so he sees most if not all of the elementary students each week. The 4th grade science class (55-min long) accompanied by their regular teacher, included a variety of activities including a 20-question quiz game, a very interactive discussion of states of matter, a brief discussion of atoms and elements, and an experiment with what he called slime (other teachers have called it 'ooblek) that shows characteristics of both liquids and solids. A very impressive class to say the least! The middle school science curriculum seems reversed compared to Punahou's 7th and 8th curriculum. CWA has the life sciences in the 7th (emphasis on botany and humans) and physical sciences in the 8th. CWA chose this curriculum sequence because they didn't want their students to have a biological science in consecutive years, as students take biology class their 9th grade year. There are very few computers in the middle school classrooms but they did have a fairly nice computer lab. They seem to use technology a lot to help support their students with learning differences. They use speech-to-text applications and a program called WIN that reads to kids. I'm not at all familiar with the WIN program. Might be worth someone at Punahou taking a look at sometime. All in all, CWA is a very impressive school that I could easily see myself teaching at, but there is very high teacher retention with few openings. One of my highlights of the visit was on a personal note. One of their PE teachers is a Punahou graduate (I think in 1988) that I helped coach in XC and track, Meredith Hansen. What a nice reunion!



Now that all the 'school stuff' has been taken care of on this blog entry, I can describe to you our Yellowstone National Park experience. We drove from western Washington to West Yellowstone, Montana in two (very long) days, camping overnight in a very small oasis-like town of Glenn's Ferry, where they were having a town celebration and their local high school homecoming all in the same weekend. We were very lucky getting a campsite! Early the next day we drove to West Yellowstone, Montana. After a short rest in a motel room we drove into the west entrance of the park. After a few stops to see the wildlife we made a bee-line to Old Faithful. I can certainly tell you that Old Faithful is still a faithful geyser and still as impressive as I remembered when I visited Yellowstone as a kid. Watching it erupt as the sun was setting was very memorable for CC and I. Too bad we had to share it with several hundred people. The next day in the park was even more memorable for us. We made several stops to see bison, elk, bighorn sheep, coyotes, and deer (sadly no bear sightings) some very close to the car, as the accompanying pictures show. We also made numerous stops to see VERY clear hot springs, boiling mud pots, steam vents, and a couple of very impressive waterfalls. Unfortunately, there was a large forest fire in the park that created quite a bit of smoke. It's very sad to see a devastating fire in a very beautiful place. On our way back out of the west side of the park we were stopped by a park ranger that informed us that the fire had unexpectedly jumped the road, was spreading quickly and that the road was now closed. To get back to our hotel, we had to drive 250 miles out of our way to exit the north entrance to the park and drive back down south to West Yellowstone. We didn't get back to our hotel until about 9pm. It disrupted our cycling plans for that afternoon, but without the detour, we wouldn’t have seen Mammoth Hot Springs and a lot of wide life. I guess I could think of a lot worse things than an extra 7-hour drive.





I continue to really enjoy your comments (click 'comment' on the lower right hand side of this blog entry) or your emails. Please keep them coming! Aloha for now.

Aloha from Seattle, Washington. Other than our one night camping on the southern Oregon coast, the good weather seems to be following us wherever we go. While in Seattle, it has been cool in the mornings and warm in the afternoons. Today it is supposed to get up to the mid-80's!

Since my last entry, we soaked in Bagby Hot Spring SE of Portland, we spent time with some wonderful college friends of mine on Whidbey Island, visited Lakeside School, and after a car window mishap spend some time with a high school friend of Carolynn's and a Punahou alum friend of mine.
Our Bagby Hot Springs visit involved a 70-mile drive from Portland through a curvy country road lined with pine trees along side the Clackamas River. To get to the hot springs we walked for about 45-minutes on a well-groomed trail that led us to a wooden structure that had several individualized soaking rooms and several outdoor community tubs. The soaking rooms were very rustic with carved out wooden tubs that filled with hot water from a hot spring just outside of the structure. Buckets of cold water pumped up from the river below had to be added to the tubs so that the water temperature was cooled enough to be tolerated. Bagby Hot Springs, although on Mt. Hood National Park land, is supported by a volunteer group that maintains the trail and the hot tub facilities. Both CC and I felt absolutely wonderful on the drive back to Portland.


The next day, we said goodbye to our friend Douglas Tsoi in Portland and drove through Seattle to Whidbey Island. To get to the Island, we had to take a short ferry ride (about 15 mins.) to a small town called Clinton, where we stayed with college friends of mine, Mark and Joan Miller. It was terrific to see them again as I've only seen them once since college graduation. Poor CC had to sit through conversations reminiscing about the 'good ole college' days. Mark and Joan have a fabulous house on the water facing the mainland of Washington. I would be remiss in not mentioning their two dogs, Bentley and Bella that both CC and I fell in love with. Both of their dogs are pure-bred Vizslas. Very handsome, and playful dogs! After a Sunday bike ride on the island, we boarded the ferry once again and drove back to Seattle where we are currently staying in a hotel near the Space Needle.


