Humans of Breck

The Humans of Breck

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 1

Dedicated to all of the wonderful people, to those included in this book and to those who were not, who make Breck what it is.

2 Humans of Breck

For our senior year May Program project, we wanted to do something special, something that’s never been done before at Breck. We were inspired by Brandon Stanton, a photojournalist who lives in New York City. While he had always done photography as a hobby, he decided to moved to New York City with a goal of taking 10,000 pictures of the people he met in the city. Once he started posting his pictures to Facebook, he became an internet sensation. Along with his Facebook page, he has published several books, and has an extensive blog with pictures and quotes of the people he interviewed. His project is called Humans of New York, and it’s truly one of a kind.

Our goal was to talk to 75 people, and hear their stories. Some of the people we knew we wanted to interview, and others were chosen at random. We have at least three students from every grade, as well as at least three staff and faculty members from each division, and several alumni. While we would have liked to interview more people, two weeks doesn’t allow us much time. For each interview, we would record what the person said, and type it later on, exactly how they said it. Nothing is made-up or artificial.

Everything in this book is genuine and raw, direct from the source. We were intrigued to hear the various responses to the questions we asked, and we were surprised by some of the stories we heard. Most of these things you can’t make up. They can only be told by people who dare to adventure, or those who have acquired a particular piece of knowledge over their lifetime.

For these past two weeks, we have been like flies on the wall, privy to the personal and complex lives of those belonging to the Breck community. What’s more captivating, is that some of the things you hear from people, you would never expect. We don’t often get a chance to voice our stories and our personal lives amidst the hustle and bustle of Breck, so we wanted to give people the chance to tell us their story. We believe that there’s nothing more powerful than learning about the different components that make people in the Breck community so remarkable. Breck attracts a wide range of people with different breadths of experience, but it is this distinction that makes our school so special.

We were intrigued by photojournalism, and wanted to try it out for ourselves and can’t imagine a better way to end our time at Breck. While at school, we rarely get to see the personal lives of those in the Breck community. Yet, we’ve learned that the Breck community is filled with people that are anything but one-demsional. The people at Breck have such amazing stories to tell, and we want to sincerely thank each and every one of them for sharing their life stories with us. We would also like to thank our incredible advisor, Ms. Karyl Rice. Everybody we interviewed has taught us something new, and we feel so incredibly grateful to have been able to pursue such a meaningful endeavor.

- Noah, Carlos, and Emma

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 3

Mr. Eustis English Department Head

“I like gardening. … We, my wife and I, started a few years ago, actually about five years or so ago. We’ve been thinking of moving, but we decided to stay put where we are and we had this vision of creating this massive kind of native wildflower garden in the back of our place. … It’s cool. It brings all kinds of butterflies, lots of monarchs, hummingbirds, all kinds of them. So, it’s fun, it’s very peaceful. A garden you can control... sort of… It is beautiful.”

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“I think a key to happiness is being connected to something larger than yourself. This connection can take many forms:

It can be being meaningfully connected to friends, family, co-workers. It can be being connected spiritually to nature and to art in any of its forms: literature, painting, sculpture, music, to all of the amazing creations that other humans have made in previous times and are making now.

This being connected to something larger than yourself also, ideally, exists in the work we do. I think we are all happiest when we feel that we are making the world we live in at least a little better and are doing so in ways that will live on after us in some way.

Finally, I think that knowing ourselves and what makes us tick so that we, as much as we can, make conscious, non-reactive, choices can also help us lead happy lives.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 5

Hunter Wang Class of 2014

Lesharo Subendran Class of 2014 “Who inspires you most?”

Hunter: “I think my mother.”

Lesharo: “I was gonna say you, but fine.”

Hunter: “I guess…”

Lesharo: “Why your mom? I mean yeah, she’s nice, but what about me? This is embarrassing...”

6 Humans of Breck

“I have memories from when we actually stayed in a cabin out the in the countryside in Sweden so from that, I was thinking about that the other day. We walked up into the woods and there was just berries everywhere so like, strawberries and lingon berries just growing in the wild and just the ability to go out into the wood and eat, you know? It was beautiful, the sun was just setting and streaming through the trees and it was just really peaceful.”

Ms. Berdine Upper School Math

“You know I really love my job, this last week when I just had exams to grade and I wasn’t teaching I got kind of bored, and I was like ‘I can’t sit and look at my computer anymore.’ It made me realize that I really love my job, and that I wouldn’t be happy just sitting at my desk and doing computer work. But, also, aside from work, my husband makes me happy and the friendship we have, we have a really strong friendship too, so that is something that makes me very happy.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 7

“What makes you happy?”

Preston Roberts Second Grade

“Umm… Popcorn, video games, movies, icecream, TV, days off from school, field trips, sandwiches, Subway, Chipotle, pizza, vacations, especially to Orlando, reading, animals, lions, environments, continents, countries, local libraries, Ridgedale Mall, Redstone, Como Grill, Wendy’s, Domino’s, Davanni’s, Pizza Hut, Papa Johns, Target, Best buy, Barnes and Noble, Byerly’s, the AT&T Store, the Apple Store, DQ, Haagen Dazs, Oliver’s, Caribou Coffee, Starbucks Coffee, JC Penny no, not JCPenney! Macy’s no, not Macy’s! Nordstrom Café, and Nordstrom, and football, and basketball, and no I don’t really like school lots and I also like this place where I get my hair done, like sports place and you get to like watch TV and stuff… and maybe.. Wait yes! And I also like the Southdale Mall, AMC, Icon, Rojo, Cub Foods, Yogurt Lab, Crave, Kohl’s, Lake Superior, Timberwolves, Basketball, singing, you guys interviewing me, and uh, wait yes! And also uh photo taking, the yearbook, parents, my family, Ohio, the Buckeyes, uh Plymouth Grand 13 and 15, and Subway, Clay’s Pizza, swimming, Kohl’s, Smash Burger, Noodles and Company, My burger, Red Lobster, also Sushi, McDonald’s, my mom’s work, my mom’s work’s lunch room, my mom’s work’s theater, and uh also my dad’s work, my dad’s five building of work, my dad’s sixth and seventh buildings of work, one is in Wichita, and the other one is in China, and my birthday, and my house, and my nanny, and apples, bananas, lions, my teacher Ms. Herman, my teacher Ms. Merril, my friends named Christian and my friend named Miles….

