Focus Winter 2013-2014

Focus the american school foundation, a.c

winter 2013 / 2014

A New era of Diversity at ASF The 44th Art Fair: One Day, Countless Attractions

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

Contents

Winter 2013-2014 02From the Executive Director 02Contributors 03From the Editor 04From the Board of Trustees 05News & Events Introducing some of our writers

Building houses, campus improvements, a budding film star, Middle School “SWaG” and other goingson around the ASF campus

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FEATURES

DIVERSITY’S NEW ERA How ASF’s new policy expands the concept of diversity and ensures a more enriching school experience for everybody By SLOANE STARKE

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BOTH SIDES NOW How does it feel to teach in the same ASF classrooms where you went to school? Ten alumni/teachers tell their story. By SHARMILA SACHDEV

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DIANA ANHALT (’59): A BELATED FAREWELL The achievements and reminiscences of a tireless member of the ASF community who returned to the United States after 60 years in Mexico BY KELLY ARTHUR GARRETT

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AN ANNUAL EDUCATORS’ CONFERENCE AT ASF

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PUSHING OUR LIMITS What happened at last October’s Tri-Association gathering of minds

Q&A: PATRICK BASSETT An intriguing one-on-one with the former NAIS president and keynote speaker at the Tri-Association Conference

INSTITUTIONAL ADVANCEMENT

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PLAYING FOR SCHOLARSHIPS The 11th Annual ASF Golf Tournament

annual fund and capital campaign

STUDENT VOICES

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PARENTS OF ADOLESCENTS, TAKE NOTE Middle School students let moms and dads know what they’re doing wrong

38Direct to the top

Alumni

Profiling Gary Alazraki (’96), director of Nosotros los

Nobles.

39Soft Power

Rafael Fernández de Castro (’10) talks about his ASF days and the current state of Mexican cinema

40Events 42Class Notes THE 44th ANNUAL Milestones & In Memoriam 43 ASF ART FAIR 18 44Reunions

“125” Presenting a beautiful new book celebrating ASF’s 125th anniversary and the students, staff, alumni, faculty and families who made it possible

ONE ART FAIR, MANY EVENTS A photographic tour of the countless attractions that the Art Fair offered thousands of visitors last November 9

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ACTING OUT: NATALIA GARCÍA CLARK (’13) An art teacher remembers the 2013 IB Arts Student of the Year’s impressive years at ASF By PAT PATTERSON

The Alumni Breakfast, the Alumni Bowl and Career Day

Who got together ... and what they did

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kids’ corner

VOLCANOES, ART AND CREATIVE SELVES K3 kids release their inner Dr. Atl

from the executive director

| contributors

Sharmila Sachdev (“Both Sides Now,” page 26) An educator, certified speech-language specialist and former employee of the Lower School, Sharmila wrote the article “View from the Top” in the Summer/ Fall 2013 issue of Focus, which was recently republished in the October 2013 issue of The International Editor (TIE) magazine. For her piece in this issue, Sharmila interviewed 10 ASF teachers and came up with an intriguing look at what it’s like to teach at the school you attended as a student.

Happy holidays and best wishes for a wonderful new year, from all of us at The American School. This edition of Focus is one of our

presents to you, all wrapped up with information from the arts, student achievement, community service and other highlights from our ASF family here and around the world.

I would like to call your attention to this issue’s feature article on diversity (page 16), because it is a matter to which we at the school have devoted much time, thought, discussion and energy. In all my different roles at ASF over the past 25-plus years, I have seen the value of all kinds of diversity at work. As a teacher, I saw how being exposed to others’ different backgrounds and talents helped my students grow in the classroom. Now that they’re alumni (and many are ASF parents), I see how that exposure to the unfamiliar at a young age has made them who they are today. They’re better for it, and so are their children.

As director of human resources years ago, I saw how diversity among our employees benefits all of us. Now, as executive director of the school, I am as convinced as ever of how essential diversity is for a learning community. What do you think about our new diversity statement focusing on academics, athletics, arts, community service and entrepreneurship? It is a commitment that we are proud of. Please feel free to share your comments by e-mailing communications@asf.edu.mx. Diversity is part of our vision for the school, and your input, as always, is crucial.

Another important aspect of our vision which you will see clearly reflected in this issue of Focus is recruiting, retaining and developing talent among our faculty and staff. As an example, ASF was honored to host the Tri-Association Educators’ Conference on our campus, bringing together more than 900 educators from 18 countries. All of our teachers and paraprofessionals enrolled, with the full support of the ASF Board of Trustees. The world seems to be changing faster than ever, and we are pleased to do whatever we can to make sure our talented teachers stay at the forefront of technological advances, pedagogical trends and best practices in education. In the end, our students benefit, as does our community at large.

It has been an enormous privilege for me to serve as president of the Tri-Association, making opportunities like this available for our own employees and for professionals at other American international schools around Latin America.

Paul Williams Executive Director

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Álvar Martínez Acero (photography) New to ASF’s Communications Office this school year, Álvar is responsible for the vast majority of the photographs in the magazine. With a bachelor’s degree in communications from UNAM, he has specialized for several years in editorial photography, video production and graphic design. His early impression of working at ASF is that it’s “lots of fun,” with the bonus benefit of “getting to know a lot of wonderful people.” He says his midi-chlorian count goes over 20,000 per cell, and assures us that a certain percentage of Focus readers will know what that means.

Alexa Herrerías (“The College Fair Turns 30,” page 11) Alexa is a 15-year-old freshman whose first journalistic article appears in this issue of Focus. “I wanted to write something for my school,” she says.

“I thought the College Fair would be the perfect opportunity since I would be attending my first one.” While covering the College Fair, Alexa learned an important secret that professional journalists know well. “I learned that I did not have to be shy about asking people questions,” she says. “I thought that they would not want to answer, but they all answered kindly.”

Alexa’s summary of the experience: “Writing the article was very interesting and I felt I did a good job.”

Mauricio Quintana (’00) (“The 2013 Alumni Breakfast,” page 40) Who better to tell the story of this major annual alumni event than the current president of the Alumni Council?

When he’s not helping to keep alumni affairs organized or eating breakfast with his fellow former ASF students, Mauricio is involved in communications and public relations, specializing in film and television, and works as an actor, writer and producer in the United States, where he was born, and Mexico, where he grew up and (of course) went to school.

from the editor

FOCUS A magazine for ASF Alumni, Parents, Students, Faculty & Friends Winter 2013 / 2014 Vol. XII | No. 3 | Mexico City Paul Williams Executive Director Susan Olivo Head of Early Childhood Center Tara Fitzgerald Head of Lower School Rebecca Crutchfield Head of Middle School Amy Gallie Head of Upper School Robert Wilson Head of Athletics & Extended Learning

Another issue of Focus and somehow we never run out of stories to tell here at ASF! In fact, there is so much going on both on

campus and throughout the world with our alumni community, we could easily fill several magazines. The 125th anniversary book, 125, was an effort to do something of that sort. Please see page 33 for more information and to find out how you can get a copy, if you don’t already have one.

One thing we all know about The American School is that its community members just keep coming back. We have three, four and even five generations of students represented in the same families, as well as dozens of people working on campus who once studied here. That’s normal for ASF. But, did you ever think about what it would be like to teach in the same classrooms where you once studied, with your former teachers now among your peers?

On page 26, hear what it’s like to go from student to teacher at ASF. (By the way, this was written by a parent and former teacher — another very common combo in ASF-land!)

With so many “repeat customers,” it might be surprising to outsiders how much diversity we have at ASF. For this issue, it was my pleasure to dive into ASF’s new diversity initiative, and see how school leaders and volunteers worked so hard to arrive at a diversity statement that looks forward, really taking into account the needs and the reality of the school. I am personally very interested in keeping an eye on this topic and seeing how it evolves over the coming years.

Finally, how could I not mention the Art Fair? It seems to just get better and better every year, both in terms of attendance, quality of art and community support and enthusiasm. If you were not one of the lucky thousands to be there, we hope our feature on page 16 is the next best thing to a walk through the gardens and galleries of our campus.

Best wishes for the holidays and the new year! We look forward to hearing and sharing your stories in 2014.

Sloane Starke Editor-in-Chief

Board of Trustees Rosa Pisinger (’87), Chair Thurston F. Hamer (’81), 1st Vice Chair Jeffrey Scott McElfresh, 2nd Vice Chair Carla Ormsbee, Secretary Joan Liechty, Treasurer Catharine Austin (’78) Aliki Botton de Elías (’85) César Buenrostro (’85) Sebastián Fernández Steve Finley Fernando Franco Fernando Gutiérrez Ochoa Frances Huttanus Antonio Rallo John Santa Maria Otazúa (’78) Editorial Staff Violeta Ayala, Director of Communications Sloane Starke, Editor-in-Chief Kelly Arthur Garrett, Editorial Consultant Daniela Graniel, Art Director Álvar Martínez, Photography Alumni Relations María Vidal (’03) alumni@asf.edu.mx Parent Association Adriana Ramos, 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. Editora Responsable: Sloane Alexandria Starke. Derechos de Autor: Licitud de Título y de Contenido 16220. Reserva de Derecho: 04-2008-111212240200102. 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.

On the cover: The 44th Art Fair Photo by: Álvar Martínez Art by: Tamara Katthain, Jessica Lozano and Carolina Tronik

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from the board of trustees

As I write this letter, ASF is winding down the celebrations of its 125th anniversary. It should give us all a strong sense of

pride that ASF is the oldest accredited American school abroad.

Many people have asked me what has made the institution last for so long. As I think about it, I believe that there are many factors that have allowed this to happen. Amongst them is the fact that ASF is a mission-driven institution. Throughout its history the Board of Trustees has adhered to best practices of non-profit institutional governance.

Throughout the anniversary year, we have been remembering the founding supporters of the school, such as John Davis, Bessie Files, S. Bolling Wright, Lewis Lamm, Edward Orrin, Harry Wright and Edna Clifton. Whenever I read the original by-laws, I am humbled by the vision and conviction that they demonstrated when drafting them.

They established ASF as a non-profit institution whose purpose would be to educate students with the most modern and effective methods used in the United States. And they defined its duration as in perpetuity.

The title “Board of Trustees” stems from the fact that it is the Board that holds the school in trust and is responsible for ensuring that the school fulfills the mission for which it was created. The Board does not get involved in the day-to-day operations of the school. That responsibility belongs to Paul Williams, the executive director of the school. The Board’s responsibility is to see to it that ASF lasts at least another 125 years.

The Board works for the longevity of the institution by drafting and approving policies that have a long-term impact. In this issue of Focus you will be reading about one such policy: ASF’s diversity statement. When you read the article you will notice that the statement took a couple of years to draft. The Board created a task force, made up of community members, to analyze the issue. It created the mechanisms to gather data.

Many discussions took place around ASF’s current mission and finally all agreed on what the future student body should look like. It was then drafted on paper and presented for Board approval, along with a financial plan to ensure that the idea was viable.

All involved in the drafting of the statement are aware that it will have an impact, but they also know that it won’t be immediate. It will take a few years for the full effect of the decision to be felt.

All of the work done by the Board must be framed around the mission and contribute to the best possible future for the school and the community that it serves. I would like to think that the founders would be proud of how ASF has continued to be a flagship amongst international schools.

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

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News EVENTS

Volunteer Builders One of the community service activities that ASF students have been participating in more and more in recent years is house building. On Saturday, October 19, members of ASF’s Brick by Brick building club joined Student Council members, Union Church volunteers and others in traveling to the town of Villa del Carbón in the State of Mexico to provide volunteer labor for the construction of very low-cost housing. In November, many ninth graders spent a week volunteering for a similar project.

The Villa de Carbón trip was under the supervision of Upper School biology teacher José Carlos Alaniz.

The volunteer ASF students were accompanied by (among others) Martha Domínguez (’83), a resource teacher with Services for Academic Success, shown on this page with Ladislao González, a local resident and volunteer house builder. Ms. Domínguez and Mr. González shared something besides the volunteer spirit — both were working despite a broken foot.

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ove, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, discipline, compassion and camaraderie. All of these powerful words describe what I saw on Saturday, October 19, during our field trip to build homes in Villa del Carbón. Ninety volunteers from diverse backgrounds and a broad range of ages (12 to 70) came together to build houses, which will later be turned into homes by their new owners.

What a humbling experience it was to see our ASF students eager to lend a helping hand and do good works. The labor was tough but rewarding. The bathroom facilities were very basic and the food was simple. Our students were without a doubt heaved well out of their comfort zone.

But they responded with a joyous and contagious attitude. They worked diligently for hours, carrying heavy buckets of cement, shoveling gravel, balancing pails of water — all without complaint.

