Featured photo: Joan Cannady Countryman '58 teaches math in the Sharpless Building

This article was originally published in the Winter 2024 issue of the GFS Bulletin.

In looking back on the legacy of teaching and learning at GFS, one could fill tomes with memories of and stories about the faculty members who have supported, encouraged, and educated generations of students here. In fact, much ink has been spilled in the Bulletin lauding and honoring the legions of dedicated teachers who—from the school’s very beginning—have been foundational to the academic, social, and spiritual life of the community. 

To continue with the tradition of celebrating our faculty, we worked alongside GFS Archivist Tim Wood, co-author with Archivist Kate Stover of “Germantown Friends School: A Photographic History, 1845-2015,” to share some color commentary about a handful of teachers from the school’s distant and recent past. These individuals are just a sampling of the many people who have made an unforgettable impact at GFS. 

HERBERT S. BASSOW
During Bassow’s tenure as department head from 1967 to 1995, the growth of science at GFS was as explosive as some of his legendary chemistry demonstrations. He added astronomy, geology, and seminars to the curriculum; created opportunities for students to do hands-on research in off-campus labs; and taught units on climate change before the subject became a staple elsewhere. He co-authored a popular chemistry textbook, ran American Chemical Society workshops for educators, and led a National Science Foundation-funded project offering resources for novice chemistry teachers. At Temple University, Herb Bassow Demo Day—a day for local schoolchildren to see science demonstrations—is still celebrated annually.

MARY BREWER
“Mary Brewer did not start the school’s music program,” said history teacher and school historian Bill Koons. “She only revolutionized it.” When she joined the faculty in 1942 as Music Department head, a position she held her entire 33-year GFS career, the dynamic Brewer introduced ambitious, challenging music and unleashed a superb choir that sang with the Philadelphia Orchestra and traveled to Europe. Her legacy: the lifelong interest in music of the vast majority of her students, some of whom became professional musicians, and a choir room and music endowment that carry her name. 

JOAN CANNADY COUNTRYMAN ’58
Many people know Countryman as GFS’ first National Merit Scholar and Black graduate; as a senior administrator, Civil Rights leader, School Committee member, Germantown Monthly Meeting member; or perhaps as the founder of Oprah Winfrey’s Leadership Academy for Girls, or long-serving head of Lincoln School. What should not be forgotten is her influence and innovation as a mathematics teacher at GFS, a position she took in 1970. A pioneer in the use of writing in math, Countryman believed that writing freed students from thinking of math as a set of rules and answers owned solely by teachers. She also championed the use of calculators in class—now common practice—and worked tirelessly to encourage more women and minorities to embrace math’s joys.

ANNE GERBNER
As head of the English Department and Directed Independent Study, Gerbner taught literature and writing to three decades of students, but what she really taught was a love of language. Her classroom was notable for lively discussions, performances, and bookmaking projects, and she took students to Germantown to write plays at Cliveden and to England to study at Winchester College. She organized journalism conferences that put Earthquake on the map. In collaboration with colleagues, parents, students, and alumni, Gerbner developed courses that introduced new and marginalized voices alongside canonical authors. She understood tradition, challenged it, and taught students to redefine it.

ALDEN (DENNY) HECK ’63
It didn’t take Denny Heck long to change how art was taught at GFS when she returned to the school as a teacher in 1972. She started in the Lower School, shifting its focus to teaching foundational techniques and principles. Then, as Art Department head in the 1980s, she helped create a new school-wide art curriculum built on a thoughtful sequencing of courses that introduced new elements each year as students steadily added skills and new ways of thinking. “Art,” Heck posited, “is an intellectual pursuit.” The number of students choosing art exploded in the years to come. 

ERIC W. JOHNSON ’36
Of the positions that Johnson held at GFS between 1946 and his retirement in 1977—a long and broad list that includes English teacher, history teacher, soccer coach, director of development, and vice principal—it was as the school’s long-time sex education teacher that his national reputation emerged. His first book among several on the subject, “Love and Sex in Plain Language” (1965) was the standard sex-education textbook in middle and high schools from coast to coast for decades, helping generations of young people learn, as he wrote in the preface, that “sex is a part of life—only a part, but a healthy and natural part.”

Head here for Part 2!

- by Hillel J. Hoffmann & Emily Kovach