By Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
Briana Conway, 6, practices her photography
technique while other students wait their turn.
Catholic school
students will take
ultimate field trip
The entire student body,
By Mary Adamski
armed with cameras and notebooks,
is out to find God
Star-BulletinThe entire student body of Our Lady of Perpetual Help School in Ewa Beach is going to climb aboard buses Thursday and head for the streets, trails, reefs, historical sites and tourist traps of Oahu.
It's more than the mother of all field trips.
It's a book-writing venture in which all 168 youngsters, about 22 staff and faculty members and more than 100 parents and grandparents will participate.
By Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
Professional photographer Doug Peebles demonstrates
basic photography to students at Our Lady
of Perpetual Help School.
The aim is to produce a colorful photo-filled book on the order of the "A Day in the Life of Hawaii" project undertaken here and points east a few years ago.This effort has a spiritual focus. The neophyte authors and photographers will be "Seeking God in the Gathering Place."
"Everyone will be armed with a camera and a notebook and pen. We want them to look at our island through fresh eyes and sit down and write why they find God in that place," said Laverne Suster, religion teacher at the small Catholic school.
Mutual Publishing Co. is a partner in the project. Professionals will edit the collected works -- the photographs to be taken on throw-away cameras and the handwritten comments of children and adults.
"We're definitely committed to helping. I'm hoping there is content for a book," said publisher's representative Jane Hopkins. At the very least, she said, the company will prepare a couple of mock-up volumes for the school library.
The project was the brainchild of Suster and literature teacher Shelly Mecum.
It evolved from an assignment Suster gave the eighth-graders, requiring an essay or poem on "Where did I see God today?"
"I will probably look at scenery more than people because I think God is in nature," said Travis Moi, as he and other eighth-graders discussed the project. "I am a beach person and I think of God there. He protects me from drowning."
Joshua DeLaura said there's no prospect of not finding God, no matter where his particular bus takes him. "I know he's there, that he's cool -- he's wherever your faith takes you."
Jeannette Heringa said: "I'll be looking for something different like no one would notice, like a dead tree, and find God in it."
By Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
After a lesson from Peebles, Blaize Faurot, 5,
shows how he'll size up pictures.
Principal Dennis Sasaki said developing the basic communication skill is a key goal at the school. It uses the Spalding method based on handwriting skills and phonetical spelling. "It gives them the foundation and we give them many opportunities to write."It seems to be working. Two of the three winners in the Hawaii State Library System's annual essay writing contest this year were fifth-grader Jill Hannes and sixth-grader Matthew Wilson.
The book project has the backing of Hawaii Literacy Inc., which will benefit from the sales if and when the book rolls off the presses. "We gladly endorse it because it involves the whole school community, including parents, in promoting and increasing literacy," said Executive Director Janet Morse.
"Our aim is to have children fall in love with books," Suster told a Parent Teacher Association meeting. "They are hungry to practice writing."
Planning for the "day of the book" has Suster and Mecum developing untapped communication skills of their own. They've persuaded everyone from military commanders to politicians to tourist businesses to assist with destinations that include a glass-bottom boat trip and visits to Pearl Harbor, Chinatown, Waimea Falls, Iolani Palace, Diamond Head hiking trail and the Honolulu route of the Waikiki trolley.
They've networked with local celebrities to appear at the authors' party when the buses roll back to the school yard. "We're inviting people with a spiritual connection, or a literacy connection, or who just love children," Mecum said.
Suster said they've had feedback from a professional educational organization that sees this project as a prospective model to be used elsewhere.
"I didn't realize how splashy God wanted this to be," said Mecum, talking about the help she'd had from the staff of famous children's author Tomie DePaola.