I am blessed to have been a witness to a side of our students that I had never seen. Hats off to parents and teachers for instilling in them such character, love, respect and compassion for the less fortunate. —Martha Domínguez (’83) winter 2013 / 2014 | 5

News & EVENTS

The ASF Campus, New and Improved Students and teachers returned for the 2013-2014 school year to a much-improved ASF campus. Thanks to the efforts of the school’s maintenance staff, several corners of the campus were transformed: • Spacious Fine Arts Center classrooms were remodeled and integrated into the theater.

• The drainage system was repaired and the Lower School and Middle School fields were resurfaced.

• The cafeteria and snack bar were upgraded.

• The entrance to the parking lot was repaved to eliminate water leakage into the parking structure.

• The Transportation Center floor was upgraded to provide safe walking areas.

• Solar panels were installed above the swimming pool locker rooms, to save on gas consumption while heating the shower area.

• Water lines were changed to accommodate a water treatment plant for the school, allowing for reuse of recycled water for watering fields and for bathrooms.

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The cafeteria as it was ...

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... during construction ...

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¡Viva México!

ASF celebrated Mexican Independence in mid-September, with each division from Early Childhood Center through Upper School expressing El Grito in its own way. ... and as it is today.

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Tech Talks Twice during the fall semester ASF Digital Literacy Coaches Tracey Bryan (on the right in the photo) and Patty Zamora (’82) (left) tuned parents in to important technological topics in optional enrichment sessions. In the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) talk in September, parents used their own devices in an interactive presentation on how to use Moodle, ASF’s e-learning platform.

In October, Tracey, Patty and the parents took on the topic of digital citizenship, including how to use Common Sense Media, a non-profit source for information on child and family issues, to support good digital citizenship and safety in their homes.

A third tech talk, “Devices from A to Z,” was scheduled for December 10.

That’s a perfect time for parents thinking about putting a smartphone or tablet under the tree this year. Covered in this talk are what parents need to know before purchasing, how to review settings and how devices and apps can be used to support learning.

They Came, They Debated The fifth annual ASOMEX Debate Tournament was held on the ASF campus on October 25 and 26. Twenty-six teams from 12 different schools participated, an indication of the growth and competitiveness of the Mexican debating circuit since the first tournament, in which only two teams from two schools competed.

This first debate of the season was by custom a mixed teams tournament, in which the four members of each debate team are from different schools. This builds camaraderie among the debaters and their schools, teaches the value of teamwork and helps train the beginners.

Here’s how the top performing ASF debaters fared at the event: Quarterfinalists: María Ballesteros, Genoveva Silva and Andong Li Semifinalists and third-place winners: Adrian Lask and Alex Antillón First place winner: Ernesto Torres Varsity best speaker, fifth place: María Ballesteros Novice best speaker, fourth place: Tomás Esteve Novice best speaker, fifth place: Sara Rhee

ASF debate captains María Ballesteros and Sissi Li lead the opening ceremonies.

Halloween Hijinks They celebrated on different days and in different ways, but all four divisions took a little time out for Halloween during the last part of October to get creative with costumes. Some performed and some competed, but all had a good time.

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News & EVENTS | Early childhood center

Grandparents Take Note Touching scenes like this one from last February will be repeated countless times on February 12, 2014, the date of the next annual Grandparents and Grandfriends Day in the Early Childhood Center. ECC students will welcome their grandparents and other special elders in their lives to campus for a day of fun and learning together. Families are invited to buy a tile for the wall (also shown here) of the Turtle Patio, celebrating the grandparent-grandchild relationship for years to come. For more information, contact: iturriagap@asf.edu.mx.

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Mother Tongue Day The ECC dedicates a day each year to exposing students to languages other than their mother tongue to provide insight, awareness and appreciation of other cultures. As it is every year, Mother Tongue Day on October 14 was a parent-driven event, with parents volunteering their time to conduct activities in languages other than English. This year they read stories, conducted games where children use unfamiliar vocabulary and led songs and nursery rhymes, among other activities. Participating parents included Subarna Sultana, Rieko Fukada, Christiene Vasconcellos Dias Leite, Asaf Tsur and Yun Yi Min.

News & EVENTS | lower school

House Fun Day The Lower School House Fun Day is always a great way of bringing the ASF community together, and this year was no exception. With a turnout of more than 300 people — including students, parents and staff — all of the houses were well represented. Best of all, after days of nothing but rain, the sun thankfully decided to come out and shine on the day of the event. The day started with a bean mosaic art activity, continued with games and races and ended with hot dogs, hamburgers and pizza. All those who were able to come out made this year’s House Fun Day a huge success.

For Loreto Peralta, ASF Instruction Was Included An ASF third grader is getting lots of attention for her extracurricular activity — acting.

Loreto Peralta starred alongside Eugenio Derbez in the fall 2013 movie No se aceptan devoluciones (the title in English is changed to Instructions Not Included), which quickly became Mexico’s biggest international box office hit.

It was Loreto’s first acting job. “Since I was four I’ve wanted to be an actress, so now when I see myself on the big screen, it feels really good,” Loreto said. “My parents always told me it was really hard, that you had to have talent. But I actually did it and it’s really cool!”

She credits her teachers with helping her stay on top of schoolwork during her absences. “They sent me a lot of homework and they always helped me when I came to school and I had missed days,” Loreto said.

“They always got me going.”

Year Two for the Lower School’s Unique Music Performance Program The Lower School is in the second year of its new music program, in which students choose which music class they would like to pursue outside their regular classroom. The Lower School music team and the students themselves are more excited than ever about this program, especially since all now have a better idea of what to expect.

In Olivia Maekawa’s violin class, new students are working on the basics of violin technique, while her students in their second year continue to improve their skills. In choir class, taught by Joseph Edwards, students are training their voices to become instruments of their own through both solo and ensemble singing. Upper level grades are singing in two and even three parts simultaneously, creating harmony.

In my class, third graders continue to work on recorders and will also have the opportunity to work on Orff xylophones. In fourth and fifth grade, students are given their first opportunity to play band instruments — trumpet, trombone, baritone, clarinet, flute and saxophone.

A change this year is that there will be only one concert. On top of the Fourth Grade Operas and the fifth grade PYP Exhibition, two concerts become too much. Also, having only one concert allows us to teach a more comprehensive, PYPoriented curriculum. With the continued support of teachers, parents and the administration, this wonderful Lower School music program will continue to improve each year as it strives to meet its goals. — Rob McCabe, Lower School Music Teacher winter 2013 / 2014 | 9

News & EVENTS | middle school

Students Are Showing Their SWaG SWaG stands for “Student Wellness and Growth.” Its purpose is to help Middle School students learn about themselves and others by meeting and interacting with as many people in our community as possible. They do this by accumulating service hours in four categories — integration, green, community service and clubs/teams.

Anything from volunteering at the Art Fair or reading with ECC students to picking up campus litter will count for hours. The work is preferably done within ASF, but outside service ideas may be approved at the discretion of the Middle School administration.

Other ideas might include founding a new club in the Middle School, volunteering at a lunchtime “genius bar” to help peers who Reading with ASF’s younger students is one way to earn SWaG points. are struggling in academics, making a bulletin board that shares interesting facts about students who are new to the community, producing a giant display map that shows where our student body is from or creating public service announcements promoting the positive values of the school.

Students work to earn 20 hours a year, with the hours tracked in a booklet by the Advocacy teachers. Hours earned in the teams/clubs category are capped at 12, since team members will easily spend many more than 20 hours a year in their team activity. — Rebecca Crutchfield, Head of Middle School

At Math Night, Parents and Students Get an Inside Look at How It’s Taught Last May, Middle School math teachers Iztchel Alcalá, Torrey Annas and Kristen Leutheuser returned from a three-day conference of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) in Denver with an idea for a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics initiative, or STEM. Their efforts resulted in ASF’s first Math Night on September 10. The students and parents who joined teachers and deans that evening weren’t there to do math, but to learn about the new ways that math is being taught in the Middle School.

Math Night introduced the community to the newly adopted Common Core standards for K-12, as well as the curriculum now used to teach the new standards, known as the Connected Mathematics Project, or CMP3. “We loved the promise of exploration, excitement and engagement with not only our own students, but parents, too,” said Ms. Leutheuser.

Sixth, seventh and eighth grade teachers set up activities around the first floor of the Middle School for parents and students to participate in, either as small groups or as pairs. “We wanted parents to think, collaborate and learn math concepts the way their children were experiencing it at school,” said Ms. Leutheuser. “Students were excited to exchange math dialogue with their parents and peers in small groups. Teachers floated around the room to give hints to groups that were stuck.”

The evening highlighted the transition that Middle School mathematics is undergoing, moving away from exclusively teacher-led lessons to a learner-driven approach.

“We look forward to hosting more STEM-themed evenings for parents and students to bond over their creativity and problem-solving strategies,” Ms. Leutheuser said.

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Retreating to the Volcano Nearly 70 new-to-ASF Middle School students joined the Student Council and seven staff members in a retreat that took place at the Nevado de Toluca volcano at the beginning of the academic year. They bonded as they hiked, learned to navigate by the sun and created shelters for themselves from available material. The group also made an árbol de vida — tree of life — with each student’s name and goals for the year on the back.

News & EVENTS | UPPER school

The College Fair Turns 30 For the past 30 years, The American School Foundation has hosted a College Fair. This year it was held on Saturday, October 5, in the Jenkins Foundation Wellness Center, where students from ASF and other schools in the area had the opportunity to learn more about different colleges and make more educated decisions about where they will pursue their studies. Students could talk to representatives from some 145 institutions from all over the world, ranging from the American University and Columbia to Tec de Monterrey (ITESM) and the University of South Wales, to name just a few.

The fair helped students gather information about what they need to do to apply, what the weather is like in a certain location and whether a university offers what the student would like to specialize in. Said Rachel Dillon, ASF’s college counselor and organizer of the College Fair, “Students do benefit from this experience, because everyone meets in one place to get their questions answered.”

Students who attended the fair agree. Said ASF senior Luisa Segura, “Talking to the representatives, you learn more about each university.” Alice Kanitz, another ASF student, summed up one of the benefits of the fair when she said, “I have this one dream university where I really want to go, but I don’t know much about other universities. The fair gives me an opportunity to find out about other universities that have programs just as good as my dream university. You have to have options.”

Representatives from the universities themselves also find the event beneficial. Said Mara O’Keefe, a Northwestern University alumna representing her alma mater at the fair, “It’s exciting for me to get to see all sorts of young people asking questions, wondering, imagining their futures.”

As always, this year’s College Fair gave Upper School students an opportunity to ask real questions about a university and get answers from real people who actually know. —Alexa Herrerías, ASF Freshman

The Dalai Lama in Mexico A longer version of the following article by sophomore Audrey Humphrey was originally written for the Upper School student-run website, publishus.asf.edu.mx.

The Dalai Lama arrived in Mexico City on October 11, causing much excitement among the Mexican citizens. He spoke at the Arena Ciudad de México about education and the future of the world. The speech was intended for a younger audience, mainly students, including many from ASF. But the Dalai Lama found it funny that there were also older people there to hear him.

Open and charismatic, the Dalai Lama joked while at the same time keeping a thoughtful tone about the issues of today. He spoke about how each generation causes many problems, and it ends up being the next generation’s job to fix things.

He said that while we do not necessarily try to create issues, most of these arise because of how much individuals fixate on material goods.

The Dalai Lama stressed education. He also spoke about the importance of introducing ethics in class and encouraging compassion in the school environment.

Compassion is one of the Dalai Lama’s favorite virtues. He spoke about the violent culture we live in where children play with guns and war video games. He mentioned that technology can be a useful asset to learning and progress; however, he said, it depends on how one uses it.

The Dalai Lama was able to answer several questions after his speech. One woman asked him what were his opinions on women and what role they play in society. He said that in scientific studies, it was proven that women are more prone to compassion. Because of this, they should make great leaders that support peace.

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News & EVENTS | parent association

FRIENDLY WELCOME The PA Welcome Picnic, a back-to-school tradition, took place on August 24.

That same day, many families drifted up to the football field to round out the day with the Alumni Bowl.

The photos tell the story.

The English Book Fair Parents and students could browse through and buy a huge selection of quality books in English last October 1 through 4 during the English Book Fair in the Lower School Multipurpose Room. The annual event, organized by the Parent Association, gives ASF families a chance to discover sometimes hard-to-find new English-language books in one convenient place, with the help of local retailer Libros Libros Libros. This year, the fair stayed open one extra day due to popular demand.

News & EVENTS | arts

For ASF’s Performing Arts, Valuable Input from Abroad On the Monday and Tuesday before the three-day Tri-Association conference hosted by ASF in October (see page 22), music teachers from around Latin America came to the ASF campus for two days of teaching, learning, listening and collaboration with the ASF performing arts teachers. The visiting teachers observed ASF music and drama classes and were invited to step into the shoes of the ASF teachers and take over their classes. They also watched and commented as rehearsals took place. After the sessions, visitors and ASF faculty alike discussed ideas on how to improve instruction in the music and drama classrooms. In the true spirit of the Tri-Association, visitors, hosts — and in this case students as well — came away with new inspiration for performing arts instruction and learning.

