Teach Tonga

My Personal Web Page	My MIDI Academy Website
Teaching Via Videoconferencing	My Jazz Piano Website
My Curricula Vita in Word Format	Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition
My Resume in HTML Format	My Unfinished Tonga Dissertation

My name is James Lowell Noxon. I was born in central Indiana in 1955. My mother was a nurse and my father was an electronic engineer. My family moved to northern Virginia in 1971, where I finished high school. My parents died in an airline accident in 1974 near Dulles airport. A few years later my older sister died at Jonestown in South America. I first met a Tongan family when I was living in Encino California in 1984, they were my neighbors. While living in Lahina Maui in 1997 I attended the Methodist church there, where there was a large Tongan congregation. The Tongan choir sang every Sunday, and I was hooked on that sound immediately. When I began to teach at the University in Hilo Hawaii, I attended the Methodist church there. The pastor, Sione Nukonuka Taukolo, is from Ha'apai and attended Taufa'ahau Pilolevu College.

I came to Tonga the first time in the fall of 2004 with a Methodist volunteer group. During that trip I came to visit Ha'apai and to help them with their computers. They tried to bribe me to stay with lots of lobster. As soon as I returned to Hilo, I had culture shock really bad. They offered me a job in Nuku'alofa (the capitol of Tonga) and so I "postponed" the courses I had agreed to teach at the UH and returned to Tonga. I visited Ha'apai again and, with the financial support of my church in Hilo, installed a computer network with broadband internet access. Since I had been working towards a PhD at Indiana University, I had to return to finish it. Upon my return to Indiana, it seemed like everything possible went wrong. I really needed to go back to the islands, and so I did. I really think the Lord called me to service, and I answered.

In order to finance my return to Tonga, I used Ebay to sell some valueables. If it had not been for these funds I raised, I would not have been able to get back to Tonga. So I really owe a debt of gratitude to Edward (at the left in this picture) who was the winning bidder on my E-mu modular synthesizer. That's me in the middle. On the right is Adam, who picked up the Clavinet for his friend who was the winning bidder. The picture was taken in San Pablo (near Berkeley California) where the rest of my worldly posessions are in storage. I spent a few weeks in the area and went to a few Methodist churches. It is really nice there and I hope that I can live in El Cerrito someday if my health precludes living in Tonga as an old prof anymore!

There's a few random pictures of me on the left. In front of the church in Pangai, with 6 trained birds from my friend 'Bud the Birdman' in Maui, with my friend JB Dyas at USC where he teaches at the Thelonius Monk Institute, with my friend Rhett who plays drums with Willie Nelson, playing piano at Michael Paul's in Lahina, playing bass with the Jazztet at the Chatterbox in Indianapolis, teaching music technology at IU, and teaching first grade in Waimea on the Big Island of Hawaii

I have two dreams for my work in Tonga. Although I like the teaching very much, I think it is better to have mostly Tongan teachers for the students. One is to try and develop an electronics industry in Tonga. I had my own manufacturing business, midimix, from 1985 - 1992. Some of the products are in the photo here. I think this would be good here because there is a lot of labor available, they make these fine woven goods and that kind of work is similar to electronics assembly. They have never had any legacy of the toxic electronics manufacture of the past so it is easier for them to start off RoHS (green manufacturing). Also if they stick to small products the shipping won't be such a large business expense.

As if that was'nt ambitious enough, there is this ultra-ambitious project underway called One Laptop Per Child. The idea is to get every student to have their own laptop computer, and I do mean EVERY! The project is put together by some MIT professors through a spin-off headed by Nicholas Negroponte. I have been corresponding with them about getting this to happen in Tonga. I think this would be a great place to test out the full implementation of the concept; there are 21,500 students in Tonga and unlike Brazil (5 million) every student could get one within a relatively short period. There is a lot of computer awareness (students study computers throughout their schooling) and internet access is available. The biggest issue for me, as a christian teacher, is the software piracy. The XO, as the little green laptop is called, runs Open Source software that is freely available and which can be freely modified by students.

You can help me if you wish to. I am not a 501.c.3 non-profit, just a guy doing what I can. I am not going to ask for money, but I would accept it and in turn I would send you photos of how I use it. You can write to me or PayPal me funds at this address: teachtonga (at) gmail.com or you could write me a check and mail it to me at my sister's house 2140 Norwich Martinsville IN 46151. It is very difficult to accept donations of used computers, as the school has to pay customs and tax. In the past the school received some that were broken. There is a room full of broken computers here, and sometimes I feel like the fairy tale spinning the straw into gold. We need new computers, Pentium 4 or Celeron type, until our container of XOs arrives (got to have a dream!). I have a student loan to pay off (approaching 6 digits!) and this will eventually force my return to accept a teaching position somewhere. Hopefully I can forstall this for a few years, and then find a university that will also support my work.