Wrapping Up our Second Week at HMA

By Mark C. Hale

Sunset at HMA after packed week of learning

It’s been a busy second week at HMA! In addition to daily lessons in Amharic for the international teachers, we took a good amount of time to discuss Simon Sinek’s belief in the importance of starting our planning by asking the “Why” of our work before we get to the “How” or “What” with our students.

We also covered Holidays and how we celebrate them at HMA. Most include some form of fasting, which had gotten a little out of hand with some of the students last year. We reviewed our newly revised Student Handbook, took time to develop our pre-assessment strategies, understand the role of Service Learning, how we deal with religion at a secular school in a very religiously divided country, and learn about Ethiopian traditions.

Maya Posey, our Director of Community Life, provided us an overview of how our Gojo, Crew, and Advisory groups would work this year.

We wrapped up the week with in depth discussions on the Curriculum Design for each area of study and had some great Zoom conversations with students.

We also had fun getting to know one another, becoming more familiar with the food, and our surroundings. AND, our college counselor, Ramiro arrived today completing our administrative team.

I couldn’t be more pleased with both the underpinnings of our curriculum and our focus on developing the social and emotional aspects of what we provide our students through our community life program.

With full days of learning and designing our curricular programs we carved out time for fun as well.


            Melissa, Jason, and Marc enjoying some local food at Rediet's house.


                                        Abraham tries his hand at golf.


First Campfire

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