Celebrating Repentino in Gala Fashion The second edition of the Upper School literary magazine Repentino was celebrated in gala fashion on September 25 in the Fine Arts Center. The event included four hours worth of open mic: literary, musical and dramatic performances by teachers and students, as well as an exhibit showcasing art and literature by Repentino contributors. Parents, teachers, students and friends spent the evening enjoying music, poetry, food and laughter.

The 2013 edition of Repentino, with the theme “Out of Place,” features art and text by artist and writers from ASF and abroad. It is available for purchase by sending an email to asflitmag@gmail.com.

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News & EVENTS | Athletics & extended learning

Homecoming 2013

Standout Swimmer Paulina Watson Represented Mexico in a Dubai Event For the second straight year, the Bear Boosters held a Homecoming Spirit Raffle, with prizes including electronic devices, a vacation, Six Flags tickets and much more. Here, Cora Laudato, a member of the ASF varsity volleyball team, takes a break from her ASF Bear mascot role to receive a prize she won in the raffle. The JV volleyball team was recognized for selling the most raffle tickets.

The Homecoming game on October 26, 2013, once again coincided with the Alumni Breakfast, so a good number of well-fed former ASF students were on hand to cheer on the Bears. Here, Bear Booster President Sven Wallsten (’91) and Alumni Council President Mauricio Quintana (’00) preside over the presentation of the 2013 Alumni Football Award to Ralph Mickle (’90), in absentia, for his school spirit and unwavering support of the Bears.

ASF sophomore and standout varsity swimmer Paulina Watson represented Mexico in the FINA World Junior Swimming Championships in late August in Dubai, finishing in 14th place in the girls 1500 freestyle and shaving seven seconds off her personal record. Fifteenyear-old Paulina is ranked second in Mexico in her event. She trained six to seven days a week for the competition, showing up at the ASF campus even during the summer to prepare with swimming coach and Athletics Coordinator Noah Randall.

She says that getting to know international competitors during her trip to Dubai made her thankful for what she has at ASF. “Some have dropped out of high school or study in special schools, or live away from their families in order to be able to train every day,” she said. “I feel very lucky to be able to study in such a good school, live with my family and still have the opportunity to swim.”

Paulina has been swimming since she entered ASF in the fifth grade.

Her coach says Paulina, with several second-place finishes in important competitions, is constantly challenging herself. “She doesn’t feel like she’s ‘made it’ yet, which is good, because it still gives her something to reach for,” said Noah Randall.

Four Lower School Gymnasts Competed in Cancún Four ASF students traveled to Cancún for a major national gymnastics competition October 3 through 6. Fifth grader Isabella Santa Maria, fourth graders Isabella McElfresh and Julieta Perezcano and second grader Macarena GarLeft to right: Isabella Santa Maria, Isabella McElfresh, Julieta Perezcano and Macarena García. cía train and compete with an outside gym, but all but one honed their skills through ASF’s Athletics and Extended Learning gymnastics program. The youngest, Macarena, practices five days a week. “First is school and then gymnastics,” her parents tell her. She says sometimes it’s tough to manage school, gymnastics and other activities, but her parents tell her she has to work hard to make her dream come true. All four girls share the same dream — to compete in the Olympics.

Copa Allianz-Gilling

In the Homecoming game itself, the Bears gave it their all but after some nail-biting finishes and proud wins in recent years they found themselves on the wrong end of a lopsided 39-0 final score this time around. Congratulations to a strong ITESM-Guadalajara team.

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Macarena García Bars 7th Floor 8th All Around 11th Jump 12th Balance beam 20th

Isabella McElfresh Balance Beam 1st Bars 1st All Around 3rd Floor 5th Jump 29th

Julieta Perezcano Bars 3rd All Around 7th Floor 8th Balance Beam 13th Jump 14th

Isabella Santa Maria Jump 6th Floor 7th All Around 12th Bars 19th Balance Beam 22nd

News & EVENTS | community service

Ending the Year With Recycling and a Gesture of Mutual CollaboratioN

The Turtles of Oaxaca Each year, a number of Upper School students travel to the Oaxaca coast for an outdoor education experience that combines environmental awareness and community service. Kathy Li, one of the students who made the trip this school year, provided the following account: During the last week of October, I and other Upper School students visited a beach in Mazunte, where thousands of turtles arrive to lay their eggs. One of our purposes was to help the newly hatched baby turtles to reach the sea. Although I had been told about the turtles’ arrival, I was absolutely caught off-guard by the magnitude of the process.

We were able to see how large turtles arrived from the sea and laid their eggs before going back into the water, and what these eggs looked like. We also had the opportunity to see baby turtles learning how to move and to take them near the sea.

We also helped a small nearby community called Vainilla. We brought a large amount of supplies that we donated to this community. We also helped them construct the furniture we had donated and arrange the medicine in their cabinets, among other things.

Some of us even got to play with the kids. Although we did not interact as much with the children in the community as I would have liked, seeing their smiles when we arrived with the materials we were donating made this experience an amazing one.

To further promote social responsibility in its students and stewardship of the environment, ASF carried out two especially noteworthy community service projects at the close of the 2012-2013 school year. The Sustainability Committee organized an end-of-the-year campaign to reuse and recycle school supplies. Since most paper, cardboard, books and other supplies could be recycled or donated to other students to be reused next year, special containers and tables were placed in Lower School, Middle School and Upper School locations for students to separate and deliver their materials. The recycled paper and cardboard totaled 2,155 kilograms, the equivalent of saving 37 trees from being cut down.

Meanwhile, the Felipe Neri primary school in Yautepec, Morelos, had been developing a program of recycling, composting, reforestation, school farming and other environmentally oriented activities under the guidance of the education organizations Pro-Ed and Flor y Canto. On June 28, as a gesture of mutual collaboration, ASF donated books collected in the end-of-the-year campaign to that school, receiving in exchange the results of the Felipe Neri environmental program and an offer of future cooperation in sustainability activities. The project was coordinated

by REEDUCA, a nationwide network of schools interested in promoting sustainability and environmental education.

We Got Your Back For the second year, ECC and Lower School students collected hundreds of new backpacks to donate to needy schoolchildren in Guerrero. That southwest state went through a difficult time when devastating storms hit in September, so the ASF backpack drive was more timely than ever. The fall backpack drive, organized through the foundation Niños en Alegría, generated more than 900 backpacks, with support from Middle School as well. ASF mom, alumna and Niños en Alegría volunteer Angie Alemán (’93) championed the effort and personally delivered some of the backpacks. winter 2013 / 2014 | 15

FEATURE

Diversity’s New Era

Nationality isn’t the only criterion for a diverse student body. ASF has expanded the definition of diversity on campus, and is backing it up with financial aid.

I

t has become a buzzword of our modern age, but what does “diversity” really mean? There are a number of associated ideas — from affirmative action and equal opportunity employment to multiculturalism and racial quotas. Due to its complexity, the real-world definition of diversity itself can be controversial and difficult to nail down.

Diversity has long been a cornerstone of The American School experience. After all, that first class of just nine kindergarteners in 1888 had Mexican, British and U.S. students. Today, 125 years later, the ASF student body includes citizens of more than three dozen countries. That’s pretty diverse.

Having a diverse community has always been a priority for the Board of Trustees and school leaders, who know the value learners derive from being exposed to different points of view. “Understanding,” an ASF core value, is based on the idea of experiencing differences and working through them to reach agreements.

Then in late 2010, Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa wrote a piece in Spain’s El País about a visit to a school in Sweden — Rinkeby School — where he encountered great cultural and religious diversity, coexisting with tolerance and high academic achievement. This reignited an important discussion on the subject among ASF Trustees, says longtime Trustee, ASF alumna and former ASF parent Cathy Austin (’78).

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BY Sloane Starke, Communications Coordinator

“Concluding that diversity at ASF should include more than just nationalities, a task force was set up to consider the kind of diversity ASF should pursue, how to go about it and how to fund it,” Austin said.

Today, three years later, ASF has a diversity statement and plan in place (see box). What does it mean in practical terms?

The Evolution of Diversity

Executive Director Paul Williams echoed Austin’s account of those first conversations: “It started as general discussions within the community and also the Board, about strategic direction as included in the vision, bringing in the aspect of being a caring and diverse community. But what kind of diversity?”

To find out, the Board formed a task force that included ASF administrators as well as community members from different areas — academia, law, finance and educational technology.

The first need was for information. Reenrolling families were asked for much more demographic data than before, for

“We wanted to see how we could make the family base more diverse in terms of professions and backgrounds.”

—Paul Williams, executive director

statistical and analytical purposes.

“We saw a certain diversity as far as beliefs, cultural differences, religions,” said Williams. “But we also found that the background of our families was very similar. Even though we had made great strides with socioeconomic diversity, we wanted to see how we could make the family base more diverse in terms of professions and backgrounds.”

The task force also looked at ASF’s tuition and benchmarked it against bilingual institutions in Mexico City, which helped define the key role of financial aid in building diversity.

In the end, the task force defined five key areas of distinction to foment in the ASF community — academics, arts, athletics, community service and entrepreneurship. “We crafted recruiting guidelines to attract outstanding students and families from these areas, who espouse the mission and vision of the school, irrespective of their capacity to pay,” Austin said.

“We are talking about including more families whose diverse professional backgrounds don’t provide incomes that make ASF affordable,” Director of Admission and Financial Aid Patsy Martin de Hubp said. “We help them, and their presence benefits all of us. We believe these are families that would contribute a lot to ASF.” It’s a win-win situation, according to Hubp. “This kind of diversity is in line with our status as an IB World School,” she said.

“It’s everything that we believe in.”

“The school is opening to different ways of interacting with families from different backgrounds, professions and ways of thinking.”

—Kelly Medina (’86), ASF parent

Where Are We Now?

Today, 10 students are enrolled at ASF, divided from ECC through Upper School, as the first generation of diversity scholarship beneficiaries. In these cases, the Board has authorized discounting admission, registration and tuition fees by 50%. ASF’s financial aid program has traditionally not included discounts on the admission and registration payments, so this is a major change.

The plan is to add 10 more scholarships each year, until ASF reaches the Board goal of having at least 20% of the student body on financial aid, in line with the standards of the National Association for Independent Schools. The figure at ASF today is closer to 13%, and the vast majority of those are not designated diversity scholarships, and still won’t be when the total reaches 20%. But the number of diversity scholarships will continue to rise.

When the goal is reached, 20% of ASF students will benefit tangibly and financially, but 100% will benefit from an environment even more richly diverse with different ideas, opportunities and points of view.

“It’s going to allow people a better global understanding,” Williams said. “It’s a changing world. We want our community members to be exposed to many different opportunities in life. It also helps make students much more well-rounded.”

To see how, just talk to scholarship recipients and their families.

Andong Li, for example, is an Upper School student and nationally ranked swimmer who received one of this year’s new scholarships. He said his sport helps him connect with people both in and outside of ASF. “I try to get involved in my sport by talking about it to other people and athletes,” he said. “I maintain friendships with athletes in different states and work hard at maintaining them.”

Aside from being a standout athlete, he also grew up in another state in Mexico, and his parents are from China. “My family and I have contributed to the diversity of the ASF community in a number of ways,” Andong said. “I have a somewhat different mentality about society, social interactions, Mexico, etc. than most students at ASF. Since my parents are from China, I have been raised in a different manner than other Mexicans.”

Said Lorena Amaro, mother of a Lower School scholarship recipient, “Due to my professional background — 17 years working to integrate and include differently abled children in our communities — our son Fernando knows and is used to relating to children from low-income families who also have neuromotor disabilities.” The ASF diversity policy has a multiplying effect, she pointed out, since Fernando not only brings his own type of diversity to campus — as the child of an educator involved in an important social endeavor — but he is also able to develop in the environment of social and cultural diversity that ASF provides.

“Diversity is important because the school is opening to different ways of interacting with families from different backgrounds, professions and ways of thinking,” said Kelly Medina (‘86), an ASF alumna and mother of a scholarship student in the Lower School. She and her husband, who have both worked as foreign language educators, are strong representatives of the “academic” area of the school’s diversity strategy.

The ASF Diversity Statement “The American School Foundation seeks talented students and families from different nationalities, religions, cultures and pursuits that are committed to the vision and mission of the school, regardless of financial capabilities. The school actively recruits and supports students and families who have demonstrated leadership in the arts, academics, athletics, community service and entrepreneurship among others. Diversity is valued as a means of enrichment and integral to the formative process of an ASF student.”

Into the Future

No definition of diversity can last forever, and adjustments are certain in the years to come. The five key areas may be only the beginning. “The diversity statement says ‘among others,’ so there is flexibility to grow,” Williams said.

For now, the Admission and Financial Aid Office continues to seek and recruit qualified students and families who will bring their own unique contributions to the school. And there are no better marketers and recruiters than the school’s current families.

