Focus issue 3, 2015

ISSUE 3, 2015

Focus Issue 3, 2015

05

16

18

26

30

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38

42

02 From the Executive Director 03 From the Editor

News and Events

05 A look at the 2015-16 school year so far

Features

16 Some Enchanted Evening Homecoming is a tradition of sports and community

By Kelly Arthur Garrett

18 Bonds of Friendship Sometimes, the best gift you can share is your time

By Kelly Arthur Garrett

22 Stopping the Cycle ASF hosts national conference on preventing bullying

By Andrew Livingstone

24 Arguing Against the World ASF student Alex Antillón has been recognized for his public speaking skills on the world stage

Institutional Advancement

38 A day on the links ASF’s annual golf tournament brought together sponsors, parents and staff

By Andrew Livingstone

26 Creativity in Motion ASF’s 46th Art Fair was a blur of movement

By Kelly Arthur Garrett

30 A Glimpse into the Future Alumni and parents inspire students with career advice

40 What is Instutional Advancement?

IA Director Alejandra Naranjo breaks down the jargon

Alumni

42 Andrew Kluger (’69) Showing off Mexican culture in San Francisco

By Andrew Livingstone

By Kelly Arthur Garrett

32 The Music Man Larry Russell – A fondly remembered music teacher from the 70s and 80s

44 Reunions 45 Class notes and In Memoriam

By Kelly Arthur Garrett

36 Student Voices Our human rights should never be taken for granted

46 Milestones 48 Kids’ Corner

By Pablo Guarneros

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from the executive director

Dear ASF Community, By the time you are reading this, the holiday season will be upon us, and you will be almost ready to take a well-deserved break. Here at ASF we are no exception, and after a busy few months we will be enjoying our winter holidays with family and friends.

And it has been a busy time. As we progress with developing the next phase of our master building plan (more details to come in a future Focus), we are setting our sights on a new Lower School building and a redesigned Early Childhood Center which will require a fundraising campaign as we continue to improve campus facilities. The Institutional Advancement team, whom you can read about on page 40, as well as the Parent Association, and staff and volunteers from around the community, put on two of our most important fundraising events recently – both of which you can read about in the following pages – the Art Fair and the annual Golf Tournament.

These developments are an example of how behind the scenes we are always looking to move forward and improve ASF. That’s something that was coincidentally reflected in the theme of our 46th Art Fair – the idea of motion.

The visual arts displayed by ASF students of all ages at the fair showed motion – from hanging mobiles to movement in photography to ever-changing slideshows. Our sports fields and courts are a blur of movement as student athletes work on their physical performance and teamwork skills. The Center for Teaching Excellence keeps working to bring new and innovative ways of integrating technology into the classroom. These are all great example of things in constant forward motion at ASF. That is what keeps the school the great place it is.

I hope you get a chance to sit back, relax, take a short break from the constant movement in your life and enjoy this snapshot of the ever moving world of ASF, and come to the same conclusion as me – that here at ASF, we are always changing for the better.

Paul Williams Executive Director

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from the editor

FOCUS

A magazine for the ASF community Vol. XIV | Issue 3 | Mexico City Paul Williams Executive Director Susan Olivo Head of Early Childhood Center Tara Fitzgerald Head of Lower School Robert Lewis Head of Middle School Amy Gallie Head of Upper School Robert Wilson Head of Athletics & Extended Learning

Dear Readers, The months of September, October and November are the time when many of The American School Foundation’s key cultural, social and fundraising events take place, making it a busy and exciting time.

Being a school, academic pursuits are our raison d’etre and always the most important activities, but there’s so much more happening in the community in the autumn months.

On the sports fields, our athletes are busy training and competing against school rivals. Our annual Homecoming game (see page 16) was a great example of school spirit, supported by the whole community.

In the classroom, students spent time preparing motion-themed art works ahead of our annual Art Fair, held in early November. You can see some great images of the Art Fair in our feature starting on page 26.

But our all-round learning doesn’t begin and end on campus. An important aspect of the ASF mission is that we want our students to be well-rounded individuals. You can see how some students sacrifice leisure time to help others less fortunate at Casa de la Amistad on page 18.

In this edition of Focus you can read about these things and much more that has been going on in and around ASF, as well as catching up with old school friends in our popular alumni section. I hope you enjoy this issue.

Editorial Staff Violeta Ayala, Director of Communications Andrew Livingstone, Editor-in-Chief Kelly Arthur Garrett, Editorial Consultant Daniela Graniel, Art Director Álvar Martínez, Photography Alumni Relations María José Martínez martinezmj@asf.edu.mx Parent Association Christina Moguel (’90), President Marissa Russell (’92), Vice President Advertising Sales: 5227-4942 FOCUS es una publicación cuatrimestral editada por The American School Foundation, A.C., Sur 136 #135, Col. Las Américas, México, D.F., C.P. 01120. Editor Responsable: Andrew Livingstone.

Derechos de Autor: Licitud de Título y de Contenido 16220. Reserva de Derecho: 04-2008-111212240200-102.

Distribuido por The American School Foundation, A.C. Sur 136 #135, Col. Las Américas, México, D.F., C.P. 01120. Se prohibe la reproducción total o parcial de los textos de esta revista sin previa autorización escrita de The American School Foundation, A.C.

Finally, I must apologize to José Fernando Herrera, a talented ASF student who we incorrectly called José Fernando Guerrero in the previous issue.

As always, I welcome feedback at livingstonea@asf.edu.mx.

Thanks for reading.

Andrew Livingstone Editor-in-Chief

On the cover: Senior Paola Castro’s work was part of the student exhibit at the ASF Art Fair.

Photo: Álvar Martínez

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In memoriam

A man whose dedication to American football was only matched by his love for The American School Foundation.

Coach of the ASF Bears from 1967 to 1975.

May he rest in peace.

News & Events

Upper School

Students share talents onstage

The Open Mic. Nights, hosted by student-run Repentino. magazine, branched out this year by inviting special guests from the wider ASF community, as well as outstanding writers and alumni, to show current students that they too can make a successful career out of arts, whether it be with a musical instrument or pen and paper.

All ASF

Parents and students go Back to School

Shortly after students returned to the ASF campus in August, parents had a chance to take a first-hand look at what really goes on in the classroom at the Back to School Nights.

Held separately across each of the four divisions, the Back to School Nights saw faculty and staff taking the time to explain the curriculum, policies, extra-curricular activities and more, allowing parents to help their children make the most of the opportunities afforded them at ASF. Parents spent most of the evenings visiting classrooms to sit at the same desks and listen to the same teachers as students, experiencing the learning environment for themselves.

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The first Open Mic. Night, held in late August, saw teachers, ASF alumni and invited artists join students to exhibit visual as well as performance art, including photography and painting.

The second Open Mic. Night in early November was held off campus for the first time, in a cafĂŠ in Colonia Roma. The setting led to a more relaxed and community atmosphere, in which artists not only exhibited and performed, but also explained the motivations behind their artwork.

Athletics & Extended Learning

ASF plays host to local schools’ athletics

In mid-October the Upper School field hosted hundreds of primary school students from Mexican public schools for a day of athletics.

ASF lent its facilities to the Public Education Secretariat so the schools of Mexico City’s sector 18 could hold a track meet, with races of 75, 150 and 300 meters, as well as a shot put competition. The same day ASF also hosted a “Learn to Learn” workshop for local education officials.

All ASF

ASF becomes a university for a day

In what is now a long-established ASF tradition, the 32nd ASF College Fair brought students and their parents from the community and across Mexico City to the Wellness Center for a day of exploring options for the future.

More than 1,500 people turned out on a Saturday to discuss study options with representatives from more than 160 universities in Mexico, the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom and across Europe and Asia.

ASF College Counselor Rachel Dillon says that the event was especially successful for sophomore students, who are starting to think about what they can study and where they can continue their education, with a little over two years until graduation.

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news & events

Lower School

Students get a taste of leadership

Lower School students tried their hand at democracy when classes voted for a student representative early in the school year.

In an effort to promote leadership and involve students in the process of making decisions about what happens in the Lower School, grade 5 students also ran for student council. Eight candidates were nominated for officer positions and they gave impassioned speeches to their peers in grades 3, 4, and 5, before students voted, and elected Manolo Pérez del Toro as president, Jeanine Farah as vice-president, Kennedi Munson as secretary and Victoria Chertorivski as treasurer.

Councils in the Lower School are an opportunity for students to work with the activity specialist in deciding how clubs use their budgets to provide fun activities like monthly games at recess time.

The council members also help in community service learning activities by taking the lead in projects such as the Toy Drive.

Upper School

Students interact with locals, turtles in Veracruz

A dedicated group of grade 10 students spent three days in October working with a state of Veracruz community to promote environmental awareness and safety. The group stopped at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of El Tajín before continuing down to the coast for their main objective – ensuring that hatchling turtles on the beaches of Veracruz made their way safely to the Gulf of Mexico.

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But the trip wasn’t just about turtles. Working with a local primary school, the group erected a fence along the edge of the school property to make sure children don’t run onto the road outside. They also braved pouring rains to collect trash from the beaches in an effort to beautify the coastline.

All ASF

Students celebrate Mexican Independence with a ‘Grito’

ASF decorated itself in red, white and green in midSeptember to celebrate Mexico’s Independence Day. In the ECC, staff and students dressed up in colorful traditional Mexican outfits and enjoyed typical sweets, while in the Lower School, the traditional flag ceremony was carried out with extra reverence. In the Middle School, students let out a cheer as they released hundreds of red, white and green balloons, and in the Upper School, students ate tacos, bashed a piñata, and took part in a corn-off-the-cob eating competition.

Although festivities varied across the four schools, all had one thing in common – they all culminated in a shout of Viva México to mark the famous “Grito de Dolores” by Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla more than 200 years ago.

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news & events All ASF

Staff members work to train Mexican teachers

Several ASF faculty members are teaching a different type of student this year – they are taking classes in capacity building for English teachers in Mexico City.

The Saturday Academies are supported

by Mexico’s Education Secretariat (SEP), sponsored by Fomento Educacional and hosted by ASF. At the academies, teachers from schools across the city play student for the day, while ASF faculty share techniques and skills in the instruction of the English language and how to get students listening, talking, reading and writing English.

The Saturday Academies are one way in which ASF works with the Mexican government to improve education standards at public schools in the city. Classes are free for approved teachers, and feedback so far has been very positive.

Houses come together for a day of fun Lower School

The Lower School united in early October for a day of games, food and fun, punctuated by the bright colors of each house.The house system is unique to the Lower School, bringing students together in a spirit of friendly competition, as well as honoring those who founded ASF. A large turnout of students and parents formed teams by house to play soccer, dodgeball and volleyball, as well as holding sponge race relays. Turquoisecolored house Cain – named after Henry Cain, who gained recognition for the ASF curriculum from the Mexican government – came out the winners on the day, not least thanks to a great participation rate.

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Middle School

Team work is key to camp success

Pipiol, near Valle de Bravo, was the site for grade 6 and 8 camps this year, where students balance academic, social and physical activities while interacting with indigenous people from the region. Grade 6 campers learned trades with locals – making tortillas, constructing clay pots and picture frames, and visiting an apiary, the latter of which they will use as a base of information from which to create and market a bee product at their “tianguis” later this year.

