|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Have you ever seen a full glass of water where the surface is exactly at the rim of the glass, hugging the edge? If you add one more drop of water then the tension breaks and the water overflows. It takes that one last drop of water to make it happen. Or to cite a well-known idiom: it took the final straw to break the camel’s back.
These are apt analogies, especially when speaking with young people about their role in building community. Children already understand the analogy of the quilt - a fabric of individual threads (or panels) that make a whole – and they understand the value of the individual contribution in creating a larger fabric. The inherent and possibly more humbling lesson is that it wasn’t merely the last drop of water, or the last straw, or even the last point scored in an athletic event that is most significant; it’s the contribution of each drop, each piece of straw, each point scored that matters in the final accounting.
Individual contributions count. In stewarding our environment, in providing service, in electing our leaders, in speaking our voice. And here at school, in supporting the enterprise of our collective work. Here’s an example: we planned to open the new school year with 522 students, but on the first day, 552 were enrolled, largely because individual people recommended our school to other families, or someone gave a tour that resonated with a new family, or someone made a defining phone call to advocate for Friends Select.
I’d like to say thank you to each and every one. Whether your individual gift is advocacy, labor, or resources, it matters to us. Each gift is important, whether it’s the first one or the last. Each gift is a contribution to a larger effort and builds a strong, healthy and viable community.
|
|
|
|
Two Thursdays of each month, you can walk into the lower school art room mid-day and find 38 third and fourth grade students sharing lunch, fellowship and ideas during meetings of the lower school student worship and ministry committee. This impressive student response also reflects the work by lower school teachers to teach, model, and value Quaker testimonies in the fabric of our lives at school.
Clerked by lower school art teacher Dan Deslaurier, the students volunteer their lunch and recess periods to participate in the exchange of feedback and suggestions about the lower school Meeting for Worship (MFW) experience here at Friends Select.
Students deliberate and generate queries based on the Quaker testimonies that they feel would be especially meaningful to reflect upon by the entire lower school at either the weekly time together in the Meetinghouse or for worship sharing in the classroom. “During a committee meeting, the agenda includes fellowship, developing queries, discussing challenges and creating solutions with an aim to make the lower school meeting experiences authentic and enriching for all,” said Deslaurier.
Examples of past queries
Quaker testimony on stewardship- What is it you do to take care of our school?
Quaker testimony on integrity- What does it mean to be your best self?
Each student committee member has an opportunity to voice their views and opinions either verbally or in writing. In addition, there is a box in the Elizabeth Wallace Library where all lower school students are welcomed to share their thoughts on a MFW query. This student input is shared with the lower school faculty worship and ministry committee and becomes an integral part of the process that shapes the program.
There are many different platforms in which MFW exists. In the beginning of the year, grades PK-2 participate in classroom and grade-level worship sharing on campus, while grades 3 and 4 go to the Meetinghouse for meetings. Over the next several weeks, PK will continue to meet in the classroom, while students in K-4 will begin to meet with partners in other grades. These one-to-one relationships are fostered throughout the school year by attending Meeting together, as well as meeting for other classroom activities or experiences outside the school building such as visiting local institutions in the neighborhood together.
Once these student partnerships are established, weekly worship is held at the Meetinghouse with partners as a lower school community. “In lower school, there’s a great value placed on worshiping in partnerships and our Meetinghouse truly defines our worship and it does it in a space that nowhere else does,” said second grade teacher and faculty worship and ministry committee member Carol Sime.
Lower school life is in constant motion, but everyone recognizes the importance of Meeting for Worship and Meeting for Community, and consistently makes time for these in our busy schedules. The student committees’ commitment and leadership underscores this importance to our community.
|
|
Learning with Art
by Martha Van Nuis, middle school mathematics and history teacher, and performing arts department chair
|
|
Scans of brain activity show that whether a person is studying math, science or English, the traditional academic disciplines, or whether they are listening to music or making a drawing, their brain is busy making decisions, acquiring knowledge and solving problems. We’ve learned that the rigorous work of learning happens through the arts, both visual arts and performing arts in different areas of the brain, but in the same important ways as it does through other academic disciplines.