“We need families who know what ASF is all about, who are proactive and who will help identify prospective families who might just need a nudge to approach ASF,” Hubp said.

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FEATURE

One Art Fair, Many Events

The 44th annual ASF Art Fair, which took place on the ASF campus on November 9, offered such a magnificent panoply of attractions that it was a challenge for the thousands of visitors to take them all in. Here’s what some of the events looked like.

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The 44th annual ASF Art Fair included the following attractions. Top, left to right: Nearly 100 community artists, displaying their work for enjoyment and/or purchase. Choral performance, including, as you can see, the youngest of ASF singers. Student art, including IB presentations in the Lower School Multipurpose Room and Lower School work in the Fine Arts Center. Bottom, left to right: Musical performance, inside the FAC and in the food area. Student clubs, whose members volunteered their time to sell an amazing variety of food, and to explain to curious visitors what their club activities are. Ceramics, on display in the student art exhibition and Art Fair organizers and Parent Association volunteers, without whose effort and organization there would be no Art Fair, period.

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FEATURE

“Creation Impressions,” the principal exhibit in the Hojel-Schumacher Gallery in the Fine Arts Center, featured work by 12 of Mexico’s most respected artists. Art Fair visitors enjoyed a unique opportunity to admire in one place pieces by José Luis Cuevas, Gilberto Aceves Navarro, Roger Von Gunten, Juan Soriano and the following artists: Top row, left to right: Manuel Felguérez (whose work can be seen at the right in this photo), Naret (an ASF grandparent) and Vicente Rojo. Middle row, left to right: Sebastián, Gustavo Arias Murueta and Teresa Cito (also an ASF grandparent). Bottom row, left to right after Sebastián: Elisam (a third ASF grandparent) and Luis López Loza, seen here with Adriana Ramos, PA president, Art Fair organizer and recipient of the heartfelt gratitude of the entire ASF community.

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Acting Out: Natalia García Clark (’13) A teacher’s-eye look at the recently graduated IB Arts Student of the Year, who was a featured attraction at the 2013 Art Fair

BY Pat Patterson, Upper School Fine Arts and Technology

Sometimes bright kids can be really annoying. They demand more from us, they push our buttons, they question everything we tell them and they make us work harder. But isn’t that exciting? Isn’t that why we work with teenagers after all? Yes, those are the ones we never forget, the ones we use as examples for future classes on how to think differently. Their successes become our successes even though we only played a small role.

This is how I feel about Natalia García Clark. From day one, she never needed me; she already knew what she wanted out of life – to act, to dance, to make people think. Taking art classes was something she did by choice, not because they were required or recommended. In Art II, when the rest of the class was making linoleum prints about life in Mexico, she asked if she could create a stencil of the Angel of Independence and spray it right on the wall, instead. She challenged me to bend my rules for the sake of creativity, for a good idea. I agreed, and she stenciled an overweight angel eating McDonald’s french fries on the wall at the Art Fair. This should have warned me about what was to come.

We met again in IB Visual Arts in her junior year. As we discussed her first assignment, she pointed out that she was not interested in pure aesthetics, but in the ideas that would question the status quo. She started a series of work about BlackBerrys and how they were promoting bad interpersonal communication among her peers. She created an account under the name of Manuel Carreño and sent messages about proper etiquette to hundreds of people using a BlackBerry. Then she created an artwork consisting of their text message responses and enclosed them within a golden Baroque frame.

In her senior year, she challenged me again, creating controversial pieces and pushing her classmates during critiques. Our expectations of her were high and she surpassed them, especially in the extraordinary IB Visual Arts Examination where she presented two years of work in the theater of the Ángeles Espinosa Yglesias Fine Arts Center. The Parent Association Fine Arts Committee selected her as the IB Arts Student of the Year, among her talented classmates.

Natalia decided to choose an art school where she could continue acting, dancing, singing and creating challenging artwork. She found all of these things at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). Her latest e-mails tell me that she is enjoying herself enormously and we all look forward to seeing her latest production.

She will always remain one of the most original students that I have ever had the privilege of working with. winter 2013 / 2014 | 21

FEATURE

Michael Johnston, principal at an international school in Singapore, was a keynote speaker at the Tri-Association’s Annual Educators’ Conference on the ASF campus in October.

Pushing Our Limits In October, ASF again hosted the Tri-Association’s Annual Educators’ Conference, an important international gathering of education leaders from Mexico to Colombia

A

SF canceled student classes for three days in October, but the learning by no means stopped.

From October 9 through 11 some 900 educators from a variety of countries assembled in the school’s classrooms and event spaces for a major conference on best practices and trends in international education.

The event was the Annual Educators’ Conference of the Association of American Schools of Central America, Colombia, the Caribbean and Mexico, or the TriAssociation. The theme was “Pushing Our Limits” and the focus was placed solidly on the future, with experts from Tri-Association member institutions as well as guest specialists from abroad leading sessions on such topics as educational technology, bullying prevention, student evaluation and special education strategies.

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It was the third time in recent years that ASF hosted this prestigious international gathering, and ASF educators again left their mark on the conference. Major contributions came from ASF Executive Director Paul Williams, who serves as the Tri-Association’s president, Board of Trustees Chair Rosa Marentes de Pisinger (’87), Services for Academic Success (SAS) Coordinator Vicky Solórzano, Upper School Academic Dean David Kitchin, digital literacy coaches Patty Zamora (’82) and Tracey Bryan, SAS teachers Danielle Miller and Erin Trautman and teachers Nancy Álvarez, Elisa Beltrán and Kristal Rice.

The keynote speeches focused on the future of education, with frequent mentions of technology, service learning, 21st century competencies, project-based learning and other trends.

Opening keynote speaker Patrick Bassett, former president of the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), reiterated standards for modern education referred to as the Five Cs — creativity, communication, collaboration, critical thinking and character — and added a sixth. “The future is the Five Cs applied to real-life problems,” Bassett said. “For me, the sixth C is cosmopolitanism, or crosscultural competency.”

Bassett (see page 24) invited attendees to think beyond teaching facts and dates and instead to teach curiosity and how to overcome the natural human instinct to retreat to one’s “tribe.”

Second-day speaker Michael Johnston, principal at an international school in Singapore, focused heavily on two matters of high importance at ASF — community service and sustainability. He asked

participants what kind of world they want to live in 50 years from now, and how their schools would accomplish this vision. His presentation drew heavily on real-life examples from the service learning that takes place at his school.

On the final day of the conference, in a speech entitled “Literacy is Not Enough,” author Lee Crockett spoke about taking instruction several steps beyond reading, writing, arithmetic and even technology. “We don’t need to teach technology,” Crockett said. “We need to teach thinking, caring for others,” He said creativity fluency would be key in the 21st century, as the creative sector outpaces service, agricultural and other types of jobs.

Inspired by those keynote speeches delivered in the Ángeles Espinosa Yglesias Fine Arts Center, Tri-Association educators moved on each day to breakout sessions held in ASF classrooms, which were sometimes overflowing for the most popular sessions. There were more than 80 different sessions to choose from over the course of the three-day event, ranging from big-picture thinking to practical hands-on training.

ASF faculty members and paraprofessionals were not only among the hundreds in attendance, but often among the presenters.

SAS’s Vicky Solórzano presented “Differentiated Instruction: A Classroom

Perspective,” while her SAS colleagues Danielle Miller and Erin Trautman covered “Response to Intervention: Using Data to Impact Early Childhood Development.”

The latter was based on a program that Trautman and Miller have been developing in the ECC and Lower School over several years. “We’ve had phenomenal feedback from this experience,” Trautman said. “Many of the professionals who attended our conference have been in contact with us for support in creating this model in their own schools. It feels great to know that we made an impact.”

Technology topics were also well represented, by ASF digital literacy experts.

Patty Zamora’s session was called “ADEs Unplugged: Using Google Apps to Promote Innovation, Creativity and Collaboration,” while Tracey Bryan, who recently spent time in Japan, covered “Flattening Classrooms from Japan to Latin America.”

Some sessions were given in Spanish, as was the case with “Círculos literarios: Una herramienta para impulsar la lectura,” given by Nancy Álvarez and Elisa Beltrán.

Finally, US Academic Dean David Kitchin and ECC teacher Kristal Rice helped lead a discussion called “Lesson Study: Teachers Teaching Teachers.”

As host, ASF prepared an opening ceremony that featured the Lower School color guard presenting the Mexican and

ASF’s Services for Academic Success (SAS) Coordinator Vicky Solórzano leads a session on “Differentiated Instruction.”

American flags for the national anthems, as well as opening remarks from Rosa Marentes de Pisinger and Paul Williams.

Tri-Association Executive Director Sonia Keller and Laura Light from International Schools Services also spoke during the opening ceremony.

Mr. Williams noted that professional development, as featured in the conference, has long been a key aspect of the ASF vision, and that one of the school’s articulated goals is to attract, retain and develop teachers and leaders.

“This is an opportunity for all of us to network, get to know each other and learn together,” he said. “It is all with one goal — thinking about what we can take back to our schools for the benefit of our students.”

Teachers returned to the classroom the following Monday armed with new ideas, feeling re-energized and ready for the work ahead.

The Tri-Association, which serves more than 90 American schools in Mexico, Central America, Colombia and the Caribbean, consists of three regional groups — the Association of American Schools in Central America (AASCA), the Association of American Schools in Colombia-Caribbean (ACCAS) and the Association of American Schools in Mexico (ASOMEX), of which Paul Williams also serves as president.

Large group session packed the Fine Arts Center with hundreds of teachers.

winter 2013 / 2014 | 23

FEATURE

Q&A: Patrick Bassett

The keynote speaker at the recent ASF-hosted Tri-Association conference talks about how international schools, teachers, parents and students will adapt to the revolution in education now in progress.

Patrick Bassett, retired president of the U.S.-based National Association of Independent Schools, spoke during the first day of the TriAssociation’s Annual Educators’ Conference in October, setting the tone with his thought-provoking vision of the future of schools. He also sat down with Focus to share more insights on the information age, project-based learning and the future of education.

“The reason international schools have the biggest advantage is they are large schools, so they can conduct lots of experiments to give kids and parents choices.”

Focus: What are the challenges for international schools in this new era?

PB: There are a number of challenges for international schools. They tend to be more narrowly curriculum driven. They tend to accept the IB curriculum as sacrosanct, or the AP curriculum as sacrosanct, and that all the work should lead to doing well on that test. That’s a hangover from hundreds of years of thinking that that’s what’s really important. If your kids are deeply educated they’re going to do well on those tests, but the problem is parents are fearful that the kids won’t score well if they’re doing something that’s actually engaging. My experience is that parents think kids are supposed to be miserable, just like they were miserable when they were in school.

Focus: How do you change parents’ ideas about what education should be?

PB: Wouldn’t you want your kid in a school where the kids are on fire with learning?

But they feel stuck. The reason international schools have the biggest advantage is they are large schools, so they can conduct lots of experiments to give kids and parents choices. Here’s the classic choice I would give you: You can take Algebra I the way we’ve always taught Algebra I, textbook driven. Or you can take project-based algebra, real-world math. How many kids and parents want to be in the projectbased Algebra I, and how many want to be in the slug-it-out, we’re-all-going-tobe-on-the-same-page textbook class? It 24 | winter 2013 / 2014

wouldn’t matter if 90% want to be in the traditional class, and sit on the sidelines and see how the other class goes. When the other class catches fire, there will be pressure from the kids: “Why can’t we do that?”

Focus: OK, to make this real. You poke your head into the ideal revolutionized classroom. What do you see going on?

PB: I’ll tell you what I don’t see going on.

Kids are not sitting in chairs in a row, dutifully taking notes from the teacher. That’s where really smart kids drop out, either physically or intellectually, from school.

Kids are really adaptable. It’s the adults who have always created cultures that are punitive for kids, that are suppressive of their natural instincts to discover and learn.

Focus: What would you say to a teacher who’s struggling with having to get kids ready for a test in a year, and on the other hands wants to revolutionize?

PB: They can challenge their own assumption that these two outcomes are mutually incompatible. That’s the main thing, the assumption that you can’t do stuff the way you’ve done it traditionally and sequentially and fuse that in a context that’s project-based and real-worldattached. You can do both.

You don’t have to do five days of really imaginative, real-world problem solving.

How about one day out of the week? And then when you find out it works better and it’s more fun for you and the kids, you go to two days.

Focus: What do parents need to know for their child to have the best K-12 preparation?

PB: They have to be good consumers of education. If you have options where you live, in terms of public, parochial and independent schools, you should visit all of them.

Find a way to get permission to attend class. You will immediately know what kind of school you’re in, by the culture.

Now, at [independent] schools, success has always been attached to achievement.

But achievement should be part of a bigger ambition. What kind of person do you turn out to be? What kind of contributor?

