Students Need More Mentors

Weekly Elixir – Rotary Club of Anguilla
…for the week of November 23, 2009





Teacher of the Year tells Jacksonville, FL, Rotary that
students need more mentors

************

Editor’s Comment - This is where the hands-on Service Above Self is clearly seen – when it’s not so important to write a check for Rotary projects. Instead, it is important to give of yourself – your time, your talents – and make a lasting impression upon one individual at a time!

*****************

11/19/2009 - by Max Marbut - Staff Writer
http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com
mmarbut@baileypub.com


When she stepped to the podium at Monday’s meeting of the Rotary Club of Jacksonville, Marjorie Nolan looked at the audience and said, “There are people in this room from all different backgrounds, but the one uniting element is that we have all had our lives touched by a teacher.

Just about everyone remembers the teacher who taught them to read.”

At left - Rotary Club of Jacksonville member and former Superintendent of Duval County Public Schools John Fryer introduced Marjorie Nolan, the school district’s 2009-10 Teacher of the Year.

Nolan is the 2009-10 Duval County Public Schools Teacher of the Year. During her 30-year career in education she has been recognized for excellence several times.

-- Nolan was the 1995-96 Raines High School Teacher of the Year
-- She was a finalist for the county’s top honor in 1996.
-- She was First Coast High School’s Teacher of the Year for 2004-05 as well as
-- She was a also a finalist for the Duval County title in 2004-05.
-- In 2005 Nolan was the recipient of the Gladys Prior Award for Teaching Excellence.

Nolan recently expanded her focus from teaching children to coaching other teachers at First Coast High School to improve their skills and impact more students. She specializes in reading education, a part of the public school experience she said must be improved.

“Almost 9,000 public school teachers in Duval County work every day to prepare our future local workforce,” said Nolan, who added the average public school student in America reads two grade levels below their actual grade level.

“Here in Duval County, there are 1,000 high school students who are still in a reading class of some type. It’s important to establish the foundation of reading in elementary school. By the time a student is in high school, teaching them to read is a very difficult process. Kids have to understand that when you learn to read you can learn anything else,” she said.

Many things have changed since Nolan began her teaching career at Raines in 1978 but some things have not. Nolan recalled her first contract for $7,200 a year and said salaries are still low for teachers. That is causing many people without formal education in the art to enter the classroom and many see it as a temporary career, said Nolan.

“It’s a teacher’s job to inspire and motivate children to learn, but fifty percent of our teachers didn’t earn a degree in education,” she added. “Low salaries make it hard to attract talented teachers.”

Nolan said other than awards like Teacher of the Year, there are few incentives for teachers to strive for excellence. Those who wish to specialize in teaching remedial reading must complete 300 hours of specialized training but are not compensated for their extra effort.

“And they know they will spend their careers working with the most challenged students,” she added.

When asked what she would do if by some miracle the budget for public schools was doubled, Nolan quickly replied, “I’d make sure there were smaller classes, no more than 15 students per class if they are failing the FCAT (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test).

“I would also go to Barnes & Noble and buy books the students said they wanted to read. In some student’s homes the only book in their household is the telephone book.”

Nolan also said she thinks there’s too much emphasis on getting every student into college. Other courses of study in high school that would prepare some students for jobs, in the building trades for instance, would be helpful for many students.


“We need programs for students that aren’t just academic,” she added. “I know that’s not a popular stance but that’s what I’ve seen in more than 30 years in the classroom.”

Club member John Fryer is a former superintendent of Duval County Public Schools and an education consultant. He said he believes the common characteristic among poorly-performing students is they don’t set and achieve goals.

“The ability to help children develop goals can help teachers do a better job,” he commented.

Nolan agreed and called on the club members to volunteer their time to help students.

“There is a great need for mentors. When we see truancy or straight Fs on a report card clearly there is no mentoring or supervision in that student’s home. Hundreds of children at my school alone could use a mentor,” she said.





Interesting Jacksonville Rotary Club History -
1912

With only 40 Rotary clubs in the nation, and only New Orleans in the south, the Chicago club sent a prominent member to Jacksonville to assist in chartering a new club. On February 13, 1912, at the Windsor Hotel downtown at Hemming Park, 14 charter members met and officially organized.

George Clark was elected as the club's first president, and he served two years. Later he was named President Emeritus. Clark remained active until 1928 when he was granted an honorary lifetime membership.

The club met weekly at the Windsor Hotel and later at the Aragon Hotel. The club dues were set at $10 per year, not including lunch. Lunch added another $15 per year to the cost of membership.

****************

Rotary Club of Jacksonville meets every Monday - 12:30 p.m. (lunch at Noon)
Omni Hotel of Jacksonville (downtown) - 245 Water Street. Tel. 904-355-6664

Source: http://www.jaxrotary.org/

The Rotary Foundation’s beginning

Weekly Elixir – Rotary Club of Anguilla
…for the week of November 16, 2009

The Rotary Foundation's Beginning

**************




Some magnificent projects grow from very small seeds. The Rotary Foundation had that sort of modest beginning.



In 1917, RI President Arch Klumph told the delegates to the Atlanta Convention that “it seems eminently proper that we should accept endowments for the purpose of doing good in the world.” The response was polite and favourable, but the fund was slow to materialize.

