“Teaching is a personal profession, and good teaching reflects a teacher’s ability to triangulate between deep connections with students and a deep love of a subject.”

As a teacher, I know that a new project is always a major effort. New curriculum requires the same kind of planning as any new venture, and the same careful attention to ensure that major goals are identified, major questions answered. In our case, we ask: what should students learn by the end? What skills should they develop? How much time will they spend on each task? What should the experience entail? And finally, how will the whole endeavor be evaluated?

The more personal and equally important lesson in planning new curriculum is not the logistical work, though. Rather, it is the importance of taking a new idea, making something of it, and sharing this very personal effort - an important professional risk.  Teaching is a personal profession, and good teaching reflects a teacher’s ability to triangulate between deep connections with students and a deep love of a subject. With luck, a teacher forges these connections into vital moments of learning, moments in which the experience of a teacher and a class lead to something new, important and memorable.  

When teachers take the risk to try new things, they also help students to feel confident taking their own risks as learners. Like teaching, learning is a deeply personal experience. While students’ skill development and content knowledge are important, specific skills and knowledge are sometimes forgotten, and, as all of us who have witnessed the technology revolution can attest, a skill learned today can prove useless tomorrow. In our complicated and challenging world, it’s not only the facts, but also the process of learning – including creative thinking, risk-taking, and problem-solving – which proves to be the focus most valuable for students’ future lives. 

In this vein of understanding, I salute our Middle School faculty for taking the best of themselves and sharing it, time and again, in new ventures which represent their own learning and willingness to take risks. We are a vital learning community, and this fall’s new curricular offerings showcase a depth of talent, inquiry, hard work, and personal investment in learning within the Middle School faculty. Please read the In the Classroom section of this newsletter where I highlight a few of these new offerings.  The next newsletter will contain more information directly from the creators, themselves.

Rebecca Tatum
Director of Middle School

Three stories in this section share our faculty’s new learning, thinking and risk-taking.  Middle School Art teacher Hanne Gradinger describes one new project – everyday objects made art, in the style of Claes Oldenburg – and shares images of students’ creations. Tom Kim, seventh and eighth grade Language Arts teacher, articulates his thoughts on 9/11 through his choice of two poems for students and their reflections in class that day.  And Rebecca Tatum highlights four curricular offerings that open new horizons of teaching and learning in diverse subjects: Civics, Physical Science, Latin, and Quakerism, Arts, Design, and Service.

An Election Year Project
Civics teachers Cassandra Aldridge and Hannah Jacoby-Rupp first proposed a new eighth grade election project a full year ago – at the conclusion of last year’s Williamsburg Project, long a keystone experience for eighth graders and a third of the year’s work in civics. Throughout last year and last summer, Mrs. Aldridge and Mrs. Jacoby-Rupp created a project which would engage our students in this important presidential election, while teaching them to understand the country’s electoral process through the lens of a full-scale mock election in the Middle School. Just as our national election is well underway, so, too, is our eighth graders’ creation: we are in the thick of voter registration, have begun to hear public service announcements about the right to vote, and specific candidate proposals will follow. Stay tuned for our results, and for a recap of this new process which has engaged students in public speaking, media analysis and political commentary – all new risks for our students and their teachers.

Portable Probes – Data at a new Level
Physical science teacher Parveen Roberts was busy this summer, working with Upper School physics teacher Lorre Gifford to plan new lab experiments using the science department’s Vernier LabQuest. Armed with attachments such as a thermometer, a pH sensor, and (my favorite) a radar-like motion device, Mrs. Roberts, along with colleague Patrick McDonough, has guided students to measure velocity and acceleration using moving bodies (themselves), graphing results instantly onto the handheld devices connected to the probes. The result is a visual record of data which reinforces students’ intuitive knowledge – and which supports concepts with algebraic content, in step with students’ learning in math.

Cambridge Latin-Real Stories Make Latin a Living Language
Middle School Latin teacher Jim Fiorile worked in partnership with departmental colleagues to review and choose a new Latin text, which he introduced this year in grade seven. The slim red text, from Cambridge University Press, intersperses learning in Latin grammar and vocabulary with real-life stories from a family living in Pompeii and unearthed through classical scholarship and archaeology. Thus, while learning Latin in its most foundational stage, students also learn the rich work of classical studies, including the powerful link between the classical world of learning and our own. Look for a longer article on this new text – and course – in our January newsletter.

Oral History and Technology = Quakerism Come Alive
Sometimes, a new technology and a new idea meet to bring fresh perspective. In her seventh grade Quakerism, Art, Design, and Service (QUADS) class, Assistant Head of School Stephanie Judson, with her co-teacher Hanne Gradinger, decided to shift students' focus from a previous project on historical Quaker figures to a study of living Quakers in our community. Simultaneously, Middle School Technology Coordinator Carol Sukoneck spent a week of her summer studying the technologies used to teach students in-depth oral history work, including digital filming and recording. QUADS students recently taped their team interviews with some of Penn Charter's Quaker faculty, and then worked with Mrs. Sukoneck to edit their films.

Middle School Art: Foundations and New Ideas
Hanne Gradinger, MS Visual Arts, QUADS

For a quarter of the year, eighth graders have the opportunity to solidify their knowledge and expertise in two-dimensional and three-dimensional art forms while taking a studio art course.  They begin a dialogue about conceptual art and learn to analyze and critique art while broadening their understanding of the artistic and creative world. 

