SC Schools in Action
Little did I realize in October of 2007 when I received an email from Kim Horne, English language instructor at Izumi Chuo Kindergarten in Gifu City, Japan, how that first silent contact would positively impact our entire school community. Kim had written a grant to study American kindergartens and was interested in visiting Hendrix for two reasons: she had a cousin who taught at our school and we were in the candidacy phase of becoming an International Baccalaureate School.
Thus began a wonderful journey with Kim Horne, Aya Asano, Director of the School in Japan, Aya’s family and a host of Japanese teachers. Aya and Kim visited Hendrix in January of 2007 to teach our children in the K4 and K5 classrooms. They brought with them “buddy mitts” that featured the faces of kindergartners in Japan to match with our American 5K students. We saw our students become immediately engaged with Kim’s fun antics and Aya’s quiet ways. Our children learned songs in Japanese and received many wonderful gifts, including a Japanese plastic food set with sushi included! We sent our children’s pictures on buddy mitts to their classrooms, and each teacher was paired with a teacher or administrator in Japan. As we bid Aya and Kim good-bye, we knew that we had embarked on a wonderful educational adventure!
In April of 2007 our assistant principal, Tina Humphries, 4K teacher Stephanie Blanton, 5K teacher Robin Wilson, ESOL Reading teacher Karen Mathis and I traveled to Japan for seven days through the generosity of Mr. Asano, Superintendent of the Japanese Kindergarten Association and the Japanese Prefect grant. We stayed in the homes of our Japanese friends and family and quickly learned to communicate through any means necessary including sign language, charades and what little Japanese we could pick up. This experience gave all of us a new-found empathy for the frustrations that must accompany the children who enter our school without English being their first language.
With each visit came new experiences and a deepening of our friendship with our Japanese counterparts. In August of 2008 sixteen teachers and administrators from the Izumi Chuo Kindergarten traveled to Boiling Springs, SC for fourteen days to be at Hendrix to interface with our teachers and participate in the classrooms of our 4K and 5K students. It was equally important to expose our friends to Southern culture with visits to the Biltmore House, Columbia Zoo, local restaurants and an old-fashioned barn dance and bar-b-que. With the exchange of curriculum strategies, gifts for the classroom and wonderful memories, we bid our colleagues good-bye once again, but with a promise that we would continue sharing ideas, websites, pictures and projects.
Hendrix had a Chopsticks for Children 5K and Fun Run the 18th of April, 2009 as a fundraiser for our international exchange. Plans are being made to plant Cherry Blossom trees on our campus and design a Friendship Garden in honor of our sister school in Gifu City, Japan. Members of our faculty have presented at the Japan Fest in Atlanta, Georgia, the largest Japanese festival in the Southeast. Artist-in-residence Yokoshino Moon visited our campus to instruct all our students in Japanese art, and the year’s events will conclude on April 14, 2009 with a Cherry Blossom Festival, which will incorporate art, music, food and dance for our students and their families.
Hendrix is fortunate to be a very diverse campus. We have 27 ethnicities and 13 languages among our students. We offer German as a foreign language and provide creative movement and Suzuki Strings classes in addition to physical education, art, music and the core subjects. Our media center is an open library, and the International Baccalaureate/Primary Years Program enhances our curriculum through hands-on research and an opportunity to learn through discovery. We have two full-time ESOL teachers and two other teachers are designated to provide enrichment activities for our ESOL students in third and fourth grade math and reading. Our theme is “One School, One Dream, One World.” As we grow in our international mindset, we are discovering that our students are more accepting and respectful of others. It is very gratifying to know that we are not only growing academically but in character as well. What began as a step of faith has blossomed into a deep friendship with our colleagues in Japan, an awareness of the similarities in teachers and children throughout the world, and a deeper commitment to teach the whole child in character and academics, as well as providing a window through which to view ourselves and others. We are Hendrix Elementary School!
Dawn Neely
Principal
Hendrix Elementary School
Spartanburg District 2