They also took a thrilling river hike, working in teams to ensure all students safely passed the river crossings and waterfall. Teamwork was also important for grade 8 campers, who pretended to be early settlers and were challenged to build shelter and fire, as well as participate in a high ropes course. They visited local people to hear about Mexican legends and, after visiting a corn field, learned about the process of making tortillas.

Lower School

Children have fun acting out stories

The usually quiet Lower School Library was a den of noise and excitement in mid-October, as students brought stories to life.

Paddy Lynn, a professional storyteller from the United States, visited ASF for three days to share stories with students from grades 1-5. But these weren’t the typical sit-down-and-listen stories, these were acted stories.

The idea of story acting is that the audience helps create the story, so students took the part in acting out characters in the stories in a mix of drama and literature. And both the children with roles and those in the audience joined in by providing lines of dialogue, sound effects and chants.

Lynn says that story acting is a great way to enhance children’s imagination and creativity, improve listening skills and boost self-confidence. volume XIV, ISSUE 3, 2015 | 11

news & events

All ASF

Teachers and staff get mindful

ASF’s Professional Development Days are not just a chance for students to enjoy a long weekend – their real purpose is for the faculty to hone their teaching skills and bring their new knowledge back into the classroom.

This year during Professional Development Days staff members are learning about mindfulness, a form of meditation

in which participants are encouraged to become aware of their surroundings and thought processes. The idea behind mindfulness meditation is that by seeing things with greater clarity, people can react to situations with better, more considered actions. In the future, the ASF faculty hopes to improve mindfulness skills and share those skills with students.

All ASF

Students acquire a love of reading

In a city where affordably priced Englishlanguage books can be difficult to find, ASF’s English Book Fair is a great opportunity for parents and students to find some quality English-language literature.

The annual fair brought thousands of books for children and young adults to the ASF campus for children and their parents to buy and browse. And this year’s Book Fair was an incredible success. More than 3,800 books were sold to 2,200 buyers, raising a total of 160,000 pesos for the Parent Association, which will go toward school campaigns.

Parent Association leadership was elated with the record amount raised, which they say was in large part thanks to a huge volunteer effort from the 30 volunteers who turned out every day for the duration of the fair.

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All ASF

ASF dresses up to celebrate Halloween

As October came to an end, ASF staff and students were replaced by a range of creepy characters for a day of Halloween fun. The usual assortment of skeletons, Catrinas, witches and vampires – and even a few Darth Vaders and storm troopers – were joined by literary and movie characters at across the different schools.

Some ECC students were joined by parents in fancy dress for a party at the Turtle Patio, while others sang and danced for parents and friends in the Fine Arts Center.

The other schools held parades, candy give-aways and costume competitions, and staff paraded in front of the camera to see who was the best dressed for the occasion.

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news & events

Lower School

Grade 4 and 5 students experience Mexican cultures

In late October and early November, Lower School students took learning outside of ASF and into the world on their camps.

Grade 4 students travelled to Oaxaca to study migration.

There they visited the archaeological sites of Monte Albán and Mitla, as well as Oaxacan markets and artisans’ stores to investigate the causes and effects of migration and how where people live helps to shape their culture and lifestyle.

Grade 5 students travelled to Puebla as part of an IB unit of inquiry into how government and economic structures influence society. In Puebla city they visited the municipal and state governments to learn how they serve the populace. Students also visited ceramics and bread-making factories to learn more about economic activity in Puebla.

In addition, students took part in many fun teambuilding activities to help build a sense of community within their grade level

Early Childhood Center

ECC students speak in tongues

The Early Childhood Center showed off its multicultural nature in October as parents came to class to share stories with students in their native language. Mother Tongue Day saw 20 parents and teachers visit classes and talk to kids in Italian, German, Afrikaans, Russian, French, Japanese, Portuguese, Hebrew, Hindi, Marathi, Sanskrit, Korean, Hungarian and Catalan.The day has now become an ECC tradition, and this year was the biggest Mother Tongue Day so far, with children talking and singing in a range of foreign languages for days afterwards. Parents also enjoyed the opportunity to share a part of their culture with their children’s friends, giving them a sense of pride in the international nature of the ASF community.

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FEATURE

Homecoming 2015: Some enchanted evening!

Homecoming was marked by a lopsided victory on the field by the Bears. Off the field, ASF swimming legend Hellen Plaschinski was honored with the 2015 Alumni Homecoming Award. The two events — plus the impressive performances of the Lower School football players at halftime — made for a very pleasant evening.

By Kelly Arthur Garrett, ASF Parent

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T

he annual American football Homecoming game is when the spirit and pride that go with any ASF athletic event are turned up a notch. Several notches, in fact.

The crowd is bigger, the cheering is louder, the noise level is off the meter and the atmosphere is charged with enthusiasm.

That was certainly the case on Oct. 23, when a raucous turnout of fans and supporters of all ages — from tots to octogenarians — filled the bleachers at Coach Colman Field on campus.

ASF students, staff, and families of the players were there to cheer on the Bears.

And as always, plenty of alumni came home themselves for the event, many of whom had played in their own homecoming game back in the day.

The Homecoming American football game is the culmination of a week of spirit-boosting activities on the ASF campus, which puts an extra charge in the air.

What else could you ask for?

Well, you could ask for a beautiful performance by the ASF varsity football squad. The Bears put on quite a show Homecoming night, dominating on both offense and defense and walking away with an impressive 55-13 win against an overmatched Comanches team.

Now we all know that the spirit of Homecoming night — or any other ASF athletic contest, for that matter — is not predicated on winning. Support for ASF athletes is based on loyalty to the community and a true appreciation for their effort, not on victory.

But it’s sure a lot more fun when the Bears win, isn’t it? And Homecoming 2015 turned out to be very fun.

An honor for the greatest The Homecoming game has at least one thing in common with the Super Bowl: there’s almost as much anticipation for the halftime activities as for the game itself.

For one thing, the break gives you a little more time to check out the behind-the-end-zone action. That’s where you can buy Bear Wear at the Bear Boosters stand, or food from one or more of the tables manned by student clubs or service groups.

But you shouldn’t dawdle. Those who did may have missed some of the amazing touch football games played out by ASF Lower School students at half-time. This was smash-free, nongendered football that emphasized speed and determination, plus a lot of enthusiasm.

Playing east-west on the same field where minutes earlier the ASF and Comanche athletes were going at it north-south, the

younger boys and girls looked from bleacher-level like armies of scampering water spiders, if water spiders had access to the ASF PE staff teaching football fundamentals.

The mighty mites’ ability to combine unbridled physical exuberance with organization and discipline was impressive, to say the least. The future of ASF football looks good.

Then came what for many was the highlight of the evening — the announcement of the winner of the 2015 Alumni Homecoming Award, an annual honor that goes to an alumnus or alumna who was an outstanding athlete and person who has shown dedication to ASF over the years.

It’s pretty hard to upstage a 55-13 win, but if you’re “the best athlete ever to come out of ASF,” you got a shot at it.

That’s how Lynnette Rivera (’89), last year’s winner and a superb athlete herself, introduced Hellen Plaschinski (’81), who was there to accept her 2015 Alumni Homecoming Award.

Lynnette was not exaggerating. At the 1979 Pan-American games in San Juan Puerto Rico, Hellen was a member of Mexico’s bronze-medal-winning 4x100 swimming relay team in both freestyle and medley — while she was still in high school.

The next year, still an ASF student, she competed in the Olympic Games in Moscow. There is no bigger stage in all of sports, and Hellen was on it.

And then she graduated from ASF. But she never left the school behind. Her three children are alumni.

“ASF is my home and it will always be,” she said. “I believe ASF is, if not the best, one of the best schools in the world. The values, the teamwork, the respect for others...”

And coming back to see a Homecoming game is a thrill for her, even without any award.

“It’s been almost 34 years since I graduated from school and being back and feeling the coziness of the people and the event made me feel very emotional and happy,” she said. “Watching how the alumni and the families of the players make a great big family is something that I haven’t felt at any other institution.”

But of course she did get an award, and she didn’t try to disguise her pleasure.

“They said I was the best athlete in ASF’s history!” she exclaimed, as though not knowing what to make of such a compliment, but happy to hear it.

Then she added, “When I received the award from Lynnette, I was touched by her words and by the respect and kindness of the crowd. It was real and it was beautiful. Thanks to the committee who decided to honor me with this award.”

Left top: The ASF Bears beat Comanches 55-13 in the 2015 Homecoming game, shining on offense and defense. Left bottom: The Lower School footballers almost stole the show on Homecoming night with their impressive blending of physical exuberance and discipline. On this page left: Hellen Plaschinski (’81) was honored at halftime with the 2015 Alumni Homecoming Award. Right: The turnout was large, enthusiastic, diverse and very loud.

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FEATURE

Bonds of friendship A group of ASF students get together and pay visits to Casa de la Amistad, which provides a home to low-income kids with cancer while they undergo treatment. Just by being there, the students brighten up the children’s day — and their own as well.

S

By Kelly Arthur Garrett, ASF Parent

ometimes, the most valuable part of community service is simply showing up. Think about it. ASF students are encouraged, sometimes required, to participate in community service projects. That means giving a piece of their time to improving the lives of others. Most need neither the encouragement nor the requirement to do that. Only the opportunity.

Showing up indicates they want to participate, that they’ve made the decision to do it, and then followed through on that decision. Once you show up, the rest is the easy part.

The improvement that students provide through community service can be indirect — like from projects to save the environment, or through organizing forums to promote knowledge and awareness of vital issues, or by raising money for community development in marginalized areas.

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Or it can directly benefit individuals (individuals being, after all, what communities are made up of). Toy drives for holiday gifts to underprivileged kids are a good example, as are material donations to marginalized communities, or student-led teaching sessions, like those given by the Gamma club.

There’s another example of direct community service that expands the meaning of showing up. It’s the group of Upper School students dedicated to supporting Casa de la Amistad para Niños con Cáncer, the Mexico City facility that provides a home for low-income children with cancer who come from the provinces for treatment.

Casa de la Amistad, often referred to as CDLA, is in Xochimilco at the extreme south of the city. It’s an approved ASF community service beneficiary and has had a relationship with the school for many years. The ASF students’ contribution consists in occasional

en masse visits to brighten the day of the children there, who can be as many as 48 (that’s how many private rooms there are at the Casa) and range in age from infants to 18-year-olds.

Says senior Camila Migoya, who’s the club president and main organizer of the visits, “Our purpose as an ASF club is to give a few hours to the kids so they can relax and talk to other young people like them.”

In other words, to show up.

That’s an oversimplification, of course. Camila, Ricardo Mateos, who’s the club vice president, and the other students in this loose affiliation of Casa de la Amistad supporters do a lot more than show up.

“Some of the activities we organize for the kids are arts and crafts — such as making puppets, coloring and painting — and also activities to get them moving, such as musical chairs (their favorite) or a mini soccer game,” Camila says. “At the end of every visit, we put on music and crank up the volume and we dance.”

Still, the students understand that just by being there, they are lifting the spirits of children who never had much to start with, and are now in a situation that would challenge anybody of any age or socioeconomic status. The ASF volunteers learned early on how much power their presence has.