During this intensive course, working with sculpture is always an exciting component.  For our most recent project, we viewed and analyzed the work of Claes Oldenburg, a sculpture artist who takes ordinary objects and recreates them on a grandiose scale, rendering their original function useless.  As we sat in the studio encircling our own inspired reproductions, our discussion led to a debate on how large the watermelon would actually have to be to produce a “slice” as big as the one in front of us.  Then we turned our attention to the massive pink sunglasses that are fit for a giant but look so real.  These observations are snippets of the conversation you would have heard during the eighth grade critique.                                            

Mastering the fundamentals, learning about the history of art, and working with new techniques and materials are highlights for all Middle School art students.  But for sixth graders, I have always been a firm believer that art should be about exploration and self-awareness.  We discuss how art is a medium in which to express emotions, as a way to strengthen our problem-solving skills, as well as how planning and organization play vital roles in our processes.  Most recently, we wrapped up a project looking at the collage artist Romare Bearden.  Bearden created paper collages representing the people and life in his neighborhood in Harlem, New York.  Students created their own torn paper collages representing a cityscape or neighborhood scene that was important to them.  We also studied human proportion and learned to draw figures in action.  Students had fun “striking a pose” for each other as they worked with partners to draw figures in motion.                                                   

Every year I find I am more and more inspired by the ideas and enthusiasm brought forth by the students.  The first weeks of school have already brought cheerful color and incredible works of art to our Middle School.  I look forward to seeing future creations from our students and invite everyone to explore student works in the hallways of the Middle School.

A Prayer for September 11
Tom Kim, 7th and 8th Grade Language Arts

It’s always difficult, both personally and pedagogically, to teach a lesson on a national day of mourning that is still so emotionally and politically immediate. You have to balance sensitivity with passion, educational relevance with memorial gravity. You take a hard look at what you know to find understanding for yourself and then wonder how any of it can make a difference to students. And yet, to teach is to try. The seventh grade theme in English is “Adjusting to Place,” and what is September 11 but a place we all needed to adjust to?

So I chose, in my seventh grade classes, to discuss a poem by Teresa Cader, which was a response to George Herbert’s “Prayer,” written some 370 years prior. We began by reading Herbert’s poem and making general observations about its tone and structure: that it is religious, measured, that it had a kind of timeless quality, that it rhymed in a pattern. I talked about how architects will often design a building to provide a specific experience, and we brainstormed about how the Middle School building that we were in had certain features that provided it with a unique feel.

Herbert’s poem is built like a cathedral. It has the classical structure of a sonnet, [following established traditions of form and logic]. Like a cathedral, it directs its audience upward in a prayer of praise to God. In fact, its center is the word “prayer,” the first word of the poem, followed by a series of phrases which explore an experience of prayer. Herbert exclaims, for example, that prayer is “the six daies world—transposing in an houre,” the glory and marvel of creation compressed into an ecstatic encounter with the divine.

We read Cader’s poem, “September 11,” next. Students noticed immediately that it sounded more casual, more modern. It rhymed in couplets, not interwoven lines, and had more everyday descriptions. Looking closer, they also noticed that words and phrases from Herbert’s poem were echoed throughout the poem, though now in a context so different that they were easily overlooked. Cader’s poem seemed to retain the spiritual intensity of Herbert’s but felt like it was a different building altogether — something more sparse and somber.

In fact, “September 11” picks up the last statement of Herbert’s poem— “[prayer is] something understood” — and responds to it directly: “Understanding something isn’t prayer, necessarily.” From there it uses, like Herbert’s poem, a series of phrases to build a description — but, this time, of a group of unsuspecting passengers boarding their plane at an airport. The rapturous “softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and blisse” of Herbert’s prayer becomes the “softness of cruising, bliss of landing, love waiting in the wings,…. Muted joy at unfastening seatbelts” with its conspicuous absence of peace. Cader, in essence, takes Herbert’s sonnet, tears it down to its timbers, and from it builds her own church, a memorial. She takes the mundane (“six days”) world we all took for granted before 9/11 and points out how it got “transposed in one hour,” elevated into transcendence, into a prayer. Not a prayer one petitions, exults — or understands even, necessarily — but one that has taken what was and has indelibly translated it into a new reality.

I read the poem again, aloud. Students followed silently, respectfully, one poem faintly visible behind the page of the other.

The poems can be accessed at
http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/herbert/prayer1.htm (Herbert) and
http://www.slate.com/?id=2070444 (Cader)

Webquest and Yearbook
Carol Sukoneck, MS Technology Coordinator

Are you wondering exactly what your child is doing online these days?  Besides chatting incessantly with friends, they are participating in the Middle School Internet Quest.  Each week a new question is posed to the students to research on the Internet or through PC library subscription services.  The questions cover a multitude of topics such as sports, animals, geography, literature, and science, just to name a few.  The first question asked how pitcher Denton True Young got his nickname “Cy.”

Penn Charter has always taken the approach that technology is best learned if it is integrated directly into the curriculum.  The Quest helps us to solidify students’ use of email, web searching and library subscription services.

When not surfing the net, a group of students spend their free time after school and during lunch videotaping and editing the video for the Middle School in Motion video yearbook.  The yearbook is a compilation of events that take place during the course of the school year. This is the sixth year for this project. Each year, the videos get better and better.  This year there are 15 students who have committed to this yearlong project, the largest group ever.  Completed projects will be posted on the Writings on the Wall website.

