The Crest - Winter 2014

THE

ADVANCED COMPUTER SCIENCE STUDENTS’

PBL DRONE TAKES FLIGHT PARTNERING WITH

PEROT

MASTERS OF THE ART:

FOUR PROFILES FROM ESD’S EXEMPLARY FACULTY

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2013-14

EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP TEAM

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MISSI N The Episcopal School of Dallas prepares young men and women for lives of intellectual discovery, integrity, and purpose.

The School develops the unique talent and potential in each student and embraces sound learning, discipline, and faith as essential elements of an educated conscience.

Meredyth M. Cole HEAD OF SCHOOL

Donna Hull

HEAD OF UPPER SCHOOL

Ruth Burke

ASSISTANT HEAD OF SCHOOL

Robert A. Buchholz

CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER

Dawn Thomas

DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES

THE CREST STAFF Julie Clardy

DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS

Nicole Jacobsen

COMMUNICATION COORDINATOR

Jamie Mitcham

DIGITAL COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST CONTRIBUTORS

OUR FOUNDING TENETS were created to integrate the Mission into the individual and corporate life of the Episcopal School of Dallas community.

DAILY WORSHIP Nurturing a spiritual relationship with God through the use of the Book of Common Prayer within the context of a pluralistic, diverse student and faculty population.

COMMUNITY Experiencing mutual trust, respect, and honor while preserving individual identity, uniqueness of thought, and personality.

ETHICAL DECISION MAKING Preparing students for actions which promote the common good through the study of religious and moral paradigms of history and contemporary thought.

SERVICE Advancing the common good through acts of compassion and concern here and within the larger community. Daily worship, experiences in community, and studies in ethical decision-making prepare students for service to others, the highest manifestation of God’s presence in their lives.

Eleanor Arnold Bob Bandoni Ashley Beck Danielle Berg ’14 Carol Bergman Rhonda Bier Eric Boberg Megan Boyd ’09 Ruth Burke Suzy Wheeler Cary Sharon Chapman Robert Clements Meredyth Cole Bill Cook Christine Cook Allison Dawson Cait Pennington Dunn ’07 Class of 2015 Eddie Eason Meg Fahrenbrook ’01 Karen Ginsberg Deb Goudy Gabrielle Griffin Shelle Montgomery Claire Mrozek Cindy Newsom Greg Randall Brian Rawson ’96 Tolly Salz Chelle Wabrek MaryBeth Weinberger

IN THIS ISSUE 2 Letter from the Head of School 8 The Latest Buzz: Disabusing Ourselves of 21st Century Lingo 11 Sir Ken Robinson Inspires Students and Teachers to ‘Create an Open Mind’ 12 Masters of the Art: Four Profiles from ESD’s Exemplary Faculty 15 Apps In Education 18 Wolf Run: Boundless Opportunities 20 From Piloting to Implementation: Preparing for Year Three of ESD Tomorrow 23 Learning to Lead Through Service and Compassion: Students Shoulder-to-Shoulder 26 Partnering with Perot 29 AP Scholars 30 Wolf Run: Show Your Work 34 Christmas at ESD 36 Lower School Welcomes Jarrett Krosoczka:

10th Annual Elizabeth Anne Worsham Visiting Author

40 A View from the Office of Admission 42 Globally Global: Learning In and Out of the Classroom 46 Spooktacular!

47 Letter from the President of the Parents’ Association 48 Support What You Love: ESD Annual Fund 51 Introducing the Keystone Society 52 Faculty News 54 SmugMug How-to 55 Navigating the ESD Calendar 56 Student News

WINTER 2014 Six Months Into Year Two: A Strategic Plan Check-up

4 Head of the Class: Three ESD Projects Featured on NAIS’s Inspiration Lab

16 Winter: Around Campus with Mr. Eason

32 Mixed Media: Collaboration Celebrates School’s Diversity and Episcopal Identity

38 Dedman Lecture Series: Alumni Profiles on Leadership and Life

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64 Homecoming 2013 66 How ESD Helped Graduates Map Their Future: College Map 71 Letter from the President of the Alumni Association 72 Alumni News

THE CREST, the magazine of the Episcopal School of Dallas, is published two times a year.

ON THE COVER

Michael McCrory ’14 uses his iPhone to direct the drone he and classmates Renner Brown ’15 and Alexander Eggers ’15 are programming to record rowing data.

