In the March 2009 issue...

The Arts Thrive at GFS

Participation in the arts at GFS is wide and deep all through the school.  Jazz ensembles, choruses, choirs, art shows, drama productions, sculptures,  chamber music, and orchestras abound.  Student art is on display in public spaces and classrooms.  Read more 

As you may know, GFS is considering the Friends’ testimonies of Equality and Stewardship this year. With Earth Day approaching, recycling efforts stepping up, and the new science building taking shape, our focus is turning specifically to Stewardship.   Read more

 

Celebrate the Arts on Friday, March 6
Come for hors d’oeuvres and art, stay for musical theater!   Read more

You are invited to the Preview Night of the 25th annual GFS Juried Craft Show, including silent auction, refreshments, and musical entertainment: Friday March 6, 5:30 - 8:30 p.m.   Read more

 

For the first time ever, GFS students and their teachers will share the stage in a musical production when they present the rousing Gilbert and Sullivan classic, Pirates of Penzance.   Performances are March 6-7 at 8:00 p.m. in the Loeb Center ($5.00 per person, tickets available at the Front Desk and at the door).  Read more

 

"I love getting that first report card from Anna Ferguson’s kindergarten classroom. I am on my third child. It is like the early buds of spring, a harbinger of things to come. Looking back through my daughters’ files, I realize just how prescient the comments are about the kids they have become." Read more

  

This year’s Abigail Rebecca Cohen ‘91 Art Lecture will be given by Tony Whitfield ‘72 on Wednesday, March 18 at 10:05 a.m. in the Loeb Performing Arts Center.  Read more

What Brendan Jones remembers most about Germantown Friends is that "GFS really encouraged me to ask questions and dig down to find the stories behind things."  Jones has taken this notion to heart. In the fall of 2006, he started Greensaw Design & Build, an eco-conscious construction firm dedicated to using architectural salvage to enhance modern living spaces, with the mission of combining carpentry with narrative. Read more 

GFS will be offering a variety of camps this summer open to GFS and non-GFS students.   We welcome your children and your children's friends.  Read more

News Notes

Read more

Parents should read the Snow Closing Policy on page 19 of the Blue Book.  Read more

 

Spring Break begins at the end of the day on March 20

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by Rita Goldman, upper school principal

I attended A Cappella Fest 2009 and as I write this two days later, I am still humming the tunes (I am sort of humming the tunes; the arrangements were quite complex). For those unfamiliar with this event, the "Fest" is a celebration of unaccompanied (at least in the traditional sense as there are human "beat boxes") close harmony singing. Participants included the Penn Charter Quakers Dozen, The Hilltones of Chestnut Hill Academy and Laurelei from Springside, and our own GFS A Cappella. The Tonics joined them; a more "senior" group founded in 1990 by a Yale alumnus who missed his a cappella experiences at Yale. The final act was GFS parent Bobby McFerrin, father of A Cappella member Madison McFerrin ’10. The New York Times credits Bobby for "sparking the revival of a cappella music." His performance left us all shaking our heads with wonderment and delight.

The A Cappella Fest has become a strong tradition that has spawned other high school a cappella fests all over the region. The exhibition of musicianship, creativity, and talent is a wonderful thing to witness. Participation in the arts at GFS is wide and deep all through the school. Jazz ensembles, choruses, choirs, art shows, drama productions, photography, sculptures, chamber music, and orchestras abound. Student art is on display in public spaces and individual classrooms. The variety of courses taught by our outstanding faculty is exemplary. It is sad when strapped public school districts limit or even eliminate the arts in an effort to conserve funds, feeling that they are expendable to the disciplines of reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Quakers’ attitudes towards the arts have evolved from antagonism to full acceptance. A century ago, "Friends … held that the arts were self-intoxicating and untruthful, encouraging ‘vain imaginings’ and distracting us from ‘attending to the pure Life’ and from doing God’s work." (www.quaker.org). Quaker emphasis was on the social sciences and people were expected to contribute to society through social activism. The artist was seen as selfish given to exhibitionist promotion and commercialism.

Since then, the arts have gained increasing recognition within Quaker circles. The arts programs at GFS had their roots in the early 1900s, blossoming in the 1920s and 30s.  The Fellowship of Quakers in the Arts begun in 1993 has worked to have Quakers recognize the synergy between the spirit and the arts. Spirituality and art reinforce each other. "The artist and the Quaker are on the same internal journey. Each is seeking a relationship with the Divine, and each is seeking a way to express that relationship. There are just many different ways of expressing it."(Faith and Practice, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. 2002. p. 136).