I invite you to join us in the Middle School at Penn Charter on Monday, Nov. 10, for a meeting with your child’s advisor. This meeting, which follows closely after the mid-trimester grading period, is an important time for to discuss your child’s experience thus far in the school year.

Your child’s advisor is a key figure in his or her Middle School experience. An advisor provides academic and social guidance; he or she is a regular adult presence, someone who helps your child to do everything from organize a locker to study for a math test, resolve a conflict to plan a school event. As you may already know, an advisor is also a point person for you. \I invite you to use this upcoming conference to share your experience of your child’s year, to brainstorm strategies for your child’s work to come, and to build a strong base for future communication. If you have not yet scheduled your meeting, please contact Diane Kane in the Middle School office at 215-844-3460 x107 to set up a convenient time.

This year, we offer a new program designed to provide additional insight into Middle School life. Throughout the day, Penn Charter experts –  our Learning Support team, directors of Libraries, Athletics, and Middle School – will offer brief presentations in Balderston Commons. These mini-workshops will cover study skills such as organization and test preparation; research using Internet and Penn Charter’s extensive databases (including ProQuest and Lexis-Nexis); winning and learning in sports; and social decision-making and conflict resolution. Please look for a future e-mail detailing workshop times.

The fall has brought us a strong start to the school year, and I look forward to working with you to build on that success.

Sixth Grade Service
Hannah Jacoby-Rupp, Sixth Grade Class Advisor

Service learning is an integral part of each grade at Penn Charter, and the sixth grade is no exception.  With our unique schedule, sixth graders are able to embark on service projects several times each trimester.  The goal of sixth grade service is to not only assist a group in need, but to gain greater understanding and knowledge through the process.  We stress that service is not merely a one time thing, but rather, an opportunity to build relationships with organizations and individuals.

The sixth grade kicked off our service learning this year in late September when students traveled to three different service locations: Awbury Arboretum, St.Martin de Porres Interparochial School and Episcopal Community Services’ St. Barnabas Mission.  At Awbury, students learned about particular plant life and harvested vegetables from the Penn Charter garden.  In addition, students learned about the importance of preserving green space in urban areas.  Students at St. Martin de Porres worked side by side with teachers in the elementary grades, participating and and assisting  teachers with math exercises and a physical education class.  Sixth graders also enjoyed the opportunity to read aloud to first graders.  The third group was particularly moved by their experience at St. Barnabas.  As St. Barnabas serves as a shelter, our students were struck by the presence of children there and have since felt compelled to act by providing resources for those struggling families.  Sixth graders performed whatever services were need by the parish.  The morning was truly inspirational for many of our students. 

After participating in a thoughtful and moving Meeting for Worship in McMichael Park, students returned to the Penn Charter campus to provide service to our community by weeding and tending to facilities.  The day was a tremendous success in many respects.  Through their experiences, our students gained an even greater appreciation of the Penn Charter community and the resources that are available to them here.  Even more notable was the fact that our students gained a greater understanding of the world around them and a strong desire to be a part of the larger community of Philadelphia.

We look forward to many more days of service in the year ahead, with these and other organizations.

7th Grade Camping Trip
Bus to Bloomsburg
Alice Bateman, 7th Grade Advisor

Writer Henry Miller once wrote, “One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.”  Our memorable seventh grade camping trip from September 24-26 was just that. The entire seventh grade class made the journey of Bloomsburg to the small rural town of Millville, Pennsylvania.  Over the three-day-trip, the PC students were transformed into rugged individuals, brave adventurers, hilarious performers, and unified classmates.  How did such a transformation take place? 

On the first day of our arrival, Quest, the team building organization, helped us to begin thinking differently about our journey.  Outside we formed a circle for the first time as the class of 2014.  We created secret handshakes, completed oversized complex puzzles, hoisted each other through a tangled web, and solved some challenging engineering issues around balloons, straws, and string.

There was also down-time—time that is sometimes absent from the programmed Middle School day. It would not surprise you to hear that dynamite soccer games erupted with Mr. Roche and Mr. Fiorile leading the pack. Lauren Flemming initiated some serious volleyball games, and Gavin Hatfield shared funny nicknames and stories as he played Frisbee with friends.  Gymnastic tricks were demonstrated, card games taught to each other, and hilarious skits with props were created. 

The next day was our big day: travels to Bloomsburg University to the Quest headquarters to tackle new challenges.  At the bottom of a hill there lies one of the tallest climbing walls I have ever seen.  This scene could definitely scare the faint-hearted. There is an interesting concept, however, about this climbing wall.  It is set up to be a team belay, which translates to mean that all students are responsible for the safety of the classmate who is attempting to climb.  This additional component adds seriousness to the phrase “teamwork.”  With encouragement and support, many students were able to exceed their goals while rock climbing. The indoor facet of the day was a conflict resolution workshop led by Becca Tatum and Elizabeth Coombs.  Here, students explored our theme of peace and social responsibility.

Later that evening, by a blazing bonfire, we had a powerful Meeting for Worship.  With the stars above us and memories of our time together, students shared their experiences, ideas, and dreams.  It became clear that evening that this was no ordinary “school trip,” but rather a time of self-discovery, new friendships, and understanding what it means to be part of something bigger than yourself. 

