Caroline Bethel of Cypress is among 36 students from Lebanon Valley College who’ve recently be recognized for contributions to the success of the VALE Conference and VALE Records during the 2015-16 academic year.
Bethel is a graduate of Orange County School of the Arts and is pursuing a bachelor of arts in music business at The Valley.
The annual student-run VALE Media Industries (formerly Music) Conference included panelists representing video and film production, music recording, musicians, journalism, web design and development, and additional media areas. Since its inception in 2005, the conference has incorporated numerous improvements and continually explores new ways to attract attendees.
VALE Records is a student-run branch of VALE Music Group LLC, located within the College. It began during the spring semester of 2013 as an interdisciplinary one-credit class, IDS 199, meeting one hour a week. Founded in 1866, LVC has graduate programs in athletic training, physical therapy, business, music education and science. Learn more at www.lvc.edu.

May is Poppy Month thanks to American Legion Auxiliary Unit 716
Poppies represent the sacrifice of service made by our veterans and has been an important goal of the American Legion Auxiliary Unit 716’s Poppy Program since its inception in 1921.
Recently, the City of Los Alamitos, Mayor Richard Murphy and the Los Al City Council awarded the American Legion Auxiliary, Unit 716 of Los Alamitos a proclamation, which made May Poppy Month. On Memorial Day and Veterans Day, millions of red crepe paper poppies, which are all hand made by veterans as part of their therapeutic rehabilitation, are distributed across the country in exchange for donations that go directly to assist disabled and hospitalized veterans in our communities.

Camp Cypress registration now open
Looking for some summer fun? Sign your kids up to have an exciting summer while meeting new friends at Camp Cypress. Cypress Recreation and Community Services has begun registration for Camp Cypress, a summer day camp for children entering first-seventh grade.
Camp is held at the Cypress Community Center located at 5700 Orange Avenue, from June 13 to Aug. 5. Camp hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. Extended hours are also offered from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, please call 714-229-6780 or visit the  website  www.cypressrec.com.

Los Al-Rossmoor Library brick sale
The deadline to order your personalized pavers is June 1. There is still time to immortalize your name, the name of a loved one, a family pet or a favorite saying on Los Alamitos-Rossmoor Library’s   Front Porch. Tell all your friends and neighbors. Time is running out,
The deadline to order your personalized brick is June 1. Order forms are available at the Friends Bookstore or at the library front desk.  The cost is $100.00.For more information please contact Friends of the Los Alamitos-Rossmoor Library Paver Coordinator, Sandy Tessier at friendsoflarlibrary@gmail.com.

La Palma Library booksale
The Friends of La Palma Library will have a book sale on Saturday, May 21 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. to raise funds for library programs. The sale is at the library at 7842 Walker St. in La Palma. The materials in the sale have been donated by area residents or culled from the library collection to make way for new books. For more information visit friendsoflapalma.wix.com/home, email friendsoflapalma@gmail.com, or call Rebecca Allen, who’s President of the Friends of La Palma Library at 714-747-1456 with any questions.

Charity raises $90K in a night
We Care’s 10th annual From the Heart fundraiser on April 9 raised $90,000 in one night. The funds raised allow We Care to offer vital services that provide a safety net to families in the community for self-sufficient futures. From the Heart was hosted at Aegean Designing Whims and Tamara Rene Designs in Los Alamitos. Almost 300 supporters enjoyed food and drinks graciously donated by local restaurants including Naples Rib Co., Shenandoah at the Arbor, Roy’s Hawaiian Fusion, Coconut Rabbit, El Zerape and Franco’s Italian Restaurant.