Yesterday we had the pleasure of visiting Lakeside School on the north side of Seattle. For my Punahou colleagues, the Principal and assistant head of the upper school is Than Healy. Than is a Punahou graduate (1987) and son of the long time principal of the Academy at Punahou, Win Healy. I met with Anne Stavney and Michael Nachbar of the middle school for about an hour and half, while Carolynn met with Camilla Calkins who heads up the 'Brain and Learning Lab'. Here are some highlights of what I learned:
1. Lakeside Middle School had 257 students in their 5-8 grade middle school, class size of 16, and an advisory with 8 students. The grade sizes increase from 32 in the 5th grade to 80 in the 8th grade. Each grade level is the equivalent to what we call a team with smaller groups called pods (a team within a team). Each of the pods gets reshuffled four times a year. Something that smaller schools can easily do, but difficult at large schools like Punahou.
2. They fully integrate their curriculum mostly in the 5th grade in English/History and Math/Science, where their classes are heavily project based. Most of the 7th and 8th grade teachers teach their subject matter at both grade levels in sort of a looping concept.
3. Lakeside has a one-to-one laptop program in both the 7th and 8th grade using PC's … can anyone figure out why they are PC's rather than Macs at Lakeside? Occasionally they have some of the same laptop issues related to kids not understanding the difference between computers as a learning tool vs. a gaming toy.
4. Their faculty attend a grade level meeting (which, because of their small size is akin to our team meetings) once a week. In addition, they have a combined 7th and 8th grade meeting once a month.
5. Their advisories meet everyday from 8:15 – 8:30 (their school day is from 8:15 until 3:05) with a longer "community meeting" once a week. Their advisories seem to be on a set 'curriculum','so that each student has a common experience at each grade level. I will know more about what they do when the curriculum is sent to me.
6. Lakeside Middle School seems to have two electronic systems to help track and support their students. They have an internal database that they call 'student review.' It is a "check in" system to support the kids that have the greatest need. This is very similar to our weekly progress reports/homework checks that we put struggling students on. The difference being that Lakeside's system is a common system between grade levels while Punahou's system differs a little bit from supervisor to supervisor. The other system that Lakeside has is what they call a 'Transition Report." This report is written by each advisor for each of their advisees at the end of the year. It is a short narrative report (in addition to report cards) that includes: three adjectives that best describes the student, what are some of their challenges, where have they shown the most growth, what are some effective ways to support them at the next grade level. This electronic document follows them from one grade level to the next. Each teacher does this with each of their eight advisees, so it doesn’t seem too much of an additional burden along with grades. These narratives not only help the teachers at the next grade level, but also helps the administrators to group kids together with the best possible match to an advisor at the next grade level.
7. The 7th grade has a very interesting component to a 'Life Skills' class that they all take. In this component, they specifically teach kids about the adolescent brain and how it operates so that they can better understand themselves and their own particular learning styles (and/or differences).
8. As part of the 5th grade science experience, the school finds someone in the Lakeside community (a teacher on leave, a wife of a teacher, alum, parent, etc.) who has a two to three month old baby. Each Friday this volunteer visits the class with her baby where students learn about the growth and development of a baby throughout their year in science.
9. The 7th and 8th grade science curriculum consists of an introduction to biology and the human body systems in the 7th grade and earth science / physical science in the 8th grade. It's interesting to see that this is sort of the opposite at Punahou. Both Lakeside and Punahou use their own sequencing for their own (good) reasons.
10. All classrooms, as you might expect, have a smart board as a front centerpiece, and from what I saw, they are used daily. In science, they use several computer / internet based applications to display on the smart boards including 'Seismic Eruptions' and 'Atomic Microscope', both of which are downloadable programs. I've briefly checked on the 'Atomic Microscope' online to find that there is a cost to it. I haven't had a chance to check out the 'Seismic Eruptions' program yet. Maybe some of my science colleagues may be interested in doing a search.
11. Lakeside has a 'Brain and Learning Lab' facility. This facility supports students who need additional academic, time management, organizational and executive function skills. This lab seems to be a critical supportive piece that particularly helps to support kids with attention issues.


All in all, Lakeside is a very impressive small independent school that has a sound middle school mission followed by a rigorous academic high school …. Like a small Punahou School. The tour of the high school showed that the campus is much like Punahou in that it has a 'small college' feel to it. Sorry if the Lakeside School piece of this blog got a little long and wordy.
Today, we had an opportunity to walk (our car had to go in to the Honda dealer to fix a broken window …. a story that I won't bore you with) around exploring Seattle. We spend most of the day at Pike's Place down on the water. It was an amazingly clear day with views of the entire downtown area, Mt. Rainer, the Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges. We wandered around all the shops, street performers, and fish / produce booths for most of the day. CC seemed to be intrigued by visiting the original Starbucks, which was crowded beyond belief. In the evening we visited with friend and Punahou alum, Heaton Wrenn. Heaton has been working with a local bank and truly seems to enjoy living in the Seattle area. Like many of us who like to show our visitors around Honolulu, Heaton takes this kind of tour to the highest level. He drove us around like a personal tour director to several suburbs around Seattle. They included quick visits to Skyline, Eastside Catholic, and Eastside high schools. We ended up on the west side of downtown Seattle at a Pizza place for dinner. The view of the downtown area was spectacular!


Tomorrow will be a particularly busy day. Check out of the hotel, walk to two schools for visitations (Northwest School and Seattle Academy), pick up our car, back to hotel to get our bags, to the bike store to pick up our bikes, and a drive to Olympia. Aloha for now!