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by Jeffrey Stanley
"It's experiential. It's not okay to just go out and do a report."
Director of Community Service Joan Rappaport, a long-time BFS administrator, was talking about the CAS program affecting juniors and seniors. "Short for Creativity, Action, Service, CAS is a required component of the IB diploma program," she continued. "It is designed to help kids extend themselves past the academic parts of learning -- to try some things that are creative, and that have action involved in them, and that involve service."
CAS is indeed an IB requirement, but the Upper School leadership under Head Roxanne Zazzaro has expanded the program to all juniors and seniors. In addition, freshmen and sophomores have a 50-hour service requirement using the CAS rubric.
"Over the course of two years the juniors and seniors need to ballpark 150 hours," said Joan, "and it can be things that they're already doing." The projects don't necessarily need to involve all three CAS elements at the same time. For instance someone, who's taking piano lessons could set a goal for themselves to learn a particularly difficult piece of music and then document it by writing about it and recording it, then reflecting on the overall experience. "It's meant to help students develop some new skills, including leadership skills," she said.
Also in the Upper School, video teacher Andy Cohen's new 11th & 12th grade New Media class will be creating multimedia content for a dedicated blog accessible via the BFS website focusing on ways in which the school engages with our Community Service partners. Joan Rappaport plans to also use the blog to better communicate with students about Community Service opportunities at the school.
As new Head of Middle School Martha Haakmat tells it, the school year for those in the middle years is also off with a bang. "I watched 5th and 6th graders glow while unveiling their netbooks, and I saw 7th and 8th graders with hands raised in class discussion and busily working during independent work moments. I also got to see advisors in action beginning and ending the day with their advisees," she said of her recent classroom visits. The Middle School also held student council elections, including what Martha insists must be the most impressive set of election speeches she has ever seen. "The candidates were superbly prepared, poised and extremely impressive," she boasted. "The only hard part was they could not all win." The 8th grade also took their first school trip of the year, a group bonding and leadership retreat at Clearpool Education Center in Carmel, New York.
Lower School Curriculum Coordinator Diane Mackie and Math Chair Fanny Sosenke are working closely with NYSAIS (the New York State Association of Independent Schools) to host, at BFS, a workshop in the wildly successful and popular Singapore Math Method. The program is considered by many educators worldwide to be the best way of teaching math to lower and middle schoolers. Diane is also working closely with Lower School Science Specialist Megan Gottlieb on having BFS host an important Friends Council Environmental Gathering for science teachers to discuss the best ways to incorporate environmental education into their curricula. In addition, second Grade Head Teachers Margaret Trissel and Jonathan Edmonds have started a new Quaker Life Committee for the Lower School; the mission is to make the school's Quaker identity more apparent and meaningful throughout the Lower School community and its curriculum.
Preschool faculty are at work developing a new diversity curriculum. During a recent faculty meeting Family Center Coordinator Orinthia Swindell, Preschool 3s Head Teacher Vanessa Reynolds and Preschool Afterschool Head Teacher Claudia Lewis shared the fruits of their BFS summer research grant -- an online and physical resource to support Preschool teachers in classroom discussions about race and diversity. The teachers also used some of their funds to buy new classroom materials geared toward cultural explorations for young children, and to seek out assembly guests and performance artists including dancers, drummers and storytellers to help foster discussion among children about differences. The faculty had a little fun at the meeting when Preschool associate teachers Stacey Laughter and Robin Stewart led the teachers in creating a collage of themselves showing their own diversity as a community. Teachers brought photos of family, friends, pets, places of personal interest to contribute to the collages.
New this year, the Afterschool program has teamed up with Athletic Director David Gardella to have Preschoolers sit in and watch some of the home games in the gymnasium. Plans are also underway for some BFS athletes to conduct workshops with the Preschoolers later this year.
David spoke at his alma mater, St. Francis College, in late September to a group to undergrads taking the course Organization and Administration of Physical Education. He was surprised to find one of his former youth athletes from Brooklyn Heights, now a 21-year-old student, in the class. David has often coached and helped administer various youth athletic programs throughout Brooklyn, including helping with the Liga Sabatina Adult and Youth Baseball Program in Red Hook, for which he received a special citation from the organization this year. BFS' new PE teacher and coach Gary Lawson has set the varsity girls soccer team off to a great season with 5 wins so far, making it already their best season in recent memory.
The school's new physical plant director Michel Rimpel, who previously headed up maintenance operations, security and capital projects for Convent of the Sacred Heart and was director of engineering and security for the UN International School, is seeing to it that we expand our use of green cleaning products and environmentally friendly VOC-free paint. He intends to work closely with the school's new Green Committee on environmental improvements within the buildings.
The Green Committee is being co-chaired by BFS parents Tara Consi and Angel Zimick. The committee's school liaison is Middle School-Upper School science teacher Janet Villas, the school's Environmental Action Coordinator known for her schoolwide recycling drives ranging from paper to cell phones. Last year the trio urged former Head of School Michael Nill to have BFS join the Green Schools Alliance, a nationwide nonprofit action group, as climate stewards with the long-term goal of reducing BFS' carbon footprint in measurable ways. They and other enthusiastic parents will present the Green Committee's goals at the first Executive Committee meeting on October 15. "Our efforts will concentrate in three areas: building, cafeteria and educational," explained Tara.
For the educational component the committee received a generous $2,000 starter grant from teachers Sara and Tony Soll, the funds coming from the annual Dinosaurs, Dolphins and Friends concert they held in the spring. "We're in the process of drafting a letter to the appropriate people in each division--science chairs, curriculum coordinators and division heads--for ideas on how to use the educational grant," said Angel.
Horizons at Brooklyn Friends School, the summer program for students from nearby PS 307, PS 287, PS 46, and PS 8, co-directed by Taunya Black and Rachel Webber, saw the introduction of new enrichment courses in West African drumming, art, and chess to accompany the extant enrichment courses in swimming, ceramics, and dance with the Mark Morris Dance Company. "Also, the commitment and passion of new and returning classroom teachers ensured that each child benefited academically and socially from their time with us," said Taunya. "One of the goals of the Horizons program is to retain children each summer through 8th grade. We're pleased that the majority of the children who attended will be returning in summer 2011."
Taunya and Rachel are also striving to add an Afterschool component to the Horizons program starting next fall, making Horizons effectively a year-round program. "When implemented, it will be the first of its kind among Horizons affiliates," said Taunya, who is also BFS' Director of Afterschool and Summer Camp programs. |