CM Fall 2014

CM Commonwealth School Magazine

Fall 2014

In this issue: Answers and Questions: What it’s Like to Teach at Commonwealth

Why I Made It Commonwealth Quilt

by Allyson Edwards ’14

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rom afar, you’re aware only of the main picture: the Commonwealth mermaid in the center. However, as you get closer, you can see original drawings by all the students, teachers, and staff (yes, all!) at Commonwealth. In this way the quilt represents our school. If you walk up to any one person here, you find a unique individual; stepping back you see how everyone together forms the community we know and love.

My Commonwealth Quilt became what it is today because of curiosity and mistakes, and because I’m a knitter. It started when I found a pattern online for a “beehive quilt,” which was made by knitting small, six-sided, stuffed pockets called hexipuffs and joining them together. I brought printmaking teacher Rusty Crump a hexipuff I had made and asked him, “Do you think I could print on this?” He was skeptical but to our surprise the first attempt came out perfectly!

We discovered that blocks of foam could be carved or incised with designs, inked, and used to transfer the design to the hexipuff. Before long I had handed out dozens of hexipuff-sized foam squares for people to draw on. My idea was still half-baked: knitting, printing, and connecting as many hexipuffs as I needed would be no problem, I thought. “They’re so small; it can’t be that time consuming.” That was the first mistake. By the time Senior Projects came along in March, I looked at my measly output—around 200 of the 1,575 hexipuffs my design called for—and blanched. I realized I had to recruit my own knitting army.

My “mistake” turned the quilt into a true picture of the community. You can see in the varying shapes, sizes, and textures of the mermaid’s red hexipuffs how many volunteers made them. Even the connecting seams show the signs of different hands at work. The way people came together to help—from knitting to drawing to design suggestions—makes the quilt special. It may have started as my idea, but at the end of the project, it’s the bits and pieces from everyone I know, sprinkled throughout, that have made my idea beautiful.

The quilt now hangs at the top of the stairs from the Commonwealth lobby to the second floor.

Photos by Tristan Davies

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F ROM TH E EDI TO R

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very year, Project Week and Senior Project free students from the routine of school and homework and give them time to explore personal interests. Some students work on mentored individual projects, writing or painting for example. Most are welcomed and do challenging work in social justice organizations, shelters, child care centers, restaurants and bakeries, businesses, startups, state and national parks, university libraries and laboratories; or with individual elected officials, doctors, prosecutors, attorneys, scientists, and artists.

But one week can prove frustratingly short. I remember a couple of years where just when I thought I was getting into the swing of things, my time was up. In order to extend the spirit of Projects into more sustained and deeper investigation, Commonwealth has initiated a Senior Capstone program. With a mentor of their choice, students engage in a yearlong research and scholarship project, for academic credit. Last spring, a committee approved three capstone proposals from rising seniors: Mattie Glenhaber, an accomplished artist and historian (her tenth-grade research paper was published in the Concord Review), has undertaken an examination of why comic books have been maligned and feared—especially in mid-twentieth-century America.

Fittingly enough, she will compose her final report presenting her research and analysis in comic-book form!

Ian Polakiewicz (whose photography appears regularly in CM and our calendar) studies philosophy independently, reading texts by Plato, Kant, Heidegger, and Nietzsche. Ian chose to investigate connections between the development of Existentialism and the Nietzschean theme of eternal recurrence, the infinite cycling of everything in the universe—matter and occurrence.

Rachel Tils, herself a talented actor, is writing a set of monologues based on the experiences of women during the Civil War. Her project is a natural offshoot of her U.S. History research paper on public portrayals and perceptions of women in the nineteenth century (see an excerpt on page 18).

Commonwealth has always been known for the intellectual tenacity of its students. I’m excited to see how far capstone projects will take them.

Do you remember a favorite project? Tell us about it at www.facebook.com/commschool.

Tristan Davies ’83 Director of Communications, Editor tdavies@commschool.org

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Issue 7 Fall 2014 Headmaster William D. Wharton Editor Tristan Davies ’83 tdavies@commschool.org (617) 266-7525 x290 Design Jeanne Abboud Associate Editor Rebecca Folkman Class Notes Editor Grayson Palmer Contributing Writers Alisha Atlas-Corbett ’01 Allyson Edwards ’14 Janetta Stringfellow Rachel Tils ’15 Special Thanks Jacquelin Harris www.commschool.org/cm www.facebook.com/commschoolalums CM is published twice a year by Commonwealth School, 151 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02116 and distributed without charge to alumni/ae, current and former parents, and other members of the Commonwealth community. Opinions expressed in CM are those of the authors and subjects, and do not necessarily represent the views of the school or its faculty and students.

We welcome your comments and news at commonwealth@commschool.org. Letters may be edited for style, length, clarity, and grammar.

Printed on recycled paper. Please recycle.

CM Commonwealth School Magazine

Contents

Fall 2014

Why I Made It

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1

A modular quilt for the Commonwealth community.

News

4

Preparing for Change Have You Seen the Plan?

4

New Faces Academic Honors

A Complex Character

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The rewards of teaching a difficult language

Answers and Questions

8

What it’s like to teach at Commonwealth

Grace Under Pressure

18

Rachel Tils ’15 on how conflicting images of nineteenth-century American women fractured societal ideals.

History of a Friendship: Opportunities and Lifetimes

20

A connection across generations matures into a self-declared family

The Alumni/ae Association

24

Greetings from the new president A new way to connect alumni/ae

Class Notes

25

In Memoriam

31

Alumnus Perspective: A Mermaid in Mexico

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When trying something new becomes a familiar experience.

20 On the cover: Moments of discovery and insight take place in every corner of the school. Chances are a teacher was involved, either directly or indirectly, as an intellectual guide, advisor, mentor, or cheerleader. Beginning on page 8, a group of Commonwealth teachers spanning the school’s entire history talk about the challenges and triumphs of what they do.

Illustration by JooHee Yoon.

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News commo n we a lth

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Change

ow that the new strategic plan has been officially adopted, plans are moving forward for some important renovations to the school. The first phase, scheduled for summer 2015, includes major upgrades to the biology and chemistry spaces, rooms 1B and 1C, located on the alley-facing side of the first floor.

Architects from Watertown-based Imai Keller Moore (IKM) have been meeting with science teachers over the last two years to discuss an array of pressing needs. The classrooms themselves, notes architect Randall Imai, are “used for both lecture and demonstration teaching as well as the hands-on activities of the laboratory. We looked at ways of arranging the room with better furnishings that allowed for the small-group activities of the lab at the perimeter of the rooms with the lecture/discussion/ demonstration activities focused in the center and on a combined whiteboard and projection screen ‘teaching wall.’”

Since different teachers often use these rooms in consecutive class periods, IKM also studied how to increase the amount of space where teachers can prepare demonstration or lab materials while the classrooms are occupied. This led to the concept shown in the final plan (see below, where the renovations are illustrated in an elevated perspective from the alley side). The area between

2-sided chemical fumehood (in classroom and prep lab spaces)

PREP LABS (2) allows teachers to set up while the classroom/lab is in use

2-sided chemical fumehood (in classroom and prep lab spaces)

Science Classroom/ Lab/ (shown in lecture demonstration configuration)

the classrooms, now being used as offices and chemical storage, is enlarged by extending it over the stairwell from the first floor to the basement. Doubled in size, the larger space will provide two offices as well as two prep rooms, and slightly enlarges the classrooms themselves.

“A primary goal is to maximize opportunities for students to discuss science with each other, with faculty, and for faculty to discuss issues of teaching among themselves,” says Imai.

Enlarging or adding windows on the hallway side of the rooms addresses a second goal: “to make science more visible to visitors and to non-science students as a way of engaging them in this aspect of the Commonwealth academic community.”

