September 2018

Being my last article as President of the Kiwanis Club of Pearl Harbor, I just wanted to share some things that I have learned as a member of Kiwanis. My involvement with Kiwanis began at Leilehua High School where I joined Key Club. While attending Washington State University I joined Circle K and became club treasurer for two years, then went on to serve as the PNW (Pacific Northwest) District Treasurer during my last year. During my years in CKI, aside from our advisors (who were, and are awesome), I can honestly say that the involvement and relations with our Kiwanis clubs are nothing compared to the connections that the Kiwanis clubs in Hawaii have with their kids, and with each other. Kiwanis International is always talking about the K-Family, but because of the culture of Hawaii, we truly are an Ohana. We never look at our Key Clubs and CKI clubs as “just another expense.” And it is this type of relationship and support that I decided to stay in the K-Family after I graduated from WSU, and also why I am still a Kiwanian.

~ Aladdin Roque-Dangaran

August 2018

While attending Washington State University, the value of giving back to the community stuck with me. During all four years of my undergrad I was a member of Circle K International. Service was a big part of me being so passionate about Circle K, but that was not the whole picture. The three tenants of Circle K are Fellowship, Leadership, and service. It provided me with opportunities to serve the community and hold leadership roles that would boost my resume. But most importantly, Circle K provided me with a place of belonging in a state thousands of miles away from my home and family. The relationships that I made with my friends in Circle K are stronger than even some of the relationships I have with my high school friends. Circle K was a community that allowed trust and comfort to cultivate. And this brought people together through the common goal of giving back to our community.My personal philosophy on education is that we, as educators, must create a positive student-centered classroom environment that will make learning meaningful and cultivate our students into good, THINKING human beings. Throughout my education, the teachers that I remember and the ones that had a positive impact on me all facilitated this type of classroom environment. In all of their classes I felt comfortable in; not only with the teacher, but also with my classmates. Being able to create this type of positive student-centered environment can facilitate and enhance the ability for deeper learning. Needless to say, in these classes I feel that I learned more and retained more from those classes.

~ Aladdin Roque-Dangaran

July 2018

During this past spring semester, I was working as a long-term substitute teacher at James Campbell High School. I had a full line of 9th grade physical science students. What I learned from that experience is that your mastery of the subject only accounts for a portion of your effectiveness. The effectiveness of your classroom management can be the determining factor of whether your students learn or don’t learn. And that is what I struggled the most with during my time at JCHS. Through all my previous classes, they talk about some strategies to manage your students, but it is different once you’re actually out there.

I believe that the main goal of a science teacher is to make students question the world around them and the world in themselves. My classes were much more fun for both me and my student when the students were asking about related topics or how we can apply the lesson to other concepts. Once you start asking questions, there is no limit to your knowledge. I hope to train my students so that they keep making connections and is alway in wonderment. After this past semester, I have concluded that students do not like science classes because they are too accustomed to just being fed information. Science is the application of knowledge to the real world, and some students that I have talked to have trouble applying these concepts. That being said, I believe that the more interactive and hands-on learning students can participate in, the more they will learn because it becomes easier to see the applications; this is true not only for science, but for all subjects.

~ Aladdin Roque-Dangaran

June 2018

During this past semester at UH at Manoa I took a class in developmental psychology. One of the more interesting topics that we learned about was the development of the adolescent. Many of us work with high school key clubbers. And to many of them, we are more than just advisors or chaperones. We often create personal bonds with our students in which they trust us and we trust them. Prior to neuroscience, and even today, there was a stigma about adolescence as being a period of “raging hormones.” However, we now know that the surging hormones doesn’t tell the whole story. According to Steinberg (2011), the “maturation of the brain systems responsible for thinking ahead and controlling impulses is influenced by the sorts or experiences young people have.” Because the plasticity of the brain is at its peak during adolescence, what we experience can heavily influence the way our brain matures and develops. The connections that we form with our SLP, no matter how small it may seem, to them it can mean the world. I have had many a student just sit in my office and ‘vent’ to me. And as an adult it is easy to just push them away because it may seem like they are just complaining. But for many of those students they needed to just have a release to get them through their day. And it is not because they are ‘moody,’ but because their brains are trying to cope with the world around them, and we as educators can help push their brains in the right direction.

~ Aladdin Roque-Dangaran

Sternberg, L. (2011). Demystifying the Adolescent Brain. Educational Leadership.

May 2018

As the school year ends, I feel that this would be a good time to remind our members, student leaders, and the community about why we do what we do. At least for me, I joined the K-Family and chose a career in education as a way to give back to my community. But teachers do not teach to just feed students information. We, as Kiwanians do not just sponsor our student leaders and let them do whatever they want. Our purpose is to build a legacy of passion. Teachers are meant to help build students up so that they are able to find their passion in life and have the knowledge and skills needed to pursue it. As Kiwanians, we are building young leaders that can one day complete the cycle of service and inspire new leaders in their community. Like all legacies, they all have the possibility to crumble. But what keeps them strong is the passion that the members have for it; for what they do; for what they believe in. So, I challenge you to keep this legacy going strong over the summer. Yes, as Kiwanians, it may be easy, but what about your student leaders? They are in vacation mode! But yet it is our duty to help them keep that passion strong throughout these next three months so that they are even stronger once they go back to school.

Kiwanis4Kids Collection - During the month of April we had our first collection for our Kiwanis4Kids project. We originally started this project to donate school supplies and canned foods to Title 1 schools (schools that have majority families with low SES). The first school that we picked was Ka’ala Elementary School in Wahiawa, and it was a success. Leilehua High School Key Club donated about 3 full boxes of school supplies and canned foods. When I went to drop off the donations at Ka’ala, Vice Principal Mr. Wetzel was surprised and grateful for how much was collected. Part of the reason I feel that this project was successful is because it was for something within Leilehua’s community and some of the Key Clubbers may have had siblings or relatives attending that school. This just goes to show that people will be more invested in what they are doing when it becomes meaningful for them.

~ Aladdin Roque-Dangaran