Sheila Mavin departed recently for an intercultural understanding program in Japan, nearly two years to the day after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
"You make up your mind you're going to live life to the fullest," said Mavin, Davis School District's fine-arts supervisor."I felt I was doing that already, but I made up my mind I would continue to enjoy life and participate in things that make me happy and bring happiness to others." Following surgeries and treatments, Mavin is in remission.
Mavin is part of a group of Utah educators selected from a national pool to participate in the three-week Fulbright Memorial Fund Teacher Program.
Other participants include Nancy Robinson Jameson, middle school teacher, Rowland Hall-St. Mark's School; and Granite School District's Jennifer Allred, English, Olympus Junior High, and Kathleen Henriod, geography, Churchill Junior High.
The Utah educators will join colleagues from across the country to meet with Japanese government and education officials and stay with local families. About 500 teachers and administrators from across the country will participate in the program this year. Some 250 left last week.
Upon her return, Henriod, who teaches gifted and talented students as part of an integrated curriculum plan with English and science, will share her experiences with colleagues to integrate into the curriculum.
"I think it's really important for a geography teacher to know about places in the world," she said.
Faun A. Bandeka, second-grade teacher at Beehive Elementary School in Granite district, returned from the program last week. There were 200 in her group.
"There were so many things that I learned, and we were indeed honored guests of the Japanese government," she said.
The Japanese government funds the program commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Fulbright Program, which has enabled nearly 6,000 Japanese students to come to the United States for graduate education and research.
Mavin has mentored a Japanese student attending the University of Utah and is working with a student from Taiwan. A teacher of Oriental ink painting, Mavin hopes to learn how the Japanese intertwine arts and technology and later develop an inservice training program for teachers.
"The arts are very often undervalued," she said. "I feel the very essence of what life is disappears if teaching of the arts is not fostered."
But Japanese schools embrace arts, Bandeka said. For instance, all students play musical instruments in school. Bandeka, who played in the U. band, says fifth-grade band in Japan was better than any college band she's heard.
"Japanese education stresses the entire person far, far more than we do here," Bandeka said. "Where cutbacks in the U.S. are being constantly made in the arts, . . . they stress those things."
Japanese students also start every day with aerobics and calisthenics in addition to a regular physical-education class. They attend school from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., then participate in clubs another two hours. They also spend 30 minutes a day cleaning schools in lieu of custodians.
"We all could see there was a sense of ownership in that practice," Bandeka said. "They were proud of their school."
Yet perhaps the most valuable lessons taught in Japanese schools are to honor and respect others, she said.
"This is something I feel very strongly about because I don't think we have enough of it in our own schools," she said.