If I were to ask you to list the conditions for powerful learning, I’ll bet you would come away with a list very similar to mine, including: safe environment, personal investment, real world application, fun, relevance to students’ lives, social, interesting questions, positive environment, real audience, passion, autonomy, challenging, not time constrained.
I’ll also bet that in a room of 100 adults, not one of them would say that powerful learning comes with sitting in rows, one-sized curriculum, teacher controlled, standardized tests, emphasis on grades, no choice, lack of relevance, no real world application.
So why do we continue to run our schools the same way they’ve been run for over 100 years? Why do we continue to test, emphasize grades, restrict learning to the textbook, expect all kids to learn at the same rate and ability, and isolate content in 50-minute blocks?
I read an article this week published in the summer of 2014 by the Hawken Review written by the Head of Hawken School, D. Scott Looney. He spoke of the future of education — the scary, daunting, exciting time in education where “we are now at a point where we must educate our children in what no one knew yesterday, and prepare our schools for what no one knows yet.”
We live in an extraordinary time in human history. We are witness to unprecedented economic, environmental, and political instability. At the same time, we are witness to incredible advances in technology, medicine, and communication. This paradox of fear and excitement poses a challenge to us all, young and old. And yet we continue to teach our children in an antiquated system of sameness, as if we need all our children learning ubiquitous content, at the same time, at the same rate, in isolation. Where is the power is this model?
I was thinking this week about the interviews we see on TV every year wherein some host stops random people on the street to ask them questions about some factoid we all “learned” in elementary, middle or high school. We laugh collectively as we watch the interviewee hem and haw before answering incorrectly. Do we laugh because we know, or do we laugh because we, ourselves, would answer incorrectly, as well?
These interviews simply reflect the truth that we forget most of what we “learn” in school. So why do we continue to teach and test content knowledge like this?
Powerful learning, the knowledge we remember, comes from moments in which we were completely immersed and engaged. True learning requires a personal interest in what’s being learned. The process of learning for the sake of a test just isn’t effective or purposeful. In fact, I argue that kids with access to the internet and technology are “learning” more outside of school than they are inside of school.
So what should schools be doing?
We need to be teaching kids how to USE content. Teaching kids how to think, collaborate, wonder. Teaching  kids how to navigate ambiguity, complexity and interconnectedness.
Our kids need to find a passion that pushes them to “learn” what matters to them, so their learning can solve problems and impact the world — or at least their own small corner of the world.
It’s time to rethink what we do on a school’s campus and why we do it.
The future of education? It’s going to require we ignite students’ curiosity and interests — or we aren’t going to have much of a future at all.

Cathy Larson, Rossmoor resident, classroom teacher at Oxford Academy in Cypress, owner of Write Away U summer camp, www.cathylarson.com

First, this article is not about any person serving in any country’s armed forces, nor about any military Veteran, nor about any person of any ethnic or gender, nor about any person’s religion, race, skin color, etc.
The primary intent of this article is to tell the story behind the man who wrote a particular, well-known song, and often sung at numerous, various types of events.
The story was told by Dr. Wayne Dyer on a PBS TV program my wife and I tuned in on Thursday, April 21, 2016.
Dr. Dyer was an American philosopher, famous author of over forty self-help books, and as a world-renowned motivational speaker.  (In 1977, I bought a copy of his first book, “Your Erroneous Zone.”)
Wayne Dyer was born on May 10, 1940, in our hometown of Detroit, Michigan, and he died of leukemia on August 29, 2015 in Hawaii.
The story Dr. Dyer told was about the song, “Amazing Grace” as sung by a San Diego children’s choir on the TV program.
John Newton was an English clergyman and poet until he was forced to join the British Royal Navy. After leaving the service, he became an English ship captain who sailed a ship to Africa to pick up a boatload of natives and then to transport them to South Carolina, so they would be sold into slavery.
After several similar voyages, Captain Newton no longer wanted to be involved in the slave trade, so on his next shipload of African natives, he sailed back to Africa and released all his “passengers.”
Then, he sailed back to England and resigned from the ship-owners, and ended his slave-trading career in 1754.
Thereafter, he wrote a poem with the following words to “Amazing Grace”
Amazing grace how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now I’m found
Was blind, but now I see

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace my fears relieved
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed

My chains are gone, I’ve been set free
My God, my Savior has ransomed me
And like a flood His mercy reigns
Unending love, amazing grace

The Lord has promised good to me
His word my hope secures
He will my shield and portion be
As long as life endures

My chains are gone, I’ve been set free
My God, my Savior has ransomed me
And like a flood His mercy reigns
Unending love, amazing grace

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow
The sun forbear to shine
But God who called me here below
Will be forever mine, will be forever mine
You are forever mine.”
Isn’t it interesting how one man’s “indirect participation” in the slave trade in the 18th century cause him to write a poem that was written into a song that has been sung by millions of people worldwide over the past three centuries?
This story  reminds me of a few lines in a poem that appears in a book I wrote, “Telly’s Torch.”
“I know no foreign people; I serve them all.
I know no difference in race or color,
I favor all, from east, west, north and south.”