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“His friend Miles is right here!”

Miles Newton Third Grade

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 9

“I don’t know how secret it is, but one of my passions in the summer is rowing, you know sculling, and I have my own boat and I log 300 plus miles just during the summer months. So I don’t know how many people know that I do that but it’s something that I really like, it’s my go to thing um, because that activity is one that, it take all of your focus because you’re in a boat that’s not much bigger than your hips and your ores are 12 feet long so it’s a matter of balancing and, um, staying afloat and using your oars in unison and if you’re in a boat with other people everyone has to be at the exact same pace and doing the same thing and you’re going backwards as fast as you can. So, yeah, it’s a really great activity.”

Ms. Dohr College Counceling

“My favorite food as a child, I had two and it drove my mom crazy, because I loved macaroni and cheese, and I loved scrambled eggs. … And there were three kids in the family, and so we each had our turns choosing what we’d have for supper on certain nights, and she goes, ‘Oh don’t even tell me.’ I always asked for macaroni and cheese or scrambled eggs.”

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“There’s so many things that I love about Breck. Number one, it’s the people that are here, the students are incredible, the people I work with are the most interesting and challenging intellectually that I’ve ever worked with before. And so I’m always amazed at what’s going on. And lastly, Breck as an organization does an awful lot to make you like where you are. So, I wake up everyday going ‘I love Breck.’”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 11

Amya Jennings Fourth Grade

“Whats your favorite part of Breck?”

“That two of my younger sisters are here”

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“The secret to happiness I think is appreciating what you have, and putting your energy into what you love, the people you love, the things you love to do, being playful, having a sense of wonder… I think all of that helps a lot.”

Ms. Schmidt Community Engagement Coordinator

“The way our lives are inside this school is not the way that the world is outside this school. There are so many different ways to be, and to live, and no one of them is the best way, and when we don’t challenge ourselves to think about how we live, how we relate to others, how we see others, we’re really missing out on a big part of life.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 13

“I want to go to Spain, I want to go back to Italy, I want to take my family to Italy, and um, I want to go to, um, I’d love to go to Scotland, I want to go camping in Canada a lot, um... what else? I really want to take a good geology course at the University of Minnesota! And not just one of those elder ones that’s watered down. I want to take a good one ‘cause I want to understand plate tectonics! Why the heck do those cratons move around on the surface of the earth? Why do they bash into each other? Why, for example, does the polar north swap every once and awhile? And it’s increasingly swapping since about 400,000 years ago. It’s flopping more often. Why? Why does that happen? Aren’t you curious? … If I had taken my first geology class fall term my freshman year I would be a rocks major.”

Ms. Jerome Middle School English

“I’m a really wimpy, timid person, but I was on an airplane, I was coming back to this town where I was working, and the president of the organization I worked for, okay, I used to be a minister, it was the president of my congregation, and he had been visiting his sister who was going through a divorce. So he drank on the airplane. So, he got off the airplane and he was talking with me and he was being really cheerful and stuff, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘holy cow, I can’t let this guy drive home he’s gotta go to the parking lot, get his car, and drive home. And we can’t afford to lose this guy he’s a wonderful person.’ So timid me, I just said: ‘I’m taking your keys Marv and I’m driving you!’ I did! ‘You’re coming with me!’ I did it! And when I got him home his spouse said, ‘Thank you so much!’ So I’m really proud of that. It was a good thing for a timid person to do.”

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“The craziest thing that’s ever happened to me is driving a truck with, it had, twelve gears, driving it down a very steep mountainside in North Carolina because nobody else could drive a gear shift! And I could drive a gear shift car but I never dealt with anything with twelve gears, and I made it! And I didn’t crash, and it was a really steep hairpin turn thing, and no one was killed... so that was good!”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 15

Seth Madson Eleventh Grade

“I like history, I’ve had a lot of great history teachers, especially Ms. Walsh and Mr. Bell were really great. They both really love their subjects and especially Ms. Walsh gets really into it. And then, I’ve just always liked history just learning about it, different perspectives.”

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Winona Ettawageshik Second Grade

“What would you do if you could be president for a day?”

“I would say girls should be able to play on NHL hockey teams and teachers should be able to take naps during the day.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 17

Patrick Ganley Eleventh Grade

“Be yourself, find people who you can be yourself around, because then it’s just easy and fun.”

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Lily Hoffman Sixth Grade

“What’s the best advice you’ve ever gotten?”

Lily: “Kill them with kindness.”

Rebecca Holt Sixth Grade “Who inspires you?”

Becca: “Probably Meredith Grey from Grey’s Anatomy.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 19

Addyson Dimka Kindergarten

“I like your shirt.”

“That’s because it has a dragon on it!”

“If you could be president for a day what would you do?”

“I would make up the best laws in the world!”

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David Ahrens Tenth Grade

“I went paragliding in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. So, we went to the top on a tram, and it was really cold up top and really windy, even though it was summer. Then we put on helmets, and obviously I didn’t go alone cause I was like fourteen. We got strapped in, and then we literally just ran off a cliff, and flew around.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 21

Suhani Das Fifth Grade

“Never quit anything, always keep trying. So, I had a dance competition and I was really nervous because I didn’t really like my steps. But, I gave it a try and I got second place. Always keep trying. You might have success or not, but keep your hope.”

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“I think the greatest power that someone could have would be to help others see their own strengths.”