The decision to add the new office areas led to another question: how to connect the first floor to the lower level?

The answer was simple (in concept at least): extend the stairway on the Dartmouth St. side of the building down.

Doing so will make it easier to go from upper floors to the basement, and it will help funnel that traffic into a reconfigured lower level, including an enlarged and reorganized food service area. As a bonus, adding the new staircase will widen the uncomfortably cramped passage between the Dartmouth and Commonwealth lobbies.

Teaching wall SCIENCE CLASSROOM/LAB 2 (shown in discussion and lab configuration)

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Teaching wall

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Faculty Offices (total of 3 desks)

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IKM Architects

Preparing for

More than T-shirts

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ommonwealth fans, take note! This fall the school launched a new online store (run by Amerasport), which offers a wide range of Commonwealth merchandise. You’ll find hats, shirts, shorts, fleece, tote bags, umbrellas, and more. Items are custom-made when ordered. To learn more or make a purchase, go to www.commschool.org/store.

Strateg ic Prio riti eS

Have you seen the Plan?

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he Board of Trustees’ vote in May to approve a new strategic plan set many changes in motion. A new booklet outlines the plan’s priorities and new initiatives in financial aid, faculty support, and accessibility, as well as major improvements to the school building. If you didn’t receive a copy of the booklet shown here, you can find it online at www.commschool.org/plan.

New Faces

Melissa Lydston

Kathy Tarnoff

Debbie Offner

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Chris Barsi

Mike Broida

is our new librarian and director of academic and instructive technology. With a solid background in modern library science, Melissa will manage and develop the library’s book collection, online databases, and resources. Melissa replaced Megan Kane, who during the past eight years rejuvenated the library and substantially increased its access to online databases, while simultaneously strengthening the school’s athletic program. Megan is now the upper school librarian at the Spence School in Manhattan.

Kathy Tarnoff, the new director of athletics and wellness, is expanding that job to raise the profile of sports, nutrition, and exercise across the school community.

Dr. Debbie Offner, for many years Commonwealth’s consulting psychologist, has joined the staff as director of student life. She works with students and their families to identify and address cognitive, behavioral, or mental health issues that affect academic success.

n Melissa Lydston

Other new faces:

Nate Gordon

n Chris Barsi,

physics teacher and robotics club advisor admissions associate Nate Gordon, tutor and math teacher Ying-Ju Lai, teacher of fiction and short story Eben Lasker, school counselor Margaret Sabin, history teacher replacing Barbara Grant, who is on sabbatical in India.

n Mike Broida, n n n n Ying-Ju Lai

Eben Lasker

Margaret Sabin

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Academic Honors

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he beginning of the school year once again brought a long list of academic honors for Commonwealth students. Twenty-five seniors— nearly two-thirds of the class—were recognized by the National Merit Scholarship Program.

National Merit Semifinalists Megan Berry, Cambridge Matthew Boudreau, Norfolk Catherine Cray, Melrose Mehitabel Glenhaber, Somerville Abigail Kuchnir, Southborough

Katrina Lee, Watertown Arthur Mateos, Arlington Benjamin Powell, Dedham Tamjid Rahman, Cambridge Jackson Scholl, Needham

National Merit Commended Students Daniel Albert-Rozenberg,

Cambridge Emma Applbaum, Newtonville Philip Budding, Arlington Amanda Dai, Newton Francesco Drake, Arlington Rachelle Flowers, Marblehead Sarah Joffe, Cambridge

Anna Koch, Brookline Mary Pedicini, Boston Ian Polakiewicz, Lexington Hannah Pucker, Newton Maria Ronchi, Marblehead Rachel Tils, West Newton Zoe Wennerholm, Boston Kyle Yee, Melrose

Senior Samantha Robinson was recognized as an Outstanding Participant in the National Achievement Scholarship Program, which honors academically-promising Black American high school students.

Forty-one current and former students received honors from the College Board’s AP Scholar Program: National AP Scholar

(Students who received an average score of 4 or higher on all of their Advanced Placement [AP] exams and scores of 4 or higher on at least eight of their exams) Taeer Bar-Yam ’14, now at Cornell University Daniel Benett ’14, now at Columbia University Yonah Borns-Weil ’14, now at MIT Tamjid Rahman ’15 Thornton Uhl ’14, now at Northwestern University

AP Scholar with Distinction

(Average score of at least 3.5 on all exams and scores of 3 or higher on at least five exams) Akinbayo Akinwande ’14, now at MIT Daniel Albert-Rozenberg ’15 Andrew Barry ’14, now at Williams College Megan Berry ’15 Philip Budding ’15 Amanda Dai ’14

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João Paulo de Mello Barreto ’14, now at Columbia University Mehitabel Glenhaber ’15 Harry Huchra ’14, now at Swarthmore College Katrina Lee ’15 Isabelle Lorion ’14, now at New York University Arthur Mateos ’15 Laura Moraff ’14, now at Cornell University Eliza Passell ’14, now at the University of Chicago Ian Polakiewicz ’15 Benjamin Powell ’15 Feyga Saksonov ’14, now at Boston University Rachel Tils ’15 Clark Uhl ’15, Marblehead Kyle Yee ’15

AP Scholar with Honor

(Average score of at least 3.25 on all AP exams and scores of 3 or higher on at least four exams) Catherine Cray ’15 Francesco Drake ’15 Allyson Edwards ’14, now at Wellesley College Jordan Helfand ’15, Newton Center Sarah Joffe ’15 Thomas MacDonald ’14, now at McGill University Sally Rifkin ’14, now at Washington University in St. Louis Maria Ronchi ’15 Lydia Symchych ’14, now at Carleton College

AP Scholar

(Average score of at least 3 on at least three exams) Diana Abbas ’14, now at Boston University Sajal Akkipeddi ’16, Framingham Emma Applbaum ’15 Matthew Boudreau ’15 Mary Pedicini ’15 Hannah Pucker ’15 Jackson Scholl ’15

Kathleen Dooher

FACU LTY profi le: Stacy ta n

A Complex Character

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hen Mandarin teacher Stacy Tan was a college student in Beijing, she gave English classes to the children of migrant workers. “Because of the household registry system in China, migrant workers’ children cannot go to local public schools,” she explains, “so some non-governmental organizations establish schools and recruit college students to teach. I found the experience both intriguing and challenging,” especially when she and a co-worker had to manage a class of sixty first graders.

At Renmin University of China, Stacy majored in German— coordinating and interpreting for the German house at the 2008 Olympics—and developed an interest in psychology and language acquisition. Though she first planned study abroad in Germany, she chose Boston instead, when she realized that the American system was more flexible (and more highly regarded in China), earning an M.Ed. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2010.

Mandarin at Commonwealth started small; at first, the school arranged sessions with an outside tutor. Recently, however, with the language increasingly offered in middle schools, more students arrive at Commonwealth ready for advanced courses. So in 2011, the school put Mandarin into the curriculum, and hired Stacy.

“I remember classes with Ms. Tan being more like conversations,” says Jay Husson ’13. “We discussed issues relating to China, making the class far more in-depth and interesting than a regular Chinese class.”

“She was quick to smile and laugh but also quick to call us out when she thought we could work harder,” recalls Ben Koger ’12.

“Sometimes on a slow day, she told us to us switch seats. She said we needed a change of perspective. It’s surprising what a difference moving from one side of a table to another can make.”

Some parents, noting the rise of China as a world power, think Mandarin is a vital second language, but Stacy counsels caution, explaining that Mandarin is an exceptionally difficult language for English speakers to learn.

“I don’t think Mandarin is a good choice for everyone: it takes a lot of motivation and self-discipline. Some high-schoolers are either not mature enough or too busy with their other interests to put in the effort needed.” That said, Stacy finds her students “polite, hardworking, eager to learn, and creative in using the language, which is admirable—and sometimes amusing.”

