International fame of American School Magazine

When the American School of Guadalajara was founded in 1908 by Dalia Walsh its purpose was to serve the American communities, especially children of US diplomats and business leaders living in the city so that they would not fall behind their peers in the US when they returned home. It was a small school with a handful of students utilizing local teachers and spouses of diplomatic personnel. But that would soon change. Globalization, the growth of other embassies and consulates, and the demands of higher education forced the school to hire more qualified teachers. By the 1980s all were certified teachers, and many had master’s degrees in their subject areas as well. In addition, the school now served over 1400 students, more than half of whom were Mexicans or other Latin American nationalities.

In 1990 the school hired Michael Hogan, a prolific author and noted educator working with the San Francisco School System in the US to head up the English Department. His mission was to raise the school’s program from English as a Second Language (ESL) to the high-quality Advanced Placement (AP) which would provide students with one year of college credit should they complete the program. He was also tasked with creating a school bilingual literary magazine. Hogan’s success with such magazines in the States, including Scholastic awards for ones he founded in Arizona, Colorado, and California, as well as his success teaching in the Latino communities was the basis for his being hired.

The changes in curriculum mandated by director Robert Trent for Hogan to implement in that decade were dramatic, as were the results. Teachers with master’s degrees or higher grew from 40% to 80% with five doctorates. Admission to universities in the US and abroad for graduating seniors rose from 10% to 40%. Scholarship offers rose from $400,000 USD to $3,400,000. Many of these students were accepted to prestigious universities such as MIT, Brown, Dartmouth, Stanford, and Notre Dame. Four were accepted to Harvard, including two girls (the first in Mexico’s history). Equally notable was the outstanding success of the school’s literary magazine Sin Fronteras which received numerous awards, including being chosen four times as the best international school magazine by the National Council of Teachers of English. Keep in mind that this was a bilingual magazine with only 60% of the stories and articles in English, so it was at a competitive disadvantage to those written wholly in English.

In 2004 when Hogan formally retired from full-time teaching and went to work with the State Department’s Office of Overseas Schools, he set up scholarships for two graduating seniors at the American School, the best editor and best writer from the Sin Fronteras staff. It was called the Gary Hogan Memorial Scholarship in honor of his son who died young. It was and continues to be funded annually by the sale of Hogan’s books.

When asked at a recent teacher conference to explain his success with student writers, Hogan said “wide reading of good literature, and journal writing were the keys,” quoting Aldous Huxley, “There is not great writing without great reading.” He required each student in grade 9-12 to write in their journal at least three times a week with a minimum of fifteen pages, two entries in English and one in Spanish. They could write anything, a reflection on their reading, a personal issue, a description, a complaint, a persistent worry. The teacher would count the pages but not read them. At the end of the week the student would type up several pages of those fifteen and form them into an essay, a poem, or a story. Later classes on revision and one-on-one conferences would improve the work.

[Editor’s note: We have included in this issue an excerpt from Hogan’s famous essay “Teaching from the Heart” which provides a fuller description of his teaching method.]

Bridget Herrera, the college counselor at the American School writing about her observation of Dr Hogan’s work during these years noted: “He has touched many lives and given an outlet to so many creative students with the magazine, Sin Fronteras. He is also one of those rare individuals who can teach at any end of the spectrum. Time and time again I have seen weak students go into Dr. Hogan’s classroom and find a love for literature, for writing, and a desire to do their best.”

While many students went on to careers in business, law, medicine, and teaching, others opted for careers in writing, as journalists, editors, or authors. Three best-selling novelists from the Sin Fronteras group include Loretta Lopez, David Bak Geller, and Josue Llamas. They all attribute their success to the caring ambiance, and the close attention they received in Hogan’s classes and editing sessions.

Former student, Juliana Capetillo said it best, “In Dr. Hogan’s class you felt that what you wrote really mattered. He took your writing seriously, and while grammar and structure were taught, it was done subtly and always began with the question, How can you make this story of yours even better?”

Fiachra Keogh is former teacher in Mexico, as well as editor and founder of the Distant Voices Project which provides podcasts of international authors and lecturers on social justice and sustainability. He is a long-time editor of Michael Hogan’s work and currently lives and works in County Cavan, Ireland.