School board Members from Across North America Tour Great Lakes

By John Sheppard, Naval Station Great Lakes Public Affairs

April 15, 2010 - NAVAL STATION GREAT LAKES, Ill. (NNS) -- Naval Station Great Lakes hosted 34 members of the National School Boards Association (NSBA) for a tour through Recruit Training Command (RTC), Center for Surface Combat Systems Unit (CSCSU) and the Center for Naval Engineering (CNE) Detachment Great Lakes April 12.

Members also had the opportunity to see fifth graders from North Chicago elementary schools participate in a science exploration session at Department of Defense (DoD) STARBASE Great Lakes.

The school board members, who came from across the United States and Canada, were in the area for their convention in Chicago April 10-12.

Their first stop was at the USS Triton on board RTC where they were met, and given a tour through the barracks, by Capt. John Peterson, RTC commanding officer, and Triton's ship's officer Lt. Megan Gill.

Peterson and Gill explained to the school board members how each barracks is a self-contained facility with its own galley and classroom spaces. In an electronic classroom, NSBA members saw first hand how recruits, through computer-based training, learn traditional Navy core curriculum topics such as seamanship and heritage.

"When I went to the Marine Corps boot camp in July 1964, all we had was a pencil and a little red note book that we kept in our left breast pocket," said Abe Wilson, a school board member from Calumet (Ill.) Public School District 132, and former commanding officer of the General Colin Powell Division of the Sea Cadets.

"It's interesting that, in terms of approach, Navy training is highly disciplined from the beginning," said Don Fleming, the school board chairman from Edmonton Public Schools in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

At CSCSU, NSBA members learned that the old paper charts that Sailors use to navigate the oceans will soon be replaced by electronic charts.

CNE was the next stop on their tour. "Critical thinking is vital," said CNE Detachment Great Lakes officer-in-charge Cmdr. Michael Curtis. "Sometimes, we have to teach critical thinking to our students. Crawl, walk, run is our philosophy," he told the school board members.

Lt. Isaac Belton, assistant officer-in-charge of CNE Detachment Great Lakes, said that with new mentor-based training methods that combine computer-based and hands-on training, "Test score scores are up and training time is down."

"The Navy is learning the same lessons that we are, that computers are not a cure-all," said Dennis Bermer, a school board member from Russellville, Ark. and a former Navy Medical Corps Officer. "It still takes hands-on application of knowledge to learn," Bermer noted.

"If students are prepared to learn, the Navy doesn't give up on them," said Fleming. "The Navy gives its Sailors a real opportunity to succeed."

Steve Surbrook, director of DoD STARBASE Great Lakes, escorted the school board members through an active classroom in Naval Station's Lifelong Learning Center, where students from North Chicago public schools learned lessons in physics. Students in DoD STARBASE, an educational program sponsored by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs, participate in challenging "hands-on, mind-on" activities in aviation, science, technology, engineering, math and space exploration.

Surbrook then helped the school board members look for local DoD STARBASE locations for their school boards across the country.

"My wife Carolyn and I have really enjoyed our tour here," said Wilson. "Even though we have visited Great Lakes many, many times for military, Sea Cadets and other civilian events, this time it was greater as retirees and representatives of our school district."