Everyone returns to school each fall with plenty of tales to tell. Their adventures enrich and enliven the start of the school year. Asked to share their exploits, some students and faculty recounted the following.
SPOTLIGHT ON STUDENTS
Seventh grader Ayanna Matthews participated in Girls in Engineering Math and Science (Penn GEMS), a week-long camp at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering. The program for middle school girls introduces them to bioengineering, nanotechnology, chemical engineering, robotics, graphics and computing. Ayanna also played with the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) basketball team, Fencor, at the Girls AAU U-11 National Tournament in Nashville, Tenn.
Eighth grader August Dichter’s summer was all about baseball. After winning the Conshohocken, Pa., tournament in early August, his team (the Lower Merion Tigers) headed to Cooperstown, N.Y., for a week-long national tournament. The Tigers placed higher than any previous Lower Merion team: 34 out of 104. Dichter, who plays first base and center field, hit four home runs.
Ninth grader Kayla Kahan concluded a successful swim season by placing first in 50-meter breaststroke for the Delaware County B Division Championships on July 31 at the Ridley Swim Club. She was also a member of the Landsdowne Swim Club’s 200-meter freestyle relay team that placed first in the championship. Kahan will join the Friends Select upper school swim team this winter, after swimming on the middle school team.
In the wake of several flash mob incidents last spring, 10th grader Kevin Abbott and junior Gabrielle Halle decided last spring that safe, appealing community centers could be part of the solution. Determined to do something tangible to help, they decided to raise funds for the Martin Luther King Community Center in North Philadelphia by holding a basketball tournament. Philly Summer Slam 2010 was held at Community College of Philadelphia on August 19, with 42 players from area public schools. The tournament netted $1,800 after expenses, such as paid referees, uniforms and trophies. Between now and spring 2012, (when Halle graduates), the two students hope to raise $10,000 for the community center.
When junior
Maggie Cohen’s grandmother offered to take her anywhere she wished as a 16th birthday gift, Cohen chose Africa. Their 18-day trip opened Cohen’s eyes to the developing world and whetted her appetite for further travel. They visited the notorious Robben Island, off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa, where Nelson Mandela (former president of South Africa and Nobel laureate) was imprisoned for decades. They went on a safari in Botswana and saw wildlife, including cheetahs, leopards and lions. And they volunteered at a school in Zambia through the non-profit, African Impact.
Eleventh grader
Atticus Tsai-McCarthy interned with the Mural Arts Program for six weeks last summer, as part of an inter-generational team led by Philadelphia artist
Ben Volta. The artists designed a 15-foot mural called “The House That Was,” installed in August at 10th and Vine Streets. Their computer-generated wallpaper was attached to the exterior wall of a row home on the thin plaster remains of a house that no longer exists. Tsai-McCarthy designed the wallpaper for the music room, the library, the toy room and the dining room. The exhibit will remain until the building is demolished.
Senior Danielle Fitzgerald participated in the New Jersey Scholars Program at the Lawrenceville School for five weeks last summer. Thirty-nine students focused on human rights in an intensive academic program that involved lectures, seminars and a research project. (Fitzgerald did research into the causes of the genocide in Rawanda.) She described the program as a "communal learning experience" in which students were expected to become knowledgeable, articulate their positions and defend their opinions.
Senior Oscar Serpell’s month-long trip to Uganda included some experiences that might scare off a less intrepid traveler: An angry male chimp approached him shaking a tree branch; he witnessed a pack of chimps corner and kill a small monkey; and he was asked to collect chimpanzee urine samples by standing under trees with a container. For Serpell, however, serving as research assistant for his parents’ friends (animal behaviorists) on the edge of the Mpanga Central Forest Reserve was inspiring. He plans to study animal behavior in college in preparation for ultimately doing field work with animals in the wild. His trip also included a safari camping trip, a visit to a white rhinoceros preserve and four days of teaching local elementary school children about the solar system, dinosaurs and English grammar.
Senior Oliver Feighan is one half of a rap duo, whose YouTube video has had more than 17,000 hits, since it was posted on October 4. Feighan and his musical partner, DeQuincy (a senior at Haverford High School), met at The Philadephia School and began making music in eighth grade, eventually making their songs available for free download. In August, they worked with a professional producer on their first video, “OCD: Moosh & Twist - Live It Up." Feighan says his songs are about things people his age can relate to-- including school, relationships and dreaming big dreams -- and that the language is kid-friendly. The duo have a number of college gigs coming up, including at Penn State and Boston College.
A number of seniors were recognized for their performance on the PSAT, as follows: National Merit commended: Aurora Case, Drew Colman, Taylor Dibble, Emily Horn, Oscar Serpell, Anna-Claire Siena, Prem Wells and Dylan Woloszczuk; National Hispanic Recognition Program Finalist: Taylor Dibble; and Outstanding Participant in the National Achievement Scholarship Program: Ariel Seamon.
SPOTLIGHT ON FACULTY
A painting by second grade teacher Deborah Rickards was part of a group show at the Nichols Berg Gallery in Chestnut Hill in September. Rickards has studied at the Fleisher Art Memorial and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and did an arts residency in Amsterdam in 2009. She credits her experience creating costumes for the second grade plays as inspiring her to begin painting in 2007.
Fourth grade teacher Betsy Lamitina attended the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University last summer, where she was asked to present during the closing meeting. She spoke on “Pop Culture and Technology in the Reader’s Workshop" to an audience of more than 1,500 people.
Middle school English teacher Dianna Newton worked with Breakthrough of Greater Philadelphia last summer, where she trained, supervised and evaluated aspiring teachers. Founded in 1995, Breakthrough is an academic enrichment program for high-achieving, low-income students from Philadelphia’s public schools. It also trains and inspires talented college students to become educators. Newton has created a skills sequence for reading, writing and critical thinking for seventh, eighth and ninth graders for use by Breakthrough. This year, she also will help implement a writing curriculum she authored, which has been adopted at Breakthrough’s two after-school program sites.
Dan Capecchi, middle school music and upper school percussion teacher, was awarded a Berger Grant from Friends Select School for summer work on spectral and spectratonal composition. Spectralism was introduced by two French composers, Tristam Murial and Gérard Grisey, whose work in the 1970s de-emphasized pitch and focused on pure sound. Cappechi found his initial forays into composing without melody unsatisfying and is now diagramming a composition that explores sound and rhythm produced by the interplay between wood and metal objects used as percussive instruments.
Upper school English teacher Jennifer Gorzelany lived a writer’s dream last summer: She and a friend spent 10 days in the Berkshires, during which they turned off their phones and computers, ran every day, cooked great meals and worked in glorious isolation. Gorzelany wrote creative non-fiction, her genre of choice, while her friend painted. Gorzelany also attended a week-long conference held at Camden County College on helping students prepare for advanced placement literature examinations.