KINDNESS COUNTS: Q&A WITH AUTHOR LEON LOGOTHETIS AND CATHEDRAL’S COUNSELOR, JOANNE COHEN
GIVING AND RECEIVING BY HOLDEN BROWN, Class of 2018
Holden Brown ’18 with Mr. Mundy at Spring Valley School
ONCE A WEEK, MR. MUNDY, our Upper School history teacher, escorts 10 Cathedral seventh-grade boys down the hill to the Spring Valley School. Established in 1852, Spring Valley is the oldest school in Cali- fornia. It was initially set up to educate the children of gold prospectors. My classmates and I visit the school as tutors. At the school, I work with the Spanish speaking kindergarteners on their use of English in Classroom Six. My support includes working with the kids on sentence structure. At first, I felt awkward tutoring the kids. Of course their Spanish was much better than mine. They have been speaking Spanish their entire lives and I have only studied the language for two years. But soon enough, I started to bond with the kids and felt at ease with them and the language.
Spring Valley is important to me because I get to provide educational support to its students. I consider myself an “extra hand’ to a teacher with a classroom of almost 20 kids. Perhaps for the kids, talking and playing with someone who acts a bit like an older brother is a fun and positive experience. That’s my hope, anyway. One of the more treasured activities at Spring Valley is working in the computer lab. In the lab, the students and I play educational games, including one very popular maze game. The kindergarteners love competing with each other to see who finishes the game the fastest. I have to admit the game is pretty fun. At times, one of the students isn’t very happy with the classroom activity. When this happens, I try to encourage him to stay positive. I tell him that the trick is to find
something to look forward to, like another class. I say, “When you get frustrated about your current class, think about what you will be doing in your upcoming favorite class.” That usually works. As for me, I get a lot out of my experience— it helps me with my Spanish, as I want to be able to have more complex conversations with the kids. It’s fun to spend time with the kids because they are cute, funny, and appreciative. Whenever I arrive at the classroom now, I am greeted with hugs, smiles, and shouts of “El chico alto está aquí otra vez.”(Translation: “The tall kid is here again.”) The kids always manage to make my day fantastic. I hope that I do the same for them. Classroom Six at the Spring Valley Science School will always be my school away from school and my home away from home.
Holden’s story is just one of many that we hope to create with our focus on service. While it will not be possible to implement every goal immediately, teams of Cathedral faculty and staff have already started planning on how and when the goals can be integrated. We eagerly look forward to the results of the strategic plan over the next five years.
20 | CATHEDRAL SCHOOL FOR BOYS
FALL 2017 • RED & GOLD | 21
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