I recently observed our advanced studio art course. I listened as students gave their observations of three pieces of art displayed on slides as to their similarities in shape, color, representation, and form. The teacher posed engaging questions, which enhanced understanding. Music emanated from the adjoining practice rooms. It was a wonderful combination of sensory experience.

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by Kathy Nicholson Paulmier '79, director of community involvement

On Presidents’ Day weekend I visited my brother Steve Nicholson ’72, who lives in a solar- and wind-powered home that he built himself. He just added six solar panels to his array and was generating much more electricity than he needed. He begged us to use his microwave, his stereo speakers and his brand new waffle iron. In the past he couldn’t generate enough electricity to even run a waffle iron. The whole experience inspired me to think about what else we can all be doing as stewards of the Earth’s resources.

As you may know, GFS is considering the Friends’ testimonies of Equality and Stewardship this year. With Earth Day approaching, recycling efforts stepping up, and the new science building taking shape, our focus is turning specifically to Stewardship. In February both the Lower and Middle School Quakerism committees brainstormed answers to the question, ‘What is Stewardship, exactly?" We read excerpts from GFS Faith and Practice and Philadelphia Yearly meeting’s Faith and Practice. The wide range of answers was thought-provoking and helpful as we examine the school and our lives through the Stewardship lens.
 
Our material possessions and our space on earth are not ours alone. Good stewardship means taking care of what we have been given not just for ourselves but for our community and for future generations. As good stewards, we attempt to maintain and improve school property and resources for the benefit of our current students and students who have yet to be born. Within our means, we seek to design our buildings to be simple, modest and sustainable. We design our campus to serve the needs of the curriculum. Stewardship also leads us into community involvement and action.

Queries to consider:
1. How does our commitment to simplicity guide us in being good stewards of our health, energy, land, buildings, and resources?
2. Do I avoid being wasteful? Do I help with campus cleaning and recycling?
3. Do we take good care of school equipment, facilities and resources?

GFS students will also consider the following themes this spring:
• Care of the Earth
• Care of our immediate surroundings
• Care of all of our resources: financial, material, as well as talents
• The interconnectedness of resources
• Are we thinking carefully about what we actually "need" vs. what we would "like" to have?

Germantown Monthly Meeting has a Climate Change committee which is considering a new garden project in Germantown. The goals are many, but mainly to grow produce locally, to learn about organic gardening, and to build community within the Meeting and the neighborhood. GFS has been invited to participate in developing this garden. If you are interested in helping with this project contact Rob Smith at rob@retina.anatomy.upenn.edu.

For the third year in a row the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia is holding their Old House Fair at GFS! The date of the show is Saturday, March 28 from 9 a.m.- 5 p.m. For those restoration and renovation fans out there...the GFS Field House and Scattergood Gym are the place to be. The event will feature:

• 70 professional vendors, consultants and specialists from the region’s preservation and restoration industry
• FREE 15-minute exterior paint color consultants with ‘The Color Doctor", John Cosby Freeman.
• FREE 15 minute consulations with old house specialists at the "Ask the Experts" table.
• Tastebuds cafe

$10 General Admission ($5. Preservation Alliance Members.)

  

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Gilbert and Sullivan shows were a staple of GFS performances from the 1930s through the 1990s, and this new production is presented in memory of Bruce Montgomery ’45, who passed away last summer. Bruce worked with legendary GFS Choir director Mary Brewer in the early years of the Choir, directed the University of Pennsylvania Glee Club for 44 years, and served as artistic director of the Gilbert & Sullivan Players of Philadelphia for 32 years, succeeding his father, who founded the group.

 

In this comic opera, conceptions of class and duty are satirized to humorous effect when a young man named Frederic contemplates the end of his 21-year apprenticeship to a band of pirates. After faithfully executing his service, he anticipates that he will spend his future honorably hunting down his former comrades. A group of young maidens appears at the pirates’ lair, to the delight of the pirates but to the detriment of Ruth, the pirates’ maid who has designs on Frederic. The girls’ father, Major-General Stanley, appears and objects to having pirates as sons-in-law. A sergeant of police leads his corps of pompously inept officers to fight the pirates, enthralling the young women who eagerly await the impending confrontation and cheer the officers on to meet their glorious deaths.