Today, brain research unveils data showing that art aids learning when integrated into the school curriculum. In my classroom, like in many of the classrooms across each division at Friends Select, there are times when it’s important and appropriate for students to express their knowledge through the arts.
Over the years, I’ve challenged my students to convey their thinking by using different media in various classroom activities. None of the activities are once and done. Like writing assignments, there is feedback and a revision process involved in assignments using the arts. The art of the effort is important as well as the artwork’s ability to convey my students’ understanding of information or ideas.
Examples of learning with art:
Math and board games
Last year, former Friends Select history teacher Sara Wolf presented to middle schoolers about her efforts to help young children displaced by the earthquake in Haiti. When asked how Friends Select might contribute to her work, she mentioned that in the camps where she organized schools, there were few materials and no games.
With my sixth grade math students, we constructed board games to send over to the Haitian children. There were a few conditions: games had to be geared toward children ages 6 through 9 who spoke Haitian Creole, and we had to keep them simple enough so that parts and pieces would not take up room or get easily lost. The students went to work brainstorming what math skills would be appropriate for children of those ages and then they created challenging and fun-filled games to teach those skills. It was also important that each game be visually engaging, and that children who had suffered loss and trauma be given something beautiful. The last step was translating that into a game format that conveyed all of those ideas.
Students had to think about whether directions were needed and if so, write easy-to-understand directions and translate them into Haitian Creole. As a final piece of the assignment, the class held a bake sale and funds went to Sara to aid in her work. This was a great class project that brought together service learning, math, social studies and visual art.
Geography and music
In sixth grade general music class, teacher Dan Capecchi works with students to understand complex and abstract musical terms such as harmony, rhythm, sound, pitch and melody. From that basic understanding, general music students compose sounds using a variety of sources Dan finds online or records himself. This idea becomes the foundation for our work together.
Last year, my sixth grade geography students were learning geography terms. To fully understand what a word means, students worked with Dan to transform the geographic term into a sound, and shared it with their classmates and teachers. After receiving feedback, the students adjusted their work and created a final sound definition. It was certainly a different way to get the class thinking about the meaning of a geography term.
Using the same idea as last year’s project, sixth graders will be working with Dan again this year to transform search topics that they’re learning about in the classroom, into sound. For example, if the topic is West African food and we’re learning that it’s spicy, what might that sound like? If it suggests those sounds to one student, does it suggest the same meaning to another?
Tying the arts into our school’s academic curriculum is a valuable way to see how students think. As a faculty, we recently heard from Daniel Pink and Ken Robinson, futurist thinkers whose work touches on education, and we are reading and talking about how to teach to prepare our students for the future. We know that among the skills they will need are those of creativity, collaboration and critical thinking, and brain research shows conclusively that these can come from incorporating the arts across all academic disciplines.
|
|
|
|
There are a number of opportunities throughout the year for upper school students to take part in community-building activities outside the classroom. Weekly morning devotions, Brown and Gold Day, and student clubs are a few of the many student-run groups that allow ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth graders to connect with each other, share common interests and show school spirit.
“By offering these school programs, we continue to enable our students to fulfill personal interests and talents,” said Jesse Dougherty, director of upper school. “Not only are Brown and Gold Day, club periods and devotions another place where students can engage in our community but these are team building gatherings that cultivate leadership skills. Beyond that, these activities are a time for students to have fun together which furthers our sense of community.”
Weekly devotions
Devotions is a scheduled time period each week where upper school students gather in the Blauvelt Theatre. It was originally created to serve as an extension of Meeting for Worship and through the years, it has evolved into a venue for announcements. New this year, it’s a community-building forum run by student government.
Each week, upper school students volunteer to participate in the devotions program. There are different ways students can get involved; from presenting on an interesting, timely topic, to announcing an athletic team update, to performing a musical piece. All are appropriate at devotions.
“With this new format, it feels as if students have more of a voice,” said twelfth grade student and student government president Shannon Griffith. “Devotions is also a great way to introduce new and international students to our school traditions."