“I remember perfectly, the first time I went, our hostess telling us to say hello to the children and smile at them,” Camila says. “I’m not really sure why that stuck in my head so much. It’s something I usually do with everybody. But now I really think about it whenever I’m there. In my opinion, what the kids in that situation need most is loving, caring people.”

The ASF volunteers are certainly loving and caring, but they’re something else as well — young. Sure, they’re older than most of the Casa kids, but still a lot younger than the Casa staff, the one adult (usually a parent) required to accompany each

child, and the treatment professionals whom the kids spend much of their time with. That youth makes a difference to them.

So once again, the ASF students’ mere presence has a huge positive impact.

“The people who work there always appreciate our visit very much, because they tell us that the kids really like to be with people who are closer to their age,” Camila says.

A promised unfulfilled... thankfully Camila is probably typical of the students who first decide to help with Casa de la Amistad — eager to be involved but inexperienced in the world they are about to enter.

“I’ve always enjoyed working with children,” she says. “It makes me happy and I believe I’m good at being with them. So when I found out that there was a club that was involved with children with cancer, that was the perfect combination for me, even though I didn’t know a single thing about cancer or how to be around children with cancer. But I started to learn as I went there, and I also did research on my own.”

Casa de la Amistad is a good place to learn. It has been operating since 1990, providing a home with a safe and warm atmosphere for low-income children with cancer for as long as their treatment in Mexico City lasts. The Casa offers the children what they need to confront their illness, which is more than physicians, testing equipment, hospitals, clinics and medications. They get round-trip transportation to the capital, bed clothes and hygiene items, three meals a day with special dietary requirements taken care of, transportation to and from the hospital, emotional support, ongoing education, creative workshops and more.

The CDLA facility has private baths in each room, a dining hall, a school, special spaces for group and individual care, reading rooms, recreation rooms and gardens.

Clockwise: ASF senior and Casa de la Amistad club president Camila Migoya with Imanol, who likes books, planes and cars. ASF students, some Casa kids and some Casa staff during a recent visit.

Camila and ASF senior Martin Manzo, with two new friends.

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“I remember thinking on my first visit how clean and well-organized everything was,” Camila recalls. “The system works perfectly. Everyone has a specific task to do, including the parents or guardians of the children.”

In its 25 years, Casa de la Amistad has helped more than 8,000 children with cancer. To be able to do that requires ceaseless fundraising, and one of the activities of the Casa de la Amistad club on campus is to encourage ASF community members to help with the cause.

“The main thing you can do is donate everything you can,” Camila says. “You can give money, you can buy things at their store Regalos con Causa (gifts with a cause), or 20 | volume XIV, ISSUE 3, 2015

donate things in good condition that you don’t use anymore, like clothing or a television.”

There’s information on how to contribute at the CDLA website (in Spanish) at casadelaamistad.org.mx.

Like anyone involved with community service, the Casa club students realize that by being benefactors they are also beneficiaries.

“Every time I leave Casa de la Amistad I have the greatest feeling in the world,” Camila says. “It’s the feeling of me being able to help and make someone else’s day a little better.”

That feeling was especially evident during a recent visit when Camila and another ASF student, José Durán, were

ASF students pose during a visit to Casa de la Amistad. Kneeling at the right in the front row in the green vest is Sloane Starke, International Baccalaureate Creativity, Action and Service Coordinator in the Upper School English Department, and faculty coordinator for the club, and on the far right is Upper School Activity Specialist Lauren Dickson.

unable to keep a promise they had made to one of the children. That sounds contradictory, but it makes sense when you know the story. Let’s let Camila tell it herself: “I’ve met many of the kids and talked to them, but there are some that really got to my heart and mind. Imanol was the first boy I met.

“We arrived at CDLA that first time at approximately 3:00 p.m., which is when the children are having their lunch. I remember that Imanol wanted to come play with us that very instant, but his mother insisted that he eat first.

“So, to get him to eat, José Durán and myself went to eat with him. We started to talk about things he liked, and he

said that the things he liked the most were books, planes and cars. So José and I promised that if he ate his meal, the next time we returned to CDLA we would bring him books about planes and cars. So he did finish everything on his plate.

“When we returned a few months later, we found out that Imanol was no longer in CDLA. His treatment had been successfully completed and he was now only coming to Mexico City occasionally for check-ups. No more chemotherapy.

“So we couldn’t see Imanol, and we couldn’t give him the books we’d brought for him. That made José and me so happy, we were glad he wasn’t there anymore.” volume XIV, ISSUE 3, 2015 | 21

FEATURE

“The key skill is to teach bystanders to take action.” –Dr. Debra Lane

Stopping the cycle In late September, ASF hosted Dr. Debra Lane for a series of workshops on preventing bullying. While visiting, Dr. Lane took some time to present strategies on how to prevent and address bullying to faculty, staff and parents, and spoke to Focus about her efforts.

T

By Andrew Livingstone

he American School Foundation hosted educators from American schools across Mexico in late September to talk strategies in preventing and dealing with bullying.

Dr. Debra Lane, an international anti-bullying expert, visited ASF to impart skills and techniques with a large group of education professionals from the Association of American Schools in Mexico, coming in from all around the country.

Her talk touched on how to distinguish bullying from acceptable student behavior, how to intervene in a situation where bullying is taking place, and how to follow up the situation so that the person engaging in bullying, the victim and bystanders all learn from the situation.

Before the two-day conference, she also took the time to hold extra workshops for ASF parents, faculty and support staff to reinforce the idea that preventing and stopping bullying is the responsibility of the whole community.

Dr. Lane said the most important thing she can teach educators, parents and staff is how to take action. “People need to learn skills in how to intervene in a bullying situation,” she said. “If we see things happening, they need to be reported, and we need to promote a positive school culture.”

If incidents of bullying are not stopped or addressed, they can have an effect on more than just those directly involved, said Dr. Lane, including bystanders feeling encouraged to join in, which can in turn lead to diminished empathy for bullied students.

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She said that ending the bystander culture is crucial to establishing an environment where bullying does not occur. “The key skill is to teach bystanders to take action. Without an audience, the incidence of bullying is a lot lower.”

In her conferences, Dr. Lane said that when witnessing bullying, the first priority is to immediately stop any harmful behavior.

Once the behavior is stopped, the second priority is to ensure the victim is unharmed, and returned to a safe environment.

After these concerns are addressed, the authority figure should address bystanders to gather information on the incident and later follow up with them, and to make clear to the aggressor that there will be consequences for their actions.

It is also important, she added, that those who engage in bullying behavior are not labeled “bullies.” Often, bullying behavior is the result of someone being a victim themselves, and sometimes the person engaging in bullying doesn’t fully realize the effect their actions can have on others.

This can be especially the case when it comes to the relatively recent concept of cyber bullying, where it can be easier to engage in aggressive behavior over a cellphone or computer screen than to another person’s face. While cyber bullying can be difficult to identify and address, it can lead to consequences as serious as physical aggression for victims. Dr. Lane recommended that adults educate themselves about how adolescents use technology, so they can better understand the potential for the use of digital devices in bullying.

FEATURE

Arguing against the world ASF’s Alex Antillón took home honors after competing as part of the ASF debating team in Singapore

By Andrew Livingstone

L

ast summer, ASF Upper School student Alex Antillón traveled to Singapore as a member of the team representing Mexico at the World Schools Debating Championships. There he was named among the best nonnative English speakers in the world. Alex recently talked to Focus about his international debating experience.

While students work on their tablets and laptop computers in class, Alex Antillón always has an extra tab or two open.

But he’s not browsing social media sites, playing games or engaging in online chat – he’s reading Al Jazeera, the Atlantic and other online news sites to make sure he knows all about the current issues the world is facing.

That’s because as a debater, Alex needs to be up to date on economic, political and ethical issues so he can make an informed argument at a moment’s notice. A good debater is prepared for any tricky issue.

Alex, now a senior, travelled as part of the five-strong Mexican team to Singapore in July and August to attend the World Schools Debating Championships. He was joined on the team by fellow ASF students Enrique Torres and Tomás Esteve and accompanied by ASF and Mexico coach Mark Webber.

The World Schools Debating Championships Before the Worlds got under way, Alex and the Mexico team took advantage of Mexico’s growing reputation as a debating 24 | volume XIV, ISSUE 3, 2015

country, sparring with hosts and world champions Singapore as well as the United States and several European teams.

The debate structure allows the team of five to brainstorm the given topic, before choosing three members to participate in the debate. When the competition got underway, the Mexico team had a week of debates against other teams in their group.

According to Alex, judges at the worlds mark speeches based on three categories: content, style and strategy. “You have to be a balanced debater and appeal to each of those three aspects in order to be successful,” Alex said.

In the round robin, the team performed well, losing only one debate unanimously, while winning three others unanimously. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for Alex and his teammates to progress to the finals.

“There were very thin margins,” he said. “For most of us this was only our second international tournament, so we were like the rookie team.”

Alex said that an interesting aspect of international competitions is the different ways in which people from different cultures and countries approach issues.

“In the world schools debating championship we had countries advocating for democracy, and others advocating for universal basic income from a communist perspective,” he said.

“They all have their own way of analyzing things like freedom of speech and rights, and we’re not as used to encountering and rebutting them.”

Coach Webber praised Alex’s performance, saying he was the most consistent of the young Mexico team.

“I thought Alex turned in some excellent speeches against some of the top teams in the tournament and his award was well deserved,” Webber said.

“Alex is the kind of debater who understands that teamwork is more important than personal accolades, so he will certainly be driven to make the team again,” he added.

Singapore and the debaters This was Alex’s first time in Asia, and he enjoyed the cultural changes.

“Singapore was very interesting because it’s such a modern city with all these skyscrapers, you have a beautiful bay, but since most of the housing is subsidized, there are many cultural enclaves and a lot of different cultures and foods,” he said. “It’s like Mexico, but in the future.”

But the best part of competing for Alex was meeting like-minded people from all around the world and creating some international friendships.

“I felt as if I was in my own environment,” he said. “I felt like the type of people there had the same goals, the same eagerness for learning, the same want and need for social justice.”

Putting skills to good use That need for social justice drives Alex too. For him, debating is not just about arguing and trying to convince people you are correct. It needs to translate into action too. Alex is driven to use not only his great public speaking skills, but also all the knowledge about world issues he gained and put it into action.

“What I see is that we go to school and we sit in classes and learn all this material,” he said. “Before I was a debater I didn’t really know how to apply it, where did it work. How was this school knowledge going to help me in real life?

“But the beauty of debate is that all the information we learn is applied to current events and to real concepts such as passing policy.”

Alex said that his specialties in debating topics include economics and political policy. He likes to read about these topics, as well as others like environmental sustainability and other issues like feminism.

And Alex is not just a bookworm. He wants to apply this knowledge through his passion – economics, the field in which he thinks he can most make a positive difference in society.

“Politics is not as attractive as economics due to the corruption in Mexico,” he said. “To get to a position where you can help people, you have to make too many compromises.”

“But by working at my own firm or creating a business someday, I could help people by providing jobs.”

Next year Alex hopes to get accepted into a college with a strong debating team. If not, he said he would create a debating club in whichever university he attends. And with that kind of motivation, you wouldn’t argue against him doing so.