Mr. Nicholson College Counselor

“My mom said, ‘You’ll never understand what love is until you have a kid.’ I’d say that’s true.

Everything I have probably has to do with my kids.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 23

“Well, you know, I had four kids really quickly, I had four kids under five and no twins so I was really, really taken up with raising them and people would come by and stop over and say ‘you’re such a great mother’ and you know they all learned to read really early and talk really early, which had nothing to do with me, it was them, but people just kept saying things like that to me so I took a couple of classes and I really liked the idea.”

Ms. Roessler Upper School English

“Honestly, I think, I’ve thought a lot about this, I think it’s liking your kids. I love them of course because they’re mine, but I like them. I like having them in my world. They’re interesting, I want to share things with them, I want to listen to them. It’s a different thing than love because as a mother you love yours kids unconditionally, but not all parents can say they like their kids, and I do, I’m just.. I’m mad about them actually! I have three grandchildren and I’m even more wicked mad about them!”

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“I threw a watch out the window and then I turned to my friend and said ‘isn’t it amazing how time flies?” It was his watch. So, he probably didn’t think it was that great. We were having some deep philosophical conversation about time as a construct and I just went ‘let me see your watch’ and I threw it out the window.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 25

Anne Maddaus Eighth Grade

“Oh I, I was in Egypt, and I was at this pyramid and I started climbing up it, and this guy started yelling at me.”

26 Humans of Breck

“Oh my God… Everything. I have been at Breck for nine years. I don’t know if you guys knew that. A lot of people don’t really see me or don’t really remember me, well some have, but yeah, I’ve been here for nine years. So, I don’t know… I’ve grown so much to Breck, I’ve like, oh God, I love Breck. Everything about Breck. I like the, you know, the different type of atmosphere, and everything like… I don’t know. It’s just unexplainable.”

Ms. Whitmore Kitchen Staff

“I’m originally from Memphis, Tennessee. I’ve been in Minnesota since 2004. I love Minnesota. I do not like the cold weather. But I love the fact that we get four seasons. In Tennessee we do not have any snow; we do not get to experience that. I don’t like the cold, but I love the snow. I love to go skiing, I love to go sledding; I go sledding all the time in the winter. Literally, me and my children go sledding all the time I love it. It’s just fun. I love… I just love Minnesota.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 27

Olivia Teeter Fifth Grade

“What makes a good friend?”

“They’re nice, they can always stick up for you, they’re loyal, and they always have your back.”

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“Nothing is impossible. The word itself says: ‘I’m possible!’”

Ms. Yue School Nurse

“I would say affirming people is way more successful than criticism. It just pays bigger dividends.”

Ms. Kaverman School Nurse

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 29

“Is there someone at Breck who really sticks out to you when you think about your Breck experience?”

“Shoot I have like a lot. Do I have to pick one? Oh my gosh. I would have to go with Frank Eustis. He was by far one of my favorite teachers here, kind of just like changed my life, made me love English and stuff, so I’m cool with him. … Eustis all the way. He’s my guy.”

Jaila Tolbert Class of 2015

“Biggest strength. Oh okay. Um, working on leadership skills is kind of what I hope is my strength I guess. I like got to play a lot as a freshman in college, and I think Breck taught me a lot about leadership, and being a leader on teams, and hopefully that’ll translate to the workplace at some point in life.”

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Ms. Thomas Kindergaten Class of 2006

“What is something you hope that you can pass on to your students?”

“I hope that I can instill them with a sense of curiosity, honestly at the end of the day that’s what matters the most, especially with kids this little, that they don’t start thinking ‘Oh I’m only good at something’ and I never want to stifle that love that they come into kindergarten with, that they just want to know everything.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 31

Ms. Franke Upper School Ceramics

“Oh I have the best story now! When I was growing up in this little town, down by Le Sueur/St. Peter, Minnesota, that’s where I grew up, because I was the artistic one, I sort of got roped into planning like, we did homecoming floats back then, cause we’d have a parade, so I designed all the floats for every year of my life there, but, then, in ninth grade, you had to be a class officer, so I was something, maybe secretary, I was not the president, but I was something like the secretary, and because I was really into the arts, you had to go down with this little group and a teacher with a truck to decorate the goal posts. So, they had this truck with a big high bed, then you took step ladders on and we did all that. And then we just couldn’t reach the far end of the goal post, so I said, ‘Oh! No problem! I know how to drive a truck!’ We had a shift pick up, and I drove the tractors for bailing hay and stuff for my horses, so I just felt like right at home, except I wasn’t thinking about where the truck was in relation to the goal post, so I moved the truck, and the whole goal post went down. This was like thirty minutes before game time, so I got in really big trouble. I felt so bad I couldn’t play my saxophone in the band that night. … And the football coach I wasn’t much of a fan of. He just ripped right into me, and then the English teacher who was supervising, she was nice, and said to the coach, ‘You know, it was an accident.’ But he just ripped into me like I was kind of a loser kid. That was not good. I don’t think anybody decorates goalposts anymore because of this incident.”

32 Humans of Breck

I don’t think you should compromise. Ever. About anything. From a relationship to a job…

That’s when you get into real real trouble I think. Does that make sense when I say that? …

Don’t be weak. Be independent.”

When I was in fifth grade, we found an abandoned raccoon at our neighbor’s place, and asked if we could take it home. So our neighbor said, ‘Sure.’ Of course we didn’t ask our parents.

Why bother, right? … We named it Ricky. Besides having a beautiful, big clapboard house, we had a big red barn, and that’s where I had my horses, my dog, my cats, all that kind of stuff.

So, having a raccoon would be just perfect cause the raccoon thought it was a cat for a while.

Cause it didn’t know better, you know, it wasn’t really around its kin, there weren’t any other raccoons around, so, the poor thing grew up with the cats, and me, and a couple of my brothers and sisters. So, I think it wasn’t sure really what it was. It was a great pet, and then when it got grown up and kind of mean, we gave it to the zoo.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 33

Michael Oden Seventh Grade

“She’s Athletic. , we play basketball a lot. It’s the only thing we can agree on.”