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DEAR FAMILIES AND FRIENDS OF ESD, It is with great enthusiasm that I sit to write my first article for The Crest. Opening a magazine in September of 2012 was one of my early introductions to the amazing things happening at ESD. The old saying “don’t judge a book by its cover” rang true! While the cover resembled a typical alumni magazine, the contents told a different story. ESD jumped off the pages. Enthusiastic, happy children were everywhere. Woven throughout were descriptions of dedicated, long-serving faculty members. I quickly shared a story about junior Wolf Run projects with my then colleagues as a wonderful example of interdisciplinary, experiential learning. Immediately, I knew that ESD was unique.

One year after that early introduction was one of the most humbling and solemn moments in my life. Standing in the Competition Gymnasium with 1,500 students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents, Board members, local Heads of School, Episcopal priests, the past president of NAIS, the executive directors of ISAS and SAES, and my family, I vowed to uphold and advance the Mission and Founding Tenets of the Episcopal School of Dallas. I was deeply moved by the honor and the magnitude of Father Swann symbolically passing on the light of the School to me to welcome me as Head of School through one of ESD’s oldest traditions.

Fast forward six months. Recently, two students sang and accompanied themselves on piano. The service ended with a performance by the “Chapel Band.” I felt enormous pride for those who were both brave and generous with their talent and for the audience whose gratitude and appreciation were palpable.

It was the same week that the sixth graders left for their annual Washington D.C. trip and our first and second grade students and their families enjoyed a lively and interactive night made possible by our science faculty and the professionals at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science.

As you flip through the pages of this edition, you will see evidence of our school’s traditions that tie generations together, of the enormous learning and achievement of our students, and of our remarkable faculty who are at the heart of our delivery system. You will also see ESD embracing the global educational revolution through a

responsible and systematic approach. As Dr. Eric Boberg, ESD’s Innovation Specialist, says in his article, “ESD is not caught up in buzzwords and pointless metrics. We are thoughtfully researching and applying learning and teaching innovation, embracing the goals of our strategic plan that will foster a sustainable, collaborative learning culture for our students and faculty alike.”

While we plan, learn, pilot, evaluate, and implement, we continue to provide a unique and challenging curriculum. Classrooms at every division have expanded to include conversations and exchanges with students on other continents. Service learning opportunities provide both intellectual challenge and character growth as students “step into others’ shoes” and out of their own comfort zones.

Faculty are collaborating across departments, playing the role of educational coach for one another, and taking advantage of professional growth opportunities in record numbers. Slight changes and subtle adjustments garnered from pedagogical research are impacting the learning and teaching at ESD in powerful ways. As true today as 40 years ago, excellence is the standard by which we measure.

Eddie Eason reminds us all that despite change much stays the same. Technology abounds, brain research is driving how and what we deliver in the way of curriculum, college admission nears what feels like a crescendo of selectivity, and parents increasingly hold their children a little closer as the world around them becomes more complex. The Episcopal School of Dallas continues to provide what is arguably the very best in education: a relevant, individualized experience delivered through a community that teaches a faith in God, care for others, and the pursuit of a higher understanding.

It is an honor to serve this remarkable institution.

Sincerely yours,

Meredyth M. Cole Head of School

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SIX MONTHS INTO YEAR TWO: A Strategic Plan Check-up

By Ruth Burke, Assistant Head of School

“There is so much change in independent schools these days, it is more risky to avoid change (typical thinking) than to embrace it (big thinking).”– Pat Bassett, Past President of NAIS

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hriving schools, businesses, and organizations continually innovate through self-evaluation, research, aspirational thinking, collaboration, and goal setting. This is precisely what ESD is doing through the work of the ESD Tomorrow strategic plan. We are building upon all that ESD has become in its first 39 years so that we may continue to be a learning community that will not settle for the status quo but, rather, has an eternal restlessness to always improve.

Our students deserve nothing less.

The question asked of me most often these days is “Why have there been so many changes at ESD in the last two years?” and “What was wrong with what we were doing before the implementation of the strategic plan?” My answer is this…

Deliberate and meaningful change is healthy and necessary. ESD is not doing away with what got us to where we are today. In fact, just the opposite is happening – we are relying on the entrepreneurial spirit and foundation in faith and excellence that Father Swann and those before us so aptly established to initiate a strategic plan that will take our school into the next decade and the next phase of the School’s life.