Alex Antillón receives his speaking award at the World Schools Debating Championship in Singapore.

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FEATURE

ASF Art Fair 2015: Creativity in motion

By Kelly Arthur Garrett, ASF Parent

ack in 1970, an intimate event took place at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Mexico City, with some nice art, important dignitaries and many pleasantries.

That was the first ASF Art Fair.

On November 7, getting toward a half century later, the 46th annual Art Fair drew more than 4,400 people for a day-long, campus-wide celebration of art, music and camaraderie. ASF’s signature community event has become too big and inclusive to be called “intimate” like that first fair, but this year’s fair sure felt intimate.

The ASF Art Fair has long been open to all, and all seemed to come — students, staff, teachers, administrators, family, alumni.

And the celebrants were by no means limited to the immediate ASF community. Art lovers, artists, friends of ASF and other members of what might be called the extended ASF community joined in the celebration.

“For me the most important aspect of the Art Fair is that it is created using our ASF community resources,” said Christina Moguel, president of the ASF Parent Association, which organizes the Art Fair every year. “This event defines the spirit of the ASF community, illustrating how we support and help each other for the benefit of the entire school.”

(Ms. Moguel is pictured here with ASF Executive Director Paul Williams.)

One of those benefits comes with the funds raised from the fair. The Art Fair is one of the biggest contributors to the Annual Fund, which provides financial aid to deserving students who would otherwise not be able to afford an ASF education.

But few were thinking about fundraising on that sunny Saturday. The day was all about art —

by ASF students, by community artists displaying and selling their work in the garden areas, by distinguished Mexican artists in the school’s HojelSchumacher gallery, and by young newcomers trying their hand at the various workshops led by professionals.

It was also about music and singing, by ASF students of all grade levels in the Fine Arts Center stage.

And it was about food and refreshments, sold primarily by student clubs to support their causes.

Mostly, though, it was about a community getting together and having a good time.

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Student art: The highlight of the fair Work by ASF students has been given increasing prominence in the last several years. In 2015, it reached a tipping point and was unmistakably the highlight of the 2015 Art Fair.

“The student exhibition this year has been one of the best ever,” Ms. Moguel said after the fair. “Thank you, Leo!” She was referring to Leo Trías, the ASF art and ceramics teacher (pictured below here on the right with fellow ASF art teachers Eduardo Xavier García and Yoko Mochizuki) who for 10 years has taught the IB visual arts course. Mr. Trías serves as K-12 visual arts coordinator, so it fell to him to coordinate the herculean efforts of the school-wide art teaching staff as they guided their students to produce work for the exhibition.

This they did by using a theme as a focal point, which for the 2015 fair was “Motion.” A good choice — specific enough to mean something, yet allowing for almost limitless interpretation.

As Ms. Moguel puts it, “What better place to witness the progression of motion than at a school?”

With so many ASF students exhibiting at the fair, there’s no way we could even begin to run them all down here. But we can pick a few, almost at random, as representative.

One is a seventh-grade class project, in which the students were given five meters of thin wire to fashion a

self-portrait based on a photograph.

The catch was that they couldn’t cut the wire or ask for more. They just had to keep twisting it until they created a likeness of themselves that would hold its shape.

“We had been doing contour-line drawing, where you don’t pick up your pencil while you’re drawing,” said

Susan Seibel, who along with Ivette Berentsen teaches Middle School art.

“This is the same thing but with wire.”

(You can see some of the results in the photo above.)

Much of the Upper School art on display was from IB or AP students, and was often part of what would eventually be their final portfolio.

One especially talented IB art student is Paola Castro, a Mexico City-born senior who is considering studying animation in New Zealand next year.

Judging by what she brought with her to the Art Fair, Paola’s work (below

left) is ambitious and varied, but often dedicated to a theme — personality.

By “personality,” she means the true individual underneath appearances. “My work with personalities is about what they would look like if their true personality would show,” she told Focus at the fair.

She accomplished that in a number of ways. “Two portraits in my exhibition do not show experiences, but rather moments and the expressions that people make in those moments,” she wrote in her curatorial statement. “I believe that personality shows itself in our reactions and expressions, making people more interesting.”

Paola’s ability to not only produce such work but also to speak clearly and thoughtfully about it is a tribute to her teacher, Pat Patterson, and to the ASF art program in general.

One of the great pleasures of the student art exhibit that filled the spacious Lower School Multipurpose Room was the opportunity to follow, through works of art, the students’ progression from early childhood to the kind of sophisticated awareness that Paola Castro represents.

In fact, that’s not a bad way to plan your tour through the student art exhibit at next year’s fair. Start with the earliest efforts by ECC kids and work your way up grade-by-grade to the graduating seniors, trying to note the indicators of progress and maturing.

It’s quite a journey.

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The workshops: Where everybody can learn to be an artist The 2015 edition may be remembered as the Fair of the Workshops. There were more of them, they were more varied in content, and they were given pride of place in the campus geography. “The school exists for the students, and we decided this year to center ourselves more on the kids,” the PA’s Ms. Moguel said. “So we really focused on the workshops, what we call Hands-On Art.” It paid off. The workshop tables were jammed all day long, with fair-goers sometimes waiting in line for a chance to try their hand at an art technique, such as spin art, pop art, seed mosaics, cardboard animals, Rufino Tamayo-inspired cosmic art and the ever-popular alebrijes, the colorful, fantastical creatures first popularized in the 1930s by the Oaxacan folk artist Pedro Linares. More than 850 workshop admissions were sold, an unprecedented figure. Most of the workshop attendees were smaller children, but many weren’t so small, and some weren’t children at all.

Artists of the Year: Alia Suhaimi and Michel Gantous Every year an artist of the year is chosen among ASF students. They are usually graduating seniors, which means they have already moved on to more advanced studies by the time the Art Fair rolls around in the fall and often cannot be present at the fair. That was the case with this year’s 28 | volume XIV, ISSUE 3, 2015

co-winners, Alia Suhaimi (’15) and Michel Gantous (’15).

But their work was well represented. “Alia and Michel are both passionate and unequivocal in their own, unique way,” said Mr. Trías, who taught both of them. Alia’s “Traitor,” the one seen here, came out of her struggle with cultural identity. “This piece was my most heavily influenced by Frida Kahlo,” she said. “I truly understood the necessity to depict pain and struggle the way she did.” Michel is less prone to explaining the origin of his work shown here, “Fading.” “I could tell you that I regard my work as an extension of myself... [but] how would you know it’s true?” he wrote in the Art Fair program. He’s saying, in part, that there’s a separation between the artist and the viewer that no amount of explanation can bridge. “Michel is exploring the unknown mysteries of philosophy and art,” Mr. Trías said.

Guest artists: In the gardens and the gallery Is there a more pleasant way to spend a few hours on a Saturday afternoon than strolling the ASF garden areas where some six dozen community artists are displaying their work? One of the attractions of the “Artists in the Garden” displays at the Art Fair is that you can chat with the work’s creator as you look at it. You can also buy a piece or two, or more, as many did at the fair. The selection is so varied, as are the prices, that any fair visitor can find something that suits their taste and budget. The artwork displayed in the Hojel Shumacher gallery inside the Fine Arts Center did not include the presence of the creators, but it did include some of the finest work being made today by more than 25 distinguished Mexican artists.

Like so much at the fair, this exhibition of high-end gallery art was sufficiently compelling to merit a visit on its own.

The performing arts: What’s a fair without music?

If it were announced that there would be a four and a half hour concert featuring no fewer than seven different musical and drama groups performing at the Ángeles Espinosa Yglesias Fine Arts Center on the ASF campus, it would be a major event on its own. Such is the richness of the ASF Art Fair that such a concert was just one of many attractions. It was a hit and well attended. The audience would turn over as the day went on, with each grade level performance attracting mostly different listeners. The performances were: The ECC singers, led by Luis Betancourt; the Middle School Choir, led by Merritt Fallis; Middle School drama, led by Rosana Cesarman; the Upper School Jazz Band, led by Dr. Deborah Lawrence, ASF’s K-12 performing arts coordinator; Lower School music groups, led by the LS music teachers Rob McCabe, Olivia Maekawa and Kyle Pape; Upper School guitars, led by Mr. Betancourt; and Upper School drama and speaking, led by Will Hodges, Gregg Luna, Suzanne Ross and Pat Patterson.

The food courts: Refreshments with a cause Truth be told, the best attended section of the Art Fair is the food court, which this year consisted of more than two dozen stands offering food and beverages, which are especially welcome during a long day of fair-going. Most of the stands were run by student clubs, who use the proceeds to help fund their activities. A list of the clubs who set up stands and manned them all day long gives a good idea of the kinds of priorities that prevail among ASF students for their extra-curricular activities: Techo, National Honor Society, Tech Club, Gamma Club (which gives classes to kids from nearby neighborhoods), MS Student Council, Casa de la Amistad, Asian Club, Amnesty, Green Club, Peer Mediation, MS Model United Nations, Urban Gardening, Operation Smile (pictured here), Girl Scouts, Fifth Graders and Alumni. The ASF bus supervisors and maintenance crew also offered food, along with some commercial providers. Total money earned by the clubs: 82,000 pesos. volume XIV, ISSUE 3, 2015 | 29

FEATURE

Looking to the future ASF Career Day in October brought a group of high-achieving former students and current parents to campus to share some inspiring stories on how career and lifestyle goals can be achieved. Some of the speakers also took the time to share their inspiration with Focus.

By Andrew Livingstone

What do you want to do with the rest of your life?

For students who have spent up to 15 of their 18 years at ASF, the idea of moving on to other pursuits can be a daunting prospect. When all your memories of growing up – from playing on the turtle in the Early Childhood Center to playing soccer, an instrument, acting, in the Upper School – are associated with your school, what comes next?

It’s a question that can seriously stress adolescents. Luckily, at ASF, the Upper School has a dedicated team of staff and counselors whose job it is to ensure that students think about their future, and leave the school with a plan for what to do next.

Hundreds of ASF alumni have gone on to forge successful careers in all sorts of fields, so we must be doing something right. But those successful alumni also remember their time at ASF, and the uncertainty that the future held. So every year, a group of inspiring alumni – and some enterprising parents – come back to share their experience and advice with Upper School students at Career Day. It’s an incredibly diverse field: financiers and entrepreneurs side by side with scientists, writers, artists, chefs and more; a testament to the well-rounded education that ASF offers. Pola Capuano, Sergio Rodríguez, Paula Rendón and Andrew Kallmes share some of their advice.

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Pola Capuano, Medical professional (’00) Pola Capuano spoke to a packed class of students, most of whom seemed enthusiastic about pursuing a career in medicine. After all, as Pola told them, medical professionals are respected in every culture. Pola studied at Anáhuac in Mexico City and finished her degree on a placement in Israel through Columbia University. “Medicine is popular because it is one of those careers that have a lot of social connotations,” she said. “People think doctors are cool.