Though she expresses satisfaction in her work— “Commonwealth’s small size and its enormously talented community make my job endlessly inspiring”—Stacy nonetheless points out that “as a Buddhist, I’m a believer in impermanence. We can’t predict or plan our future, as both our ‘objective’ circumstance and our ‘subjective’ thinking change all the time.”

Stacy Tan, Commonwealth’s first Mandarin teacher, says she likes to “engage with talented and hardworking students,” and that helping her students learn such a difficult language “is meaningful and rewarding.”

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Answers and Questions What it’s Like to Teach at Commonwealth A few days after school ended in June, six current and past Commonwealth teachers gathered under the elaborately painted ceiling of room 2C to talk about their subjects, their students, and how and what they teach and have taught. Together they offered perspectives on education at the school spanning fifty-five years.

Tim Barclay, Commonwealth’s first teacher, taught math,

physics, chemistry, and education until 1970. During the late 60s, he also led the Urban School, an evening school at Commonwealth for inner-city teenagers.

Eric Davis, Commonwealth’s longest serving teacher, retired in 2013 after 41 years in the English department.

Al Letarte, math teacher at Commonwealth since 2012, previously worked in a public high school in Raleigh, N.C., and at Drury University in Springfield, Mo. Judith Siporin has been teaching English since 1973, adding art history in 1983.

Discussion moderated by Tristan Davies Illustrations by JooHee Yoon

Rikita Tyson, scholar of Shakespeare, finished her Ph.D. at Harvard in 2012 and was completing her first year as an English teacher when the group met.

Bob Vollrath arrived at Commonwealth in 1982 as a mid-year sabbatical fill-in and has taught French and, occasionally, math ever since.

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Tristan Davies

Teaching: Always a Choice?

I’d like to begin by asking how each of you became interested in the subjects you teach, and how that interest led to teaching.

Judith Siporin It’s hard to say how I got interested in literature.

I think it’s from reading so much when I was young. It’s not as though I chose this field; it was just the thing that I loved to do. But I never even thought of teaching. I was extraordinarily shy about public speaking—terrified of it, in fact. I came to Commonwealth to work in the front office because I wanted a nine-to-five job that would let me go home and write stuff for myself. I only started to teach under duress. Charles Merrill told me I had to: a student was going to leave the school because there was no fiction writing class. So he said I had to make one up. And then four kids signed on, and they were interesting writers, and I had a good time. But, again, I never imagined being a teacher.

Rikita Tyson Like Judith, I’ve always been interested in literature. My parents used to frisk me for books before we went to family events. But I would sneak them into the car before we left the house. I always knew I would major in English because they allowed you to read books for four years and gave you a degree at the end of it! In high school, senior year, we went through Hamlet with a fine-toothed comb, a rich, kind of alien experience. Then I took an introductory class in Shakespeare at Amherst, and it turned into this allconsuming, all-Shakespeare-all-the-time sort of party. I changed my concentration to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English literature and got the chance to spend two weeks at the Folger Shakespeare Library. That opened my eyes to how deeply one could study Shakespeare, and I did my undergraduate thesis on gender and performance in two of the comedies. Somehow, I decided that I wasn’t done, went on to the Ph.D., and just kept going down the rabbit hole, and wound up here.

Eric Davis I was always a big reader. But a lot of the rabbit-hole

effect, for me, had to do with how much fun it was to talk with other people about what you read––I had a surrogate family when I was in high school, including a girlfriend who had three older siblings, and we talked all the time. At college, we would sit around analyzing things to death, with great pleasure.

Later, in New York, I’d talk all night with a writer friend. And that kind of thing just kept on happening. I was lucky to get sent to Oxford on a school scholarship after college. My tutor there was the grandnephew of William Wordsworth, Jonathan Wordsworth. He taught me how to not write such bullshitty sentences, and how to drink Scotch, stuff like that. And then, of course, students came along, and they were an awful lot of fun to talk to.

Al Letarte For me, although I was interested in math from an early age, it was a great math and physics teacher I had in high school who made me serious about it. I never doubted that I would go into mathematics. I don’t remember when I knew that I would teach, but searching my memory, I can’t recall a time when I did not think I’d be teaching math for a living.

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“I Remember... ...a first year filled with stories. I think one of the things I’ve loved is that the students actually bring themselves into the classroom. They don’t just show up and say, Okay, well I’m going to sit here and write down my notes, and turn off all those other bits of myself that actually make me a person. They bring their sense of humor into the classroom, and they bring their other interests, and they make those connections between the things they’re interested in from another class to your class. We had a bunch of those moments where someone would say, ‘Oh, this is just like in Latin class.’

And the other kids would groan, but it was always right.

It was like, Yes, it is like Latin; that is the imperative.

Good job! And I remember pun battles among different students. For example, how many puns they could make on Great Expectations: ‘You know, I thought you’d be able to choose all the books for the class, but I guess my expectations were too great.’ And then someone else would say, ‘That was a terrible pun. We had greater expectations of you.’ And it went on and on and on. The fact that they could have that sort of rapport with each other—and were willing to include me, that was memorable.”

—Rikita Tyson

Tim Barclay I liked working with people, so teaching seemed

like an appropriate field. And I was good in math and science, so when I applied for a teaching job, I decided that’s what I’d better teach. Why high school teaching in particular? I’ve wondered, but I haven’t fathomed that one, actually; it’s just where I ended up.

Bob Vollrath Growing up in rural Minnesota, I loved English and the humanities. But since I also was pretty good at science, that’s what I planned to do in college. At the University of Minnesota, in what they called the Institute of Technology, it was all science. Toward the end of my sophomore year, I felt I wasn’t going anywhere, and I didn’t feel comfortable around the people I was studying with. So I went to see a counselor, and she said, “Well, why don’t you take some humanities courses?”

It hadn’t even occurred to me! As a junior, I enrolled in French 1 and immediately felt a pull. Now, looking back, it was almost as though I was starving for the stuff. I took art history courses; I took poetry courses; American literature; philosophy courses.

And I still finished college in four years; I did the degree, the French bachelor’s, in that two-year span. Somehow French was a calling I discovered way late—and I’ve read it and studied it and loved it ever since.

experiences I have are unplanned. And when those moments come along, I’ve learned to go with the flow. I think you have to do both.

Bob Vollrath In language teaching, on one hand, you have to plan, because there’s a lot of imitation and repetition involved, and a set curriculum you have to get through. On the other hand, there’s a danger of things getting stale when you teach the same basic material. But I’ve found that if you can keep the fire going, on, say, a particular part of the curriculum, or a text that you’re using, it becomes more and more fun to play with the kids’ reactions. You learn that you can often anticipate what those reactions will be. I think I’ve gotten better at handling the ship as it moves—and particularly at being able to improvise spontaneously, maybe because I did a lot of acting throughout school, and partly because I have a number of years of experience.

Judith Siporin And you might plan a question you think

Tim Barclay My memories of eighth-grade science were all

is going to stimulate a lot of discussion, and it doesn’t go anywhere. So you have to be ready to abandon what you thought you were going to do. On the other hand, sometimes a question that you thought would just be a little warm-up generates an enthusiastic discussion that occupies the whole period. So I think being flexible and open to the give-andtake is important. It’s hard to predict what’s going to open up something for somebody.

negative, so I decided to not use any existing curricula or textbooks. We read paperbacks, such as George Gamow’s book on the Big Bang and another on the evolving universe, which gave competing theories about the beginning and nature of the universe. Another book, The Chemical History of the Candle,

by Michael Faraday, collected the Christmas Lectures he gave at Cambridge University and included lab experiments, which we were able to do as well. We also looked at optical illusions and tried altering parts of the illusion to see their effects. The whole course was an evolving set of investigations.