“What’s your favorite thing about eachother?”

Melanie Oden Seventh Grade

“He’s competitive.”

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Mr. Oden Middle School Math

“I enjoy teaching so much, let me think about that. Teaching to students who think that they’re not good at math, so kind of convincing them that ‘Hey, they can do this.’

There’s nothing like that ‘ah ha’ moment when they get it and that clicks and that’s exciting because you’re turning them from a non-believer to a believer, because, everybody can do math, it’s just a matter of spending enough time with it until it clicks.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 35

Mr. Colianni Dean of Studies

36 Humans of Breck

“The craziest thing that’s ever happened to me? … I would say, the craziest adventure I was ever on was when I was studying abroad in Sweden, and so the Swedish airline, SAS airlines, when you were a student, you could fly standby for $25. Anywhere that they flew. Or anywhere within the EU I guess. … Every weekend, we asked ourselves, ‘Where should we go?’ So we decided to go to Copenhagen, which was like a four flight. When we arrived in Copenhagen, we thought we were going to rent a car at Hertz and drive to Germany, but Hertz doesn’t rent to college students in the European Union when you’re twenty years old. So then we were walking around Copenhagen with nothing to do. We ate at a Hungarian restaurant, and then like shining in the night was a sign that said ‘Car Rent,” and we somehow convinced the guy to rent us the car, and we left Copenhagen at like nine-o’clock at night. We started driving south to Germany. We slept I think on the side of the road on the way out of Denmark, we got to the German border, the guy was really upset with us and didn’t want to stamp our passports, and we were like, ‘No! No! We really want to get our passports stamped! We’re Americans!’ And so he looked at us, and he swore at us, and stamped our passports. We got into Germany, and we picked up some hitchhikers, which you should never do. We’re at this gas station, and these Germans dressed in all black with black lipstick, totally into death metal, are into hitchhiking, so we pick them up. But we realize it’s a bad idea as soon as we get in the car. We’re on the autobahn at maximum speed, as fast as the Toyota could go, like 140 miles per hour, just like petal to the metal. We dropped them off, I don’t know where we dropped them off, and we slept again, and so the point of the story is, don’t pick up hitchhikers, and don’t sleep in cars parked on the side of the road where it says ‘Do Not Sleep Overnight’ if you don’t speak German, because apparently, in the middle of the night, some guy was rapping on our window, and I don’t know if it was a cop, or some guy that just had a gun in his hand. So, we woke up, kept driving, totally falling asleep, we finally got to Berlin, we were too tired to do anything at that point, and we got on a boat back to Copenhagen… So that may be the craziest adventure I’ve ever been on.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 37

Mr. Johnson Class of 1990 Upper School Religion Teacher

“I’m probably going a little deep here, so, before my mother died, she had cancer for about a year and a half. And I was the primary caregiver person. I think I was 26 at the time. There was a certain point where I was trying to be a teacher, I was teaching at Cretin-Derham Hall High School, and at the same time, make sure that all of her needs are taken care of. I remember one day they called, and they, the hospital called, and they said, “We’re gonna have to move your mom to a facility.”

And I got to see what the facility was like. It was horrible. … I didn’t know what to do. I had no idea how to handle that. I was stuck for a good half a day. … And so every time I would try to make a decision, I would just end up in the same spot.

That was a horrible spot, so I actually did what I probably should have done in the first place; I actually asked some other people for help.”

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Liam Walsh Eighth Grade

“What is your favorite thing about your brother? “ “There’s so many, I’d say how he’s so caring and he’s always there for me.”

“What is a moment that you’re really proud of?”

“When I finally learned to ride a bike in fourth grade. That was after years and years because I have low muscle tone, people said I would never be able to ride a bike. It was the most satisfying thing ever.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 39

“What do you want your kids to learn from you? What do you try to teach your kids as they get older?”

“I want them to be humble. I want them to be empathetic. I want them to serve. I want them to carve their own paths. But the biggest thing is I want them to carve out their own paths, but doing it knowing that they’re equal to the person that’s next to them, or across from them. There’s a lot of things I want for them. I want them to stand-up for people who can’t stand-up for themselves. I want them to intervene if there’s ever something that’s an injustice, I don’t want them to stand to the side. That’s a lot. Lot of expectations for the Ohm kids.”

Mr. Ohm Dean of Students

40 Humans of Breck

“The craziest thing? I don’t know… I’ve been to Australia twice, I climbed the Sydney Harbor bridge… What’s crazy though? That’s just kind of cool? I don’t know… I caught a shark, is that crazy? I don’t know. Kind of like a six-footer, it was in the Great Barrier Reef. But I’m trying to think of something crazy. … It’s weird how your mind works, right? It keeps coming up, but, you guys know Neil Diamond, right? I went to a Neil Diamond concert once, and I must have just been rockin’ out the tunes, and the lady behind me like started listening to me. … So after the concert was over, this was crazy, there were two older ladies in front of me, older but not by much in age, and they said, ‘We listened to you all night! We had our own Neil Diamond concert!’ So I sang another Neil Diamond concert after the Neil Diamond concert for them. It was fun. We were having a fun time.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 41

Eloise Cherian Ninth Grade

“I want to become a brain surgeon. Well my dad’s a doctor, so I’ve always kind of been interested in medicine, but I also think there’s just so much reward that comes with it, and I think it’s so fascinating, especially the brain, because there’s so much we don’t know about it.”