And there are so many things you can do as a medical professional.” Pola told students that when choosing where to study, lifestyle is as important as curriculum — that is, she advises young people to study somewhere that they can have more study and leisure time and shorter commutes, for example. “Textbooks and medicine are the same everywhere, and coming out of ASF you have no problem reading the texts in English or Spanish, so you can study here or in the U.S. or anywhere.” A lot of students already know they want to go to med school, and they have very specific questions about biochemistry and organic chemistry. Pola is happy to encourage them, but she warned them that it takes dedication. “I graduated from ASF in 2000, and just last year I came back from the States started working in my own practice.” It takes time and dedication, but it pays off in the end.

“You don’t become a medical student on your first day in med school. You become a medical student the first time you are on call at night and you are responsible for a patient and you realize you can either impact them positively or negatively.”

Andrew Kallmes, Engineer (ASF parent)

Sergio Rodríguez, Chef (’05)

Andrew Kallmes is an engineer who holds a number of patents for designs he’s built over the years. He educated students on what an engineer does, and what it takes to be successful in the industry. “It’s hard to communicate what an industry is – especially engineering,” Andrew said. “We fix things, we reinvent the wheel, and we have to be creative to solve problems.”

He said that as an engineer, when you go into an industry there are always issues or problems that need fixing, or things that can be made to work more efficiently. “It’s true that necessity is the mother of invention, so when your company has a problem, or there’s a need to fix something, you have to apply your understanding of math and science to improve things,” he added. Andrew said that his most important advice is to persevere. He told students that he was at first rejected from graduate school, but continued to study and work until he achieved his goals. “It’s likely that when you go to college your grades won’t be as good. But don’t give up, get through the program and you’ll be glad you did.”

Sergio Rodríguez was one of three professionals from the hospitality industry who shared their experience with students on Career Day. He has studied in Mexico and Hong Kong, worked in Toronto and even went to bartending school in New York. Sergio currently runs a Kaiju, a food truck selling “Asian Soul Food” in Mexico City, including gourmet takes on Asian classics like dim sum, dumplings and spring rolls. He told students that you have to really be passionate about preparing and eating food to be successful as a chef. “A lot of people who don’t know what to study go into cooking school,” he said. “They think it’s easy. It’s not. You have to want to be a chef.” Cooking schools are helpful, Sergio said, but the real learning happens outside of classrooms. “Try to learn as much as you can in school,” he said, “because when you finish four years of college in cooking, you realize you know absolutely nothing. “If you want to be a chef you have to start in kitchens. You have to work your way up from the bottom. You have to learn different tastes, flavors and textures, and how to combine them. You can’t learn it in a classroom.”

“I love designing things. Your customers have needs, and with the basis of engineering you can design ways to address these needs.”

Paula Rendón, Screenwriter (’04) Paula Rendón is an award-winning screen writer who is currently part of a team writing a new series for HBO. Paula’s mother was a writer, and from a young age, Paula became part of her mother’s career. “I was really involved in her process,” she said. “I would edit what she wrote and make suggestions on changes. It was something I grew up with.” Paula went on to study towards a degree in Communication Sciences at Tecnológico de Monterrey’s Monterrey campus, but she never really considered following her mother’s footsteps. Said Paula, “I’ve always been pretty skilled at writing, but I’d never thought of writing as a career until fairly recently. “My screenplay teacher at university called me up after reading my script for a short film and said, “Have you ever thought of doing this professionally?” Paula originally wanted to follow other pursuits, but was encouraged to start writing scripts, and has gained such recognition that cable channel HBO sought her out to help develop a new project.

Working on a television series is very different from the freelance aspect of developing your own scripts in your own time. “It was the first time I had to write every single day for eight hours, and be there, and try to participate and contribute ideas,” Paula said. But that hard work and dedication will all pay off if her show goes into development, and in the near future, we may be hearing actors speak the words that came from the mind of Paula Rendón. Remember the name.

“You have to have entrepreneurial skills. It’s not just about cooking skills, you have to know about costs and numbers.”

“Recognize your skills. There are things you like to do, but there are also things you are good at.

If you recognize those and work on them, they might become more useful for your career than the things you like now.”

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FEATURE

This photo was taken from one of Larry Russell’s seven CDs recorded in Mexico, including the much-loved “Nostalgia” series of five albums of jazz numbers combining in more or less equal parts Mexican and American tunes. There’s also a live recording available of a European concert under the title “Larry Russell and the Mexican Jazz revolution Live at the North Sea Jazz Festival.”

The Music Man Larry Russell’s magical tenure as ASF’s music director is remembered to this day.

By Kelly Arthur Garrett, ASF Parent

32 | volume XIV, ISSUE 3, 2015

usic is so much a part of The American School today — so vital to so many students — that it’s hard for a lot of us to ponder that it wasn’t always so.

The school didn’t always have handbell recitals and jazz performances and student orchestras putting on musical galas at the Fine Arts Center and student bands playing at the ASF Art Fair and a Middle School choir and an Upper School choir and a series of winter concerts to usher in the holidays and a K-12 performing arts coordinator and a team of music teachers in the Primary School and even a music teacher in the Early Childhood Center.

Instead, music education has had its ups and downs over ASF’s 127-year history. To be sure, that puts it ahead of most schools in the country, which have only had downs. But the fact remains that most ASF alumni never had quite as many opportunities as today’s musically inclined students have.

Among the downs, the second-lowest for ASF music in recent memory may have come in 1977, the first full year of the Carter administration and the first full year of the López Portillo administration. There were only four high school music students left and, after the sudden passing of the music director, nobody to teach them.

Short on options, incoming Superintendent Maurice Blum put in a call to a jazz musician he’d admired while studying at MIT as a young man, and who he knew was in Mexico because he’d seen him playing recently on Televisa. Would he do the school a favor by filling in for the rest of the school year?

Mr. Blum surely had no inkling at the time, but that phone call not only turned a down into an up, it also ushered in a golden age of musical education at ASF. The magic of music soon brightened the days of scores of kids, as it blazed through the school like a comet with melody and harmony.

Until it crashed and burned eight years later, when ASF music experienced its lowest down of them all.

A jazz pro among jazz pros Larry Russell’s decision to move to Mexico in 1974 was not a tough one for him. Which is curious, given what he was leaving behind.

He was just out of the New England Conservatory of Music, a clarinet major, when he was playing with major orchestras.

“I was at the right place at the right time,” he recalls. “My clarinet teacher was an old-school Italian gentleman who was lead clarinet with the Boston Symphony. When he took a sabbatical he gave me the honor of taking his place with the Boston Pops.”

So here’s a guy, barely 20, playing with the Boston Symphony (the Boston Pops is the summer incarnation of the Symphony, with a lighter repertoire) and then the Dallas Symphony. A classical career was born.

“But,” he says, “I always preferred jazz.”

Okay, then, change that sentence to “a jazz career was born.”

And what a career.

A lot of us would have given anything to have been able to see Sidney Bechet or Jack Teagarden play, or Billie Holiday sing. Larry Russell performed with them. And with many other jazz legends.

Name a major jazz big band, and he probably played with them in the 50s or 60s — Stan Kenton, Louis Prima, Buddy Rich. He also had his own quartet, quintet and sextet. But Mexico beckoned.

Jazz in Mexico Some may find it surprising that there was a jazz scene in Mexico in the 1960s. But there was.

One of its leaders was a filmmaker named Juan López Moctezuma, whose work was later admired by Roman Polanski and much later by Guillermo del Toro. He also had his own program on Televisa. He was well-connected.

López Moctezuma was a jazz aficionado and would often bring in American players, and sponsor their performances. One of those invitees was Larry Russell.

“He offered me a series of concerts and presented me with a rhythm section of Mexican musicians,” he says. “That’s how I met the local jazz musicians for the first time.”

Fifty years later, he’s still playing with Mexican jazz musicians.

“These are excellent, world-class jazz players,” he says. “But it’s hard to make a living playing exclusively jazz in Mexico. So a lot of them are anonymous musical directors for pop singers, spending a lot of time in Vegas and London.”

The typical foreign artist performing in Mexico will dutifully fulfill his contract, take in a pyramid or two, tell the press how warm the Mexican people are, get his picture taken eating tacos, and scurry home. Not Larry Russell. He stayed for another year and a half, playing gigs around the country.

“Mexico is an improvisational society, and I’m an improviser,” he says. “I felt very comfortable, very much at home.”

Hence the ease of the decision later to start a new life in Mexico in 1974. There was another factor worth mentioning.

His bride, Nadine Markova, was (and is) a highly regarded photographer and cinematographer with an established business in Mexico. Some decisions make themselves. volume XIV, ISSUE 3, 2015 | 33

Music in Mexico The talent was already here, as we’ve seen, but Larry Russell made it coalesce. He hadn’t been living in Mexico long before groups were getting booked with names like Larry Russell & the Mexican Jazz All-Stars Sextet, the Larry Russell International Jazz Quartet, and Larry Russell and the Mexican Jazz Revolution.

Perhaps the best thing Mr. Russell brought to the party was his connections. Through them he was able to take Mexican jazz international. He had played a lot of European festivals. Now he would play one with his new colleagues.

“I formed a group of all-Mexican musicians and I brought it to Europe,” he says. “It was the first time that Mexican musicians had ever played major festivals in Europe. It was a major success. It’s one of my proudest accomplishments.”

How it came about is something of a tale.

On the cover of the demo they sent to the Hague to seek a spot in the North Sea Festival was a photo of the musicians dressed up as Zapatistas — the original ones from the Mexican Revolution. If that little touch of Mexican Curious was supposed to help them stand out, it worked. Perhaps too well.

They got the gig, on the condition that they wear the same getup on stage.

No problem. But Mr. Russell soon realized that an awkward scenario was developing. They would be taking the stage right after Sarah Vaughn and her trio, and just before the Count Basie band. Between those two heavyweights, they’d be playing a typical set of jazz standards, but dressed like Mexican revolutionaries from 1915.

“I thought, we better do something else,” he recalls.

In for a penny, in for a pound. They tore up the set list and put together a repertoire of Mexican folk songs, re-arranged for jazz.

Like “Guadalajara,” but jazzed up.

This wasn’t as goofy as it sounds. A sizable chunk of the jazz canon comes from lightweight Broadway musicals and even Walt Disney movies (“Someday My Prince Will Come”). A good song is a good song. And a decent chord progression in the hands of an accomplished improviser can be a musical gold mine.

So how’d it go?

“Big success,” Mr. Russell says. “We were a hit with the Dutch audience.”

In fact, while going over the tapes after the concert (Televisa had sponsored the trip and recorded the set), he could swear he heard cheering in Spanish from the audience — ¡vaya! ¡vaya! “It turns out the 34 | volume XIV, ISSUE 3, 2015

Mongo Santamaría Orchestra was sitting in the front row,” he says.

He continued to take groups overseas for many years — Berlin, Detroit, Lisbon. They were usually in the summer, which was good because beginning in 1977 Larry Russell had a day job that required his full attention for the other nine months of the year.

A band from scratch As the new ASF music director, Larry Russell was pretty much starting from scratch.

He had some cards to play. At first, he brought in “ringers” (his word again, referring to some of his musician friends) to play at the football game in the absence of a student band. “I led with a soprano sax, not a baton,” he remembers.

Fortunately, one of the remaining four students, Irving Elson, was highly dedicated and, in Mr. Russell’s word, “assertive.” An outstanding and popular student, Irving helped with the recruiting of his fellow students.