My sense, though, is that the student population in those early years was quite different from the student population now—more diverse, not in terms of socioeconomic or racial diversities so much as in academic diversity, and also in their academic goals and their abilities. I’ve always said that at that time Commonwealth was a fantastic place to succeed, and a terrible place to fail.

The Unanticipated Can you talk about the preparation you do for your courses? How much do you plan out, and to what extent is teaching instinctive—knowing what you want to teach and having a gut feeling about how to do it?

Al Letarte I plan, but I’ll also say that some of the best teaching

Rikita Tyson Exactly! I’m always surprised at those moments where I think, Okay, I’m going to ask them this brief question about a particular line of a play, and then they find nuances that I wasn’t expecting at all, and we’ll have a great conversation.

This past year I was teaching two sections of the same class.

And it’s interesting that several times when something went incredibly well in the first group, and I couldn’t wait to try it with the second section, it just tanked.

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Kathleen Dooher

Reaching Every Student So, Tim, what did you do about that? And what do you all do to ensure that your students succeed? There’s a multi-track system in math, though not in the humanities— English, for example. But in every class, there must be some students who move fast and others who don’t. How do you handle that? Especially considering that from an academic point of view, you likely have the same goals for them all.

Tim Barclay I taught an eleventh grade math course with three

very different categories of students. Some had failed Algebra 2 and had to take it again, some needed to strengthen their math before going on to calculus, and some were in the class only because they were required to take another year of math. It was a funny mix. Again, as with the eighth grade science class, I did not use a textbook; however, midway through the year I said, “Okay, you are going to write a trigonometry textbook. We’re going to do trig, and as we go, each of you will decide what your trig text book will look like.” One very bright student, who didn’t want to be in the class but needed one more math course, was just coasting, and his trig book was a disappointingly pro forma job. Other kids with less raw talent did really creative things, but I felt frustrated—I never managed to challenge that bright student.

“I Remember... ...the first couple of years I taught, I filled blue book after blue book with plans for this and that to teach next, all the questions worked out. But after a while, you know, you figure out that you don’t need to do all that. You ask questions, and the kids say the damnedest things. And then you say, What were they thinking when they said that? And so you start to ask them different questions—questions having to do with what they said. And that’s when everything gets interesting.”

—Eric Davis

Al Letarte I know precisely what you mean by “coasting.”

Before coming to Commonwealth, I taught in public school for ten years. And some of the most talented students did just that.

I felt that we were short-changing them on their education.

One of the things I love about this school is that we’re able to challenge all our students. I’ve been teaching at both ends of the spectrum in the short time I’ve been here. We have a course called Intermediate Algebra, which is for the most mathematically challenged kids who come in. But we also have several electives that are as advanced as any course I ever taught for university math majors. And so I feel we’re addressing all levels of need: there are choices for even the most advanced kids, while at the same time, we devise exciting courses for students at the lower end of the math spectrum—and some of my most rewarding moments in the classroom have happened with those kids.

Bob Vollrath In language teaching, we pick up homework and

we call on students in class every day for the first two years, so we have a pretty good idea of where they are. With a student who may be missing some basic elements of, say, the grammar, I’ll meet one-on-one. And most often that’s a reliable fix. We can hit on those points quickly, whereas it might be wasting everybody’s time to do that in a classroom with that one student.

Judith? Rikita? How do you approach keeping everyone on track?

Rikita Tyson I’m still trying to figure it out, because it is a difficulty. The strongest students are often the ones who want to lead the discussion, and that makes it easier for the students who don’t grasp things quite as quickly to sit back. So it can be

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hard to tell how much these students get or don’t get on a dayto-day basis. You have to make a concentrated effort to draw them out, or meet with them once a week, or something like that. Of course they hand in written work, which shows you what kinds of things they’re noticing, and you can offer them suggestions that way. But I also think there’s something to be said for the idea that just doing it over and over again is how you get better at English: you start noticing more and more in a passage the more passages you look at. So even if students are struggling, as long as they’re improving, as long as they’re getting to see more than they did when they first sat down with, say, Macbeth, that’s what you’re hoping for.

Judith Siporin I agree, but I also think that it’s very important in those class discussions to aim high, so that students who may not be the best right away get exposed to a kind of discourse that they may not have ever heard before, and they learn from the way the other kids are talking. It’s like playing tennis with somebody who’s better than you are—you get much better than if you’re playing with somebody who can hardly hit the ball. And it’s important to keep in mind that kids who may not write very good essays (or might not yet write good essays!) sometimes are wonderful talkers. They say the most marvelous things spontaneously in class. So there are all kinds of ways of doing well.

Eric Davis But if a kid’s just sitting there, you don’t have to just let him go on sitting there. You should give him a hard time.

Beyond the Classroom: Office, Sidewalk, Sailboat Let’s talk about the one-on-one meetings Rikita and Bob mentioned. Commonwealth teachers spend a tremendous amount of time in conferences with students. Can you say something about those conferences––what you do; what you think they accomplish; why they are important for the students and for you?

Judith Siporin Being able to sit side by side and talk about sentences, to ask “Why did you say it this way?” is essential for teaching people how to write—in a conference you can figure out the process of thinking that went on but that’s not on the page. It’s also useful to look in a student’s book and see the annotations. Then you can ask, “Why did you mark this but not talk about it in your argument?” If all you get is a finished essay, you can’t have those discussions. I feel that so much of what you’re teaching in English is not just about a finished product.

You’re teaching a whole way of thinking about literature that’s quite introspective and has a lot to do with learning to express the private life of the imagination. There’s no substitute for oneon-one conversations—even though they’re very labor-intensive and time-consuming.

Al Letarte I see the classroom and conference experiences as tied together. Some students don’t need to meet outside of class.

Some kids need to meet with me to discover that I’m safe to talk to, and that they can therefore raise questions in class— they need one experience to figure out that they can also have the other.

Judith Siporin I usually identify a few kids who would benefit from coming every week to talk to me, whether it’s because of their writing, or because I can see they’re having trouble in class, or because they’re completely silent. Conferences are great for students who are very self-doubting and self-critical. I’ve noticed that these kids sometimes omit their most interesting ideas— they think that those ideas are trivial, whereas, in fact, they may be inspired and wonderful. It’s only in the private conversations that I can discover their thoughts. And then I say something like, “If you write down an observation and then you think it may be stupid, put a squiggle under that part, but keep it in. Don’t leave it out.” The self-censoring can be a real disease.

Bob Vollrath In advanced literature courses we’re lucky, because students are older and have already been well trained in critical writing by their English and history courses. So those meetings are less grammatically “remedial,” I could say. I use them to encourage people to talk more in class, or to discuss the shape of an argument for a paper. What Judith says about conferences

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Kathleen dooher

“I Remember... ...a story that has to do with the subject that you teach meaning much, much more to your students than just doing work for a course. I had a student who was a wonderful guy, a real straight shooter, an incredibly honest person, who always tried his best. And he struggled in English. We used to meet all the time, and he did advance, but he wasn’t an easily intuitive kind of student. He worked terribly hard at it. In twelfthgrade English, we read, at the beginning, a lot of Wordsworth’s poetry, and later in the year, we read a Hardy novel, Tess of the d’Urbervilles. And these two works had a tremendous influence on him, because he loved hiking! He loved mountain climbing, and he loved being in beautiful countryside. And so when he graduated, his aim was to visit all the places that are mentioned in Tess. The book has an intense sense of

being time consuming is true—and I’ll add that with everything we have to do here we have very, very little free time. But this year in one language course, I had a student who was far ahead of the rest of the class. And I decided to meet not only with my weaker students but to set aside conference time for her as well. It turns out that we were both really happy to have the opportunity to work together on extra fun material. I worry sometimes in faculty meetings that we don’t have time to talk enough about kids who are breezing through.