Brown and Gold Day
On October 6, 2011, Friends Select held its annual Brown and Gold Day when students and their assigned teachers moved through a series of team-building activities together. Events ranged from playing games such as Jeopardy, musical chairs or capture the flag, to creating a skit and poster that are then presented to the teacher/judges at the end of the designated time. All components of the day are planned and run by students (emcees, music, schedule of activities, etc.).
“What captures the 'spirit' of the day is the positive energy and sense of communal fun that all participants experience,” states Anne Wentling, middle school Spanish teacher and spirit club advisor. “Mixed-grade groups allow all students to participate with and get to know their classmates in new ways and these groups remain together for all of the spirit days throughout a student's upper school years.”
A highlight of spirit day was the talent show, and students from all upper school grades were invited to perform for their classmates. This year a large percentage of the performers were either new to the school or new to the division, which demonstrates the comfort level students feel in getting up in front of their peers to share their talents.
Student clubs
Clubs form around student interests and involve varying degrees of time commitment. In order to launch a club, the student must write a charter communicating what the purpose and mission of the group and then present it to faculty.
In late September, students present information about their clubs to the entire upper school student body. Each student is then required to choose a club of their interest to be a part of for the remainder of the school year.
Student Government, Black Student Union, Chess and Dance clubs and Worship & Ministry are just a few examples of the many student-run clubs available for upper school students. There are some clubs that combine service activities such as the Helping Hands and Green Notebook clubs; some combine outside competitions such as the Mock Trial, Model UN, and Math clubs; and some combine student organized publications such as the History Journal, Cauldron, and Yearbook clubs.
|
|
|
|
The two second grade classrooms are located at the crossroads of the school, with virtually everyone in the building passing by at least once a day. One of the goals in second grade math is to be able to use and recognize numbers through 10,000. So on Thursday, September 22, 2011, teachers tasked students with counting everyone who passed by their classrooms.
Before the project began, students figured out how many people were meant to be in the building during the day (the number they used was 650 – approximately 550 students and about 100 adults). With this number, the second graders estimated how many people would be counted. Some student’s estimates were very high and some were very low. As a class, they then discussed how the estimates should relate in some way to the number of people in the building.
The students were assigned a counting partner and then gathered into small teams, with a teacher leading each team. The groups took turns sitting in the hall and counting the people who walked by. In each partnership, one student counted quietly out loud while the other recorded the number with tally marks. They then switched. Each group worked for about a half an hour at a time and then had a break. Altogether, groups counted for about an hour and a half during the day.
Once the passers-by were counted, the classes revised their estimates to use the experience they gained from the actual counting. They then totaled their tally sheets and developed an average of the sheets on their team (there were five or six pairs on each team). The final total was the sum of those averages.
The total count this year was 2,655 passings!
|
|
|
|
- Twelfth grade student Tessa Kuhn has the title role in the Curio Theatre Company’s production of Eurydice, and her father, Paul Kuhn, plays the character Father. The show runs now through November 12, at the Curio Theatre on 4740 Baltimore Avenue.
- Third grader Maia Surin was accepted (after an audition) into Temple University's Center for Gifted Young Musicians. On Saturday afternoons, she rehearses in the Classic Strings Ensemble with Temple's Prep Youth Orchestra.
- Last spring, fourth grade teacher Hal Morra was approached by a former graduate school professor at Temple to teach a new section of her course, Teaching Social Studies: Elementary Education. As an adjunct, he teaches the course every Wednesday evening from 5:30 p.m.-8 p.m. The course is for juniors and seniors in Temple’s Elementary Education program.
- Friends Select welcomes Rachel Ames, the new Matthew H. Huffman ’91 Dining Hall food service manager of Metz Culinary Services. Prior to this, Rachel worked at Congress Hall Hotel in Cape May, N.J. as the banquet department head. She attended Drexel University where she received a bachelor of science in hotel and restaurant management. Ames states, “I’m excited to be here and am working hard to familiarize myself with the current operations. I aim to mix things up a bit and have ideas about new cultural dishes to incorporate on the menu as well as more prepared-from-scratch options.” With a strong background in high-end catering, Ames looks to expand Metz’s dining hall services to offer school event catering.
|
|
|
|
|