What kind of leader? Do you actually have the skills that count? As a parent and consumer, these things are really important.

What are the kids like? Do you want your kid surrounded by caring, smart kids?

Some of the schools in the world that have the best test scores and best placements are the meanest places. You would never want your children in that school. If you were a good consumer you’d go there and you’d see that.

Focus: How does the Tri-Association strike you as a group?

PB: I love the group! It’s a wonderful life, especially for the teachers who change every three years. They have this wanderlust. It’s the opposite of most teachers.

Most teachers want to be anchored. They don’t want to change their textbook. They don’t want to change their test. For whatever reason, the international group has a compulsion to move from a place like this to the most remote, impoverished country in the world, just because it’s an adventure.

Focus: How do the students benefit from that?

PB: They benefit mostly because these teachers really are global citizens. They understand about cosmopolitanism. You go to South Africa, then you go to Indonesia, then you go to China, then you come here. Those are four incredibly different cultures! We like to think we have so much in common in our humanity. The core values of character, that’s all the same. But how we transmit messages to kids is very different. So these teachers are like the foot soldiers, the front wave.

“At independent schools, success has always been attached to achievement.

But achievement should be part of a bigger ambition.

What kind of person do you turn out to be? What kind of contributor? What kind of leader?”

Educator Patrick Bassett delivers a keynote talk on the first day of the Tri-Association’s 2013 Annual Educators’ Conference, held on the ASF campus over three days in October.

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FEATURE

“I felt like I was in my natural environment.”

Rosa Montalvo as a senior in 1981 and with some of her K3 students today.

“Teaching turned out to be my calling.”

Helen Woroszylski as a senior in 1993 and with one of her K2 students today, along with a collection of student IDs from her ASF days

Both Sides Now A significant number of former ASF students return to their old classrooms... as teachers.

What’s that like?

T

he ASF population is usually divided into students, parents, teachers, staff, alumni and friends. But those designations often overlap. One of the more interesting combinations of categories is the perhaps surprising number of ASF alumni who are now teachers at the school.

The fact that so many former ASF students return to pursue their teaching careers is a tribute to the school’s powerful sense of community. At the same time, it suggests some interesting questions: What is the appeal of returning to work where you experienced life as a student?

What is it like to have made that change from former student to teacher?

To answer those questions, a selection of alumni/teachers (many of whom are also ASF parents) recently shared their experiences with Focus. Their 26 | winter 2013 / 2014

BY Sharmila Sachdev, ASF Parent

backgrounds are diverse, but it is through their collective voice that we get an idea of why so many alumni have chosen to make ASF their lifelong home.

The Roads Not Taken

Did the inclination to teach arise during these alumni’s student years at ASF? For most of the teachers interviewed, the answer is “no.” They had other career options, which were as varied as the personalities they bring to the ASF team. What were those alternative tracks? And what caused these alumni to change over to the teaching profession?

Rosa Montalvo (’81), a K3 teacher, was looking at first toward a career in hotel management. But as she started to work at ASF as a teacher’s assistant while pursuing her studies, she realized that teaching was her calling. She ended up

earning degrees in preschool education and international education while working at the ECC, eventually becoming a full-time teacher in 2000.

K2 teacher Helen Woroszylski (’93) was also interested in hotel management at first. Even though she worked summers at ASF in the Lower School Library and taught in after school, the desire to teach as a career didn’t come right away.

But after a year of studying at Universidad Iberoamericana, Helen decided that she preferred working with children to being a potential hotel manager. She earned her degree in education from Universidad Hebraica and began teaching at ASF in 2001.

Adriana Klein (’91), a K1 teaching assistant, studied accounting after graduation from ASF. But she was always in touch with the school through fundraising and other volunteer activities. “I became

“I was happier in a classroom than practicing law.”

Adriana Klein in high school and today.

“I became passionate about teaching after my own children began attending school here.”

Patty Montes as a senior in 1992 and today.

“I made amazing friends when I came back in 1996.”

Ivette Berentsen as a senior in 1990 and today with her daughters, who are ASF students.

passionate about teaching after my own children began attending school here and I learned about the IB program,” she says.

“I wanted to be a teacher based on all the PYP practices.” Adri is en route to becoming a certified early childhood education teacher.

Laura Patricia Montes (’92), a fifth grade teacher, studied law. While she was earning her law degree, she kept her hand in education by teaching corporate English. Then, after practicing law for two years, she changed her career. “I was happier in a classroom than practicing law,” she says. “Teaching gives you so much more back, and the ability to be in a collaborative environment while achieving professional and personal growth.”

Patty taught in other educational institutions before joining the ASF teaching staff in 2011.

Always having a love of art, Ivette Berentsen (’90), a Middle School art teacher, decided to study advertising after

ASF. It was during the course of her studies at Trinity University in Texas that she realized that she needed to be knowledgeable about the field of art. “In college, I felt so unaware of my own country’s cultural heritage,” she says. “That was a real turning point for me.” So she graduated from Trinity with a bachelor’s degree — not in advertising but in fine arts, with a minor in art history. Ivette began working in an art gallery, where she met her future husband. She actually came back to teach at ASF twice — first in 1996 and again to stay in 2009.

As a student, Stephanie Mauro (’06) wanted to be a doctor. She went to Washington and Lee University as a pre-med/ biology major, but the economic situation in the United States impacted her intended field of study. “It was virtually impossible for foreign students to get financial aid (for graduate school) or assistance for immigration issues,” she says. So she returned to Mexico after getting her biology

degree, and landed a job at ATID, a K-12 international school in Mexico City, as a biology teacher before earning a similar position at ASF for the 2013-14 school year.

Martha Domínguez (’83), a resource teacher with Services for Academic Success, was aware early on of what it’s like to be an ASF teacher. Her mother Martha González (’61) (also known on campus by her married name as Martha Domínguez) had been a longtime ASF teacher. As a student, though, Martha’s stance was, “There’s no way I’m going to do what my mom does!” Like Patty Montes, however, Martha had always had a hand in teaching; she had tutored as a student. After studying international relations and political science, Martha worked for several companies before becoming a homeschool teacher as well as a tutor at ASF. This was her segue into education (along with a little coaching from her mom!). Martha joined ASF in 2001. winter 2013 / 2014 | 27

FEATURE

Martha Domínguez as a senior in 1983 and today.

“It was reassuring and comforting to see my old teachers again.”

Stephanie Mauro as a senior in 2006 and today.

“I have to make a conscious effort not to address my old teachers as Miss or Mr.”

“It was like coming home. I loved it.”

Renée Olper as a senior in 1985 and with some of her students today.

Early Inclinations

Only three of the ASF alumni/teachers interviewed — Renée Olper (’85), Brenda Santander (’88) and Guadalupe Vázquez (’64) — knew even as students that teaching would be their profession.

Brenda, a K2 teacher, had wanted to be an attorney like her father until she starting working in summer school while still a student at ASF. At that point she knew she wanted to teach and be around children.

She went on to earn her education degree from Universidad Anáhuac and then a degree in preschool education after coming to work at ASF in 1992.

Renée had a yearning to be a teacher as early as second grade. This desire solidified when she began her studies in Latin American literature at the Ibero. Offered positions as a literature teacher, she taught at various institutions, including the Tomás Moro school and the Colegio Ciudad de México. After earning her master’s degree in education from Endicott College’s Mexico City campus, she began 28 | winter 2013 / 2014

teaching at ASF in 1998, 13 years after she graduated.

Guadalupe Vázquez, better known as Lupita, took a path from ASF student to ASF teacher that was highly unusual and very quick. She started at ASF as a kindergarten student in 1950 when the current campus was barely four years old.

Later, while in high school at ASF, she was also finishing her studies at night at the Normal School to become a teacher.

But suddenly, an emergency situation prompted Irene de la Llata Anzaldúa, then the Lower School principal, to bring Lupita on as a kindergarten teacher, just months after she graduated. She received support and in-service training from Mrs. Anzaldúa as well as the curriculum coordinator. She ended up staying on for eight years before moving on to a successful second career as an actress. She returned many decades later in 2006 to re-assume her kindergarten (now the ECC) teaching duties, where she remains to this day.

The Transition

So now that we’ve seen some of the circumstances that bring former students back to ASF to teach, it’s time for an even more intriguing question. What is it like, exactly, to come home to your alma mater with the roles reversed? How does it feel to work alongside your old teachers, now as peers and colleagues?

For some, the transition was overwhelmingly positive. “It was amazing because I already knew the kids,” says Martha Domínguez. “And it was reassuring and comforting to see my old teachers again. They knew me so well, and knew how ethical a person I was.”

Ivette Berentsen was also very happy.

“Everyone was so nice and so supportive,” she says of her return as a teacher in 1996. “There were beautiful ladies that I will never forget, who took me under their wings and showed me how to love the job of teaching.”

Others experienced a range of feelings about the journey back to ASF as teachers.

“From summer school student worker to full-time teacher.”

Brenda Santander as a senior in 1988 and today.

Lupita Vázquez as a senior in 1964 and today with her sons.

“I have a lot of gratitude and love for what I’ve received from ASF.”

“I felt a lot of mixed emotions,” says Patty Montes. “I was happy to be back because this is my home. But I felt I had to step up my game, because I know how prepared and professional everyone at ASF is.”

Says Renée Olper, “It was strange because some of my colleagues were my old teachers. But overall, it was like coming home. I loved it.”

Helen Woroszylski says she had a mix of excitement and nervousness upon her return, but soon felt like she was back home as she began to run into a lot of her former classmates, now ASF parents.

She also met again a number of her old teachers, including her old Mexican geography teacher, Paul Williams, now the executive director and already an administrator upon Helen’s return.

“I wasn’t so great behaviorally when he was my teacher, and he was always saying, ‘Señorita Helen, please be quiet. Señorita Helen, please behave.’ Now when I see Paul I tell him, ‘I’m behaving, I’m doing my job! Don’t worry, I’m on task now!’”

Stephanie Mauro remembers her first day on the job as “crazy” and “fast-paced” because of the compressed schedule. But she also remembers the nice feeling she got when Head of Upper School Amy Gallie called special attention to her status as an alumna as she introduced her to the students.

“I still see many of my old teachers and it still feels a little awkward,” she says. “I have to make a conscious effort not to address them as Miss or Mr.” Lupita Vázquez still remembers that day nearly a half century ago when she started teaching at ASF while barely older than school age herself. “I came home crying the first day because I didn’t know now to handle this group of 14 5-year old kids,” she says. “My mom, who was also a teacher, helped me, and so did the principal.”

Appreciation

All of the alumni/teachers interviewed used the word “home” at some point to describe ASF as they shared their memories. They see the school as a safe, caring

environment that provides quality education to students.

Of course, even for the most recent graduates, times have changed considerably since their student years, helped along by a technology boom, a more rigorous academic curriculum, new and improved facilities and the ever-shifting challenges of social adjustment that students face. But that certain pride in being a true ASFer is stronger than ever, and teachers consider ASF to be a pioneering school now as much as it was then.

As teachers, they feel a genuine sense of appreciation for what they took for granted as students — that is, the background activities such as planning a challenging academic curriculum and the daily logistics for carrying it out.

The bond uniting these teachers and their non-alumni colleagues is the sense of family and community that continues at ASF. No wonder that returning to ASF to teach — whether shortly after graduation or after many years — is just like coming home. winter 2013 / 2014 | 29

FEATURE

Diana Anhalt (’59): A Belated Farewell

She arrived as a young girl with her family in Mexico in 1950 and stayed for the next 60 years.

Therein lies a tale.

I

BY Kelly Arthur Garrett, ASF Parent

n 2010, ASF alumna Diana Anhalt, not yet 70, left Mexico to live in the United States, where she was born. Nothing unusual about that — American expats return to the States all the time.

But not too many do so after spending half their childhood, all their adolescence and their entire adult life in Mexico.

And even fewer do so after six decades of intimate, sometimes intense, involvement with The American School in just about every capacity imaginable — student, student teacher, teacher, parent, PTA board member, librarian, Art Fair Committee co-chair, member of countless committees, Foundation member, Trustee and, lest we forget, editor of this magazine from 1987 to 1995.

“I arrived as a fourth grader in 1950 and have been around in one capacity or another ever since,” she noted back in 1991, when she would still be around for another 20 years or so. “I never graduated.”

For the record, Diana did indeed graduate from ASF in 1959.

Her point is that her relationship with the school was barely beginning in that year; she may have been graduating, but by no means was she leaving. For those of us who are intrigued by every twist and turn that ASF has taken over the decades, Diana Anhalt’s long association with the institution offers the kind of close-up look that can’t help but intrigue — living history, if you will.

After all, on the eve of her departure in 2010, Diana Anhalt had been part of The American School for just a few months shy of half of its then-122-year existence. That’s a pretty good perspective.

Remembering the 1950s

Photo by Carrie Crane.

Left: Diana Zykofsky as an ASF senior in 1959.