Middle School Sports
Jim Phillips, Middle School Athletic Coordinator

As fall begins, Middle School trips are completed and we enter the heart of the Middle School athletic season.  We have 135 Middle School students participating in fall sports.  The athletes are working hard and the coaches are pushing them to improve as the season continues, giving every individual an opportunity, while instilling the team values that are so important in athletics

We have multiple coaches in just about every sport, which is an exciting improvement that benefits all of the student athletes.  We look at athletics as co-curricular here at Penn Charter.  The playing fields are an extension of the school day for our kids: as many life lessons are learned on the playing fields as are learned in our classrooms. 

Penn Charter school spirit is high on the playing fields.  With the support of our parents and administration, Spirit Games have been a tremendous success.  As a further boost for our young athletes, we are making an effort to offer every team the opportunity to play on a varsity field and experience a “varsity-level” playing space.

As the season is winding down we hope that everyone will get out to support their classmates, students, and children one last time.  And, as the weather begins to change, we expect that the Middle School students will close out their season with the class and competitiveness that is typical of a Penn Charter athlete.

Student Life Committee Update
Josh Oberfeld, SLC Advisor and 6th grade teacher

The Student Life Committee (formally the Religious Life Committee) is a committee of students who take on leadership responsibilities for the Middle School, help think of and set up service opportunities, and who are in charge of helping to uplift Quaker values and ideals in the division.  Thus far, the SLC has been working on preparing for a Meeting for Business and organizing a Middle School (7-8th Grade) dance. 

A Quaker Meeting for Business is a forum for issues and concerns that affect a community.  In the Middle School, this works as a process by which the community reflects upon a stated issue and attempts to come to a consensus on how to deal with the concern or topic.  It is also a scheduled time for any type of business and/or announcements to be addressed.  MFB ends with quiet reflection similar to the regular Meeting for Worship.

This fall, the issue the SLC members are working on is Penn Charter’s year-long theme of Peace.  The SLC started the process of preparing for MFB by creating a guiding question.  The formed question is:

What can the Middle School community here at Penn Charter do to promote, lift up, and/or increase Peace on a local level, a national level, and a global one?  

In order to produce ideas about what the Middle School can do to work on the theme, the SLC visited each homeroom to ask this question and obtain some ideas.  The ideas gathered will be then be brought to the entire Middle School.  The Meeting for Business structure will be used as a way to generate even more ideas and organize previous ones.  With the ideas that are raised, the SLC will then sift through all the suggestions, connect commonalities/themes, and then decide on how to take action with the next steps.   

The dance has been organized and will be run by members of this committee. It will include students from other middle schools and will be held on Nov 7, from 7 to 10 p.m.  Admission is $5, and the money raised from the dance will be donated to the Susan G. Komen Foundation for Breast Cancer research.

Our fall athletic spirit was in full force. Spirit games for each Middle School team were celebrated with balloons and banners, and parents brought their enthusiasm, as well as a table full of pretzels, cupcakes, and other treats to celebrate Penn Charter and our opponents on the Spirit Game day. Look forward to similar support as we begin our winter athletic season on December 2!

We celebrated a successful, well-attended Open House to help welcome and attract new families to Penn Charter. Current families and students gave tours, answered questions, and shared their experience and ideas about Penn Charter on Saturday, Oct. 18, and we look forward to our second Open House on Tuesday, Nov. 11 at 8:30 a.m. Tell your friends! Community support is a critical part of the Open House and admissions processes; thank you for your help.

Our fall parent social season kicked off the school year with good cheer, tasty food, and some creative party decorations. These evening gatherings were well-attended, and a great opportunity for parents to meet and reconnect. The Run for Peace and All-School Picnic also brought us together as part of the pre-K to 12 Penn Charter Community.

Other fall highlights included well-attended Community meetings, Open Meeting for Worship in October and November. Fall advisor conferences and PC-GA Day are right around the corner, and bring us closer to the end of the first trimester in early November. Have a happy and healthy Thanksgiving!

Susan Brown and Nan Kelly
Middle School Community Co-Chairs

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
Mother Teresa

This year we explore the theme of peace at Penn Charter. It’s a rich topic, grounded in our Quaker heritage and relevant to our world and our times. It’s also, for better or worse, a topic which lends itself to oversimplification: peace as “the opposite of war,” or “the absence of conflict.” I know I’m guilty of sometimes dismissing peace as a cliché, but there’s more to it: it’s the possibility of listening first, then talking; it’s the feeling of being able to wait, rather than act; it’s the ability to consider another’s perspective before presenting my own. It is remembering, as Mother Teresa said, “if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”

As we who live and work with teenagers know, adolescents have a wonderfully keen sense of justice and equity. This sense is a key part of growing up and understanding the world, and it ranges from simple questions such as who gets more pizza, to social and political situations with increasing complexity. When we in Middle School work with young people, we help them to move from the concrete examples of equity to examples that are more complicated and nuanced. This learning matches students’ maturation process, and gives them the tools to begin understanding a complicated world on their own terms, with their own resources.

In our study of peace in Middle School this year, we strive to approach peace – a complicated topic – with the same kind of learning that helps us to define self and other, fair and unfair. Peace is a big idea – an idea we adults, too, can find overwhelming – and it is our job to help one another explore its meaning in ways which can make it relevant in our lives, here and now.

So, where do we start?  We will lift up peace each week, in our own words and our own minds, with a simple study of the things happening in the world around us: current events. As they lead our weekly assembly, our eighth graders will choose a story about peace, picked from the news. We can talk, of course, of conflicts around the world; but we can also talk about Fair Hill Burial Ground, the Quaker cemetery in North Philadelphia fringed by a community which took its streets back from a ravaging drug trade. We can talk about world peacemakers like the extraordinary Nelson Mandela, featured in a Newsweek cover story this July celebrating his 90th birthday. We can find stories of our own heroes, people like Penn Charter parent Elsie Caldwell, who spoke movingly of love’s power over hate, even after her son Kenny (OPC ’ 89) was lost on 9/11.