A year later, the “Rotary Endowment Fund,” as it was first labelled, received its first contribution of US $26.50 from the Rotary Club of Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.A., which was the balance of the Kansas City Convention account following the 1918 annual meeting. Additional small amounts were annually contributed, but after six years, it is reported that the endowment fund had only reached US $700.

A decade later, The Rotary Foundation was formally established at the 1928 Minneapolis Convention. In the next four years, the Foundation fund grew to US $50,000. In 1937, a US $2 million goal was announced for The Rotary Foundation, but these plans were cut short and abandoned with the outbreak of World War II.

In 1947, upon the death of Paul Harris, a new era opened for The Rotar Foundation as memorial gifts poured in to honour the founder of Rotary. From that time, The Rotary Foundation has been achieving its noble objective of furthering “understanding and friendly relations between peoples of different nations.”

By 1954, the Foundation received for the first time a half million dollars in contributions in a single year, and in 1965, a million dollars was received.

It is staggering to imagine that from those humble beginnings, The Rotary Foundation is now receiving more than US $65 million each year for educational and humanitarian work around the world.

Source: The ABCs of Rotary

***************

The mission of The Rotary Foundation is to enable Rotarians to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through the improvement of health, the support of education, and the alleviation of poverty.

The Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation supported solely by voluntary contributions from Rotarians and friends of the Foundation who share its vision of a better world.

**************

Below, Frank Devlyn, second from right -- Rotary International President 2000-01 and Chairman, The Rotary Foundation 2005-06 -- visits the gravesite of Arch Klumph in Cleveland, Ohio.

In November of 2007, PRIP Devlyn journeyed to Cleveland, Ohio, USA, to participate in a variety of Rotary club and Rotary Foundation events.

While, there, he and PRID T.D. Griley had the opportunity to visit the grave site of the Father of the Rotary Foundation, PRIP Arch Klumph.

Others in the photo are unidentified.

Rotary Exchange Student reflects on year in Taiwan

Rotary Exchange Student reflects on year in Taiwan
Experience of a lifetime for a student from Alaska!

Weekly Elixir – Rotary Club of Anguilla
…for the week of November 2, 2009


…by Stephen Knight - October 29, 2009 (http://www.petersburgpilot.com)


In preparation for his joint presentation, along with fellow exchange student Henrike Herbst of Germany, on the Rotary Exchange Program at a recent high school assembly, Bynum Jackson reflected on his experience in the program. He spent his junior year studying in Taiwan as an outbound student, departing his Petersburg home in August of 2008 and returning this past summer on the 4th of July.

Jackson had traveled overseas before, primarily on family vacations to Europe, but this was his first experience in Asia. When asked about his impressions of the people and culture of Taiwan, Jackson replied, “It’s pretty different. It’s unique because it’s not something I would normally get to see in the world. Taiwan is a place and a culture that most people don’t really know. You don’t see or hear much about it in the news.”

There was definitely a feeling of culture shock for Jackson. “It was quite a big change going from a community of 3,000 to a community of 2 million,” he said. Making friends was a priority and he had no difficulty there. While acknowledging he’d mostly befriended his fellow exchange students, largely because of their shared experiences and use of the English language, Jackson said he’d also made a lot of Taiwanese friends with whom he keeps in touch on a regular basis.

Like exchange students who’ve come to Petersburg, Jackson was hosted by three different families during his stay in Taiwan. The families were all centered around the school he attended in Taipei and each provided a different experience for him, especially with regard to the language barrier. “The first family I stayed with spoke perfect English,” he said. “They had done a lot of international travel and trading, so their English was really good. I sometimes tell people they spoke better English than I did,” he added with a laugh.

The second host family Jackson stayed with presented him with the opposite extreme: they spoke no English at all. “We would communicate by hand signals and stuff like that,” he explained. “I did try my best with the language, which I was learning as part of the program.” It also helped that the first two host families were friends, which allowed Jackson to call on the first family to play interpreter on a few occasions.

The third family he stayed with was a little better with the language but, more significantly, Jackson had improved on his own ability to speak the native tongue. “By the time I got to my third host family, I’d learned a lot more Chinese,” he explained. “I tried to speak with them mostly in Chinese and it worked out pretty well.”

Jackson worked hard to earn a language credit by immersing himself in the culture, and the family stays were crucial components of that learning. He also credits the Rotary Exchange District in Taipei for providing all of the foreign exchange students involved in the program with over 200 hours of Chinese language instruction during the course of their stay. “Without those classes, I don’t think I would’ve learned as much as I did,” he acknowledged.

For Jackson, his time in Taiwan was a real learning experience, as much about himself as his unfamiliar surroundings. “I think I learned more about my strong points than my weak points,” he explained. “Now that I’m back home, I know what I can do. I know my strengths. And with my weak points, I know there are some things I can’t do but I try my best.”

He also felt a greater sense of independence and maturity, largely because he had to rely upon himself more often. “I was over there by myself, mostly, without my parents or anyone like that,” he said. “I had to watch how much money I was spending and how much studying I was doing. I didn’t have anyone looking over my shoulder, telling me exactly what to do.” He paused a moment in reflection before adding, “I think it got me ready for what’s to come in the future.”

Jackson feels very grateful for the experience, expressly thanking the Rotary Club, his parents and others who helped facilitate the exchange program. “I really had a great year and I’m glad that I did it. I had a fun time there and met a lot of people. I loved it,” he said.

See print edition for complete local coverage. Content (C) 2009 Petersburg Pilot-Alaska