30 | winter 2013 / 2014

A lot about Mexico was different when Diana arrived in 1950, including her surname. Diana Zykofsky — she would marry Mauricio Anhalt (’52) in 1965 — was born to parents of the second generation of an Eastern European immigrant family in New York.

They came to Mexico to escape McCarthy-era persecution, and young Diana had little time to prepare for the new wonderland that awaited her.

Here’s how she recently described Mexico City at the dawn of the 1950s: “Burros wandered down the Reforma on weekdays, charros galloped there on Sunday afternoons. Corn grew downtown in empty lots — there were plenty of empty lots in those days. And I remember riding second class buses where chickens ran freely in the aisles.

“So just imagine what a delight this was for a child. Mexico became the place where I learned to expect the unexpected. And that was certainly true in the case of The American School.”

Physically, ASF itself was so different then as to be barely recognizable to us today. The current campus was only four years old, and consisted of the Lower School (without the third story), the Upper School (ditto), a walkway between them and not much else.

The campus actually had more square footage at the time; the land where the ABC Hospital now stands, along with what lies across Bondojito street, belonged to the school. But the school facilities themselves? “It was much smaller,” Diana says.

“There was no Middle School building, no pool, no tennis courts, no parking lots, no business offices or kindergarten or anything else across the street, except a house for the superintendent.”

Even the school year was different.

It ran from February to November, with the main vacation coming in the winter, rather than the rainy summer. Accreditation from the Mexican Public Education Secretariat was still a long way away, so students planning on attending a Mexican university would often switch to a SEP school after 6th grade. That was a factor in keeping the ASF student body majority American, unlike today.

Still, the school’s American-style curriculum and culture helped smooth the culture shock of a suddenly transplanted nine-year-old American girl . . . but not completely. “True, the classes were often in English and many of the students spoke English,” Diana recalls. “But that didn’t make me feel at home. ASF was worlds away from PS 106 in the Bronx, where the first thing we learned was to roll a decent spitball. I felt very much out of place.”

There was another, more subtle, cultural adjustment required of American transplants in those days. Kids from the East Coast found themselves in class with kids form the West Coast, and, more noticeably, northerners with southerners. We consider that a good thing today, and most did then as well. But remember, this was more than half a century ago. “I remember ongoing squabbles between the ‘Confederates’ and the ‘Yankees,’” Diana says.

School Days

Diana belonged to the generation that went to high school in the 50s, a place and era that set the mold for the modern concept of “teenager” — and of “high school” for that matter. In the United States, the iconic images of the era are cheerleaders, twirlers, student elections, field trips, Homecoming Week, a school paper, a band and a cafeteria serving hot meals on a tray.

But what about ASF, an American school in Mexico? What were its images?

Answers Diana: “Cheerleaders, twirlers, student elections, field trips, Homecoming Week, a school paper, a band and a cafeteria serving hot meals on a tray.”

In other words, she says, “The American School was everything you’d expect from a U.S. private school or a public school in a suburb.”

Academically, it was more than that. “I was particularly privileged to be exposed to its facilities — ample space and an excellent library, for example — and to receive excellent instruction,” Diana says. “I credit my love for reading and my interest in writing, in particular, to the fine literature teachers I had at every level at ASF.” She also came away with another benefit. “I met people at ASF — Mexican, American, European — who I would not have had contact with otherwise,” she says. “Some of them remain friends to this day.”

That is a sentiment expressed by just about any alum from any era. The only difference is that today the cited geographical list is longer — East Asian, South Asian, South American, African.

After graduation, Diana studied literature at Michigan State University, Mexico City College and the University of the Americas in Mexico City, earning two bachelor’s degrees. Her two children were born in that decade — Ricardo Anhalt (’85) and Laura Anhalt (’86).

She did her student teaching at ASF under the direction of Elizabeth Sheridan, taught freshman English and worked with Betty Aguirre in the high school library. In the 70s, when Ricardo and Laura entered ASF (“We never would have considered another school”) she did her share of volunteer parent work — field trips, Art Fair, library duty. But it was in the 80s, as her kids moved up to the higher grades, when ASF truly felt Diana Anhalt’s presence.

The Pivotal Years

The 1980s was a decade of crisis at ASF. It was also a decade of reform and renewal.

And it was the decade of Diana Anhalt’s strongest involvement with the school.

The three phenomena are not unrelated.

Mexico’s economic disaster of the early 80s devalued the peso drastically against the dollar. The Board raised tuition to make up for the lost value. Enrollment plummeted as a result; many loyal ASF families could no longer afford an ASF education.

A number of parents and Foundation members felt that a different approach was needed to right the ship. Several of them — including Diana and David Ehrenreich — managed to become members of the Board of Trustees and by 1984 there were enough of them to influence policy.

“In order to run for a position on the Board, I had to leave my teaching job at Lomas High School to avoid a conflict of interest,” Diana says. “I devoted myself almost exclusively to the school, in one capacity or another, either as an officer or a committee member.”

This was an example of the kind of volunteerism, often found in Board members, that aims not just at serving but at making a difference. The contributions of that evolving Board of the 1980s (along with the work of countless others, of course) eventually resulted in many of the policies and philosophies that we know so well today.

Here’s how Diana describes them: “Within a few years we had established discounts for the children of our personnel and a financial aid fund which would, according to our mission statement, continue to make available an American-style education to motivated students from different cultural, national and socioeconomic backgrounds. At the same time, we would initiate by-law changes that would guarantee a Board makeup more representative of our school.”

Another crisis occurred at the time which left long-lasting effects on ASF. The deadly 1985 earthquake spared ASF, but not the public school Colegio Alberto Correa, which was virtually destroyed.

The ASF community dedicated itself to its reconstruction, and raised the money to do it. It was by no means ASF’s first community service project, but the magnitude of the undertaking and the context of natural disaster in which it took place set a tone that remains with us three decades later. Community service today is not an “extra” but part and parcel of the ASF experience.

Writing

When her eventful Board term ended, Diana initiated but never completed her master’s degree in psychological counseling from International University and continued to do volunteer work for the school.

“My children were in their last years of high school, and I had more time on my hands than I knew what to do with,” she says. “Once they graduated, I did not run for the Board again, but continued to devote much of my time to the school. It filled the hole left behind by my children’s absence and gave me the opportunity to fill my time with activities I found truly rewarding: editing Focus, serving on the Scholarship Committee and other Board winter 2013 / 2014 | 31

FEATURE

Three By Diana Anhalt A Gathering of Fugitives (Archer Books, 2002) is the story of American expatriates who settled in Mexico to escape McCarthy-era persecution.

Second Skin (Futurecycle Press, 2012) is a collection of poems about Diana’s relocation to the United States after 60 years in Mexico. Both are available on Amazon.com. He new poetry book, Lives of Straw (2014, photo by Orin Langelle) deals with the fragility of life in Mexico and its inhabitants’ ability to make do economically, physically and spiritually. The pre-sale edition is available through www. finishinglinepress.com.

committees and continuing my work with the Art Fair and the PTA.” It was around this time that her writing career began in earnest, including the most challenging project of her literary life — the partly autobiographical A Gathering of Fugitives: American Political Expatriates in Mexico 1947-1965.

“Two factors contributed to my writing of the book — my parents’ deaths in 1986 and 1988 and my editing Focus,” she says. “The first event made it possible to do something my parents probably would have disapproved of had they been alive.

The second reminded me of how much I enjoyed writing and gave me the opportunity to improve over time. In those days I wrote every issue of Focus in its entirety, although the format was far simpler then.”

The project took 10 years. “As is generally the case with an undertaking like this, I had no idea what I was getting into,” she says. “If I had, I probably would have dropped the whole thing.”

But she needed to do it. “I’d always been aware of and to some extent in contact with that group of people who had fled to Mexico during the McCarthy era, but it fascinated me that my family’s time in Mexico had been triggered by events of which I knew virtually nothing.”

The book was a groundbreaking venture, bringing to light a subset of the U.S. expatriate population in Mexico that few were aware of. On a personal level, however, her research left questions unanswered: “Did my parents belong to the [Communist] Party? Why exactly did they leave the United States? I was never able to determine many of those things I’d set out to discover.”

Going Back

If researching and writing A Gathering of Fugitives was Diana Anhalt’s major literary accomplishment, her smooth relocation to Atlanta in 2010 has to rank up there with her major existential accomplishments. Most Americans who experience Mexico and live there for even just a few years feel a little emotional tug upon leaving it. What’s it like after six decades?

“We moved because we were getting older, had little family remaining in Mexico and wanted to be closer to our children residing in Atlanta and New York City,” Diana says. “What made it a little easier is that we dragged out the moving process over a period of more than two years.”

Something else made it easier — her pen. Two years after leaving Mexico, Diana published Second Skin, a collection 32 | winter 2013 / 2014

of poems that deals precisely with, in her words, “personal adjustment and displacement.”

Here’s an excerpt that will strike a chord with anybody just thinking about leaving Mexico, let alone actually doing it: To live without fuchsia, January’s sun, Spanish, smoke-spewing Popocatepetl, the night watchman’s warning whistle, driving both ways on a one-way street is impossible...

Diana is happy in her new life: “Atlanta has offered a great deal: the joy of having our family closer, of making wonderful new friends, traveling within the U.S., attending a wide variety of cultural events and the opportunity to grow as a writer.”

Still, she acknowledges, Georgia is in a sense “foreign territory” for a girl who grew up with a left-leaning New York immigrant family and then lived in Mexico for six decades. Remember that northsouth divide she noticed in her early years at ASF? She’s crossed it.

On the other hand, as she notes in the same poem quoted above (“Possibilities”), every tomorrow is a “foreign territory.”

Her advice for plunging into your next tomorrow? “Study its maps.”

Many of Diana Anhalt’s tomorrows over the years have been out of the ordinary, perhaps, and she seems to have studied their maps well. In doing so, she’s enjoyed an advantage available to a select population. In her words: “A former Board member once told me that upon graduation our students shared a unique identity in common. As well as the citizenship they were born with, they had acquired a citizenship particular to having attended our school. They’d become, for lack of a better term, ‘American Schoolians.’ I think there’s some truth in that.

“I am extremely grateful to The American School Foundation and to Mexico for all they have given me.”

Diana Anhalt (’59), seated at center, celebrates her birthday with friends during a recent visit back to Mexico. Left to right, first row: Margo Torres, Diana, Cindy Hawes. Second row: Frances Bruton, Nancy Gast Rocha, Phyllis Hojel, Adele Goldschmied, Michele Beltrán, Sue Wolfe, Miriam Zajarías.

FEATURE

50 Years of Special Publications...

125 Years of The American School Foundation

From left to right: 1963, 75th Anniversary. 1973, 85th Anniversary. 1978, 90th Anniversary. 1988, 100th Anniversary.

As ASF’s 125th anniversary year comes to a close, the Communications Office has published a beautiful hardcover 200-page book, simply titled 125, celebrating this special milestone and commemorating the students, staff, faculty, alumni and families that made it possible.

Left: 2013, 125th Anniversary.

For information on how you can obtain a copy of this once-in-a-lifetime book, contact the ASF Communications Office at communications@asf.edu.mx. winter 2013 / 2014 | 33

institutional advancement

Playing for Scholarships

T

he American School Foundation’s 11th Annual Golf Tournament took place last October 28 at Bosque Real Country Club. One hundred and fifty six golfers came to enjoy the beautiful weather, then a spectacular lunch and the award ceremony.

At the traditional auction, the highest bidders were able to take home prizes such as a trip to Madrid sponsored by Aeromexico and a Herman Miller chair. Thanks to the participants as well as the sponsors, the tournament reached its fundraising goal, which will be used for scholarships.

Congratulations to all the participants. Among the winners were:

Category One

Category Two

Esteban Vega Alejandro Salcedo José Landa Joe Landa Giorgio Parolini

Gustavo Rodríguez (’73) Juan de Yturbe Francis Toedtli Richard Valdés (’97) Andrés Rivera (’97)

Second Place

Sven Wallsten (’91) Mike Sánchez Fernando Villaseñor Esther Uribe

Roberto Jones Erendira Jones José Poo Juan Arturo Álvarez Georgina Rodríguez

Third Place

Javier Adame (’90) Ricardo Cervantes Juan Carlos Jacob Rodrigo Esparza Edmundo E. Montes

Tom Sullivan Alfonso Collada Bill Harry Miguel Sánchez Navarro César Verdes

First Place

Thank You to the 2013 Organizing Committee Adiel Asch, Alexis Marquard, Alfredo Trueba, Benjamín Gómez, Carlos Funes, Carlos Martínez Fox, Enrique Shibayama, Erendira Jones, Fernando Gutiérrez, Gonzalo Barrutieta, Gustavo Pardo, Javier Adame (’90), Javier Holschneider, José Francisco Gutiérrez, José Poo, Julián Vadillo, Lucio Arreola, Luis Felipe Sánchez (’93), Miguel Ángel Webber, Patsy Hubp, Ricardo Cervantes, Roberto Jones, Sven Wallsten (’91) and Tom Sullivan.