As the year goes on, who knows what we will find? Can peace be about giving free music lessons to neighborhood kids? Can it be about police efforts to know people in their neighborhoods? I can’t wait to see what other questions our young people will think to ask.

The new year always brings renewed energy and imagination, ideas and questions. I welcome you all to Middle School for this 2008-09 school year, and I invite you to consider, along with all of us at Penn Charter, the meaning of peace.

Rebecca Tatum
Director of Middle School

Sixth Grade
Hannah Jacoby-Rupp, Sixth Grade Class Advisor

We continue a new tradition in sixth grade this year with our second annual two-day fall trip. Sixth graders stick to the Philadelphia area in two days of local service and fun activities on Thursday and Friday, Sept. 25-26, returning to school each afternoon to debrief (and clean up!).

Last year’s group spent a day planting trees in the Wissahickon section of Fairmount Park, then bonded during trust-building and hiking in the park. This year, we look forward to another outdoor service experience in Fairmount Park, with plenty of chances for students to get to know one another as they embark, together, on the adventure of Middle School. More information is on its way – watch your mail for the details!

 
Seventh Grade
Alice Bateman and Jim Fiorile, Seventh Grade Class Advisors

Seventh grade is a special year in middle school, as there is tremendous physical, emotional and social growth that takes place.  Our Penn Charter seventh grade program seeks to support, challenge and inspire students during this time.  Therefore, we begin the year with an exciting three-day camping trip in late September to Bloomsburg, Pa. 

The purpose of the trip is twofold: we want to create opportunities for the class to bond and learn to work together in both small and large groups, and we also want to have some outdoor educational experiences which tie into the curriculum and the seventh grade theme of “Perspective.” The team-building experiences, which will include a session on conflict resolution, are especially important for the grade as there are many new students.

The trip this year will be Wednesday, Sept. 24 to Friday, Sept. 26.  We will leave school by 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, travel in tour buses to the camp, and return by 2:55 p.m. on Friday.  Parents, look for more information in upcoming days.

 
Eighth Grade
Cassandra Aldridge and Hannah Jacoby-Rupp, Eighth Grade Civics Teachers

As anyone who follows politics knows, this is a big year. We’re witnessing a remarkable campaign, and the fall promises to bring this exciting race to the finish.

Our civics program links students’ learning about our government and electoral system to the very real process of electing a president. In this unique year, our eighth graders will follow the elections through their own visit to our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., for their class trip on Oct. 15-17. This is a new experience for students and teachers, and ties into an exciting fall project for students, a new take on the independent work often considered one of the highlights of the eighth grade year. Stay tuned for details on the Washington, D.C., trip, and for information on our Election Night event in the Middle School. We’re excited to share this new experience with you.

New This Year: Drama Club                            

As many of us discover during the spring Middle School play, our students can act! This year, we have a new outlet for those actors and actresses dying to try out a new scene, or play a new character, or find something to do with those costumes and props. Middle School teachers Elizabeth Jones and Michael Roche have created a new Drama Club, which will meet both during and after school, throughout the year. Drama Club is open to any interested student. Participants will help to shape the club’s activities, and may be called upon to entertain the occasional Monday morning assembly. More than anything, they’ll have fun while exploring.

 
Summer Explorations: Family, Culture and Language
Elizabeth Pago-Taylor, Middle School French

I am certain that home is wherever you are. I like the idea of living in the moment, but there is something about origins that tugs at your core. My husband, Rodney, and I decided to take our son Sebastien to four islands to celebrate my 40th birthday. We started on a little island in New York, traveled to Trinidad, then continued on to Martinique and finally to Puerto Rico. At three, Seba understands that we explore the islands to learn our history, remember our past and change our future. We ate the best mango in Trinidad, the best avocados in Puerto Rico and the best pineapples in Martinique. The food! The ocean! Family! Languages!

Since the earthquakes and Hurricane Dean, things have changed on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, yet things remain the same. People go about living the lives they know. Shared meals, traditions, hot days, cool nights, rain and tree-ripened fruit. Did I mention the ocean? Sebastien refused to go into the pool alone, yet he got into the ocean, descending on his own from the boat that we rode into the choppy waters of the Atlantic during Martinique's magnificent yole rondes competition. He learned a few more words in Creole and he ran errands with my mother in downtown Fort-de-France, where she showed him the hospital in which I was born. We walked passed the Bibliotheque Schoelcher, the ornate library dedicated to the abolitionist who helped end slavery in the French islands in 1848. 

A few weeks earlier Sebastien accompanied us for a tribute to the great Martinican poet Aime Cesaire.  He watched his father join other scholars to read from the monumental Cahier du Retour au Pays Natal by Cesaire. Cesaire was leader of the Negritude movement and a politician instrumental in Martinique becoming not just a colony, but a full-fledged department of France in 1948 (just as Hawaii became a state of the United States). When we landed on the island, Sebastien was the first to notice the pictures and poetry banners of Aime Cesaire hanging in the terminal of the airport, which has now been named in Aime Cesaire's honor.

Some call the island paradise. I call Martinique that special part of me – the intriguing and colorful blend of France and Africa. It is essential to regularly visit and remember one's origins.  It was a joy to experience the return visit through Sebastien's eyes.