Yes, it is true, the implementation of a long-range strategic plan involves change.

I think many of us are feeling the excitement and the added weight of this time simultaneously. The launch of the ESD Tomorrow strategic plan in the summer of 2012 coincided with Father Swann’s retirement. This unintended timing likely heightened the potential for “change fatigue,” as we not only kicked off the strategic plan, but also found ourselves maneuvering through a leadership transition.

And, yes, a leadership transition is the most significant change any school or organization can experience. This is just one person’s opinion, but I believe it’s the confluence of the two experiences – the transition from our founding Headmaster to our second Head of School and the onset of the ESD Tomorrow strategic plan – that, for some, may have heightened awareness of change. Rightly so, we have new faces, enhanced programs, different styles, and innovative pilots. But through all of this, it is critical to remember that ESD’s Mission, Founding Tenets, and long-standing core beliefs and values are in place and steadfast. These will not change.

In August 2013, our faculty and staff kicked off Year Two of the ESD Tomorrow strategic plan with an enhanced sense of excitement and anticipation due to the arrival of our new Head of School, Meredyth Cole. The momentum from Year One provided the springboard for Year Two – the year of trying and piloting. The next pages provide a brief review of progress and early outcomes under each initiative. It is inspiring and gratifying to see measurable outcomes and feel the early impact of the plan, its objectives, and the hard work of many in this early stage of the 10-year plan.

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EXCELLENCE IN LEARNING AND TEACHING Build on the excellence that already exists at ESD by enhancing and enriching curricular and co-curricular programs. Infuse students with the habits of mind and skills essential for success in this rapidly changing, globally connected world.

BYOD IN 2014-15

The Learning and Teaching Team, led by our Innovation Specialists, researched and investigated best practices in one-to-one and “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) technology device programs. In addition to research, students and faculty in grades 3 through 12 were surveyed about their use and ownership of technology devices. Results were factored into discussions of ESD’s educational goals and technological philosophy, resulting in an implementation plan for ESD’s BYOD program.

Beginning in the 2014-15 school year, Upper School students (grades 9 through 12) will BYOD, with eighth grade and seventh grade, respectively, to follow in subsequent years. Detailed information regarding the phasedin plan will be available in April and will detail device options, functional requirements, and support for students with financial need.

Beginner through grade 6 students will not participate in the BYOD program at this time.

Our younger students will continue to benefit from the use of school-owned devices, iPads and laptops, in teacherdirected, developmentally appropriate curricular activities.

IPAD PILOTS ENRICH THE LEARNING PROCESS

At the end of Year One, the Tools and Resources Learning Team recommended that the faculty

pilot the iPad as an educational tool. To facilitate readiness, all faculty members were given an iPad to take home over the summer months to learn and explore. They were also provided support and training for utilizing the many facets of the iPad as a teaching tool in our May and August in-service sessions. iPads can be seen on a daily basis in classrooms across all three divisions – from Centers in Beginners (three and four year olds), to reading instruction in first grade, to vocabulary enrichment in sixth grade, to lab work in the Upper School STEM classes.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR FACULTY

A hallmark of the strategic plan is providing training, support, and professional development for our faculty.

Thanks to the support of our Parents’ Association and the generosity of an anonymous gift, our faculty have opportunities to learn from experts and their peers, and to attend numerous conferences and seminars, both here in Dallas and across the country. The strategic plan demands that we maintain these growth opportunities as the highest priority – the very best in professional development for our faculty. ESD is a learning community in which all are encouraged to be life-long learners.

NEW SCHEDULES PROVIDE FRAMEWORK FOR 21ST CENTURY LEARNING AND TEACHING

The new Middle and Upper School schedules have made it possible for the work of the Learning and Teaching Initiative to take shape. Rotating schedules with extended class times and flex time for students provide students and teachers the time necessary for more in-depth learning and teaching and more applications of 21st century elements of instruction. Students overwhelmingly appreciate the gift of the rotating academic schedule with built-in flex and study time.

Faculty and students are continuing to provide feedback and input regarding the schedule’s effectiveness.

An early drawback for faculty has been the scarcity of meeting and collaborating time during the school day.

This is currently being addressed by a Schedule Team in both the Middle and Upper School divisions. By early spring, the teams will be recommending version 2.0 of the WINTER 2014

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EXEMPLARY PEOPLE schedule for the 2014-15 school year.