42 Humans of Breck

Ms. Markert Upper School Librarian

“I like that, well, I like that it’s a beautiful space. I like that there is something for everybody no matter what you sort of need in life I feel like you can find something in the library to help you. You know, you’re researching something for your history, or you just need to escape in a novel, or maybe you need some self help, right? We have books with titles like “I hate my mother but can you drive me to the mall.” We have self help books, and you know, for people who are having depression, or drug addiction or maybe their parents are. So, we deal with the heavy stuff and with the light stuff. You know, we have coloring books, we have romance novels. So, wherever you are, whatever age, whatever needs you have, to me it seems like the library can be helpful.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 43

Parker: “I was once taken by baboons almost. … Um okay so one time, I was like about seven, and I was in South Africa, and I was going back to my room, but they’re all in little huts, so separate huts, and there’s this platform in the middle that goes between the huts, and you can’t see from one hut to the other, and I was walking down these steps, alone, I’d left my parents, I was gonna go unlock the door, and while I’m unlocking it, I hear these footsteps, and it sounds like my dad, like a big guy, so like really heavy footsteps, and then I was coming, and then I saw these two huge baboons like way bigger than I was, like one of them was bigger than I was, and I was like ‘Oh God I’m getting taken. This is it! This is the end!’ And then finally my dad was coming, and he was like, ‘Oh! Two baboons! Look, Parker!’ And then my mom’s like, ‘Grab the camera!’ And uh, yeah I almost got taken by baboons. But then they left. One passed, and then the other one looked right at me. Dead at me. So that was pretty scary. … I was like petrified of monkeys the rest of the trip.”

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Mary Beringause Twelfth Grade

Parker Marks Twelfth Grade

Mary: “This is like embarrassing, but like I had a super tough first semester senior year.

I was like, ‘I’m gonna do so badly on everything.’ And I like pulled so many all-nighters, not so many, but I stayed up super late, and worked super hard. … And I got my first semester grades back, I did so well, and I shouldn’t have doubted myself. Don’t doubt yourself, because every time you doubt yourself, you’re just eliminating one more possibility and likelihood that you’ll do something amazing.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 45

“What do you want to be when you’re older?”

Alex: “A pet helper.”

“And what’s the most fun part of being a pet helper?”

Alex: “You can help the community with the pets getting healthy”

Alexandra Srothman First Grade

Abigail Bieber First Grade

“What’s your favorite time of the year?”

Abigail: “This year or last year?”

“So, do you like the winter or do you like the summer? Do you like the spring, do you like the fall?”

Abigail: “I changed mine, so this year it’s fall… it depends on my puppy” “On your puppy? How old is your puppy?”

Abigail: “I don’t have one yet… I’m getting it at the end of summer, which is fall.”

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Mr. Bleasi Building Superintendent

“If you could have three people over for dinner, dead or alive, who would they be?”

“Dead or alive? Lewis and Clark. That’s two. And probably my great great great grandfather… On the Blesi side. Well, all three of them were in this country, Lewis and Clark obviously, before we came around here and screwed it up too bad. … My grandfather, because he settled in this country, he got here from Switzerland in 1839, and he got into Minnesota in about 1842. Just to find out, talk to him about the experiences that he had, getting here, and what he did for the next fifty years.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 47

Elliot Guzman Eighth Grade

“I’m in boy scouts, I’m a life scout. I go to camp out about every two months. It’s a break from my normal life. Once you get set up you can do whatever you want, you can go on a hike or just hang around”

48 Humans of Breck

“Who’s one of your favorite teachers at Breck and why?”

“I’d say Mr. Wright, because I was super, super bad at physics, and like he obviously knew that, he still knows that, but he like helped me get through it.

He’d be like, ‘Email me anytime.’ And he’d always email me back. He’d have me come in early… I still don’t really know physics. He helped me through it.”

Luci McGlynn Tenth Grade

“Favorite childhood memory? I don’t know. Oh, okay. Like Fourth of July weekend.

My birthday’s June 25th, so it’s always like the next weekend is the Fourth of July.

So like every year my family comes out, and like, one year it was just really great, cause we all go out on the lake, have a fun time, water ski. Stuff like that. … I think it was my tenth birthday.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 49

Ms. Keepers Lower School Math

“My favorite thing about teaching at Breck is that the kids are very hungry to learn, the kids want to learn and they’re ready to. I want to teach them that they are capable of anything, especially since i focus on math and science which can be tricky subjects. I want them to know that they can all learn, they are all capable of learning.”

50 Humans of Breck

“My favorite book is the gingerbread girl, because I think if there can be a ginger bread boy, than there can be a ginger bread girl.”

Janay Littlejohn Kindergarten

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 51

“If you could invite anyone over for dinner who would it be?”

“Taylor Swift” “We love Taylor Swift”

Becca Holt Sixth Grade

Lily Hoffman Sixth Grade “What advice do you have for people?

“Just like, not worry about anything around you these days or your mistakes, just don’t pay attention to anyone bringing you down.”

52 Humans of Breck

Cheng Vue Preschool

“What do you like about your mom?”

“She makes cookies.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 53

“If you could be president for a day, what would you do?”

“I’d make the laws so that kids could stay up late just like grown-ups.”

Alec Bloomfield Kindergarten

“What do you want to be when you grow up” “I’m going to be a psychiatrist. I really want my dad to build be a psychiatrist booth like right now. I’d give advice.”

“Do you have some advice for us?”

“Uh.. sure.. my booth is only worth 25 cents if you need advice.. Anyone who goes to it who needs some advice they ask for some advice and I have to tell them stuff before they pay me.”

“Can I have some advice?”

“You only have to give me money if I’m in my booth and you ask me for advice.”

“Can I have some advice on how to make some more friends?”

“Well you could make a gift for them, or tell them how your days was. I made a middle school friend. When she comes off the bus you know what I call her? My sweet baboo!”

54 Humans of Breck

Deirdre O’Neill Ninth Grade

“If I were to give advice to a bunch of people my age, I would tell them that the things they think matter now aren’t going to matter in the future, and we should just focus on what interests us and makes us happy, as opposed to the things that we feel obligated to do.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 55

Ms. Fifield Lower School Physical Education

“Seeing kids improve their skills and the joy that they receive in getting better, it’s very joyful. In any unit, but in like swimming, we get kids that come in that can’t swim and by the end, they’re swimming! And it’s because of what I’ve told them, and how I’ve motivated them, how I’ve encouraged them. And that could be any skill but, you know, things that they didn’t think they could do or skills they didn’t have prior to the class.