Mr. Russell also put ads in the school publications, urging students to sign up for music. No experience necessary, he emphasized, and the students were offered a “crash course” on an instrument, followed up with self-study based on a program he had created.

“I was probably the only faculty member at the time who was a professional in my field,” he says. “Plus I was on television a lot so I had a celebrity aspect that helped with the recruiting.”

He also had instruments, courtesy of a donation by the Bear Boosters.

“So the instruments were there,” he says. “We just needed somebody to play them.”

It soon became clear: With Professor Larry Russell on hand, ASF was gonna have a boy’s band.

But unlike the River City version, it would include girls. And it would be directed by a classically trained professional, not a lovable con man from a fictitious conservatory in Gary, Indiana.

Within a year or two, enrollment was up to 44 and Larry Russell was no longer a fill-in. The music department was on its way to becoming a source of pride for ASF, and Mr. Russell was growing into something of a legend at the school.

He’s remembered to this day, in fact, by those who were around ASF at the time, or who otherwise knew him. That includes the current vice president of the Parent Association, Marissa Russell (’92), Larry and Nadine’s daughter. Marissa, in turn, has two children at ASF. The ASF band developed a reputation beyond the school walls, playing gigs at ASOMEX events or for government functions, such as the DIF in Cuernavaca. They even appeared in

a soft drink commercial that was shown in Mexican movie houses for months. One of the leading students in the band, Dale Reed, had something of a starring role in the ad, getting to share a smile and a Coke with a pretty girl on the sidelines.

“He became something of a campus celebrity,” Mr. Russell says of Dale Since most kids entered the program with no previous experience, the success was a tribute to Mr. Russell’s teaching abilities. But it was also a tribute to the students themselves.

“They were good,” he recalls. “I sat down just last week going through my recording archives. It was the first time I’d heard it in 30 years. I was really impressed.”

Perhaps the biggest tribute to the band’s talent came in the early 1980s when the championship game in ASF’s American football league was going to be played. (The ASF team, not exactly a powerhouse at the time, was not involved.)

“A very elegant gentleman came into my band room and introduced himself as the father of the Tepeyac school quarterback,” Mr. Russell recalls. “Like almost all the schools, his didn’t have a band, and he wanted to know if we could play for his school at the game.”

So they did. Not with Mr. Russell leading — he had a previous commitment to play at the Casino de la Selva in Cuernavaca. So a student saxophone player — none other than Dale Reed, in fact — led the ASF band as it played for another school at the championship game.

The episode highlights the prestige of ASF music at the time.

But it also revealed a harsh reality about the state of music education outside the ASF walls.

“It showed the extent of how unappreciated music is in the educational system,” Mr. Russell says. “That low priority prevails in most of the United States as well as Mexico. But not in Europe.”

He would soon experience firsthand how accurate his assessment was.

Harsh reality The Mexican peso was rocky in the 1980s even before it went into freefall. Families began pulling their kids out of ASF for purely economic reasons. The Board of Trustees struggled to deal with the crisis. Needless to say, there was much disagreement about what to do. Let’s just say there were no good solutions.

Larry Russell, the school’s music director, never expected that the department would be eliminated entirely, but he knew trouble was brewing.

When music was dropped from the Middle School, he sprang into action.

“I had some free time in my daily schedule, so I volunteered to teach the Middle School music program without pay,” he says. “After all, it was my feeder program, my kids would come in from the sixth, seventh and eighth grades.”

Realizing even the pro bono work might not be enough to save the program, he put into motion what might be called preventive measures. It started with what might be thought of as an early version of mentoring.

“I invited primary school students to come, class by class, and listen to the band play and have the high school students explain the instruments,” he says.

Then he took it farther.

“I made a proposal,” he says. “If a primary school kid was good enough, he or she could sign up for music right away. Two of the four PE days could be music days instead.

By the end of the 84-85 school year, 106 Lower School students had signed up for music. That impressive number seemed to guarantee the future of music education at ASF. “I thought, ‘whew,’” he says.

The whew came too early. Larry Russell went to Europe over the summer with his Mexican musicians to play at another jazz festival. When he got back, he was out of a job.

There was no more music education at ASF. It would take years to come back, and decades to reach the high level it’s at today.

The magic of music But of course he didn’t stop teaching. He hasn’t stopped to this day, giving individual and group lessons in a studio space in his Mexico City apartment, with students currently ranging in age from seven to 69. The lessons are part of his ongoing “Music Project” business, which includes composing sound tracks for documentary films and media commercials, as well as collaborating with his wife in their film production firm, Markova Productions.

And, of course, he still performs whenever he can. (You can catch a performance by the Larry Russell International Quartet by looking it up in YouTube.)

Many of his ASF students followed him off-campus for private lessons. Enough time has passed (30 years!) that his private students no longer include any current or former ASF students. His teaching life has moved on.

But his connection to ASF remains. He is, after all, an ASF grandparent. More than that, the memory of his contribution to the school lives on. In a sense, he will always be thought of as an ASF music teacher, which is why we use the usual teacher honorific here in this article — Mr. Russell.

Mr. Russell is understandably somewhat pessimistic about the future of music as a profession for more than a select few. But bringing music into other people’s lives is still his calling in an age of machines replacing instruments. Much of the task is simply exposing young people to the good stuff.

“I have an 18-year-old student who is developing terrific taste in music,” he says. “The other day she was listening to something she liked. I told her, ‘Yes, I used to play with that orchestra.’”

Top, from left to right: Larry Russell with the ASF marching band. Larry Russell onstage with the ASF Jazz Band in 1981. Larry Russell with the ASF band. This page bottom: Larry Russell plays clarinet for ECC students, 2015.

volume XIV, ISSUE 3, 2015 | 35

Student Voices

Refugees and Human Rights

By Pablo Guarneros (’18)

M

any times, more often than not, we take human rights for granted. For us, all our basic rights are already respected, like our right to freedom, right to expression, right to health and much more. We know about these rights, but what we fail to see is their importance.

If we could recognize this – which I admit is something I also struggle with – we would do anything so that everyone could enjoy them, not resting until it’s done. It’s important that you read the news and stay informed, but what matters most is to see yourself walking in these people’s shoes.

Take as an example all the problems happening in the Middle East or countries in which the governments deny their people these basic human rights. We have ISIS and the refugee crisis, or countries such as Malaysia, China, and North Korea, whose governments oppress their people as a way to maintain stability.

Even here in Mexico, as of just over two years ago, there had been 132,000 abductions. Mexico has also been ranked by various news outlets and organizations, such as the World Justice Project, as having one of the worst judicial systems. This should tell us something. Human rights abuses are happening right at our doorstep, but we have our own problems ... right?

At the same time that refugees are risking everything, leaving their families and all they have ever known, we are worrying about our own problems. I assure you that even some of our worst problems cannot match theirs.

We don’t actually see these people lying dead on the streets or listen to their thoughts as they decide to risk it all – including their own life – because staying, continuing to be oppressed, fearing for your life every time someone knocks on their door, is 36 | volume XIV, ISSUE 3, 2015

their default setting. But these people are there, and they have given up hope that someone else is going to get them out.

This isn’t anything new, but somehow, we are still looking away. We do not seem to care. We are constantly not helping because we let ourselves become distracted by other stuff. Stuff that we place on the top of our concerns pile. But I want to tell you that what continues to happen also concerns you. It is not just another country’s problem; it’s a human problem.

And at the end of the day, the choice to act or not to act reflects the values we have as people. We are lucky enough to have our rights and enjoy them. It’s time we acted. If we do, hopefully, we’ll inspire others to help too.

We live in the 21st century, but our values aren’t up to date.

We are supposed to all be interconnected, yet we pull the plug on the people that need us the most. I’m not asking you to go to these countries or donate a large sum of money, but to stop and think. What would it be like to live in these situations, where you are stripped of almost all your rights and left helpless; when you don’t even get to see your children or are able to protect them; where you have less rights than some pets living in the developing world; where people turn their backs on you?

Think for a while, and then decide what to do to help. Where would be without our human rights?

Pablo Guarneros is a grade 10 student and the current president of the ASF chapter of Amnesty International. He is passionate about issues regarding injustice in the world and bringing people’s attention to these issues and how to solve them. Pablo says that as human beings we are predisposed to feel connected to situations of human injustice and he wants to continue working to improve justice in Mexico and around the world.

institutional advancement

A day on the links The 13th Annual ASF Golf Tournament brought together competitors, spectators and sponsors for a thoroughly enjoyable day of golf, prizes, food and good cheer.

A li mentos s us tentable.

38 | volume XIV, ISSUE 3, 2015

mente deliciosos

T

Opposite page: Top: Category one winners José María Cid, José Guerrero, Raúl Roca, Rodolfo Vargas and Oscar Villalobos. Bottom left: ASF teachers line up for a putt. Bottom right: Grade 12 student Santiago Poo works on his short game. works on his short game. This page: Above: Runners up in category one: Carlos de Icaza, Luis Felipe González, Gonzalo Martínez, Rodrigo Martínez and Francisco Montalvo. Below: Winners in category two: Porfirio Kimura, Eduardo Kimura, Raymundo Kimura, Eduardo Hashimoto and Enrique Shibayama.

he Bosque Real Country Club hosted 175 golfers on Monday, Oct. 26, for the 13th Annual ASF Golf Tournament.Also enjoying the tournament — a signature event in ASF’s fundraising and community-building calendar — were sponsors, donors, ASF staff members, students, and other spectators.

Two five-member teams took home top honors and the trophies that went with theme. First-place finishers in the first category were José María Cid, José Guerrero, Raúl Roca, Rodolfo Vargas and Oscar Villalobos.

In the second category, the winning team members were Porfirio Kimura, Eduardo Kimura, Raymundo Kimura, Eduardo Hashimoto and Enrique Shibayama.

Runners-up in the first category were Carlos de Icaza, Luis Felipe González, Gonzalo Martínez, Rodrigo Martínez and Francisco Montalvo.

Runners-up in the second category were Kristin Baudouin, John Baudouin, Eduardo Correa, Patsy Hubp and David Hubp.

Third-place finishers in the first category were Fernando de la Silva, Johan Firessen Ochoa, Troy Hatch, John Werner and Alfredo Cabrera.

In the second category, the third-place finishers were Fabiola Arango, Roberto LeBosse, Fernando Villaseñor, Sven Wallsten and Linda Wallsten.

Prizes were awarded for Par 3 first shots that landed closest to the pin on four different holes, as well as second-, third-, and fourth-closest, side contests known as O’Yes around these parts. The prizes included Devlyn glasses, Desing & Cutting bar carts, iPhones, and check-ups at ABC Hospital.

Top O’Yes scorers were Luis Maumejean on the second hole, Fernando Santibañez (seventh hole), Ricardo Ganem (11th) and Carlos Padilla (14th).

Rodrigo Martínez won a helicopter trip for four for scoring the best overall O’Yes in the tournament, and Roberto Aisa won a three-day, two-night stay at the Hotel Presidente Cozumel for winning the special precision drive contest on the sixth hole.

The prizes and trophies were awarded, by Inés Sainz, at a 19th-hole gathering that included a luncheon, much socializing and even more good cheer.

volume XIV, ISSUE 3, 2015 | 39

institutional advancement

What is Institutional Advancement?

