Viewpoint proud of humanitarian focus





Lieberman

Lieberman

Viewpoint valedictorian Jeanne Lieberman will travel to Cambodia this summer to teach English to children in a remote village for 11 days.

Working with international service organization Rustic Pathways, she will begin her adventure in Cambodia with fellow Viewpoint graduate Arthur Lula and then head to Rajasthan, India, to work at an orphanage.

“I am very excited for this and feel extremely privileged to have these opportunities,” said Jeanne, who is one of 97 grads receiving their diplomas at Viewpoint School’s commencement ceremony on June 16.

While maintaining a course load of Advanced Placement and honors courses and being a leader in Viewpoint’s arts community, Jeanne also mentored other students.

But Jeanne’s not one to seek praise for her good works, said Carmen Mendez-Schectman, a nanny and a teacher from Chile who has worked for the Lieberman family for 14 years. “She’s a very humble girl,” Mendez-Schectman said. “She just wants to help the poor and the community.”

At 16, Jeanne started a tutoring program called Kids to Kids at Park Oaks Elementary School in Thousand Oaks. She and other teen tutors worked with English learners to enhance their language skills.

Peer mentors can show fellow students the value of education so they learn to appreciate and apply their full potential, said Jeanne.

“Knowing something isn’t enough to make one good at teaching it, and I decided that I wanted to learn how to teach more effectively,” said Jeanne, who has served as a volunteer in Costa Rica, Peru, China and Thailand.

Jeanne said her parents, Marvin Lieberman, a professor at UCLA, and Susan Hershenson, a biochemist who has worked at Amgen and Genentech, taught her to be generous and independent.

“They are both very driven, hardworking people and never pressure me. Their pragmatic, logical thinking makes their advice invaluable to me with my wild impractical ambitions,” she said.

The graduate added that Mendez Schectman, an English language development facilitator with Conejo Valley Unified School District, motivated her to get involved in tutoring.

Mendez-Schectman said she’s grateful for the opportunity she had to help raise Jeanne.

“She was so smart and (her parents) gave me all the freedom to take her places with me. She became like my own kid,” Mendez- Schectman said.

Although Park Oaks Elementary closed last year, weekly outreach programs are still going strong due to the work of many volunteers, said Jeanne.

Jeanne will attend University of Chicago. She is interested in public policy, international relations, psychology, education and history, with an emphasis on race relations.

Aside from being co-president of Community Service Outreach Organization at Viewpoint, she was a member of the Cum Laude, Honor and Math societies.

A sculptor and artist, the 18-year-old contributed to the school’s literary magazine and was a leader in the art club.

Jeanne sets the bar high for herself and expects the same from others yet manages to balance that with compassion and respect for those who struggle in life, said Kristina Duarte, community service director of the Upper School.

“She knows that life is meant to be lived, and she does not sit around and let life happen to her. She takes advantage of every day, every opportunity, every relationship . . . and learns from it.”

Jeanne has also learned from the people she’s helped, Duarte said.

Jeanne recently worked with her friends to organize meal deliveries to the family of a Thousand Oaks woman who just awoke from a coma and is recovering at the hospital.

“I had one of her very endearing daughters in my tutoring program this year,” Jeanne said.


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