In April it was my pleasure to produce for Los Alamitos Community Television coverage of a day-long conference on the campus of Los Alamitos High School called Model United Nations 2016 now airing on Los Al TV Channel 3. The event was hosted by the Los Al Griffins student Model UN Club, which simulates the real world challenges, processes, and drama that face the actual United Nations body, compressed into a daylong conference. And although it was an hour long program featuring highlights of the day’s proceedings, I was left with the notion that so much about this remarkable day went unsaid.
First and foremost, I was impressed by the equal measure of professionalism and enthusiasm displayed by virtually all of the student-delegates, nearly 400 strong from over 20 other high school campuses across the Southland converging for this one day conference and focusing on the single issue of the very real refugee crisis that faces Europe and Africa today and the threat of terrorist groups who would infiltrate them. It was clear from the start that these student/delegates, from advanced high school seniors to first time middle school novices, brought with them a remarkable grasp of the facts as they presented their arguments, thoroughly immersing themselves in the political perspective of the particular UN country they were designated to represent. Over the course of the day, from small committee deliberations to full resolution debates, I observed these student/delegates presenting concise and compelling arguments, displaying a command of the issues with a poise and maturity that would seem beyond their years to conjure. Unfortunately, only a fraction of these articulate exchanges between delegations, often from even the younger delegates, was I able to include in the program.
It was equally clear to me that they were just as excited to be there as they were prepared, eager to share their world views and to hear what others had to say. Even at lunch break I overheard many of the committee delegates carry on the debate over their catered in Pollo Loco box lunches, driving home a point on the status of political refugees while waving a chicken leg in the air. It was easy to see these high school kids had found their place in the sun. Their glory moment in which to shine. Not on the football field. Not on the performance stage. But on the debating floor armed only with their wits, their powers of recall, and their sincere devotion to solving the world’s problems.
And their optimism seemed to extend beyond the debating floor. While shouldering the responsibilities of hosting a day-long conference, the Los Al Griffin MUN Club and their boosters also found time and energy to set up a charitable concession to collect funds through refreshment sales to support the very real world need of refugee aid. Through the day they raised over $400, all of which will go to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.
All the more impressive is the fact that, unlike many of the other participating high school MUNs competing on this day, Los Al MUN Club is just that, a club, not part of the regular curriculum as is the case at many of the other participating high schools. These Los Al MUNs are made up strictly of students who want to be there, to compete and to represent their school without the added incentive of getting course credit for it. In other words, they are there for the sheer love of the UN process, a thirst for the world and how it works, and what appeared to be a sincere belief that civilized dialogue among peoples can produce results.
Of course there were some stumbles, misstatements, and occasional over the top presentations resulting mostly from an abundance of, shall we say, enthusiasm. Like the senior delegate from another HS who proclaimed MUN “way cooler than that other [debate] club, JSA.”(Junior Statesman of America) But in the main I was deeply impressed and reassured somehow that there were millennial kids out there in this 27 character world who could take that deep dive into the thorny and often murky pool of world politics, think critically, and come up for air with informed and articulate prescriptions and solutions, and do it with smiles on their faces.
Speaking to these budding leaders of tomorrow, one on one when I could, I did get the distinct impression from them the world’s problems actually could be solved with just the right convergence of advocacy and compassion. I in my somewhat more senior years hold a slightly more cynical view, but I held my tongue. Who knows, maybe these sophomores of life are on to something. At any rate my reporter’s hat is off to these young multitalented, multilevel thinkers for even daring to be optimistic. And to our own Los Al Griffin Model United Nations Club, returning from a decade of dormancy, to field a delegation of almost 100 highly motivated LAUSD students to then organize, host and officiate a successful regional MUN conference pretty much on their own- I say long may they run.

John Underwood is a senior producer at Los Al TV. Visit losaltv.org to view Los Al TV programs online.