Middle School students have a space of their own after school: the Sanctuary program meets from 3:15 to 5:30 p.m. every day in the Balderston Commons in the Richard B. Fisher Middle School. Students who need to stay at school after 5:30, however, should plan to go to the Upper School lobby to wait for their ride. Students may not be in the Middle School building after supervising adults lock the building at 5:30. Parents, please do your best to make arrangements so that your child/ren are picked up at the close of Sanctuary, or plan to meet them in the Upper School. Thanks for helping us keep our students cared for and safe after the end of the academic day.

 
Fall Athletics in Middle School

Middle School athletics begin on Monday, Sept. 8. Before teams meet, students will receive a locker in our Activities Building, along with a school lock (and, of course, the combination). Teams in soccer and football, field hockey, tennis and cross country will take the fields to begin preparing for our friendly rivalries against Germantown Academy, Germantown Friends School, Malvern Prep, Springside and others.

We are delighted this year to announce new leadership in Middle School athletics at Penn Charter. Jim Phillips (Middle School mathematics teacher) will take on the added responsibility of Middle School athletic coordinator. Jim will work closely with Ed Foley, our new associate director of athletics for boys, and Tori Small, associate athletic director for girls. Together, Jim, Tori and Ed will help to support Middle School teams for kids, coaches and parents. Look for them at your child’s practices and games, and get ready to come cheer for Penn Charter.

 
Back-to-School Night

Parents, we invite you to Middle School on Thursday, Sept. 18 at 7p.m. for Back-to-School Night. Join us for light refreshments, for a chance to meet each one of your child’s teachers, and for an overview of the exciting ideas and topics your son or daughter will be learning this year in Middle School. It’s a busy evening, and a favorite event of the fall. See you then!

 
Parent Advisor Conferences

The Parent Advisor Conferences for sixth, seventh and eighth grades are scheduled for Monday, Nov. 10 in the Middle School.  Parents can schedule their appointments beginning Monday, Sept. 22 by calling Diane Kane at 215-844-3460, ext. 107. Please note that  Nov. 10 is a faculty workday and students will not attend classes.

 
New Faces, New Roles

Kevin Berkoff joins us in Middle School this year to teach seventh grade life science. Many of you may know Kevin in his capacity as director of the Penn Charter Aquatic Club and head Penn Charter swim coach. Kevin has a B.S. from the University of California at Berkley and a master’s from Arcadia University. An experienced outdoor education leader, Kevin will also teach an Upper School outdoor education elective and a section of Upper School physical education.

Amanda Dunlap will teach seventh and eighth grade Middle School math beginning in September. Amanda taught seventh grade math and AP Calculus at Penn Charter last year. She has a B.A. from Bucknell University, where she majored in math and math education. Amanda will continue to coach Middle School swimming and will be an advisor to seventh graders.

Ed Foley is in a new position as associate director of boys athletics.  A graduate of Penn Charter, Ed has a B.S. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and comes to us as from a career in business.  Ed has been a coach for both boys and girls sports with the St. Philip Neri CYO and, for 11 years, a head coach for the Philadelphia Little Quakers.

 Hanne Gradinger will teach art in the Middle School.  Hanne has a B.A. in studio art and ceramics from the University of Colorado and a master’s in art education from New York University.  She taught visual arts last year at St. Anne’s Episcopal School in Delaware, and has also worked at the Fairmont Arts Center and the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program.  Hanne is already familiar with Penn Charter, as she was a long-term art substitute in the Middle School.  She is pleased to return to Penn Charter, to a Friends School, and to give up her long daily commute!

Heather Larrabee will be a part-time learning specialist in the Middle School beginning in September. Heather worked last year as the K-12 learning specialist at Baldwin School and previously served as a reading specialist at the National Presbyterian School in Washington, D.C.  Heather has a B.A. from Trinity College and a master’s in education from Lesley College.

Welcome to the 2008-09 school year!

We’re off to a fun start, with many events in the opening weeks of school. Please join us for the following all-school events:

Community Meeting, Thursday, Sept.11, 8:15am, at Timmons House. Meet our parent volunteer leaders and hear more about what is new for parents this year.

3rd Annual Run for Peace, Saturday, Sept. 13, 9am, in the front circle. Students and parents are encouraged to join faculty and alumni for our annual 5K run / 1-mile walk to promote peace and raise funds for scholarships honoring two graduates –  Kenny Caldwell OPC ’89 and Peter Ortale OPC’ 83 – killed on 9/11.

All-School Picnic, Saturday, Sept.27, noon to 2pm. Crafts, games, foods and many home athletic contests to cheer on.

In addition to the all-school events listed above, don’t forget the Middle School Back-to-School Night, Thursday, Sept. 18, at 7pm. This Middle School-only event is an important chance to meet your child’s teachers and learn about their classroom work.

Join other parents from your child’s grade for an evening parent social at the Timmons House:

6th grade parents gather on Friday, Sept 12

7th grade parents meet on Friday, Nov.7

8th grade parents celebrate on Friday, Oct. 3

These socials are a wonderful way to get connected with other parents, share stories and enjoy Penn Charter. Stay tuned for more details about exact times and how you can contribute entrees, desserts, etc.

As the year begins, we invite you to consider joining a parent committee to help plan or run an event later this year. We are always looking for volunteers to support the school: we couldn’t do it without you! Contact Middle School Community Co-Chairs Nan Kelly and Susan Brown to get involved or ask questions.