Eric Davis But you know, the kids who are breezing through academically are sometimes not such great experts in just being human beings, or adolescent human beings, so there’s always plenty to talk about. You learn a lot about them and about how these guys sitting in your classroom are very complicated creatures. I often have conferences during lunch, and I’ve been very happy to do that, partly because I’ve grown incredibly fond of an awful lot of really lovely people. Sometimes, to have a conversation, you just leave school and have a walk around a few blocks. I had an interesting meeting of that sort with a kid who was having a tough time, and I made him come walk with me. But out on Commonwealth Avenue, he started to walk so fast I couldn’t keep up with him, so I couldn’t talk to him. He completely got me that time—utter failure.

Tim Barclay I had those walks, too, because I taught sailing,

and so we had to walk down to Community Boating and back.

We didn’t all walk as a crowd, but you walked with one or two or three students each way, and then you were in a boat with one or two or three students. That was an opportunity to talk— about sailing or about whatever. Those were good times. Once I was teaching one girl how to weave between the sailboats that were moored on the far side. She asked me, “Why are we doing this? I don’t want to race.” And I said, “It doesn’t matter.

Whatever you do, you have to be able to handle sharp turns and getting around at close quarters. It’s about sailing. It’s not about racing.” Well, she later wrote in the Commonwealth magazine that now she’s teaching sailing.

Al Letarte It’s funny how hard it is to predict which things you said to students will sink in. You don’t find out until years later, I guess.

a locale that’s not very extensive in terms of miles, but where the terrain changes greatly, and it’s invested with enormous personal significance. Those places lived in my student’s imagination, and he wanted to physically be there. And then he actually walked through them.’

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—Judith Siporin

In the Beginning What was it like starting to teach at Commonwealth? What kind of support did and do new teachers have?

Judith Siporin I remember my first class. My legs were shaking so much I had to sit down. But in retrospect, I think I learned a tremendous amount from having that sense of desperation, having to figure out how to do it. For me, temperamentally, because of my extreme self-consciousness, I don’t think it would have helped to have somebody observe my first classes and make suggestions. It was much better for me to just establish rapport with my students, and learn step by step what to do, and make mistakes, and figure out how to remedy the mistakes.

And I do feel as if that trial by fire was tremendously valuable.

tristan davies

Tim Barclay One thing about Charles Merrill––he never

imposed any kind of guidance about what we should do as teachers. And in a way, that was too bad. There were an awful lot of marvelous things about the school, but that was one fault.

Fortunately, I shared an office, first with Ellen Kaplan and then with Dane Morgan. So we did talk and I could ask all sorts of questions. And many, many ends of the day, John Hughes and I went to his apartment right over the river and talked, typically about what was going on in school, and about students.

Bob Vollrath My first semester, which was the second semester of the year, I remember I had no idea what kinds of grades I was supposed to produce. So I figured something out and went to the headmaster, Jay Featherstone, and asked, “How do these look?” And they were okay, according to him.

“I Remember... ...defining moments of what it’s like to teach at Commonwealth. I’m thinking of two exchanges with students I’ve had in my first two years here, kids at opposite ends of the math spectrum. One was a student whose strengths lay in the humanities and history, but who requested me as an advisor after struggling through ninth-grade math with me. That was gratifying, and the times I had with that student and the conversations we had were some of the most memorable moments for me. On the other end, I had

Eric Davis It was the same for me the first couple years.

Nobody told me about how things work around here. But I had to walk through Ellen Kaplan’s office to get to my office, which was really just a closet, and I must have asked her five hundred questions over the course of my first few months. She was very patient. She explained all kinds of stuff to me. And I don’t know where I would have been without that. Because a lot of it was not about how to do the teaching, but more what you were supposed to do with these funny creatures, kids, in general, and what you were supposed to do before you went to this or that meeting, or what happened with the parents. That was incredibly helpful. Same thing with running into Charlie Chatfield on the stairs and gaining words of wisdom that it took you a couple of months to understand, which it did. There wasn’t some kind of factory for making you into a teacher.

a kid come back from math camp at the beginning of the school year, and he was trying to use the advanced things we’d been doing in abstract algebra to answer questions about my Ph.D. research area. It’s amazing to me, that we can get kids of both types, and that they’re equally rewarding to have as students. They make it wonderful to teach here.”

—Al Letarte

Rikita and Al, how does that compare with the experience the two of you have had as new arrivals?

Rikita Tyson I think in some ways, we’ve had the best of both worlds. There were new-faculty meetings every week for the first half of the year. That was helpful, partly so that we could hear, “Okay, parent-teacher conferences are coming up, and here’s how it usually goes.” But it’s also really great to feel free to stop a colleague in the hall and say, “Hey, could I just ask you this quick question, or could we make a time to sit down at lunch and talk?”

Al Letarte For me, it was outside the classroom where I needed help with things like the mechanics of comment writing and letter writing and what has to be done when. There, people have been extremely helpful. But let me say that when I interviewed for the job here, I realized about halfway through that this place was very different from anywhere else I had interviewed or worked because most everyone here is a teacher.

The headmaster is a teacher. The public school where I worked was administered, I think it’s safe to say, by people who had fled the classroom because they didn’t like teaching. I think that’s one of the things that sets Commonwealth apart: even at its most administrative, this school never gets far from questions about teaching, and what’s good for students, and what’s good for learning. For anyone who comes here, that makes a huge difference.

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kathleen dooher

Do any of you ever feel you get burned out? What do you do about that?

Bob Vollrath I try to disrupt the routine in some way—of course we all have so many different hats we’re wearing at the same time that can be hard to do. But even going out to lunch—with a colleague or a friend or a student—that helps.

Rikita Tyson It does. This year there were times when I found myself getting sort of tired, and not knowing entirely what to do; it wasn’t burnout, but it was the sense of, Okay, how do I keep making sure that we’re doing something different in the classroom? And one day I thought, I’m just going to sit over there. I sat in a different chair. And it freaked them out. They didn’t know what to do with themselves, and it was great.

Judith Siporin Well, there are Hughes grants, which are terrific, and sabbaticals are absolutely marvelous.

Eric Davis Yes. You’ve had some inklings of enthusiasm for something, or kids have said, why don’t you do a course on such and such? You can then go and learn all about it. Probably the most adventure I had of this kind was a sabbatical I spent on African literature. It all came from a collection of African folk tales that I happened upon in the Harvard Coop, with a zippy cover design in yellow and green. And so, you know, you start there, and you read the footnotes, look at this and look at that.

It’s a lot of fun to do that kind of thing, and with a sabbatical you have a whole year free to do it.

“I Remember... ...the opportunities the school offers us as teachers—to look in new directions or with a fresh eye—strike me as extraordinary. Hughes grants and sabbaticals, for me, have worked together to let me follow new interests and re-examine old ones.

I’ve almost always made France part of what I do, but I’ve often turned onto unexpected paths. For example, when I learned that there are four routes of the St. James pilgrimage that go through France, I thought, Why don’t I just follow those? One year, when I read that Marguerite Yourcenar had a home in Maine, I thought, Oh, this is kind of amazing. And so I went up and explored her home, and talked to the people who run it. Coincidentally, until just this year, we had an exchange with a lycée in Alsace named Lycée Marguerite Yourcenar. So almost always, for me, it’s been travel. And always, it seems, the elements enrich my understanding of France and my interest in its history and culture and literature.

And what’s exhilarating is that I then bring a lot of that material and a lot of my excitement back to my students.”