The new schedules will eliminate cross-over teachers (faculty who teach in both the Middle and Upper School), so that the division schedules can operate totally independent of one another. This will provide the Middle and Upper School even greater autonomy and give faculty and administrators the ability to focus exclusively on what will best suit and nurture each distinct group of students.

CODE OF CONDUCT INTRODUCED

This year, our entire faculty, staff, Board of Directors, and students signed ESD’s Code of Conduct. The last signing ceremony, in January at the Lower School, recognized our collective character, as well as the work of many Lower School students.

Under the direction of faculty members Natalie Amato and Emily Romprey, 40 Lower School students reviewed the Middle and Upper School Code of Conduct and wrote language applicable to our youngest students that promotes honor, respect, and integrity as essential qualities of an ESD community member.

2013-14 TEAMS SUPPORTING EXCELLENCE IN LEARNING AND TEACHING INITIATIVE

Learning and Teaching STEM Wellness Library Information Services/Media Literacy The Arts

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Our teachers are our greatest assets. The Exemplary People initiative calls on us to recruit, hire, support, develop, reward, and recognize the most gifted and dedicated teachers and staff for ESD. ENHANCED HIRING PROCESSES AND PROCEDURES

As we enter into the hiring season for independent schools, ESD is armed with a new procedurebased hiring process for all open positions. Hiring Teams, comprised of various faculty and staff, review resumes, select candidates to bring to campus, and initiate a rigorous interview process before selecting the best candidate. The process was piloted last year and produced great reviews and results. A few adjustments have made the process more streamlined and effective for implementation this year.

PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS FOR STAFF IN PROCESS

Another outcome of Year One is our new evaluation process for staff and administration. Each supervisor supports and leads direct reports through an introspective process of developing specific and measurable professional goals, which not only support the School’s Mission and objectives, but also the professional growth of the employee. A mid-year review and end-of-year evaluation provide the employee and supervisor the opportunity for professional growth and accountability.

ON-BOARDING AND MENTORING FOR NEW EMPLOYEES

Ensuring that all employees understand ESD’s rich history and culture is a critical component of retaining the very best talent. The HR Continuum Learning Team from Year One piloted an onboarding and mentoring process for all new employees this year. Just six months in, both new employees and veterans are reaping the benefits. New employees were provided a thorough orientation and matched with mentors who continue to support them as they acclimate through their first two years of employment at ESD. LEADERSHIP TRAINING INITIATIVE

Under Meredyth Cole’s guidance, all division, department, and program leaders are taking part in a leadership training program. Led by an outside consultant, the mid- to senior-level leaders are experiencing training about managing through organizational change. This initiative is just the beginning of a leadership training process that will be reinforced by regular meetings and sessions in the years to come.

SUSTAINABILITY

Strengthening the bonds of our community – parents, alumni, faculty, staff, former parents, grandparents, and friends – and ensuring that we have the resources to secure the School’s future.

MEGAN BOYD ‘09 JOINS THE ALUMNI RELATIONS TEAM

The Sustainability-Community Team researched best practices in independent school alumni programs last year. One of their recommendations was for ESD to hire an Alumni Relations Manager to cultivate and build relationships with our alumni. The hiring of Megan Boyd ‘09 did just that. Megan returned to ESD as our Alumni Relations Manager last summer. Already we are seeing increased activity in alumni affairs and new initiatives to reconnect alumni to ESD. ENHANCED BUDGETING PROCESS

An integral aspect of the Sustainability Initiative is for ESD to review and assess its financial operations to ensure mature and sound policies, procedures, and oversight. Chief Financial Officer Robert A. Buchholz has led this priority. The first result has been an overhauling of our budgeting process, which is now a collaborative process between the employees who are responsible for those budgets and our Director of Finance, Mary Hernandez, and Mr. Buchholz. In addition, the timeline has been adjusted to the fall, which allows a full review of all budgets prior to setting tuition and finalizing the subsequent year’s budget.

SUSTAINABILITY INITIATIVE LEARNING TEAMS

Episcopal Identity and Spiritual Formation Community Communications Alternative Revenue Generation

PREMIER RECOGNITION INITIATIVE Articulating the ESD story in a clear and compelling manner.

PREPARATIONS UNDERWAY FOR A CAMPAIGN TO SUPPORT ESD TOMORROW

The ESD Tomorrow strategic plan is the blueprint for ESD’s future, a blueprint that will make our great school even greater.