 

In all of this, Gilbert and Sullivan mischievously twist the English sense of duty around on itself, showing its absurdity when followed to the extreme: pirates - who as orphans must show compassion to other orphans - inevitably free any captive who wisely claims orphanhood, police who are hopelessly outmatched convincing themselves to attack, Frederic’s dilemma over when his servitude will end because his birthday occurs on February 29, and a Major-General whose expertise includes all subjects other than the military.

 

Director Lisa Hemphill Burns notes that because the play was written in 1879 at the height of the Victorian era, it perfectly captures the English sensibilities of the time. As one of the most famous Gilbert and Sullivan librettos, Pirates of Penzance allows current students to experience the sophisticated and specific language of W.S. Gilbert and the intricate musical motifs of Arthur Sullivan. Learning to perform such intricate work gives students a solid foundation for performance skills, notes Lisa.

 

Collaborating with Lisa are Musical Directors Heath Allen and Caroline Davidson, Choreographer Kaki Burns ’02, Stage Managers Connor Bartholomew ’10 and Elena Karras ’11, Production Head Ken Marini, Lighting Designer Charles Dabezies ’09 and Scenic Painter Kevin Wiesner ’10.

 

Cast: Major-General Stanley: Dave Mraz and Jeremy Ross, Mabel: Liz Cheek and Alex Gilliam, Edith: Danielle Santilli, Kate: Sharell Bryant, Isabel: Lauren Ballester, Fiona: Gen Nelson, Jenny: June Gondi, Samuel: Christian Gilberti and Nate Krasner, Frederic: Joey Wallerstein, Ruth: Anne Hess and Chloe Rotman, Pirate King: Ari Feinberg and Gray Tennis, Horatio: Zach Smith, Charles: Reiss Clauson-Wolf, Henrietta: Emma Johnson, Sergeant of Police: Carl Tannenbaum and Fred Brown. Plus a 38-strong chorus of students appearing as pirate chorus and Major General Stanley’s wards, along with numerous faculty/staff appearing as cousins, aunts and police officers, and two surprise cameos at the finale that are not to be missed!

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Everything We Need to Know We Learned in Kindergarten
by Starr Osborne, parent annual giving co-chair

We made it through that long holiday sprawl, and are in the real rhythm of the classrooms. The days are getting longer. Yet, it is that awkward time when the school finds a way to gently judge how bright everyone’s light is burning: the report cards have arrived. "What does ME (Meets Expectations) mean?" asks a mom new to the school. "Is it an A or could it also be a B-? Should I worry about a DS (Developing Skill)?" I don’t have a good answer.

"I think you just feel it out," I say. "I think ME is just fine. They are all works in progress, but I think DS means it needs work."

I love getting that first report card from Anna Ferguson’s kindergarten classroom. I am on my third child. It is like the early buds of spring, a harbinger of things to come. Looking back through my daughters’ files, I realize just how prescient the comments are about the kids they have become. I read Worth’s report with excitement and trepidation, out loud, with my 70-pound kindergartener cuddled in my lap grinning with pride at Anna’s comments. It starts, "Worth is becoming a fine citizen and responsible member of our classroom community." I read this and smile, thinking that its primacy belies as much about GFS as it does about Worth. It is the Worth that GFS is nurturing.

The report goes on to say that my angel "has done very well lately, resisting his impulse to circumvent the authorities and ‘get away from things.’" Apparently, he has a penchant for hiding in the cubby room and not answering when called if he just needs to take a break from the wear and tear of kindergarten. He likes to pretend he is invisible. The first paragraph ends by telling us that he has real leadership potential.

As I read this, I realize that this is the same report that I would give the parent body under the heading Parent Annual Giving. We are half way through the year. About half of you have given. My grade for the group on Annual Giving is a DS. I know that we are in a recession. We are not asking that you give much, just that you give, that you act as a responsible member of our classroom community, because participation, just $10 or $20, is critical because it tells our really big donors this is a happy, engaged community.

 

Of course, if your blue envelope is still around collecting dust, that works, too. But please give. Something. GFS needs our support now more than ever.

 

 

  

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This year’s Abigail Rebecca Cohen ‘91 Art Lecture will be given by Tony Whitfield ‘72 on Wednesday, March 18 at 10:05 a.m. in the Loeb Performing Arts Center.