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—Bob Vollrath

tristan davies

Judith Siporin It’s also great, though—actually I think it’s unique in

schools in the area—that the Hughes grants and the sabbaticals do not have to have a pragmatic purpose, and do not have to be related to what you teach at Commonwealth. I think it’s terribly important to have a revival of your own intellectual life, to study something that you actually don’t know anything about and that you’re not aiming to use in your teaching, and just to revive that part of yourself. Because it does make you a better teacher, to come back refreshed in that way, and have your mind alert and alive and ready.

So what’s particularly different or easy or hard about being a teacher here?

Tim Barclay It was always pretty hard.

Judith Siporin It’s hard in different ways. I mean, I think it’s hard to be a teacher. And Bob was saying we’re so busy, and it’s true.

There’s not a free minute in the day.

Bob Vollrath And yet, you know, we forget, or I forget, I have to be reminded sometimes, that class sizes are kind of amazing. For my subject, anyway, and that’s wonderful.

Al Letarte And we have a great deal of freedom to try to make

things work.

“I Remember... ...in the early days, there were two art students, boys, I knew particularly well. One was very gifted, and the other was very determined. They both went to art school. One day, I asked the art teacher here which of

Eric Davis Yes, it’s up to you to compose a year’s worth of work.

Now, that counts for a tremendous amount. I don’t think you get that very much any more elsewhere. I think that’s a change that’s overcoming American education all over the place—it’s more and more run by businesspeople and administrators.

Judith Siporin Getting back to freedom, I think it’s marvelous to

have the opportunity to make up a course that you would like to teach. It was like that for art history. I had a student who had just a terrible time writing, and some terrible verbal confusion. But when he was in Polly Chatfield’s Renaissance course and she did art history, he could look at a painting and say the most amazing things. He was the one who said, “I wish we could have an art history course that would just be looking at painting and writing about painting.” And I said, “Okay, I’m interested. I’ll do it.” And then I thought, “Oh my god, what have I promised to do?” So I focused on a century that interests me, the nineteenth century, and I spent the summer making the course. Like Rikita, who has a new Shakespeare course that’s coming along in September.

them he thought would succeed better as an artist. He surprised me by naming the determined one—precisely because he’s so determined, he explained. Well, that student did graduate from art school. Then he got lost, and he committed suicide.

I went to my former student’s memorial service, which was in Brookline in the middle of the day, and I had a math class to teach afterward. I came in and sat down. I said, ‘I’ve got to take a couple minutes, because I’ve just been to this memorial.’ And two of the students stood up and said, ‘Don’t bother, we’ll teach it.’

Someday, I’ll be able to tell that story without choking up.”

—Tim Barclay

Rikita Tyson I’m so looking forward to that class. Luckily, since I taught some Shakespeare this past year I can think, what do they already know? What do I wish we had gotten a chance to do? It will be an interesting challenge to use what I’ve learned this year from teaching Romeo and Juliet with my ninth graders, and Macbeth with my tenth graders. The depth to which we can go in our classes is extraordinary. But I also want to spend some time thinking about early modern English, and how to convey it to students, because I think sometimes it’s scary to them. I hope they’ll enjoy it. I will, because, well, I’ve only been here for a year, and I get to go develop this course. I can tell that kind of freedom has always been essential to teaching at Commonwealth, and it’s very exciting.

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student writin g

GrACE

Under Pressure How Ladies’ Magazines of the Nineteenth Century Sowed Seeds of Feminism

This article is an excerpt of the U.S. History research paper Rachel wrote in the spring of 2014. You can read the full article at www.commschool.org/cm.

T

he early nineteenth-century American woman was the image of grace. In the nation’s highly Protestant ethos, her “moral sentiments” were “honoured and cherished with more observance and kindness than in the old world,”1 a symbol of American patriotism and of the advanced moral culture of the New World. Her gentle and delicate nature made her better suited for the comfort and serenity of the private home, while a man was naturally fierce, competitive, and ambitious, designed for supplying financial security and working in professional occupations. Beautiful yet modest, pious yet practical, a woman calmed a society that was growing more turbulent around her. In the cutthroat public world of industrialization and economic gain, she had to make the home “an oasis in the desert,”2 creating a morally pure and joyful environment as if to “extract honey as sweet and pure from the thistles as from the rose.”3 Without her, the world would be a chaotic pit of vice with men unrestrained by the moral inhibitions to which she was naturally inclined. Her love for her husband, her children, her housework, her appearance, and her God were all perfectly orchestrated in a delicate yet precarious balance that grew more complex as she matured.

During the Second Great Awakening, as Protestantism began emphasizing the use of human accomplishments to win salvation, religion became “a kind of tranquilizer,”4 keeping women grounded in their home life away from the materialistic temptations of the public world. Their “confiding nature”5 made them more divine than men, facilitating “the influence of women” over society and allowing them to use their natural traits of morality, purity, and steadfast virtue to love their husbands and God. Women’s piety would thus turn men “to better, holier emotions.”6 Commentary on women who ventured into the world beyond domesticity became increasingly scathing. Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Boston’s Ladies Magazine from 1818 to 1836, condemned the public sphere as “an embarrassment and degradation of the soul,”7 making women leading a public life seem not only undesirable but shameful. If a woman wished to work in a mill or provide for her family through a wagepaying profession, magazines went so far as to condemn her for “tampering with society and underpinning civilization.”8 Moreover, magazines often asserted that higher education devalued a woman’s role as a wife, and would lead women astray. Such opportunities were considered practical only if they helped women with their destined occupation within the home.

In her book, The Young Lady’s Friend, Mrs. John Farrar praises bed making as a repetitive exercise that builds moral character and accentuates a woman’s patience, steadiness, and resilience.9 The popular periodical Godey’s Lady’s Book encouraged women to read novels and poetry that depicted women as “the sole

By Rachel Tils ’15 Painting by Akino Watanbe ’17

spiritual beings who walk the earth not unseen”10 and gave examples of female spirituality and virtue. A woman, many sources claimed, should not want to pursue math, science, and engineering for the “business of the world,” but rather should want to learn how to “lend her aid to improve the system of instruction” for children and how to “discipline her own mind, and make her more capable of promoting the happiness and success of others.”11 Eventually, fed up with the material of women’s literature, radicals writing for a later women’s magazine, The Lily, published from 1849 to 1853, sought to counter prevailing advice: “the idea that every little Miss must seem thus, dress thus, walk, talk, and look so and so and all for a beau”12 was harmful to a girl’s self-worth as she could never conform to the exacting ideals of a bride. The magazine also became a proponent for more rigorous educational opportunities for women, particularly in the medical field. In the domestic sphere, medical training would improve a woman’s roles “as guardian of the health of her household, and the nurse at the bedside.”13 Ultimately, the magazines’ contradictions—attempts to expand women’s life choices vs. constant criticisms—left women stranded. Some responded with utter despair; some dismissed the institution of marriage altogether. A diarist from Lowell, Mass., Miss Burnham, who chronicled the struggle of attending to her job as a schoolteacher while trying to find herself a husband, eventually admitted she felt “an empty nothing.” Such women slowly turned their focus from the ladies’ magazines and toward “striving to awake and arise, to ascertain the cause of this gloom.”14 In this way, they became the arbiters of their own destiny, awakening within themselves the need to assert their own rights and identities.

1. “ The Conversazione,” Godey’s Lady’s Book, January 1837, 2.

2. Nancy Cott, Bonds of Womanhood (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 64.

3. “The Conversazione”, 2.

4. Barbara Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood,” American Quarterly 18, no. 2 (1966): 153.

5. ibid.

6. “ The Conversazione”, 6.

7. Bonds of Womanhood, 67.

8. “ The Cult of True Womanhood”, 172.

9. Mrs. John Farrar, The Young Lady’s Friend (New York: Samuel S. and William Wood, 1838), 44, quoted in “The Cult of True Womanhood”, 165.