Thank You to the Golf Tournament Sponsors for Making This Event Such a Successful One ABC Medical Center, Advance Medical, Amanali Country Club & Nautica, Bang & Olufsen, Blue Spa, Bosque Real Country Club, BUPA Mexico, Buró de Crédito, Casa Herradura/Brown Forman México, Chocolates Turín, Cielito Querido Café, Colgate-Palmolive, Compudabo, Conceptos Corporativos, Diseño y Corte, EMC, The Gutiérrez Ormsbee Family, General Motors, GEPP, Goldman Sachs, Golf Express, Grupo Avándaro, Haciendas Mundo Maya, Herman Miller, Indicium Solutions, Krups, La Cava de los Amigos, Lorant, Marinter, Mezcal Marca Negra SA de CV, Microsoft México, Ópticas Devlyn, Oracle, Presidente Intercontinental, Scotiabank, Seguros Atlas, Softtek, St. Regis Hotel, Telcel, Televisa, The Warranty Group Mexico, Toyota, Tuxca Insecto and Vadillo & King.

34 | winter 2013 / 2014

Clockwise from top left: Golf’s loneliest stroke — putting.

Salvador Rocha, Mauricio Rodríguez, John Donnelly, Carlos Williamson, Eduardo Donnelly (’96). Eduardo Correa, Patsy Hubp, David Hubp. Sven Wallsten (’91) and Tom Sullivan. Executive Director Paul Williams poses with Trustees, left to right, Aliki Elías (’85), Rosa Marentes de Pisinger (’87) and Frances Huttanus.

winter 2013 / 2014 | 35

institutional advancement

The Annual Fund 2013-2014 Kickoff The 2013-2014 Annual Fund kicked off October 14 with a cocktail party in the Ángeles Espinosa Yglesias Fine Arts Center. Supporters heard heartfelt words of gratitude from three current scholarship recipients, and also enjoyed a performance by the Middle School Choir.

The biggest news of the evening was the introduction to the Piggy Bank Project. ECC and Lower School classrooms will collect small change all this school year in transparent ASF piggy banks, all of which will go to fund scholarships.

The Piggy Bank Project’s main purpose is to help younger students learn about the importance of giving. “This is a way for students to live out the IB Learner Profile trait of caring — by showing they care for other students and their ability to study at ASF,” said Director of Institutional Advancement Alejandra Naranjo.

The project is based partly on the ECC’s successful campaign during the last school year to renovate the Turtle Patio through 100% student participation.

The goal this school year is to raise $8,000,000 pesos, through the piggy banks and other efforts.

Annual Fund Committee: Yvette Romero de Fernández (Chair), Alejandra Marcos, Alejandra Serrano, Andrea Legorreta, Cecilia Saba, Corina Santangelo, Gabriela Turegano, Isabel Yuste, Jesús Marcos, Joan Liechty, Karla Montalvo, María Isabel Castillo, Marissa Russell (’92), Patricia E. Calles, Roberta Hernández, Vicky Torres, Raquel Peralta, Alejandra Cofiño, Fernanda Suárez.

Head of Athletics and Extended Learning Robert Wilson, Executive Director Paul Williams, Trustees Frances Huttanus and Rosa Marentes de Pisinger (‘87) and PepsiCo Senior Vice President for Legal and Corporate Affairs Francisco Merino.

The PespiCo Bleachers

Annual Fund Committee Chair Yvette Romero de Fernández welcomed the attendees.

The Middle School Choir entertained.

36 | winter 2013 / 2014

Students Camila Gómez, Andong Li and Paulina Watson expressed their gratitude.

The Parent Association was well represented: Alma Rosa Rodríguez, Salma Menéndez, Janet Segura, Marissa Russell (‘92) and current PA President Adriana Ramos.

On Tuesday, August 27, PepsiCo Senior Vice President for Legal and Corporate Affairs Francisco Merino unveiled the Pepsico Bleachers plaque on the side of the bleachers inside the Jenkins Foundation Wellness Center.

Speaking to a gathering of students, school administrators, Board members and other PepsiCo representatives, Merino said the company was pleased to support the school’s wellness initiatives. “A comprehensive education comes not only from classrooms, but from the values of teamwork, discipline, perseverance and endurance, values which are required for the practice of sports,” he said.

Eleventh grade student ambassador Robert Baudouin told the audience that playing basketball has changed his life. “PepsiCo’s support has made this possible,” he said.

After the plaque was unveiled, the visitors from PepsiCo were invited to see how the bleachers could easily be installed and uninstalled depending on the occasion. ASF is grateful for PepsiCo’s ongoing support and partnership. Thank you!

STUDENT VOICES

Parents of Adolescents, Take Note: Here’s Some Advice from Experts

Parents can save all that time they spend asking friends and relatives for advice on child-rearing or running Internet searches for “How to handle an adolescent.” It turns out that expert advice is closer than you think.

Recently, ASF Middle School students were asked, “What parenting advice would you give to parents of Middle School-aged kids?”

Their frank answers often mirror what the acknowledged experts would tell us, and sometimes offer surprisingly fresh insights. You’ll find a sample of their responses on this page.

Keep one thing in mind. In spite of the changing hormones and the chilling stories you head about back-talk and rebellion, the first thing most of the students said in the interviews was, “I actually really like my parents.”

They should treat you as the age you really are. Because sometimes, you don’t get the responsibilities that others get, like going out to places or to movies that your friends get to see.”

Don’t help them too much. Trust in them more.

“Treat children the age they are.”

“Make your kid independent.”

“Spend more time at home.”

“Give them space, but not too much.”

Focus on balance so then your kid doesn’t have frustration but is also OK with the rules.”

“W

“You should

be more balanced.

If you’re too uptight, a kid gets frustrated.

But if you’re too loose, kids will do anything they want, and that’s like rebelling.”

“Let them share their ideas with you.”

“Play with them and spend time with them.”

hen my dad f inds out about crushes, he wants to like go crazy and look for the guy.

But my mom understands that stuff more.”

Ask what they have for homework, and watch them do it.

“Check their grades so you are in contact with how they are doing at school.”

“S

ometimes privacy. Like you’re getting dressed in your room and they just open your door.”

“If you’re kid is with a friend, don’t start sharing stories about your kid in front of the friend.”

“Please stop adding to my stress and pressure, like for grades.”

“If you see your kid in trouble, like with assignments, help them.”

“Help them not to get into trouble. Like if they have a problem, give advice.”

“Know that it’s more common to want to go to the mall than to your friend’s house.”

Parents should just show they really care about you.

But they don’t need to be with you all the time.

They should, you know, help you be independent. winter 2013 / 2014 | 37

alumni | profile

Direct to the Top

Director Gary Alazraki (’96) talks about his days at ASF and the inspiration behind his box office hit Nosotros los Nobles

BY Rafael Fernández de Castro (’10)

A

t the age of 35 Gary Alazraki has delivered what until recently was the highest grossing domestic film in Mexican history, become a father, received several directing offers both in Mexico and the United States and is in the process of creating his own entertainment company based in Mexico City.

Gaz, as he is now known, says his time at ASF helped pave the way for his success in a number of subtle ways.

One key was the push he was given to study film at the University of Southern California, considered one of the top film schools in the United States. He credits former ASF teacher Suzanne Cane y Olvera for calling his attention to attending the Los Angeles school; he had originally planned to pursue his studies on the East Coast.

Gaz confesses that he often felt anxious about his social life at ASF. “I lost a lot of time trying to belong,” he says.

“My class was never very close.” Still, he remembers inspiring classes. “I particularly liked taking Mexican history with Ms. Pilar Fabregat,” he remembers. “She focused on the characters, their desires, their motivations. This was one of my favorite subjects.”

Upon graduating from ASF he enrolled at Universidad Iberoamericana but found no inspiration there. He says he felt like he 38 | winter 2013 / 2014

was still in high school. However, it was around this time that Gaz realized the importance of his ASF education.

“I was one of the better prepared students (at the Ibero) when it came to conducting research and critical analysis,” he says. “I also began to appreciate the academic diversity that ASF offered. You could really include your interests in your education, you became more immersed in the humanities and most important, even if you were not necessarily fully bilingual, you were able to ‘speak’ both cultures.”

ASF’s social diversity, as well as its academic diversity, left its mark on him.

“I think diversity is one of the best things about this school,” he says. “You get people with different religious backgrounds, races and social classes, and this is something few schools in Mexico can offer.”

The filmmaker, despite his social discomfort in high school, still keeps in touch with a group of friends from back in the day. And he says he’ll be sending his own children to ASF when the time comes.

His hugely successful debut film, Nosotros los Nobles, is a comedy about Mexico’s dramatic socioeconomic contrasts. Gaz reveals that part of the inspiration for Nosotros Los Nobles came from his years at ASF and Universidad Iberoamericana. “The mirreyes, or Mexican ‘juniors,’ are really archetypes from people I knew at ASF and other schools like Vista Hermosa and Cumbres,” he says. “The character of Bárbara is definitely an homage to some of the preppy girls that attended ASF then.”

Gaz will surely be a part of the future of Mexican film, and he has some thoughts about it. He says that Mexico needs to develop a more commercial cinema and create movies that connect with general audiences — not necessarily those who attend film festivals. He himself approaches filmmaking first as an entrepreneur and then as an artist, he says. For example, he is currently in talks with a big studio negotiating a potential U.S. remake of Nosotros los Nobles.

alumni | Q&A

Soft Power

When Rafael Fernández de Castro (’10) went from ASF to Los Angeles to pursue his dreams, he took Mexico with him.

A communications major at the University of Southern California and a freelance writer, Rafael Fernández de Castro recently organized and moderated a film symposium on the USC campus that included the Australian director Michael Rowe, who lives in Mexico where he directed Año bisiesto (2009), and the Mexican directors Michel Franco (Después de Lucía, 2012), Eugenio Derbez (No se aceptan devoluciones, or in English Instructions Not Included, 2013) and Gaz Alazraki (Nosotros los Nobles, 2013). Rafael interviewed Alazraki for the profile on the facing page, and now ASF Alumni Affairs Coordinator María Vidal (’03) turns the tables and interviews the interviewer.

Focus: How did ASF influence you in what you studied?

Rafael Fernández: I had great literature teachers like Anne Pfister and Guy Cheney who shaped my writing giving it both a creative and analytic depth. I also took drama as my elective year after year.

With the help of Rosana Cesarman I would constantly be writing and staging school plays. Consequently, my friends and I presented The Mafia, a play about a group of kids pretending to be gangsters as well as stage adaptation of The Exorcist.

Rosana gave me the best director award upon graduating from Middle School. I framed the diploma and it now hangs on my bedroom wall as a constant reminder that I must seek to make a living out of what I love. I wouldn’t trade it for the Cannes Palm D’Or or an Oscar.

Focus: Why did you do this symposium?

RF: I wanted to see more of Mexico at USC. I believe my country is producing some of the best cinematic talent in the world.

Moreover, I think that our artists can achieve what our politicians have been unable to do for decades. I wanted USC students and the film community in Los Angeles to discover Mexico’s cinematic potential and realize that we are much more than the drug war and economic migrants, that we are a cultural powerhouse. I wanted to focus the event on the idea of soft power, which is a country’s ability to seduce and attract through its culture and artists rather that coerce through military might or political impositions. Mexico’s international image is extremely deteriorated and damaging stereotypes prevail in the media and Hollywood films. I believe Mexico’s national cinema is our best tool for foreign policy and public diplomacy.

Focus: How did you choose the films for the symposium?

RF: It was a very diverse selection that I think encompasses the current state of our national cinema. We have the small art house films that rocked Cannes: Después de Lucia and Año bisiesto. Then we have the box office hits: Nosotros los Nobles and Instructions Not Included. The latter has taken Hollywood by storm and is causing a shift in the industry when it comes to targeting the Latino demographic. I think this is the best summary of new Mexican cinema you can get.

Focus: How have the narratives and messages evolved in Mexican films?

RF: I think that with Alazraki’s and Eugenio Derbez’s films we are seeing a commercial trend emerge in Mexican cinema. I once heard actor Diego Luna say that the worst thing you can do to national cinema is to treat it like charity. I think these commercial productions are demonstrating that film can be a thriving business in Mexico and that not all Mexican films have to be crude or ultra-realistic. You can also have a romantic comedy set in Mexico City. So yes, I think many directors and producers are embracing a Hollywood approach to filmmaking in Mexico. Whether this is good or bad I can’t really tell. What really matters is that we continue to make more movies and that we can export them to the world and that through our films we can showcase the complexity and richness of Mexican society and culture.

Focus: Did you know at the time that Gaz Alazraki also attended ASF? RF: I had no idea. When I met Gaz I only knew he was a USC alumnus. I talked to him recently and we realized we have very similar paths — same high school, film camps, college.