Thanks, and welcome back to school.

NanKelly@landservicesusa.com
Suzyb723@aol.com

Abundance

Spring is an abundant time. We have a profusion of nature around us – whether the pollen covering the car in the morning, or the cascade of pink petals from the trees along the varsity baseball field, or simply the green growing all around. We also have an abundance of activities, with what can feel like an ever-increasing pace. Many of these events celebrate our students’ work and accomplishment: lacrosse games, memoirs, Shakespeare, jazz band, field trips. Others engage students in what our program does best: learning in a variety of ways, in a variety of settings, in the arts and in academics, in sports and in social interaction. We are a school of abundance.

The lovely, wonderful thing about all of this abundant life is that it truly offers a kind of learning and growing that seem to be more elusive later in life. Who among us can boast of learning in six subjects, while playing one (or two) sports, practicing an instrument or singing, and simultaneously growing two inches, making new friends, and perhaps even spending a little time with family? I certainly can’t. Our students do this every day, though… and they do it well, and with the good spirits, curiosity, and energy that are the life of Middle School.

As abundant spring leads to summer, let us remember to celebrate our plentiful lives by taking a little time out once in a while. The crunch of exams, final projects, and the rush of year-end events is upon us. It’s during this time that our students most need our support, our calm energy, and our ability to sometimes exchange more for less. Help your son or daughter get organized for exams, and then help him or her stop studying when it’s time to take a break. Plan social events, visit games, and celebrate performances – and then take some time to just hang out at home. Share the family traditions that mark the end of a school year, the rituals which honor your child’s hard work, and which signal when it’s time to take a break. And enjoy the summer. Our abundance isn’t going anywhere. We’ll be here when you get back in the fall.

In this, the end of my first year at Penn Charter, I am blessed to share the energy, commitment, and joy at the heart of life in Middle School. I look forward to our closing celebrations of a full and happy year, and wish for each of us a restful and contented summer.

Rebecca Tatum
Director of Middle School

The Middle School Book Club’s Fave Books

The Middle School Book Club meets most Mondays during lunch and has a blast talking about books we choose to read together, as well as books we have read on our own, and many other topics along the way. We are drawn together by our love of reading and of talking about books.

I would like to share with you some favorite books from this year, hoping that you may enjoy reading some of them this summer. We started out the year reading one of my personal favorites, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time,” by Mark Haddon. It is the very entertaining and well-written story of a bright autistic boy in England who sets out to solve the mystery of who killed a neighbor’s dog.

“Kiki Strike: Inside the Underground City,” by Kirsten Miller, was a hit with students as well. There are a number of Kiki Strike titles; in this book, Kiki and the Irregulars embark on underworld — and underground — adventures to protect New York City from “gangsters, rodents, diamond merchants, society figures and assorted forces of evil.”

Lance Armstrong’s memoir, “It’s Not About the Bike,” was our only non-fiction read this year, and we enjoyed it. “Speak,” by Laurie Halse Anderson, was well-written and another one of my favorites, but some of our members found it “too sad.”

We enjoyed the graphic novel “American- Born Chinese,” by Gene Yang, and finished out the year with “Maus,” by Art Spiegelman. If you haven’t read any graphic novels yet, these are two great choices. Karen Hesse’s poem/novel, “Out of the Dust,” was another of our good reads, about a 14-year-old girl coming of age during the Dust Bowl/Depression era of the 1930s. It’s beautifully written and very compelling.

Finally, I encourage you all to check out the many audio books available at your local public library this summer. It’s a great way for the whole family to experience and discuss literature while passing the time on long car trips. Happy reading!

Judith Hill
Director of Libraries

Spiritual Autobiographies in QUADS

What is your religious heritage from your family? What images of God/G-d did you have as a child?  How, if at all, has your image changed?  What are important values that you live by as best you can?  What Quaker testimonies are important to you?  What do you want your life to be like in 10 years?  20 years?
These are some of the questions that seventh graders write about in their spiritual autobiography in QUADS (Quakerism, Art, Design and Service). They write thoughtfully and, often, very movingly.

Once students have written and handed in their spiritual autobiographies, they move to the art studio. Here they make a “creation” that depicts important aspects of their spiritual autobiographies, which range from poster-size, 2-D pictures to 3-dimensional churches, Stars of David, nature scenes and abstract art.

Finally, each student writes about their creation, then comes in front of the class to explain an important part of their spirituality and why they chose to make their particular creation.

As their QUADS teachers, Ruth McGee and I are honored to be part of our seventh grade students’ searching, in writing, artistic expression and brief public speaking. 

Stephanie Judson, Assistant Head of School
Ruth McGee-Barrett, Middle School Art Teacher and Religious Life Committee
Co-Teachers of QUADS

From Biomes to Bodies: Middle School Science

Students in sixth and seventh grade sciences follow a two-year process that explores the full extent of the living world, from weather to the Wissahickon, from biomes to bacteria.