10. “ The Conversazione”, 9.

11. “ The Conversazione”, 8.

12. Amelia Bloomer, “Correspondence, Forest City Water Cure,”

The Lily, 1 July 1851, 5.

13. “ Forest City Water Cure”, 2.

14. Miss Burnham, diary, 14 July 1833, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.

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20 CM

h isto ry o f a fr ie n dshi p

Opportunities and Lifetimes Lihuan Lai ’02 found a new school— and new family—in Larry Geffin ’69 and his wife, Yurika

By Janetta Stringfellow Photos by Kathleen Dooher

E

very student who boards a bus or train, or who catches a ride into town from a parent, or who even walks a few blocks from home to reach the corner of Dartmouth and Comm. Ave., leaves something behind.

Larry Geffin ’69 said goodbye to a group of pals in Dorchester who “just wanted to drink beer and play cards.”

Some thirty years later Lihuan Lai ’02 stepped away from a bunch of girls in Boston’s Chinatown who “only played with their cell phones and watched Chinese soap operas.”

As teenagers, neither Larry nor Lihuan talked with family members about what went on in the classrooms or stairwells of Commonwealth. It was simply too different from anything that went on at home.

By the time Lihuan came to Commonwealth, Larry had been teaching art here for more than twenty years, and countless students had learned how to make first-rate drawings and paintings under his tutelage. His guiding hand extended outside the studio as well; several alumni/ae readily admit that they would never have received diplomas if it hadn’t been for Larry’s tireless perseverance, which enabled them to discover and develop their interests and strengths. Larry’s feeling of being out of place as a student at Commonwealth, which he soon detected in some of his own students and advisees, gave rise to an unquenchable determination to help such students succeed.

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Lihuan’s family emigrated from Canton, China, to South Boston when she was eight. Soon after, they moved to Chinatown. Two years later they moved to Malden; a year after that they were back in Boston, this time in Charlestown.

Lihuan was now in eighth grade. Bumped to the bottom of the school-placement lottery, and too late to take the entrance exams for Boston Latin or any other school, she found herself attending middle school in Brighton. Between teachers who had trouble engaging with students, and students who skipped classes, acted up, or weren’t interested in learning—“one of my teachers kept the window up in the dead of winter to keep students from falling asleep”—Lihuan was unhappy.

But at this critical moment, there were people ready to help.

A favorite teacher, Abraham Abadi, took some of Lihuan’s work, including a paper on Shakespeare, to show the school’s principal—Elaine Gibson ’72. Recognizing a youngster who “wanted to be challenged,” Elaine knew whom to call, and Lihuan headed for Commonwealth.

At first, Lihuan (who went by the name Maria at the time) felt “confused. It didn’t look like a school; Commonwealth was like another planet! People spoke a different English, behaved differently, and the difference from my middle school was night and day.” Unsettled, shy, and still somewhat unsure of her English, Lihuan was relieved to find a few other kids from diverse backgrounds and languages. She became close with her classmate Diep Kiem, who was Vietnamese and Cambodian.

Even with friends to spend time and talk with, Lihuan found the challenges of Commonwealth sometimes overwhelming. The day she didn’t show up for her English 9 midterm, Larry took note. He worried—had she run away?

She came back the next day, and from then on, he kept her on his radar: “To see her return, and the guts that must have taken, I just thought, ‘Who is this girl?’” When her advisor, Claire Hoult, went on sabbatical, Lihuan had to find a replacement. She chose Larry because he was “approachable and told random jokes”—characteristics that surely sound familiar to those who know him.

Lihuan lived with her mother. Bilan Zeng worked two jobs to make ends meet while contending with an imposing language barrier between her and most of Boston. So Lihuan ended up juggling the responsibilities of an adult along with those of a high-school student. Larry stepped in to help.

“Larry took me to the immigration office,” Lihuan recalls.

“He helped me realize how important it was to have advisor letters translated into Mandarin for my mother, and then figured out how to make it happen. He was on me all the time about getting health insurance. He told me to do my homework: Tuesday afternoons were the worst. He’d find me hiding in a nook and chase me to the library saying, ‘You don’t have sports today! You have no excuse!’” Larry also helped Lihuan secure a summer job with Adam Kirsch ’79 at his Allston-based online antique auction business. The money she earned bought her textbooks, a laptop, clothes, and transportation to and from Commonwealth. It also gave her added confidence and another place where she was appreciated.

Adam’s assistant, Lynelle, is still devoted to Lihuan. As Larry says, “Lynelle sees her.”

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“At the end of each of my advisees’ time here, I give them a piece of my Japanese calligraphy with a special character depicting a characteristic that I see and admire in them.

In Lihuan’s case, I wrote what she meant to me. I chose the character for ‘daughter.’”

At first, Yurika Geffin, Larry’s wife and Commonwealth’s bookkeeper, knew about Lihuan only from the stories Larry told and from hearing his end of their phone conversations when Lihuan checked in, worried about work or an issue with a teacher. But then both Geffins took Lihuan college visiting to Mount Holyoke and UMass Amherst and the friendship grew. They were thrilled when Lihuan decided on Bryn Mawr; she attended the college on a full scholarship from the Posse Foundation, which recruits and supports groups of students with high academic and leadership potential. The students in each Posse group support each other as they tackle college life.

After graduation it isn’t uncommon for students to stay in touch with their advisors—they stop by the school to say hi, or meet for an occasional lunch. But as new interests compete for their attention, the time between visits often lengthens. Larry, Yurika, and Lihuan stayed close. Yurika feels a special kinship: she left behind a family in Japan to come to the U.S., and at first didn’t know many people in Boston. As with Lihuan, Larry was her guide to American life and Commonwealth students. “We don’t have children, so Larry has more energy to give his students,” she says. “I’m glad, because he is always one hundred percent everything. Each time I hear about someone’s success, I’m so glad that Larry was a part of shaping their lives.”

Every time Lihuan came home from college for a visit, she got in touch with the Geffins. The three might meet at the Number One Noodle House in Newton for noodle soup and dumplings, or Larry and Yurika might invite her over for shabu shabu. One time they showed her the video of their wedding— “Yurika took three hours to get ready and Larry was dressed in Japanese clothing and had a fan,” she recalls with affectionate amusement. The day Lihuan graduated from Bryn Mawr, Larry and Yurika attended the ceremony. Soon after she finished college, Lihuan declared, “This relationship is meaningful and more than that of a former student and teacher. Let’s name it.”

They called it family.

“You can’t choose your family of origin, but I was lucky enough to choose my spouse and daughter.”

At about the same time, Larry began turning his personal commitment to students from “somewhere other” into an institutional support program. First was Entering Commonwealth, which offers early support and advising to incoming students who may have the determination to succeed but lack some of the necessary preparation. As these and other

students sometimes need extra help, or have trouble finding quiet places and times to read, write, and think, Larry also launched the Homework Project, a twice-weekly, voluntary, proctored study hall.

Now in its seventh year, the Homework Project draws students of all sorts, from all grades; some students who use the program as underclassmen go on to become mentors. Larry is proud of this work, but he links it to the culture of the school, not to himself.

“It’s the nature of this place. If somebody needs something, you supply it—or do your best to. Middle and upper class kids get second chances. The others don’t. It’s not about money; it’s about opportunity.”

Larry saw these programs as well as a means of raising awareness. In 2007 Lihuan came back to Commonwealth to work in admissions and college advising. But most notably, she became the school’s first director of diversity. She took on this responsibility with a rare combination of sensitive awareness and practicality. “It was sometimes tough to balance identifying with the different types of students and being a more objective mentor. Involving the school community was also a challenge, getting students interested in their own stories and, at the same time, curious about those of others.

