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It has been one week since I said goodbye to the students and teachers at Union School in Haiti, and I miss them! However, they are supported by wonderful K¹² online teachers, as well as local Union School teachers who are working as K¹² program “learning coaches” to help guide them through the online curriculum daily. And, following much anticipation, the shipments of donated K¹² laptops and offline learning materials arrived. Marie described the excitement at the school surrounding the arrival of the materials: “Christmas in Haiti in March! That is the feeling brought on by the delivery of the materials!”

The K¹² online learning program is enhanced by offline activities and materials. This differentiates K¹² from other online curriculum providers. Union School students work with K¹² textbooks, science lab materials, classic novels and math manipulatives to provide a wholistic learning experience. Union School staff arrive early each morning to set up the laptops, wireless connection and learning materials before the students arrive so the students can delve right into their online learning program by 8 am.

Union School students are very fortunate. Although many of their classmates evacuated the country following the earthquake (the school’s population decreased from about 300 students to less than 40), all of the students survived the earthquake. Several of those evacuated students are actually enrolled full-time in the K¹² International Academy from their new locations in the United State and France.

Furthermore, Union School is one of the few schools in Haiti that has resumed operation following the disaster. The school’s administration and remaining teachers have been dedicated to the continuity of education for the students, and have worked tirelessly to make this a reality. They worked diligently to identify a new school environment that is safe for the students following the destruction done to their school building, and they have accessed an innovative education program to engage students daily. School director Marie Jean Baptiste, as well as her teachers and staff, deserve a grand applause for their efforts. They are driven by a passion to create a positive and challenging education experience for their students, even in the midst of disaster. K¹² employees share this passion. This is why, as Marie wrote in a recent note: “K¹², our life long partner!” I look forward to evolving our partnership with Union School for decades to come.
 

This week I have been blogging about my experience with the Union School in Haiti. I have the incredible opportunity of working with the students and teachers daily to launch their online school program. That was the primary reason I traveled to Haiti. However, I have been fortunate to find time to also volunteer in the devastated community, and it has been a humbling experience. I wanted to turn K¹²’s attention to the needs in the larger Haitian community, and the plight that will necessitate a long road to recovery.

Driving through the city before the earthquake was a wild experience (unpaved roads, no formal traffic system, congestion from people and cars). Driving through the city after the earthquake is an equally wild experience, but one marked by sights of destruction. Common sights include imploded buildings, makeshift tented homeless communities, and Haitians with wrapped limbs, cuts, and other bodily damage from the earthquake.

The city of Port au Prince is full of need, and both the international community and local residents are offering aid throughout the city. This past weekend I volunteered with the non-profit Thirst No More. We set up a medical clinic in a homeless community at a local church. In some cases, the families have enough tents for everyone in their family to sleep under cover. In other cases, fathers and brothers sleep outside while the primary shelter is offered to the children and mothers.

As in any disaster zone, medical needs must be tended to in an effort to quell infections and communal diseases which might further devastate the community. Doctors, a pharmacist, a nurse and non-medical volunteers have formed the Thirst No More medical team. This weekend we equipped the clinic with a pharmacy stocked with medicines, antiseptics, bandages, cast removal saw, etc. Adjacent to the pharmacy was a medical room where doctors treat patients

I have never felt so frustrated about my lack of training in the medical profession because I wanted desperately to help the Haitians in a physical manner. However, the team allowed me the job of intake nurse. I worked with a translator to speak to each patient to determine their medical concerns. The stories were amazing and overwhelming. One of the smiling girls below complained that she had “little rocks in her left ear.” Her sister informed me that she was trapped under some rubble. We saw infections from cuts and gashes that had gone untreated. Adult blood pressure was out of control, and adults and children alike complained of massive stomach discomfort and headaches. The patients were so grateful for someone to tend to their needs. And the children, as seen below, smiled despite their hardships. You see, the Haitian people are joyful even in times of turmoil. Their history as a country necessitates that optimistic attitude. I am honored to be a part of this community this week, and look forward to traveling back to Haiti as often as possible in the future to be a part of the extraordinary opportunity to rebuild the country. It has been easy to fall in love with the Haitian community. It is impossible not to be changed by the contagious humility that their stories inspire.

Haiti was awoken early Monday morning, February 22, 2010, by a moderate 4.7 magnitude earthquake shortly before 5 am. A few hours later, students of the Union School were gathered for school under shady trees in the front of an apartment complex that was formerly the residence for their teachers. Some of the students felt the earthquake, others slept soundly through the tremors. To be candid, I clearly felt the tremors and just about jumped out of my skin! Numerous questions quickly ran through my mind: Should I jump out of bed? Should I grab an emergency bag? Wait, I don’t have an emergency bag….would I have time to put a few items together to create an emergency bag? Would I have time to layer my clothes? But instead I continued to lie in bed paralyzed. The windows were open and I did not hear any major commotion outside. One lesson I learned this past weekend working in a homeless camp is that Haitians indeed make commotion when they feel threatened. I was fortunate today. However, I cannot imagine what the 7 magnitude earthquake must have felt like almost six weeks ago on January 12th, the day that marked grave misfortune and changed Haiti forever.