Tony Whitfield is a graduate of the GFS Class of 1972, Sarah Lawrence College, Yale University, CUNY and the New School. His photographs have been included in group exhibitions in the New York area, as well as the subject of a one-person exhibition at the Instituto Cultural Peruano NorteAmericano in Lima, Peru. Other art and design work of his has been exhibited at Leslie Lohman Gallery, Mary Delahoyd Gallery, Dieu Donne Gallery, The Verona Furniture Fair, SaloneSattellite of Milan’s Salone del Mobile and New York’s International Contemporary Furniture Fair.

He is an award-winning furniture designer who has frequently written about design, art and new media, held editorial positions, curated exhibitions and been employed in key roles at some of New York’s most influential artists organizations including Printed Matter, Just Above Midtown/the Corporation for Art and Television, and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. In addition, Whitfield was the Senior Policy Analyst for Cultural Affairs in the Office of the Manhattan Borough President. Currently, he is Chair of the Product Design department and Associate Professor at Parsons The New School for Design.

  

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Creative problem solving is a special type of problem solving in which the path to the solution isn’t clear or known beforehand. One must first figure out how to solve the problem before solving it. This process involves creative thinking, perhaps looking at the situation in a novel way and applying what one knows to an unknown situation.

Many people enjoy creative problem solving, and on the GFS website you’ll find creative math problems that you can solve and to which students can submit answers.

On the home page of the GFS website click on Lower School, then click on Lower School Math. [Click here to visit the page.] If you haven’t explored these pages, please take a few minutes to read about what’s been going on in kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd grade math.

You will notice two Problem Solving links: 2-3 Problem Solving and 4-5 Problem Solving. Both web pages contain the same information, however, the problems on the 4-5 page are suitably more challenging than the problems on the 2-3 page. All problems are visible to the public, but a login and password are required to submit answers.

Click the LOGIN button in the bottom right corner of the window to begin. The login and password went home with Lower School students earlier in the year and were included again in a recent KidEx.

2-3 Problem Solving:
"In the country of Northern Yemensvelt, there are coins that are worth 1, 2, 3, and 4 pocks. If you have only one of each of these coins, how many different totals could you make using one or more of these four coins?"

4-5 Problem Solving:
"In a group of 40 students, 21 like chocolate, 26 like vanilla, and 7 like both. How many like only vanilla, and how many like only chocolate?"
KenKen is a new type of logic puzzle created by Japanese math teacher Tetsuya Miyamoto, and has been growing in popularity recently. In addition to www.kenken.com and the New York Times website, you can find these puzzles right here on the GFS website! Simply go to Academics, then Lower School, and then Lower School Math, where you will find the link to the KenKen puzzles page. [Click here for KenKen puzzles page.] Here you can download and solve the latest batch of puzzles as well as the archived puzzles (with solutions). The puzzles will open as a PDF document, which you can print to solve the puzzles using pencil and paper. Students who solve these puzzles are invited to submit the paper copy to Joshua Klur if they would like their answers checked. Happy puzzling!

 

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As GFS explores themes surrounding the Friends’ testimony of Stewardship this spring, environmental sustainability is a key ingredient.  

 

The Fifth Grade Environmental Action Club (EAC) is sponsoring a series of “No-Waste-Lunches.”  In an assembly which was written and produced by the students, the EAC presented technical information as well as some humorous skits to the Lower School.  The EAC has scheduled six of these events in the coming months, all on Wednesdays.  Students are urged to bring a lunch in which all containers, napkins and utensils are reusable and in which the food has been discussed at home so that it will all be eaten with no wastes.  Containers that can be recycled are fine and items that can be composted (apple cores, banana peels etc..) can also be handled at school.

 

As the EAC taught the Lower School, most packaging is made of plastics which are petroleum-based and therefore a non-renewable resource.  In order to reduce waste, decrease our contributions to landfills, lessen the chance of our wastes becoming litter and to protect the earth’s resources, No-Waste-Lunches are a tangible way that each family can reduce our footprint on the Earth and teach our young people about sustainable living. The dates for these No-Waste-Lunches are Wednesday, Feb. 25, Wednesday, March 11, Wednesday, April 8 and 22 (Earth Day!!) Wednesday, May 6 and 20.

 

The Middle School is making a number of plans to celebrate Earth Day on April 22 - look for specific updates in the next Newsletter.

 

The Upper School EAC has worked with Craft Show organizers to make the event more environmentally friendly.  Instead of balloon decorations, more use will be made of biodegradable materials such as cut flowers, and vendors are being asked to bring reusable water containers and to minimize disposable items in their displays.

 

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Science Building Update 

 

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