“We bring people into this school, and we ask them to mold to our culture. But the school needs to see the ways in which these kids actually shape the community. They have changed the faculty’s and their classmates’ perspectives about diversity. It’s a reciprocal relationship. Luckily, because of Entering Commonwealth and the Homework Project, there was already a momentum going.”

In 2010, Lihuan left Commonwealth to become the director of student development at the Asian University for Women in

Chittagong, Bangladesh—the only liberal arts university for women in South Asia. She briefly took over as acting dean of students before an internal “coup”—the founder usurped the chancellor—caused the leadership to resign en masse. Since then her travels and work have led her through India, to Pennsylvania, back to India and now to New York, where she has just begun a new job as assistant director for international admissions at Fordham University.

“When I first came to Commonwealth, Larry would tell me I was strong and courageous. He sees the best in you and encourages you to see who you can become.”

Larry and Yurika have accompanied Lihuan in person and in spirit on her entire journey. One lonely night in Chennai, India, she remembers asking herself, “Where am I? What am I doing with my life? I so wanted to call Larry and Yurika, but was 3 a.m. in Boston, and I knew that Larry needs his sleep. However, when I think about making decisions about my life, the first people I think of are Larry and Yurika. That’s who they are to me.” For their part, Larry and Yurika are proud of Lihuan and enthusiastic about everything she has accomplished.

As it turns out, you can choose your family. Lihuan, Larry, and Yurika chose each other. A bond like theirs is a little like magic— and all about love.

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The Commonwealth School Alumni/ae Association

Tristan Davies

cwsaa

invited me to join the next meeting, and I was immediately taken by this group of compassionate, dedicated alumni/ae.

Over the last few years, I have made new friends and reconnected with old friends through the CWSAA and their related efforts. When Emily Bullitt announced she would be stepping down as president at the end of the 2013–14 school year, I welcomed the possibility of following in her footsteps.

This spring I was fortunate to be a part of the wedding of a close friend from Commonwealth. When I sat down to write my toast for the reception, I went back to my yearbooks for inspiration. I cracked the spine, and was immediately transported back. As I read through the notes and captions, I didn’t remember every inside joke and reference, but the connectedness and spirit came through on each page. All the highs and lows of high-school angst had blurred and left a nostalgic, contented glow in their place.

The Alumni/ae Association does not seek to bring us all back to high school. Instead, it aims to create an opportunity for connection for Commonwealth alumni/ae locally and around the world. So the next time you go through your mail and see an envelope with that sassy mermaid in the corner, think about Hancock, Beach Day, and never roller-skating in the hallways.

from the (New!) president

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Print by Perry Wilson '17

few years ago, after a very long, very busy day, I checked the mail and fully expected the usual assortment of junk and bills. But between the coupons and restaurant menus, there was an invitation to the Commonwealth Fall Music Festival.

Alisha Atlas-Corbett ’01, president of the CWSAA I remembered loving the assembly when Jonatha Brooke performed, so when I saw her name on the bill I bought my ticket and marked it on the calendar. The concert started, and it might as well have been talent night at Hancock. It didn’t matter that the audience comprised different graduating classes, or even different generations—the affinity we shared was stronger than age or cohort. When the last band came on, we all jumped up, stacked the chairs along the sides of the room (neatly, of course), and laughed, sang, and danced the night away.

Between numbers, I bumped in to a fellow alum, who served on the Commonwealth Alumni/ae Association. He

Stay Connected with Commonwealth and Evertrue

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ne of the most important roles for the Alumni/ae Association is helping former students connect more easily with each other and with the school. With that in mind, we recently signed on with Evertrue, a national leader in online alumni/ae communities. With the Evertrue app for smartphones, verified Commonwealth alumni/ae can join the school’s community and have access to: n An

alumni/ae directory calendar of events n A networking tool to help link you to alumni/ae in your profession n A

For more information and links to download the app for iOS and Android, visit www.commschool.org/alumapp.

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a lumnus pers pe cti v e

A Mermaid in Mexico

By Russell Weiss-Irwin ’10 Painting by Erika Escobar ’16

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rriving in Mexico City this past January, I had little idea of what to expect. The city is vast and complex, old and new, dense and disordered and diverse, and the first few days felt overwhelming. I had come to spend the semester—five months of studying political science, to which I was accustomed, since it’s also my major at City College of New York, my U.S. university, but in Spanish, to which I was much less accustomed. As I began to make friends with Mexican students and with exchange students from Canada, Latin America, and Europe, I found myself challenged again and again by new ways of doing things and different ways of seeing the world. From matters as basic as the climate (remarking on how hot it was) to those as complex as finding the words to describe my culture to others, I discovered a path fraught with potential for misunderstanding and rich with potential for learning.

As I wrote essays on the neo-colonial, corporatist system that permeates Mexican politics—and sometimes attended protests against it on the same day—I thought back to my first experiences abroad. When I was a sophomore at Commonwealth, we had an exchange with a high school in Madrid, and during the summer following junior year, I joined the annual trip to Peru. On both trips, my best moments were the ones when I was able to find instances that revealed the tensions beneath the surfaces of those societies. In Segovia, Spain, I saw anti-monarchical posters and felt a mischievous joy in realizing that I got the jokes and the deeper meanings. In a mountain town in Peru, I found a local assembly of indigenous women in brimmed caps and listened from the back of the hall as they heatedly discussed the direction their community should take.

This spirit of respectful curiosity stayed with me in Mexico. I learned history in the legendary Museum of Anthropology and at the Pyramids of Teotihuacan, but also from my greengrocer, Lupe, who became one of my closest friends and best teachers. We would talk once or twice a week as I walked home from my bus stop—whether I bought groceries or not.

Lupe taught me about his faith as an Evangelical Christian, a minority religion in predominantly Catholic Mexico, and told me about his time in the U.S., where he had worked as a cook in New

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York hotels and on transatlantic cruise ships. He was enthralled by the beauty of rivers like the Hudson, the Delaware, and the Charles, that cut right through cities, something you hardly see in Mexico. We talked about the culinary traditions he learned in the U.S. and about Mexico’s own diverse foods, the moles and tamales of each state and city. I spent most of my last day in Mexico shopping with him and cooking a French and Mexican feast in his kitchen—a meal I will remember for a long time.

Trips like these come at a cost, and in my case happened only because I received financial help from my schools—including Commonwealth. Studying abroad is a critical part of any good education, and I feel fortunate that it has already been part of mine three times.

Russell Weiss-Irwin ’10 is in his final year in the political science program at City College of New York. He loves cooking and biking around Boston and NYC. Going to Mexico changed his life. You can read his day-by-day blog of the experience at russellinmexicocity.blogspot.mx

“Many alums want to hear about what’s changed, and there’s plenty to fill up those conversations. But I most enjoy talking about what’s the same. That the kids I teach today are as eager as ever to be part of the enterprise is another kind of magic. No mere spectators, they’re here to work hard, learn, and build this community.”

–Larry Geffin ’69

Your gift to the Annual Fund has an impact on each student and each teacher at 151 Commonwealth Avenue. Providing 12 percent of our annual budget, the Fund relies on sustained yearly support from all our constituents. At a school this small, every dollar you provide makes a difference.

Our latest financial report gives a list of donors. It also recounts stories of how your gifts have affected the lives and the work of the people in our community. You will find all this information at www.commschool.org/annual2014, in the 2013-2014 Annual Report of Giving.

To make a donation, visit www.commschool.org/makeagift.

For more information, call Janetta Stringfellow, Director of Development, at (617) 266-7525 ext. 293 or email jstringfellow@commschool.org

Commonwealth School 151 Commonwealth Avenue Boston, Massachusetts 02116

The wood stove in the Camp Winona dining hall was an especially convivial gathering spot during this fall’s chilly Hancock. Photo by Walter Crump.

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