Pupils’ Tour Lets Lessons Come to Life

Third-graders from Abraham Joshua Heschel Day School returned recently from a whirlwind trip to the Southwest to see historic points of interest in Arizona and New Mexico.

“It’s school on the road,” said Sandra Kligman of her and teacher Naomi Calof’s 18th annual Southwest trip with Herschel students. “These are the things they remember.”

Fifty-two students from two third-grade classes participated with 27 adults as chaperons.

The group’s itinerary was packed with activities, including stops at Arizona’s Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, making pottery and sketching kachina dolls with a well-known Zuni artist at the Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico.

But the highlight of the five-day trip was the long-anticipated get-together of Heschel students and their third-grade Navajo pen pals from Chinle Primary School, at the entrance of Canyon de Chelly in Arizona.

“It was like making room in my heart for another friend,” said 8-year-old Lauren Mulne of meeting her pen pal, 8-year-old Bonita Chachon. The two have been corresponding since January about schoolwork and hobbies, like drawing and soccer. “I think our friendship will last a long time even though she lives in Arizona,” Lauren said.

The daylong get-together gave students an opportunity to share from their respective cultures. Heschel students presented their Chinle friends with decorated book bags and bookmarks and sang Jewish songs. In return, the Navajo students gave the Heschel group handmade bracelets. Afterward, the students made beaded necklaces, danced together and sang songs.

“It was a very lovely and sensitive time for the parents [chaperons] and students to see two cultures together that have a lot of things different and the same,” Kligman said.

For 9-year-old Jacob Vandor, the trip brought school lessons to life.

“I could imagine people in the ruins,” he said of their visit to the Puerco Indian Ruins in the Petrified Forest and those nestled in the cliffs at Canyon de Chelly. “Seeing them firsthand was amazing . . . Now I really have cool memories.”

Kligman and Calof were recognized earlier this year for their outstanding teaching by the Historical Society of Southern California.

“A trip like this makes the classroom come alive,” Kligman said. “It’s a very exciting way to teach.”

KUDOS

HONORED SCHOOL: Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran School in West Hills has been named Lutheran Elementary School of the Year in Southern California and Hawaii. The school was singled out for its food and clothing drives and its sponsorship of a Navajo child at the Navajo Lutheran Mission in Rock Point, Ariz.

TOYOTA GRANTS: George Porter Middle School/Gifted Magnet sixth-grade teacher Richard Feay has received a $10,000 grant from the Toyota Corp. to study the natural and human impact on the seashore.

Feay’s project was selected by science educators from more than 700 proposals. As part of the grant, sixth-graders from the Granada Hills school will now research the decline of wetland habitats in hopes of changing legislation.

Diane Levin, a math and career education teacher at Woodland Hills’ Pacific Lodge School--a residential educational facility for ninth- through 12th-grade boys currently in the juvenile justice system--received Toyota’s Investment in Mathematics Excellence grant for $9,700. Assisting with implementing the grant money will be teacher Kathryn Arndt.

END NOTES

Notre Dame High School Irish Knight Band won top honors at the 53rd annual Maytime Band Review for a school with 2,000 students or fewer. This is the fifth time the Sherman Oaks school has won the award since 1985. . . . State Assembly Speaker Robert M. Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) is looking for students to sit on his San Fernando Valley High School Advisory Commission, which will inform the lawmaker on student issues and concerns at monthly meetings during the upcoming school year. Applications can be picked up at 6150 Van Nuys Blvd., Suite 305, Van Nuys, and are due Friday.

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