Whatever the scope of living things out there, spring is the time for nature’s diversity. Sixth grade students led into spring with a structured project on the world’s biomes, ranging from the desert to the tropical rainforest to our very own temperate zone. With the aid of science teacher Pat McDonough and Middle School Technology Coordinator Carol Sukoneck, students surfed the Internet in search of biome information, finding pictures, relevant details (how much does it rain in the rainforest?), and examples of the plants and animals that live in each region. The end result: a PowerPoint document that lays out information for classmates in a final presentation, as well as a poster designed to give at-a-glance details for passers-by lingering in the hallway outside McDonough’s room. Meanwhile, the seventh graders entered their spring while finishing a weeks-long study of the human body, culminating in a tour brochure inviting visitors to see the body as a part of a cruise, a package tour, or (my favorite) a Duck Boat exploration. Jeff Humble and Rebecca Tatum’s classes paired their learning with several key dissections: many parents and grandparents helped with cow heart, brain or eyeball dissections during Visiting Day, and students mastered the fine art of heart-palpitation (the best way to tell the left from the right side of the heart.

As the spring moves to a close, seventh graders are growing and testing plants, keeping field journals and exploring the Penn Charter campus, and learning the difference between a monocot and a dicot (hint: look at the leaves). For those students interested in further field study, remember Humble’s summer class, which will wander the Wissahickon for several weeks in June, investigating our local plants and insects.

Test of Champions: Penn Charter Physical Education

 I know what to expect every morning when stepping foot inside the Middle School building. “Ms. Gunning, what are we doing in PE today!?” screams one boy. “What are we doing in PE today!?” scream ten more students as though I did not hear the question the first time. It is comforting knowing the question at hand each and every day. The majority of the time, my answer is greeeted with a cheer or a “yessssssssss.”  Sixth graders love to play team sports, and that is exactly what we do. We have played field hockey, football, basketball, volleyball and baseball to name a few. With the effort put in by the students, you would assume we were playing in the Super Bowl, World Cup or the Olympic Games. We start with the basics and eventually conclude with a round-robin tournament. The talent is diverse in the beginning of each unit. Some students may have played the sport competitively before, and others may never have picked up a stick. This is no issue!  By the end of the unit, everyone can feel as though they are a key contributor to their team, and they feel supported by each other. I am proud to say that the sixth  grade students always encourage each other.

My favorite unit so far has been volleyball. It is one of the most difficult sports played in physical education. We concluded our skill work with a beginner’s game of volleyball called Nukem, where students catch and throw the ball, instead of hitting it. The students worked together well, and they mastered communication and movement during this game. Although I was content to finish the unit with this game, the sixth graders wanted more. So, I agreed to some “real volleyball” time. The first few games lasted forever! The ball hit the floor on every serve, and that was only if it made it over the net! They could barely score a point.

The first time the students completed a two-person volley, I scared them with an out-of-no-where yell. “Ahhhhhh, you just played volleyball!”  From that point on, something just clicked. They played like volleyball machines — bumping, setting and serving like pros. Our volleyball tournament turned into great excitement on the court. I could see the sense of accomplishment the sixth graders felt after each close game, win or lose. I was so confident with our abilities, I even challenged one Upper School teacher’s class to a match. This volleyball unit is exactly what sixth grade PE is all about: teamwork, cooperation and sportsmanship. No matter the sport or ability level, the students come as beginners and leave as true champions.

Renee Gunning
Heath and PE Teacher
6th Grade Advisor

Middle School in Motion

The end of the school year is just upon us, but for one group of students, it is the busiest time of year. I am speaking of the members of the Middle School in Motion video yearbook. These students have been working since September documenting life as they see it in the Middle School. Taking video and photos of intramurals, sports, special events and the daily life that happens here at Penn Charter, these students will tell the story of the 2007-08 school year. Before finals begin, these students will compile all the videos, create a start page and label for the DVD, and then burn enough DVDs for each eighth grader to receive one at the closing assembly on June 5. Included on the video will be all of the eighth grade movie trailer projects, scenes from the Memoir presentations, eighth grade music classes performing their original pieces, and Color Day.

Carol Sukoneck
Middle School Technology Coordinator

A Final Binder Check – Thank You to William J. Goulding

Students who know Bill Goulding can attest to the rigor of his binder checks. They are as much a staple of his class as are the creative, innovative SmartBoard lessons, the practice of standing to greet any class visitor, and the thoughtful, detailed support which Goulding offers for any student who needs a little extra help. These small details, and many moments over years of teaching, coaching and leadership, mark Goulding’s gifts to Penn Charter students over a distinguished and full career. This year marks Goulding’s 29^th as a mathematics teacher and coach at Penn Charter, and his final year with us in Middle School before embarking on the new adventure of retirement. Faculty and staff, Bill’s wife Roberta, his son Todd Goulding OPC ’92, and close friends honored Bill at a retirement party in April.

William J. Goulding received the John F. Gummere Distinguished Teacher Award during celebrations marking Alumni Reunion Weekend 2005. The award is presented by the Alumni Society to the person who, as a member of the faculty for at least five years, “has demonstrated outstanding scholarship, teaching and character, and has been an especially constructive influence upon others in all phases of Penn Charter life.”

Goulding received the award at the annual Alumni Banquet, a packed house in the school's Meeting Room. “There are so many of my colleagues whom I admire and who are able to do things in their classroom that I’m not able to do,” Goulding said. “I really am humbled.” Goulding recalled that, in the weeks after students, parents and colleagues heard of the honor, he had received notes and e-mails of encouragement and congratulations. “Years ago a colleague suggested that I start a ‘happy file,’” Goulding said, recounting that he had taken the advice and, over years of collecting notes, had expanded to more than one file. “But, with this recognition from colleagues and friends, my happy file overfloweth.”

Join us in Middle School in congratulating and thanking Bill Goulding for his distinguished work at Penn Charter, and in wishing him well!