Physical education loans itself to so many things. Don’t judge yourself on what you have going into the class, always stick with it, have a great attitude, support other people, there’s just so many things, honesty, kindness!”

56 Humans of Breck

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Daniel Untiedt Fourth Grade

“Uh, probably some sort of like doctor, maybe a general practitioner for kids… Um, probably the best part would be just first of all, of course, just being with kids you know; I could be like, I was that young once and I don’t know it just sounds really interesting to study those kind of things. Maybe some sort of like chemist in science, that’d be fun. … I would probably enjoy being a doctor more even though there’s a lot of more math to do.

And maybe, just maybe, I would like to be an astronaut. I don’t know.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 57

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58 Humans of Breck

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Rayon Ahmed Kindergarden

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 59

Niya Shaul Fourth Grade “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“Probably an actor.”

“What’s the hardest part of being an actor?”

“Memorizing lines.”

“What’s the most fun part of being an actor?”

“The costumes.”

60 Humans of Breck

“The first time I had a large meal in Malaysia. Um, there was like a really big lazy susan in the middle of the table, and there were little sample dishes, so you would just rotate the thing and pick off one little bite of everything, and when I walked out of that place, I was just buzzed… I was like ‘Wow!’ I didn’t have any alcohol, but I was on cloud nine I was like ‘WOW!’ Cause there was so much good food and it was such a wide variety. That was the first time like, up to that point in my life, I just ate food to be not hungry any more, and after that I was like: “I want to try some more of this good stuff!”

Mr. Flanders Computor Technician

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 61

Payton Schwiebert Seventh Grade

“What is your favorite class?”

“Probably history.”

“What’s your favorite thing about history?”

“I like how it fits together in like a story. I think of it as a story.”

“What your favorite thing that you’ve learned in history?”

“Probably right now the industrial revolution. I liked how it all started by the steam engine, and I think it’s kinda cool how it was all started by one thing.”

62 Humans of Breck

“So how long have you been at Breck?”

“Twenty years. I just got a chair for twenty years.”

“After twenty years, what’s your favorite thing about Breck?”

“The people who work here. It feels like home.”

Mr. Torres Maintenance

“The good advice is to learn every day. Something new. Never stop learning.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 63

Oliver Pohlad Fifth Grade

“What do you like about acting?”

“You can be living your reality, and then be living like a hundred other realities at the same time.”

64 Humans of Breck

Polly Burns Ninth Grade

“The craziest thing that’s ever happened to me was I was on an airplane, and it got struck by lightning, and like the power went out, but I mean eventually it got back on, but it was like a few minutes where it was just out. It was really scary. I was younger, so the people were trying to tell us that it was just a like a bird hit the windshield, but we all kind of knew, so I don’t know. I kind of remember being more calm than I thought, but like when the power went out, that was really scary.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 65

“Oh gosh… Crazy meaning dangerous or kooky? Hmm. I was in a bus that hit an elephant once. I was almost run over by a huge tug boat once. These were both in Africa. Crazy. Um let’s see, the craziest thing that’s ever happened to me? Um do you know who the Grateful Dead is? My band opened for them at Oakland Coliseum. Um the craziest thing that’s ever happened to me? Hmm. Hmm. Is it okay if I think for a minute? Cause there’s a lot to think about. I’m old. … One of the coolest things that’s ever happened was I was leading canoe trips in the San Juan islands in these big war canoes, where kids sit next to each other, and all these killer whales, a pod of them, came and swam with us. … The craziest thing… One of the craziest things I’ve ever done is a bike trip in Thailand with another woman, and we biked for a month, and we didn’t know any of the language, and it was really hard, and really memorable. … I’ve had so many interesting, cool, crazy things like that… It’s hard to pick one.”

66 Humans of Breck

Ms. Sirianni Academic Resource Teacher

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 67

Cleo Ronland Kindergarden

“What’s your favorite thing to play on?”

“The swings.”

“What’s fun about the swings?” “‘Cause we can go any height we want.”

68 Humans of Breck

Mr. Scherer Network Coordinator

“It was a choice I made. I guess I can’t say it’s necessarily something that happened to me, but in a lot of ways it felt like it was happening to me beyond my choice. But I was with some friends in the Florida Keys, and we decided one night that the next morning we were going to go skydiving. And I’m not a big risk taker who enjoys doing things like that necessarily, but I was like ‘alright, let’s go.’ And so we got there, and this was you know tandem jumping so I was gonna be attached to somebody else at least cause I wouldn’t have gone on my own. I wouldn’t know what to do anyways. But it was one of those things where we got all the way up to 10,000 feet, and we opened the plane door, and it was time to go up there. My hands were gripping the door frame, so the guy reached up and grabbed each arm, pulled them down across my chest, and rolled us out of the plane. It was an amazing experience, but something that I never thought I would do.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 69

Annie Grossman Second Grade

“What you’re favorite thing you learned in class?”

“Probably fractions, they’re just fun to do.”

70 Humans of Breck

Jack Pleasants First Grade

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“A construction worker.”

“What’s cool about being a construction worker?”

“That you can build things, and you can find some rare things, like dinosaur bones when you’re digging.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 71

Maria Bell Class of 2015

“The first seven years of my life I spent in Kentucky. I lived in a city. … Total city kid.

