A new book, written and designed at Friends Select School, distills the very essence of Quaker values.  The title, Filling Our Classrooms with SPICES:  Practicing the Quaker Testimonies at Friends Select School, reflects the mnemonic device people often use to remember the six Quaker testimonies:  simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality and stewardship.  The book offers lower school student interpretations of each testimony, gathered last year during “Drop Everything and Write,” one of several activities during the year that pairs lower and upper school students.  The book project was coordinated by the lower school worship and ministry committee, with art teacher Dan Deslaurier serving as the design director, and input from several students, faculty and staff.  The publication’s cost was underwritten by a grant from the Friends Council on Education.  Copies of SPICES will be available to Friends Select families later this fall.

The SPICES book is an inside look at the ways in which Quaker testimonies are practiced in the daily life of lower school. Small groups of middle and upper school students discussed with lower school students how the testimonies help shape life in the classroom and throughout the school community.

The conversations were framed in an age-appropriate way.  When peace was the focus, the question was:  How can I solve problems in a way so that everyone feels happy?  To explore the idea of integrity, lower school students considered the question, What helps me to be my best self?  Equality was pondered based on the query, How can I help things be fair so everyone is included? The book, which draws quotations and drawings from these “partner reflections,” promises to be a rich resource for teachers (available in each lower school classroom) and for families who wish to understand better how Friends Select is rooted in Quaker values.

Jesse Dougherty Appointed Director of the Upper School

Jesse Dougherty will join the administrative team at Friends Select School, starting in the 2008-2009 academic year. He joins Friends Select following seven years at William Penn Charter School, where he was administrator, teacher and coach: chair of the English department for kindergarten through twelfth grade, teacher of upper school literature and world religions, and head coach of middle school and junior varsity lacrosse.

This spring, he completed a doctoral degree in educational and organizational leadership at the University of Pennsylvania, with a uniquely applicable dissertation topic: Faculty Engagement in a Quaker School. He also holds a master of philosophy degree in Ecumenics from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland and a bachelor of arts degree in English from Kenyon College in Ohio.

Jesse Dougherty’s previous teaching positions include middle and upper school English at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, where he also participated in the admission process and served as student activities coordinator. At the Gow School in South Wales, N.Y., he taught upper school literature and held responsibility for the eighth grade dorm.

His interest in education extends beyond his workplace. In 2006, he joined the board of directors of Summerbridge of Greater Philadelphia, after serving as head teacher; and in a totally different arena, he designed and taught a course entitled “Literature in Medicine” for internal medicine residents at the Robert Wood Johnson-UMDNJ and Cooper University Hospital in Camden.

The school’s search for a new upper school director involved reviewing the materials of about 50 applicants. A number of candidates were contacted for telephone interviews, with five finalists invited for on-campus interviews with faculty, students and parents. Dougherty was clearly the outstanding candidate, described by members of the search committee as “smart and articulate,” possessing “a great sense of humor,” and, indeed, “a good intellectual fit for our community.” One member of the search team wrote: “If we could design an upper school director with all the qualities that we felt were needed in that position at this point in the school’s life, I believe it would be Jesse Dougherty.”