facetext_growth=<b><font color="#CCCCCC">May Tran: </font></b>My greatest concern was whether he could cope with the life from - I mean the differences between the East (we are from the East) and the West. And actually I find it very useful for sending him over, and within a very short period I find he has changed - I mean to us it is good, really very fast and very good. Like - he was quite a spoiled child when he was in Hong Kong, well treated by everybody, and he's the only son, not the only son, but the youngest, so spoiled by everybody. And as soon as he checked into this school, after three months actually, he turned very matured, that he even could ring us up over the Chinese new year, and ask how are we - it used to be the question that we only - the adults- asked, how are you. But in a way, he changed, that he is more concerned about everybody in the family. And he learned how to call us back, concerned about our health, our life in Hong Kong. He not only misses us, but also he grew up. That's a very big change actually.<br><br>------------------------------------------------------------<br><br><b><font color="#CCCCCC">Bruce Littman: </font></b>I have seen Sarah grow tremendously, in maturity level, to go from a procrastinator to someone who is a self-starter, gets her work done, who understands how to manage her time now, something she didn't know how to do at all at the beginning. She's I think learned also about - as Cathy said earlier - at home we were in a fairly homogeneous community, and here it is an extremely heterogeneous population of students and faculty and so on. I think she has grown a lot from that too.<br><br><b><font color="#CCCCCC">Catherine Littman: </font></b>There's been such a tremendous change in her, and I think that she wanted to be not on her own, but she wanted to be in a big school situation so she could learn how to be her own person, really find out who she was. And I think when she came here of course, her freshman year, she didn't know who she was. But there are a lot of courses offered here, there are a lot of different experiences. She loves sports. She was able to really shine on the tennis court, and field hockey, and - you know, she thought she was going to do more drama; she didn't do it. She is a good artist. She has all the art facilities available to her, and I think it's - she's found out who she is. And I think that's what it is all about.<br><br><b><font color="#CCCCCC">Bruce  Littman: </font></b>And she has made some good friends. That's the other thing. She is - in the small school she was in before with the same - what, maybe nine girls - the whole time. And now she has met girls from California and New York, other countries, from this area of New England, and she has friends from lots of different types of communities and different kinds of environments. And I think that's made a big difference, too.<br><br>------------------------------------------------------------<br><br><b><font color="#CCCCCC">Marcia Bryant: </font></b>First of all, Kristin was young. She was a young freshman, she came when she was 13 years old. And a lot of people say, you're going to send your child away when she's so young? How are you going to do that, how can you do that? First of all, we corrected that. We didn't send her away. She wanted to go to school, this was her choice, this was something that we supported her. We saw the value of it. She has grown. She is an opinionated child, and her teachers see that, and what the school has taught her, which I admire about the school, is that the fact that they give them the opportunity, they give all students the opportunity to express their opinions, whether the teacher, or another student in the class agrees or disagrees with them, they are given the opportunity to do that. The fact that the school has very - the classes are small, which means that each child gets to express an opinion, as opposed to a New York City public school that has 35 students and 45 minutes in and out, the teacher never sees them, if they're lucky. But she has grown. She has grown into a very responsible, albeit not tidy young lady. She doesn't keep her room too tidy! But we have seen the growth. Her teachers have commented on it every Family Day that we come, that we do attend. And I like to see that, and I like to think the fact that we -  how we have brought her up to be able to express an opinion. It may not be one that everyone agrees with. But you have an opinion, you express it, be able to back that up, to have your points, have your facts, and that's it. And to be able to deal with every single person that you may meet out there. And that's what I like about the school - each child has that opportunity.