T

he Institutional Advancement office is a vital force behind just about every aspect of life at The American School Foundation. But not everybody is fully aware of the functions that the IA office fulfills. So Alejandra Naranjo, director of Institutional Advancement, took some time out of her busy day to chat with Focus about what she and her staff do. Here are the results of that interview.

What is Institutional Advancement?

Institutional Advancement is the area of The American School Foundation that engages parents, students, faculty, staff and alumni in the life of the institution as volunteers, advocates and supporters. This includes securing private financial support from potential donors committed to the mission of the school.

Why isn’t it just called the fundraising office?

Because we support the school in many other ways. We also provide administrative support to the Alumni Council, the Bear Boosters and the Parent Association. The Institutional Advancement office, which we often call IA, promotes long-term strategic 40 | volume XIV, ISSUE 2, 3, 2015

thinking, planning and mission fulfillment. In other words, we see the bigger picture.

Why does ASF have to fundraise? Aren’t tuition and fees enough?

The school receives income from tuition and registration, bus service, summer camp, and donations, among other sources. All of this income except for donations goes into the general fund, which pays for school operations, such as teacher and staff compensation and benefits, school materials, transportation, etc. For anything beyond day-to-day school operations, funds need to be raised from other sources. That mostly means donations — from ASF families, friends, other community members and foundations. This is an effort that we in IA coordinate.

What kinds of things do you raise funds for?

There are two main endeavors that require fundraising. One is infrastructure. Building and refurbishing the campus, and improving its technology, require donations. From the very beginning, the land that the current campus is built on was donated. The ASF facilities you see on campus today were constructed thanks to donations made to the

Capital Building Fund.

The other major fundraising area is for financial aid. We at IA encourage families to donate on an annual basis, with the donations going directly into the Endowment Fund for Financial Aid, which is a restricted fund established in 1988. The money that the fund grows provides financial aid to offset tuition costs for the families of qualified students who otherwise would not be able to afford an ASF education. This aid not only helps deserving students who shouldn’t have to miss out on an ASF education for economic reasons, it also helps ASF achieve its diversity goals.

What are some recent school advancements that IA has supported?

The 10-year period from 2003 to 2013 was a tremendously ambitious and successful one for our fundraising efforts. The school launched a $20 million-dollar capital drive called Great Minds Need Great Spaces to carry out the first three phases of the school’s Master Building Plan. You can see the results all around you on campus: the refurbishment of the Sheila Rafferty Ahumada Administration Building, the construction of the Lipu Transportation Center, the Ángeles

Espinosa Yglesias Fine Arts Center and the Jenkins Foundation Wellness Center.

What are some of the current fundraising projects?

We’ve been working the past two years to expand the Endowment Fund for Financial Aid. Today more than 300 students – about 13 percent of the student body – receive financial aid. That’s impressive and positive, but the Board has committed itself to increasing that percentage to 20 percent over the next 13 years.

It’s an extremely ambitious goal, but I’m confident we can make it. We’ve already been fortunate enough to secure significant donations, including from some very generous families who have committed to seven-figure gifts. The other major current fundraising project is for the upcoming execution of Phase IV of the Master Building Plan. It encompasses much-needed renovations to the Lower School and the Early Childhood Center. A more modest but important project is ready to get started, thanks to a combination of generous corporate donations and the sum of smaller donations from the community at large.

It involves repairs to the Upper School’s Coach Colman Field.

Technically speaking, the repairs will modify the compression spaces between field layers to improve drainage and add waterproofing. The task requires the temporary removal of the turf (and thus the closing of the field), and will start during the Thanksgiving week holiday and continue through early 2016.

How do you actually raise the funds?

Well, of course I do a lot of face-to-face meetings with individuals, foundations and corporations. But most of the fundraising energy at ASF goes to supporting events and volunteer efforts by parents and other community members. Remember, ASF is a foundation, a non-profit institution, and an independent school, so we rely on the support of volunteers, and it’s the parents that do so much to secure donations. It’s parent volunteers who join committees to organize events like the golf tournament, the Run for Education and the Art Fair. These are all important fundraising events. Parents create the fundraising and community building strategies and we support them in the execution of these events.

The students are also a big part of fundraising. They participate in, and often initiate, all kinds of fundraising projects. We at IA work to plant seeds with the students, raise their awareness of the importance of giving back, encourage them to donate time, talent and treasure. They can get very creative. One fundraiser at the Lower School last year was called Kiss a Pig. Enough said.

What are your duties as head of IA. What do you do all day?

In the big picture, I’m responsible for the advancement of the school, which means

fundraising, community building, events and activities. So everything I do is in the service of those objectives, and always based on the values, mission, vision and institutional objectives of the school, as well as the established guidelines by the Board of Trustees.

My main task is to implement the campaigns that the Board approves — for example, the capital campaign for Phase IV of the Master Building Plan that I mentioned early. It is my responsibility to move these campaigns from an idea to a reality.

I don’t do it all by myself, of course. I spend much of my time collaborating with others at the school. I work with the school heads. I listen to community support groups such as the Alumni Council, the Bear Boosters and the Parent Association.

I’m not a member of the Board of Trustees, but I sit as a member of or liaison to the committees I’m directly involved with — Buildings and Grounds, Institutional Advancement (the committee), and the Endowment Fund for Financial Aid. What kind of staff does IA have?

There are five besides me, and they are extremely hands on. Their range of activities is extraordinary; we are constantly interacting with other school departments, alumni, trustees, community members, donors, corporations, foundations, parents, friends and students and more. Fundraising is all about relationships, and my staff has the people and sales skills, not to mention the resilience and ability to work under pressure.

What is IA’s connection with the Alumni office?

The Alumni Relations Office is part of IA, so we’re the ones who build and strengthen relations with former students. We work to create lifelong relationships with alumni, including two-way communication between them and the school. That helps create a powerful alumni voice on behalf of the institution.

What is your background?

I was born and raised in Mexico City, completed my bachelor’s degree in economics at ITAM, completed a few certificates on econometrics, collaborated at ITAM as a part time lecturer and then moved to New York City. There I worked with Citibank and pursued a master’s degree in public administration and fundraising.

I learned to work for public figures, run notfor-profit organizations and volunteer-based programs, and to negotiate funding with corporations, large foundations and the U.S. government.

I mastered the art of major giving.

What brought you to ASF? I moved back to Mexico City in 2011. My daughter was 5 years old at that time and my mentor, Lillian Barrios Paoli (’63), who is a current deputy mayor of New York City, suggested that I enroll my children at ASF. She was accepted and would come to ASF many times a week as a volunteer, which gave me the opportunity to better understand the school and the role of volunteers.

I learned about the opportunity through the admissions office precisely when it was time for me to enroll my son.

Is it hard to get people to donate?

Generally speaking, there is not a strong culture of donating in Mexico. But we have made tremendous advances over the years for several reasons. One is that the school provides clear, to-the-point information about ASF finances. Our financial statements are even available for parents on our website. People can understand where the money goes and what the school’s needs are.

And maybe most important of all, we make it clear that every peso or dollar counts. It’s not the size of the contribution that matters. What matters is the outcome that your giving produces.

How can I make a donation?

There are lots of ways, and different people prefer different ones. One way is to participate in fundraisers, like coming to the Art Fair, or other special events.

Making a donation can be as simple as writing a check. You can use your credit card to make a one-time cash gift, or set up a plan for monthly or annual installments.

Some people prefer to donate securities or assets, which may offer substantial tax advantages.

Others set up what we call planned giving, which consists of making ASF a beneficiary in your will or estate.

The first step is to get in touch with us at Institutional Advancement. That’s what we’re here for. You can contact me directly at naranjoal@asf.edu.mx or by phone at 5227 4904.

Alumni | profile

A tale of two nations: Mexican art in San Francisco Andrew Kluger (’69) has accomplished much in his lifetime. His current project to expand San Francisco’s Mexican Museum into a world-class institution may be his most significant, at least in terms of Mexico-U.S. cultural relations. And it all started with a special teacher in an ASF Lower School classroom.

By Kelly Arthur Garrett, ASF Parent

S

ometimes extremely successful lives have an almost perfect narrative arc to them. Andrew Kluger (’69) is living such a life. It seems almost predestined that he would arrive at where he is from where he was.

Where he is is chairman of the board of the Mexican Museum, a 40-year-old San Francisco cultural space dedicated to exhibiting and promoting Mexican art. Under Andrew Kluger’s leadership, the museum has at last moved forward on its ambitious plan to build a new permanent home in the Yerba Buena Garden Arts District for its 17,000-piece collection.

Where he was was The American School, which he attended into the seventh grade. His American-born parents were both educators. His mother Mildred Kluger taught at ASF, which was a mixed blessing for young Andy. “She knew my teachers well,” he recalls, “and they would report back to her things and I’d hear about them at home.”

His father, a former Columbia history professor, became a prominent publisher in Mexico City. As such, he was friends with major figures in the Mexican art world, including Diego Rivera.

So we have Andy Kluger growing up in an atmosphere of high Mexican art and culture, and a half century later running one of the most important institutions of Mexican art in the United States. (In fact, Guadalupe Rivera Marín, Diego Rivera’s daughter, is an active participant in the Mexican Museum’s efforts.)

There’s a pleasing symmetry to that, but Kluger mentions other experiences from his Mexican childhood that served him well in life. One of them was Erna Miller, the ASF legend who taught first grade from 1945 to 1970.

42 | volume XIV, ISSUE 3, 2015

“The woman was remarkable,” he says. “She was the most formidable teacher I ever had in my life in terms of instilling a love of reading.”

Think about that for a minute. Lots of people can’t even remember the name of their first-grade teacher, let alone cite her as a major influence in their life. And how many continue seeing their first grade teacher long after they both left the school? Andrew Kluger is three for three on those counts, which says a lot about him, about Mrs. Miller and about ASF. “I stayed friends with her until she died in Oakland, California, in her 90s,” he says.

Like so many other ASF grads, Kluger mentions lasting friendships as the top legacy of his ASF days.

“The most important thing that happened with The American School was that I developed lifelong friendships there,” he says. “I’m still friends today with so many of my schoolmates.

Just an example — the lawyer who handles the patents for one of my companies, he was a classmate of mine.”

When Kluger left Mexico with his family, he attended another very good school — Lowell High School in San Francisco.

But the different approach to friendship is something he noticed right away.

“I had trouble when I came to America understanding what the word ‘friend’ really meant,” he says. “Americans tend to have a lot of acquaintances and they call each other friends. In Mexico, when you have an amigo, he really is a friend.”

It’s hard to talk about Andrew Kluger’s post-ASF “life” because he’s had so many of them. He graduated from the University of California Davis, got a law degree from the University of

San Francisco School of Law, did postgraduate work at Cornell and studied at the London School of Economics.

“Then it was time to go to work,” he jokes.

That work has been mostly as an entrepreneur, venture capitalist and philanthropist. Throughout it all he has kept his dual U.S.-Mexican citizenship, continues to speak fluent Spanish, visits Mexico frequently, interacts with the Mexican government and academia, and holds onto his love for Mexican art and culture.

Much of his multifaceted career has been in the medical services field. A key period was as CEO and chairman of the board of Hawaii Air Ambulance, which served the Mexican community in Hawaii.