Then we moved to Minnesota, and lived like in a small town. Still total city kid. But we went to, my mom met these people and they were having this like, um, their barn burned down, and so they were having this big like fundraiser type thing, and they had this auction. And so we like, showed up there, and they were having this auction, and there was like furniture, and whatever, like paintings, random stuff, but then they also had this goat that they were auctioning off. And everyone kept like getting the goat and then giving it back because they wanted to give the money, but they didn’t actually want to have the goat. And this kept happening until like someone finally took the goat, but she was like, ‘Look, I live in an apartment in Minneapolis; I can’t keep this goat. I’ll give it for free to any child who wants it.’ Of course my sister and I were like, ‘It’s an animal!

It’s free! They want to give it to kids! We want this!’ … But somehow we convinced our parents to get us this goat, but then we found out, cause we knew nothing about goats, that they can’t live alone; they get lonely. So then we end up buying another goat at the auction, and come home with two goats. And that sort of began my farm life.”

72 Humans of Breck

“Beauty to me is being yourself and not like, letting anyone else tell you what that is and influence it.”

Jack Childs Eleventh Grade

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 73

Ms. Walsh Upper School Hisotry

“I think when you’re dealing with kids, there are all sorts of wonderful surprises that can happen.”

74 Humans of Breck

“Oh, I think that nothing comes easy. It’s hard work. I don’t care how gifted you are and how bright you are, you still have to work at it. I know everybody thinks that, you know, history came easy for me. And it came easier for me than other subjects, of course, but I worked my tail off. I would study for tests for hours, and hours, and hours, and I would have to do the writing and stuff like that. So it’s hard work, but if you’re willing to work hard, you will be successful. That’s one. Second thing is, you can’t take yourself too seriously. You have to be able to laugh at yourself, cause you’re gonna screw up. You’re human! Okay? And don’t beat yourself up! Not worth it. You know, it makes you human to do that. And then, you can also appreciate some of the things that others go through, especially if you’re a teacher, you know, and the struggles and stuff like that, because everybody does, okay? Probably in school, it’s hardest for kids who struggle academically. But God has given everybody gifts, and some of those gifts will be seen afterwards if they struggle here, but even so, it’s the struggle that will make you successful. So, even if you struggle in academics, you can succeed. But you learn in life, whatever you want, it’s still a struggle, but you can be successful. ... I want to tell people that, ‘You have gifts! You do!’ God is not, I know it sounds corny, but God has given you gifts. You may not see them right now, but, you do have those, and you will see in life, like some of the most successful people were not the most brilliant people. And those that were brilliant, sometimes they struggle because it was too easy for them, and once they start hitting a wall, because there are some really bright people, you know, wait until you get to college. Even if you’re really good, and really bright, there are others that are brighter than you and stuff. And that’s okay. You will find yourself, and you will be a success. … Life is a journey, and one little part of your life doesn’t prescribe what you will do later on. It just doesn’t.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 75

Ms. Hegg Kindergarten

“What is a dream you have for the future?”

“To keep learning.”

76 Humans of Breck

Alexander Feng Fouth Grade

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“The president. But I might not be.”

“If you were the president, what would you do?”

“Uh… I would probably fire all my Supreme Court people and get new ones. And buy unlimited cans of Jell-O.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 77

Kiara Kambeyanda First Grade

“I want to be scientist and study fossils. They’re made of rock.”

78 Humans of Breck

“I really like the arts, I’m really into dance, and drama. I’ve done all the plays that I can do, and musicals. Acting I like because I get to be someone that I’m not, and I like role playing. And dance I like because out of all of the electives that’s the most active and, ironically, I’m not the most active, I mostly just like to sit and read. And that’s... I feel like it’s the most and the least I have to put myself out there. But again, I don’t really have to be myself.”

Max Ansari Seventh Grade

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 79

Patrick Eyres Third Grade

“What’s your favorite thing that you learned this year?”

“This year we’ve been learning about, we’ve chosen a bird to study and we’ve, for a couple of months, we’ve been working on it.”

“What bird did you study?”

“An Osprey, it’s a raptor.”

“What’s cool about Ospreys?”

“Well, they only eat fish and they dive into the water. They’re the only raptor that will go under the surface of the water.”

80 Humans of Breck

Ms. Alexander Middle School Science

“Well, I would say one of them is on my sabbatical when I went to Greenland and did a ski race. So, spending days in Greenland in a small city on the west coast, and then did a three day ski race where we skied 60 kilometers inland, camped there, did another 50 kilometers the next day back to the camp, and then skied back to town. So it was super cool and really interesting being in Greenland, and just seeing that there are families that live in Greenland just like my family and your family, and I walked into the grocery store, and they sell Lego. It was just a town. It just happened to be on the west coast of Greenland.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 81

Ms. Kent Middle School Chaplain

82 Humans of Breck

“The craziest thing that happened to me? Um, so I’m afraid of heights, and yet I kept signing up to like go high up on things like mountains, and buildings, and roofs, and like I just that’s what I kept being interested in doing for whatever reason, like different sacred sites and that kind of thing. And so I decide I’m going to go to the top of Mount Nemrut where these incredible rock formations are and basically they’re statues that are somehow miraculously there and it goes back way in history etcetera, and it was going to be one of my stops in Turkey, and I had a really tough time getting there because you could only pay for like a big tour or like getting there on your own which is what I wanted to do is kind of tough, but I ended up finding basically this small hotel that was new, and they said, you know, ‘We’ll pick you up at the bus station and we’ll get you to the top of the mountain and then we’ll take you to the site. Right?’ So I get there, and it’s gonna storm. And we’re on top of the mountain. And it’s still like another 20-30 minute drive even up higher to get to the site where these rock sculptures are. But I want to go, even though it’s gonna rain, but I’m nervous. And so this Kurdish man who was one of the owners of the place, his name was Osman, and he said, ‘I will take you.’ And so I’m trying to be brave and like ‘oh, it’s not a big deal’ but we get up to the parking lot and I’m already shaking and like we’re not even on the path yet.

