The sleepy atmosphere that precedes first period was broken at Hobbs
Middle School on Thursday morning by the sound of Marine, Navy and Coast
Guard pilots marching through the school's halls.
While sixth-graders in Lynnette Whitfield's geography class were
watcing CNN reports on NATO airstrikes against Yugoslavia, they heard a
voice bark over the intercom: "Military personnel, take your
classrooms."
The mock "takeover" of Hobbs Middle School by pilots and flight
students from Whiting Field was a way to illustrate what martial law is
all about, said Lt. Troy Beshears, a Coast Guard pilot assigned to
Whiting Field Naval Air Station.
But once the sailors and Marines were in the classrooms, their
mission was to teach for a day subjects such as math, science, history
and geography and give teachers a break.
"We're going for shock value initially," said Navy Lt. Dan
Deuterman, 29. "But in the classrooms we're showing the students
practical application of what they're learning."
Some students brought up questions about the Kosovo situation.
Seventh-grader Cory Keelan selected Yugoslavia when a Navy ensign
teaching geography asked students to name their favorite European country.
"I just like the name of it. It sounds cool," said Cory, 13. "I've
been hearing it a lot lately."
Whitfield said her class knows more about Yugoslavia than just the
name.
Her students have been learning geography of the area, the history of the
ethinc groups involved in fighting that has killed more than 2,000 people
in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo and keeping tabs on the curent NATO
air assault on Yugoslavia.
"Some of my students still don't really have a grasp on the
situation, but others do because they talk about it with their parents,"
she said.
One of Whitfield's students, Julie McCool, said the presence of the
military personnel in her school made the news she'd been watching from
Yugoslavia seem a little more real.
"I just don't want it to get much worse," said Julie, 12.
Navy Ensign Kelly Robbins taught a class on geography, charting a
Pacific cruise he took on an aircraft carrier and talking about his ports
of call.
While an enlisted sailor working in intelligence, Robbins said he had
to brief admirals, senators and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright,
but middle schoolers made him nervous.
"At least with them, I knew what questions to anticipate," said
Robbins, 27. "With kids, you're not sure what they might ask."
Besides giving students insight into places like Taiwan, Thailand and
Singapore, Robbins gave the kids and idea of what it's like to be in the
military.
He spent his first Christmas as a sailor in Hong Kong.
"You don't get to come home for Christmas?" Cory Keelan asked Robbins.
"No, not when you're on a ship," Robbins said.
"Did you get Christmas dinner?" Cory, 13, pressed.
Besides geography, flight students taught physiology, explaining how
night goggles work with the human eye, aerodynamics and geometry.
"Kids don't realize that there are freeways in the sky and we have to
use geometry to figure out our course when we fly," said Beshears.
"We're just showing them that the skills they're learning now are
applicable in life."
The visit is part of the Whiting Field Adopt-A-School program
coordinated by Beshear. Every instructor and flight student participating
volunteered to take part.
Last year, students from Hobbs and S. S. Dixon Primary School
communicated via e-mail with a Coast Guard lieutenant on a cruise bound
for the South Pole and had a video teleconference with their friend once
she got there.
End of Article
There is also a photo (which was cut off from the fax paper size) but
here is the photo caption: photographer credit Tony Gilberson/News
Journal
"Lt. Quwan Smith, left, gives a little personal instruction in math
and navigation to Vanessa Gignac on Thursday at Hobbs Middle School.
Personnel from Helicopter Training Squadron Eight at Whiting Field Naval
Air Station took part in Military Madness at the school."