Hopefully this pattern continues and I can become as successful as he is.

Focus: How important do you think the ASF alumni community is?

RF: I have a very large and close group of friends from high school and I think the ASF community is crucial. Most likely your fellow classmates will be the children of the movers and shakers of Mexico and I think you can’t get better networking than this.

Furthermore, there is great diversity within the school and this really expands your perspective on life. I am glad the school is taking a stronger initiative to develop and promote the alumni network. I think this is one of the best attributes of ASF. Focus: What are your plans?

RF: My immediate plan is to stay in Los Angeles, get a job in the industry and hopefully transition my way into a writing or directing position. However, I eventually want come back to Mexico City. People don’t usually know this but this is the city with the most museums per capita in the world, with the most annual concerts and with a theater scene that is third in the world, just below New York and London. I think all aspiring artists and intellectuals should live and breathe in a place like Mexico City before falling for a cliché like Paris. Mexico City is an inspiring location, full of dramatic and comedic contradictions. I want to stay in Los Angeles but at the same time I can’t wait to return. winter 2013 / 2014 | 39

alumni | events

The 2013 Alumni Breakfast

BY Maurice Quintana (’00)

Driving along the street approaching The American School was like time-traveling. It was here that I had gathered with my friends, experienced life events and accumulated so many tardies. But as I crossed the entrance to the parking lot and admired the new buildings before me, my thoughts were back in the present again. I realized that our school looks incredible... today!

I was back on campus for the second Alumni Breakfast, which took place on October 26 and hosted around 130 alums, ranging from the Class of 1947 to classes from recent years. There were also a number of current and retired ASF teachers on hand.

For the first time, the breakfast event was held in the Ángeles Espinosa Yglesias Fine Arts Center (the first Alumni Breakfast last year took place in the new Jenkins Foundation Wellness Center). I followed the signs to the recently completed theater, performing arts and visual arts complex, and when it towered before me, I was once again impressed. We didn’t have a theater like this when I was in school!

Entering the lobby took my experience to another level. It was full of white balloons, which seemed to be carefully arranged. There were tables offering Bear Booster spirit wear and other products promoting

40 | winter 2013 / 2014

Bear pride. Experimental music wafted through the air. And all the people were dressed in white, symbolizing the unity of our alumni community.

With so many alumni assembled in one place, we all had the chance to relive our own anecdotes, and hear about those from other generations. During breakfast, we were surprised by a flash mob from the Drama Club, doing numbers from Les Miserables. There was also a K3 music presentation that made us all remember the songs we would sing at that age.

We traveled even further down memory lane thanks to a presentation of old pictures, a bookcase full of new and old yearbooks and music from different decades.

We soon received an explanation of the balloon installation in the lobby. The top balloon, we were told, represented what we had left at ASF — our achievements, our stories and our memories. The bottom balloon symbolized what ASF had left in each one of us — friends, lessons and the tools and leadership skills to pursue our dreams.

Invited to release the balloons as a gesture of gratitude and love for the school, we all gathered in the lobby to do just that. And at the count of three: 1... 2... 3...

Go Bears!

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alumni | events / class notes

On Career Day, Alumni Volunteers Offered ASF Students Some Tools For Making Good Decisions About Their Future More than 30 ASF alumni (most of them shown here) visited the ASF campus for Career Day on October 4, giving students real-world insights about a wide variety of professions they might pursue when their studies are completed. The former students, all successful professionals in their fields, offered information that students can use to design their education experience with their future career in mind.

“Hopefully we awakened in the students a desire to develop such employability skills as proper work habits and good work attitudes, which will help them in their journey,” said Elizabeth Wallace Duarte (’75), who spoke about her field of biological nutrition. “We alumni of The American School Foundation were privileged to speak to our future professionals, and we hope to have given them more tools for making good decisions.”

Other former ASF students who volunteered to share their experience with students included Alan Fis (’95) on photography; Christopher Mir (’99), graphic design; Jorge Mustri (’03), architecture; Isabel Bagnasco (’77), economics: Daniel Weiss (’96), civil engineering; Ilan Katz (’93), penal law; Melissa Berenstein (’03), fashion consulting and Nanae Watabe (’03), food culture and communication.

Bear Alums Notch Fourth Straight Alumni Bowl Win Still in good condition with their skills intact, the ASF alumni squad won its fourth consecutive Alumni Bowl last August 24 with an 18-6 victory over a strong opponent — Los Gamos of CUM — on Coach Colman Field on the ASF campus. The team was made up of alums from 1991 to 2010, with the participation of former coaches. The players were thrilled to feel that jolt of Bear pride they no longer can experience on a daily basis as they did as students when ASF was their second home. All alums are welcome to join the team next year.

Meet María Vidal

’74

All ASF alumni from the Class of 1974 (and their family, friends and teachers) are invited to celebrate our 40th high school reunion in San Diego, California, the weekend of June 27 to 29, 2014. Details will be e-mailed to all participants. All 1974 alumni, please spread the word. We have a new e-mail address for the class reunion. Please add it to your contact folder: AHS1974MX@gmail.com. We look forward to seeing you next summer in San Diego!

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’05

’75

Patricia Villalba-Thomas, seen here as a senior in 1975 and during a recent campus visit with her son Daniel, writes: “I write this note to thank ASF for its kind hospitality during my visit with my son Daniel. How the school has changed! But those little corners of memories are still there. [Alumni Relations Specialist] María Vidal was a first-rate guide, and she gave me the opportunity to relive my memories.

I send my regards to [Director of Institutional Advancement] Alejandra [Naranjo]. We were very happy.”

Alejandro Souza has launched a book called Letters to Momo. After being informed in 2010 that his cousin and his best friend in the family had been incarcerated in Liverpool, Alejandro vowed to write him every day. This book is the result of that correspondence.

“My letters to Momo were my way of walking with him and infusing him with strength, resilience and, above all, love,” Alejandro says.

When Momo was finally released, he was able to fly home to Mexico City and thank Alejandro in person, and let him know that his letters were what kept him going. The book is available via letterstomomo.com or amazon.com.

ASF’s new Alumni Relations Specialist, María Vidal, is an oldtimer from the Class of 2003. She studied industrial design at the Tec de Monterrey, Mexico City campus, and graduated from there in 2008. After traveling the world, living abroad and opening up her own design firm, Maria decided to add expand her life’s projects by returning to her second home, The American School Foundation. She says she wants to give back to the place that gave her lifelong friendships, values and incredible memories.

alumni | milestones / in memoriam

Jonathan Caspi (’06) and Karen Zarkin (’05) had their Halloweeninspired civil wedding on November 1, 2013.

The bride and groom celebrated their eight years of love along with guests in an unforgettable party, full of great energy.

Omar Rodríguez-Graham (’97) and Morgana Ludlow Echeverría received their beautiful baby girl, Lina Rodríguez Ludlow, on October 29, 2013, in Mexico City.

María Molinar (’03) and her husband Alex Huvenoit are proud to announce the birth of their first child, Victoria Huvenoit Molinar, born August 6, 2013, in Mexico City.

Christina Lee (’07) met Sean Kwon, a U.S diplomat, while he worked in Mexico. They got married in Las Vegas recently, accompanied by family members and a few close friends, and now live in Los Angeles.

Teresa Undurraga (’99) got married in Rosario, Argentina, to Diego Rasteletti on October 26, 2013. Alumni Francisco Vidal (’99), Adriana Jiménez (’99), Nanae Watabe (’03) and Toshihisa Watabe (’97) were among those who flew to Argentina to be part of this special moment.

Gabriel García Peña (’03) married Alejandra Muciño on June 15, 2013, in Mexico City’s Iglesia de San Josemaría Escrivá. The reception was at the Acqua Hotel in Bosques de las Lomas, and guests included Melissa Berenstein (’03), Janet Huerta (’03), Jorge Mustri (’03), Daniel Besquin (’03), Daniel Cuevas (’03) and Mateo Falcón (’03), among others. The couple is living in New York City where Gabriel is studying his master’s degree in international law.

Carmen Matiella (’01) married Nicolás Von Wuthenau on April 21, 2012, at Rancho San Juan Totoltepec. Guests including Marina Ponzi (’02), Samantha Galewicz (’01) and Karla Campos (’01) enjoyed the scenery, music and food. Carmen now resides in Los Angeles, California.

In memoriam Martha Ann Black (’46) Martha Ann Black de Jordan passed away in October of 2013. The first woman reverend at Christ Church, she also authored books and wrote poetry, and served as an ABC Hospital “Pink Lady” (volunteer) for 30 years.

Luciana Sonnenberger (’46) Lucy Sonnenberger, later Lucy Cabarga, passed away on August 1, 2013, in Cuernavaca, Morelos. Her family fled Italy during World War II and settled in Mexico, where Lucy became one of the most respected women in the Mexican film industry.

Claudette Riggio (’74) Claudette Riggio Hooper passed away in October of 2013 from congestive heart failure.

Luis Mondragón (’76) Luis Mondragón took his final journey on September 24, 2013. He died as a result of an illness. His memory was honored the next day by his family and more than 300 friends at Iglesia de Czestochowa in Tecamachalco, State of Mexico. A few days later, Sonia Arakelian (’76) organized a memorial gathering at her home, where his family and 20 ASF alumni listened to his favorite music, looked at pictures and shared anecdotes of his life.

Where Are You?If you ever attended ASF, we’re looking for you! Please update your information by sending an e-mail to alumni@asf.edu.mx right away. We want to keep you up to date on all the ASF news as well as informed about upcoming alumni events. Keep in touch! winter 2013 / 2014 | 43

alumni | reunions

1993: Together in Polanco Living in New York, London, Panama or any other part of the world was no excuse for missing the ASF Class of 1993’s 20th reunion. Alum Christian Le Batard, a partner at La Trainera, a beautiful restaurant in Polanco, hosted the evening with delicious food, great music and exceptional service. “We were very excited to see so many people arrive,” said Angie Alemán, coorganizer of the event. “There were people we hadn’t seen since high school.” All agreed that it was an inspiration to see how successful so many lives turned out, and to be part of such an incredible reunion.

2003: Sharing Stories and Values In August of 2013, ASF alumni from the Class of 2003 celebrated their 10-year reunion at Fundación Sebastián. It was a time of looking back on memories, laughing at high school anecdotes and updating information on old friends and situations.

Getting together made us remember that the friendships made at The American School are strong, because not only do we share stories that formed our character and made us grow, but we also share the values that the school taught us. Our relationships will always be based on fellowship, honesty and joy. This is why we will always build personal and professional synergies among us. The best part of the night came with the karaoke when we sang songs that refreshed some great memories of the school. Singing along with the Backstreet Boys, Ace of Base and Soda Stereo, among others, we realized that despite the distance and time, we will remain united and continue planning these reunions that are so nurturing for the soul. —Janet Huerta Estefan (’03)

2008: Keeping in Touch More than 70 ASF alums gathered to celebrate their five-year reunion on August 11, 2013. The Class of 2008 alumni managed to travel from various parts of Mexico, the United States, Canada, France and Germany to gather in Mexico City for the occasion. At the event, we talked about the good old times at ASF, about classes that marked our lives, teachers who shaped us, lessons that proved useful throughout the years, football victories and losses, future plans and career goals. All on hand made the same promise: to keep in touch. As Roberto Ríos, now a communications expert at Quinta Imagen put it, “We share a special bond as we all partook in the experience of attending one of the best schools in Latin America. We are like a family. We are ASF.” —Abraham Menaldo (’08)

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kids’ corner

Volcanoes, Art and Creative Selves In September, the ECC students in Room 9 started talking with passion about volcanoes. It was a wonderful opportunity to link their interest with a school celebration of Mexico’s independence.

To celebrate Mexico through its volcanoes and art we read about the legendary Mexican painter Gerardo Murillo, who worked under the name Dr. Atl. We linked this artist with our first International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (PYP) unit, “My Creative Self.”

We invited María, a 10-year-old student from the Liceo Francés and the daughter of one of our K3 teachers, to share what she knew about this artist with us. Her grandmother was a close friend of Dr. Atl, so María was able to tell us interesting anecdotes during a wonderful presentation she had prepared for us.

The children also learned by painting volcanoes, pretending to be volcanoes and dancing, as the photos on this page show. A literacy connection was also made as we read about Dr. Atl and the students wrote a thank you card to María. —Mercedes Pailles, K3 Teacher

What Some Room 9 K3 Stu dents Had to Say About Dr. Atl “Dr. Atl liked volcanoes.

He hid money in his books and he loved to make pasta.”

(Matteo) “Dr. Atl painted volcanoes . María came to tell us about him.” (Va leria)

d to paint “He was a painter and he love volcanoes.” (Pablo) erent “He liked making pasta in diff xa) shapes.” (Ale anoes. I “I remember that he loved volc e.” hom at s am looking at his painting (Regina)

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