And then we get on the path, and um, I’m for real freaking out, and he’s like, ‘It’s okay, Osman’s here.’ And like gives me his arm and so he’s walking on the ledge side you know, and I’m next to him like holding his arm, and he basically walked me up the mountain, which was so cool. And then insisted on taking my picture and then meanwhile he’s done this hundreds of times, right, so he’s running, we’re literally on top of one of the tallest mountains in all of Turkey; He’s running to the top, and then sliding down on his shoes because even though it was spring time on top of the mountain there was snow, and so he’s sliding down, and I’m meanwhile like on the path not in the snow still freaking out just to walk and he’s like, ‘It’s okay! Osman will come there! Hold on!’ And like sliding around, he got me down the mountain too because there was snow on the path and I was scared and he didn’t want me to walk the way that I came. And then literally as we’re leaving, the storm shows up.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 83

“My dream job is to probably work for either Apple, or work as a chemist, or a physicist. Chemistry just, the thing about like finding new chemical combinations, just mixing stuff together, finding new ways, new combinations of elements, and physics just general, like, laws and principles about how, like, our universe came to be.”

Cameron Clark Ninth Grade “I consider Ohio my home, because I lived there for like nine years, and just, it was a quiet little town, and nothing important really ever happened there, but nothing important ever had to happen there.”

84 Humans of Breck

“What would you do if you won the lottery?”

“I’d probably donate some to homeless kids and then I’d use some to go on a vacation” “Where would you go on your vacation?”

“Everywhere! … it depends of much money I get from the lottery”

Maiya Garcia Third Grade

“What do you want to be when you’re older?”

“An olympic swimmer… I just like it because I’ve been swimming since I was 4 or 5 months old.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 85

“What do you think makes a good friend?”

Taylor: “A good friend needs to be loyal, supportive, and have a good sense of humor.”

Katie: “Needs to be like my sister.”

Taylor Hendrickson Twelfth Grade

Katelyn Hendrickson Ninth Grade

Taylor: “I would love to be as wise as Margaret Wong, as intimidating yet sweet as Ms. Walsh, as intelligent as Ms. Roessler, as hard-working as Mr. Bell, and as funny as Ms. Gentry.”

86 Humans of Breck

“What is a moment when you’ve been proud of your sibling?”

Taylor: “You were in Twelve Angry Jurors, because I know you were super nervous beforehand, and you made a joke about calculus. Mr. Peterson and his wife were sitting in front of us, and he laughed, and I was like, ‘That’s my sister!’ She just made the calculus teacher laugh.”

Katie: “I’d have to say that I was really proud of you when you came back from OxTrad, you made it in the U.K, a different country, and you were fine. … And just your independence, and your work at the summit, and all these human rights things, and I’m just really proud of you.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 87

“The craziest thing that’s ever happened to me? Geez. … Can you define craziest? Like stupidest? … Okay, here’s one thing. After graduation from high school, my friends, girls and boys, we went to Greece for a month. And on the way back from Greece, Greece is pretty far away, we didn’t take the plane, it was too expensive, so we took the train. So, the travel back, you know we were on an island, in the south of Greece, one of those islands you hear on the news right now actually, and we took the boatship to go to Athens, because in Athens, we were gonna take a bus to go to the west coast of Greece, to take another boat to go to Brindisi in Italy, to take the train to France. So that’s a long trip. So we slept the night on the ground of the port in Athens, le Pirée it’s called, and took the bus to wherever, took the boat to Brindisi, and then we finally took the train to France, another night train, and when we crossed over Switzerland, we discovered that we didn’t have the right tickets, and so they asked us to go back to Milan, to take another train, but at this point we had no money, and we had not eaten for quite a while. So we arrived in Milan railroad station around 7am, and the train for Paris was at 9pm, and we had no money. So, after a couple of hours, starving, we had no food for more than 24 hours, like 36 hours or something like that, we were exhausted, we started begging for money. But when there are four people together, you need a lot of money to feed eighteen year-olds. And we randomly, a friend of ours stayed with our stuff, and somebody sat next to him, a guy from Belgium, and they started chatting, and the guy gave him a lot of money to buy food, so we got to buy food. And we took a train to Paris, so that was kind of crazy.”

Mr. Saunoi Language Department Head

“My dream job is to be a chef. I love to cook. I want to own a food truck one day. …

So, the idea of the food truck that I mentioned was the, just the idea of being not attached to anything, being your own employer, your own boss, your own think tank, and do your own thing. So, that’s why I thought, maybe one day I would do that.”

Connor Fehrenback Tenth Grade

“I want to grow old, and be the grandpa that never stops smiling.”

90 Humans of Breck

“The secret to happiness? That’s a question with no answer, because the answer for everyone is different. If you’re comparing humans to computers, it’s interesting, because computers are the least human things possible. Computers are a bunch of zeros and ones, a bunch of causes and effects. Humans are very similar. Something will happen, whether it’s internal or external, and they’ll react in a certain way. But what’s amazing, is that every human is going to react differently. If you put two people in a box under a certain condition, each one will respond differently. Computers are artificial intelligence that write themselves. We write ourselves, too. We write our own story both internally and externally. So, the key to happiness for everyone is going to be different. For some people, it’s going to be living in a big city, and having a lot of friends. For others, it’s going to be living on a farm, and being happy with what you have. There are healthy and unhealthy ways to receive happiness, and it’s up to the person to separate those and find out what they really want, and what gives them a kind of catharsis.”

Foster, Sanchez, Senner 91

“I think Breck, as cheesy as it might sound, has made me appreciate the significance of a community. Just because before I came here I was at an online school, so there really wasn’t much of a community to be honest. It was nice to be able to come to Breck where there’s a community, and there are friends you can have, and there are events you can go to all the time.

Joey Ehlert Twelfth Grade

92 Humans of Breck

I think just these past couple weeks as I’m realizing that I’m going to be leaving in a little while… It made me realize how much I’m going to miss even the little things like just showing up to school, driving to school with my sister, and walking into the senior commons and seeing Noah smiling at me, pretending like he’s gonna beat me up.”