“We would fly critical-care patients to Mexico,” he says. “In many cases they didn’t have the money so I would donate the service of the airline.”

“We embarked on a major effort,” he says. “I raised $53 million in the last three years.”

The new Mexican Museum is now scheduled for completion in 2018. It will be 60,000 square feet (“the same size as Colegio de México,” Kruger points out) and occupy the first four floors of a new tower.

The architect will be one of Mexico’s most prominent, Enrique Norten, whose work is known on both sides of the border and includes the new Guggenheim in Guadalajara. Collaborating with him is the Dutch-born Mexican artist Jan Hendrix.

The time for the Mexican Museum project seems to be right.

Latino political power is increasing in the United States and interest in Mexican culture has never been higher. But that interest, Kruger observes, is not always shared by U.S.-born Mexican Americans.

“What we’re finding is that the second-, third- and fourth-

A rendering of the future home of the Mexican Museum. It will occupy the first four floors of a new tower in San Francisco.

That business increased his contacts in the Mexican government (many of which, he notes, are ASF graduates). Eventually he was asked to serve as one of five honorary consuls of Mexico to the United States. “We’re not professional members of the diplomatic corps, but we serve on behalf of the Mexican government,” he says. “I have a staff and we handle citizens’ needs. I base my consul work in Hawaii but I also do work in San Francisco.”

He was also asked by the Felipe Calderón administration to serve as chairman of Mexico’s 2010 Bicentennial celebrations in the U.S. Pacific Coast region — California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii. He raised money and oversaw more than 50 cultural events to honor, in the United States, the 200th anniversary of Mexico’s Independence.

That success got the attention of the board at the Mexican Museum. “They told me, ‘Kluger, we’re going to put you to work,’” he says. “My task basically was to build a museum. I’d never done that in my life.”

The museum was in a stagnant phase at the time, and its plans for moving to a permanent home were on hold. Andrew Kluger turned that around.

generations have no idea about what Mexican art and history are,” he says. “Part of the mission of the museum is to bring them back, to educate the younger generation about Mexico’s culture.”

That means lots of outreach, in the form of free family admission on Sunday, traveling museums without walls, and visits to public schools. The fourth floor of the new museum, Kluger says, will be purely an education center. Public figures like the Mexican-American actor/producer Edward James Olmos are on board with that effort.

Andrew Kluger has always had a lot on his plate, but it’s hard to imagine an endeavor more significant to Mexico-U.S. cultural relations than this museum. If you talk to him for just a minute or two, you won’t doubt that the museum’s future role in those relations will be enormous.

“The American School was a unique environment in which kids, foreign-born or Mexican, were basically driven to accomplish things,” he says. “It has this impact on you that you can get things done. The American School and its community gave me a high level of self-confidence. I may fail sometimes, but I never doubt that I can do it.” volume XIV, ISSUE 3, 2015 | 43

Alumni | reunions

Class of ’85: Celebrating their 30th in Puerto Vallarta They came to Puerto Vallarta from as far away as Texas, California and Connecticut. Some came from as close as Mexico City. A few traveled just a few blocks — they are Puerto Vallarta residents. But they all came for one thing — to celebrate the Class of ’85’s 30-year reunion during a weekend of fun and reliving stories from the days back at the old school yard. The central venue for the October 8-11 get-together was the Secrets Hotel, and there were also stops at the De Santos Bar, the Mandala Disco, the La Santa night club. The highlight was a special private cocktail and dinner on Saturday at the roof terrace of Oceana at the Secrets Hotel.

Class of ’90: A full weekend of celebrations marked their 25-year reunion The class of 1990’s reunion took place over Labor Day weekend September 4-6 with three events. On Friday, alumni took a campus tour of ASF with Mr. Paul Williams. On Saturday, class alumnus Mauricio Bravo organized and hosted a luncheon at Bosque Real Club which included a DJ playing 80s and 90s music, food and drinks, and lasted until midnight.

Attending the event were 45 members of the class, along with Mr. Williams. One of the highlights of the evening was an ASF cheer in honor of our dear classmate, Ralph Mickle, one of the organizers, who couldn’t attend the weekend reunion because of health issues. The culmination of the reunion was on Sunday with a tour and wine tasting event at Claudio Bortoluz’ vineyard and winery in Querétaro named Viñedos La Redonda.

Class of ’00: Anecdotes, laughs and sentiment in Mexico City The 15-year reunion of the Class of 2000 took place on May 23, 2015 in Mexico City at Kane Bar. It was an evening filled with anecdotes, laughs, and sentiment. The 60 or so alumni who attended enjoyed the company of classmates they hadn’t seen in many, many years. All were ready to celebrate and have fun. To honor this grand occasion, they popped open some champagne for everyone to cheer with. After 15 years, many members of the class were now parents, so the highlight of the event according to Veronica Caso, was showing each other photos of their children.

Class of ’05: The 10-year reunion took place in Mexico City in August 2015

Class of ’10: Five years after graduation, its first reunion The Class of 2010 held its five-year reunion, the first of what should be many more as the century goes on. It took place in Mexico City in September.

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Alumni | class notes

’44

’61

Kay Maxwell, who was Kay Lumpkin when she attended ASF from Kindergarten into high school until 1959, writes in from Dallas, home of Maxwell Financial Services, to let everybody know she has earned the Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy designation. The program is designed to help clients meet their charitable, estate planning and wealth management goals.

The ASF Alumni staff received a beautiful letter from Dorothy Church, who is married to George Church, from the Class of 1944, who attended ASF from Kindergarten on. Here are some highlights of Mrs. Church’s correspondence, dated Sept. 5, 2015: “He received the Focus magazine, Issue 2, 2015, last week. As George is legally blind, I... told him about it and read what I thought he would be interested in. There have been a lot of changes in what is covered since we started receiving the Focus magazine years ago. I still look at the Alumni section to see if there is a mention of someone George would remember.”

“Our family moved to Mexico City in 1961 and returned to Houston in 1962. We enrolled four of our five children in The American School for the short time we were there. Our children came to appreciate that their father’s family all still live in Mexico City. They all practiced their Spanish. Our daughter at four then now has the best accent, with the exception of the eldest who married a girl from Hermosillo.”

“It is difficult to keep up with friends so far away. In 1992 there was a grand reunion for classes from ’22 to ’46 held in Dallas. The last reunion for the class of ’44 was held in Oaxaca where we would climb the pyramids.”

“We would love to know who in the classes of ’43 and ’44 are still alive. I will continue to tell George the Focus magazine has arrived but he has lost interest in much of what does not involve past friends as George has developed Alzheimer’s. Give our regards to the staff for a magazine well done, from an alumnus’s wife of long ago.”

Where Are You? If you ever

’04

Adi Alsaid, whose debut novel “Let’s Get Lost” was highly praised, has published his follow-up work, “Never Always Sometimes.”

José Brito (‘65)

Charles Reed Denker (‘51)

A member of ASF’s class of 1965, José Brito passed away on Sept. 15, 2015. Said classmate Nancy Silva (‘65), “Pepe, we will always remember you for your achievements, the recognitions you received, and your support for the environment.”

Charles Reed Denker attended The American School from 1941 to 1949 before leaving to finish high school at Vermont Academy in the United States, graduating in 1951. His career as a geologist took him to North Africa and South America, as well as Texas where he spent most of his life. His passing on July 15, 2015 was communicated to ASF by his son, Charles Denker.

Ned Wright (‘67)

attended ASF, we’re looking for you! Please update your information by sending an e-mail to martinezmj@asf.edu. mx right away. We want to keep you up to date on all the ASF news as well as informed about upcoming alumni events.

Keep in touch!

Alumni | in memoriam

Ned attended The ASF from Kindergarten through Middle School, died on Aug. 5, 2015 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Ned was an avid rock climber for most of his life, establishing a worldwide reputation and writing books on the subject under the name “Magic Ed.” He lived for many years with his wife Tami in an area north of Monterrey known as El Potrero Chico, and was the premier expert on the climbing routes there, many of which he discovered and trailblazed. Ned’s death was reported to ASF by his friend and classmate Clive Dawson, who said: “Ned and I met in Kindergarten and we were best friends all through elementary and junior high school. I can’t count the wonderful memories I have of Ned and his family — the weekends at their home in Cuernavaca, the visits to the legendary home of his grandfather on Xola, and all of our adventures at Boy Scout camps, Sea Scout trips to Acapulco to visit US Navy ships, and on and on… “My sincere condolences go out to his siblings: Wilda, Laurie, Steve, and Chris. They were my second family in many ways.” Clive suggested that a good way to remember Ned would be to view the world he lived in via the web site magicedspotrerochico.

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Alumni | milestones

Julián Guerrero (’02) and Christina Darvasi were married on August 22, 2015 at the Ex-Convento de Regina in Mexico City.

Gerardo Sepulveda (’02) was married on July 4 in San Miguel de Allende to Sophie Adam, from Argentina. He met his bride while earning his MBA at Yale. The couple lives in Mexico City.

Miles T. Faulk was born to Camee Anderson Faulk (’06) and Daniel Faulk on July 30, 2015 in Salt Lake City.

Camee and Daniel also have a 2-year-old son, Riley James Faulk.

Lourdes de la Llata (’97) and Rafael Martínez Gallardo (’99) have announced a new member of their family, Pablo, and a new member of the ASF community — recently enrolled daughter Luisa. “And fingers crossed,” says Lourdes, “Federica will be joining her sister in the ECC.” Both proud parents are ASF alumni — Rafa from 1997 and Lourdes from 1999.

Alejandra Mendoza (’03) was married on September 19 in a vineyard in San Miguel de Allende called La Santísima Trinidad. Her husband’s name is Alonso Ruiz de Velasco.

Ana Calvert-Kilbane (’04) married fellow ASF alumnus Sebastian Villarreal Singer (’05) on August 22 at the Ex Convento de Betlemitas in Mexico City.

Ana is from the Class of 2004 and Sebastián from the Class of 2005. The couple lives in Chicago.

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Camila Cervantes (’10) married Diego Carral on August 15 in San Miguel de Allende.

We present the brand new Toycito, Moisés Toyberg Penhos, who was born to David Toyberg Sacal (’00) and his wife Lulu Penhos on September 2, 2015 in Mexico City.

Abbie Wietz was born on May 22 in Mexico City to Leslie (Mauser) Weitz (’03) and Paul Weitz.

Samantha Galewicz (’01) gave birth to Sebastian Alonso Galewicz.

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Kids’ corner

Grade 2 students explore communities

As part of the IB Primary Years Programme, the first unit of inquiry for grade 2 students this school year examined communities — and how community members depend on each other to fulfill different roles and responsibilities.

In their final project for the unit, students chose a community outside ASF in which they are involved and explained the roles and responsibilities of themselves and others inside that community by creating a presentation with props made from recycled materials.

Nicole Dantus created a gymnastics diorama that highlighted her favorite activities and roles she has in her after-school program.

Julian Becker created a puppet show to show his role at home within his family.

AndrĂŠs Beja talked about the responsibilities he has at home through his family poster.

Gloria de la Fuente recreated the ASF swimming pool to highlight how she depends on her coach and how her coach depends on her.

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