Portraits of Achievement


	Turning Problems Into Solutions Lake Geneva, Switzerland is known as a playground for Europe’s rich and famous. It’s also known for having an abundance of boarding schools. It was at one of those—Leysin American School, just outside Lake Geneva in the French Alps—that Jerald “Jerry” Bleckel spent four years teaching math and soaking up the culture. He and his wife, Betsy, moved there in 2004 for the experience and for the... Read More >
	The Family Next Door Patrick O’Leary is one of 11 residential faculty members who live on the HPA campus. While some residential faculty members live in apartments, O’Leary and his wife, Hui Chun, are dorm parents, one of eight families who live alongside students in a dorm. “We’re the family at the end of the hall,” O’Leary said. “We’re always accessible, always here as a support unit.” Read More >
	A Kid Working for Kids Four years ago, Nani came up with an idea that put smiles on a lot of young faces, including her own. She and some friends began to collect used children’s books to share with other kids. In practically no time, she packed her family garage with more than 1,000 books, and had expanded her collecting to also include backpacks, art supplies, and children’s clothes. All of these would be donated... Read More >
	A Global Perspective Laura Jim has led the kind of life you might not expect of a Middle School science teacher. After graduating with a degree in biology from the University of Oregon, she joined the Peace Corps. Her assignment took her to Ewo, a small West African village in Congo, where she worked for 13 months promoting fish culture and farming. While there, she was caught up in a civil war between government... Read More >
	A Lifetime of Professionalism Kristin Tarnas didn’t attend HPA as a student. But she has a pretty good idea of what it would have been like. She spent her high school years in boarding school on the East Coast. She lived in a dorm while attending Bennington College, a liberal arts college in Vermont with an enrollment not much larger than that of HPA. And she went on to receive her master’s degree from the Bank Street... Read More >
	Sustainable Teaching Mike Franklin’s AP World History room is stripped bare for the summer. The desks are stacked in the back of the room and the bulletin boards are empty. A few notes from students wishing him a fun summer and thanking him for being such a great teacher are all that remains from another school year past. Read More >
	The Unlikely Librarian “Sometimes I think my life has been guided by forces outside my knowledge,” states David Giff. He’s seated in the Lynn Taylor Library, a locus for students gathered around computers, tucked away in corners doing homework and giggling with friends, and, of course, browsing books. Read More >
	A Wandering Mind The walls of Dr. Mark Ravaglia’s classroom are mostly bare, dominated by large dry-erase boards that are covered in notes and equations for his Algebra students and a few hastily-drawn bell curves to illustrate concepts for his AP Statistics class. Read More >
	Extreme Learning There are some learning experiences that stay with you more than others. There are the classes that seem to drag on forever; the ones where you sit quietly while the teacher lectures, take down the facts, and learn very little. Read More >
	Citizens of the World Hidekazu and Yoshiko Akai might live in Japan but their perspective on education is international. “In the Japanese education system, things are knowledge based,” said Hidekazu. “There’s not much emphasis on critical thinking—they just cram in facts and information.” Read More >