The country is adapting to change, including the way the residents respond to tremors, find shelter, pursue health care, and educate their children. Some of the changes involve a significant reversion to less-than-basic living standards. Numerous Union School employees I have met are living with their families in tents, including drivers, teachers, and janitors. Conversely, other changes have led to the embracement of modernity and technology. I met with a friend from USAID today who informed me that hospitals are receiving donated medical technology to improve the methods of care and treatment. And, closely aligned to K¹²’s mission and vision, Union School is eagerly adopting the concept of online education.

Fifteen students spanning grades 6-12 officially joined the K¹² International Academy education program today to continue their education and complete the 2010-2011 academic year. The students logged into their laptop computers, connected to wireless internet, and participated in web-conference orientation sessions with K¹² International Academy teachers based in the United States. They checked their “Kmail” – internal email from K¹² teachers and administrators - welcoming them to the program and providing instructions for the first week of the online school program. And, they left the school day feeling encouraged by their new education challenges via online learning.

The Union School staff and students certainly have a unique road to recovery before each of them, but my hope is that through K¹²’s engaging education program, they will be able to focus daily on the world of knowledge before each of them. Likewise, I also hope that the larger K¹² community will benefit from the wisdom and experiences of our Haiti-based peers.

Postscript – I finished this blog entry last night before I went to bed. A few hours into sleep, Haiti was awoken again by two tremors before 2 am. This time, I heard commotion and raced downstairs. Fortunately, before I went to bed I packed an emergency bag and left it by the door. I slept outside last night, like thousands of other Haitians. I, too, am learning to adapt to change.

As a Director of International Business Development at K¹², I have the privilege of creating enrollment centers for the K¹² International Academy (iCademy), as well as partnerships with schools around the world to enhance their curricular offerings with K¹²’s innovative online courses. If I was asked to envision a dream job, this is definitely “it”. From Montevideo to Dakar, and Islamabad to Monterrey and Singapore, K¹² is expanding our mission “to provide any child access to exceptional curriculum and tools that enable him or her to maximize his or her success in life, regardless of geographic, financial, or demographic circumstance.“

One international partnership of special mention is our partnership with the Union School in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. K¹² developed this partnership in August of 2009 to provide supplemental online high school courses for their students, including AP, world languages and core Math courses that the school was not able to offer in the traditional classroom setting. When the earthquake hit Haiti, I reached out to their Director, Marie Baptiste, to offer K¹²’s support to their school. Marie responded within a week with an update that all of her students survived the disaster, that the school building had been damaged and deemed unsafe for the students, and that a majority of teachers had evacuated the country. She expressed her desire to have her students who remained in the country continue their academic year with the iCademy program. K¹²’s leadership stepped up with the offer to sponsor the students tuition-free in the iCademy and to provide free laptops for the students.

Darby Carr, the iCademy Headmaster, and I have been working with the school for the past few weeks to coordinate the launch of our expanded partnership with the school. Sixteen students will begin online classes on February 22nd. The students will convene daily in vacated teacher apartments to work with learning coaches to progress through our curriculum and will be supported by iCademy online teachers. I traveled to Haiti this weekend to assist the school with our program, and will provide regular updates about the student population, the education model, and the larger Haitian community.

Darby and I had the opportunity to spend time with Marie at an international schools conference this past weekend in Boston. Marie was born in Haiti and moved to New York when she was six years old. She married a fellow Haitian-American and moved her family back to Haiti twenty years ago to join the team at Union School. She shared stories with her international school colleagues in Boston about the effects of the disaster on her school community and how the thirty five seconds of the earthquake “changed her life forever.” She considered it “miraculous” that all of her students survived the earthquake, which is in large part due to her insistence that the students depart the school building by 4 pm to go home to study for the exams taking place the next day. Typically, she noted, the school building would be full of students until after 5 pm. When the earthquake hit shortly before 5 pm and concrete began flying throughout the school building, only one student was left in the building and that student and staff escaped safely. The school did unfortunately lose one staff member, their Physical Education teacher, who lost his life when he went back into his family’s house to rescue a young child. The young child, however, was found safe in his arms when the teacher’s body was recovered from the collapsed house. He is one of the thousands of heroes in Haiti in the wake of the earthquake.

My contributions to the thinkthanK¹² blog over the next few weeks will be an effort to keep our K¹² community informed of the project with the Union School in Haiti and to inspire our community to continue looking at the global landscape as an endless opportunity for us to touch the world through the power of online education!