In order to secure the School’s future and accomplish the goals and objectives of the 10-year plan, we will need our community’s support. Two critical initial steps will take place this spring: campus planning and the writing of our campaign vision statement.

Gund Partnership, an architecture firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been selected by the Campus Planning Committee of the Board of Directors to develop a new Master Plan for ESD. Their work began in January and will run through the end of June.

Faculty and staff engaged in a collaborative exercise in January to begin crafting the vision statement derived from the strategic plan to support the campaign’s goals. This aspirational statement will articulate the central strategic goals of ESD Tomorrow.

THE RICHARDS GROUP PARTNERS WITH ESD

Through the generosity of ESD Board member, Stan Richards, we will be partnering with The Richards Group to identify and clearly articulate what sets ESD apart in the independent school market. Fueled by our Mission, Founding Tenets, and the traditions of our first 39 years, this collaborative endeavor will provide the perspective and process to synthesize all that ESD has accomplished and package the messaging of our core beliefs and values as a premier independent school.

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UNTA BILIT Y PRIORITIZE PLAN

G N I N R A E L N PROBLEM SKILLFUL-I

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MANAGING-COMPLEXITY E T A U L A V E

College preparatory schools like ESD have long been aware of the empowering nature of these newly christened “21st Century Skills” and have sought to prepare their students INTERPER for lives and careers that require critical Sthinking, ONAL problem solving, collaboration, and communication.

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COMMUNICATION

FAIR-USE CURIOSITY

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MEDIA-LITERACY

N-LITERACYOF 21ST CENTURY LINGO INFORMATIO DISABUSING OURSELVES

ICTB-LITERACY CIVIC-RESPONSIBILITY

By Eric Boberg, MEd, MBA, PhD

y providing immediate access to information and countless ways to communicate like never before, modern technology is proving to be a global, democratizing force. Now combine this force with the growing outrage in the United States against high-stakes multiple-choice tests that, in some states, determine which schools get funding, who has a job, and who matriculates, and you get a massive wave of activists, parents, organizations, publishers, and the occasional child demanding that students learn 21st skills—the qualities that a growing number of today’s employers seek in their employees. People, zip codes, and even continents—previously denied access to information—are beginning to expect more than the skills that made them efficient workers who followed routines routinely. They are starting to demand the skills to transform all that data into knowledge and power.

The truth is that while technological advances are transforming how students learn, few, if any, of the 21st century methods and skills are either “revolutionary” or even “new.” College preparatory schools like ESD have long been aware of the empowering nature of these newly christened “21st Century Skills” and have sought to prepare their students for lives and careers that require critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and communication. As Jean Anyon (1980) uncovered in her seminal essay “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work,” these are the same skills that have previously been reserved only for the professional- and executive-class students who were encouraged to solve problems and be creative while the working- and middle-class students attended schools largely designed to keep them obedient and on task. She concluded that schools have traditionally prepared their students for lives and careers based on the socio-economic statuses (SES) of the students’ families, not on

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their students’ aspirations or latent potential. ESD’s recently revised statement of educational philosophy reaffirms, albeit in fresh, current language, our commitment to prepare “young men and women for lives of intellectual discovery, integrity, and purpose” no matter their SES, no matter the century.

Although we are 14 percent of the way through the 21st century, its accompanying jargon is as dizzying as ever: the acronyms categorizing revolutionary teaching methods and the accompanying alliterative lists of new skills are as alluring as they are stultifying. The list of 21st century skills often varies with the source, but an underlying consensus emerges with even a cursory inspection. Many websites, including the federal government’s own Institute of Museum and Library Services, echo the framework developed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

As their “Framework for 21st Century Learning” (right) depicts, the Partnership groups the skills that students need for success in the new global economy into four categories: Core Subjects (the 3Rs and 21st Century Themes); Life and Career Skills; Information, Media, and Technology Skills; and Learning and Innovation Skills (the 4Cs). Moreover, these revised skills rest on a bedrock of appropriate standards and assessments, curriculum and instruction, professional development, and learning environments — all designed to produce student outcomes for a global economy.

Although the core subjects remain largely unchanged, the importance of newer 21st century themes is increasing. According to the Partnership, these interdisciplinary themes connect and elevate the core subjects such as the arts, language arts, mathematics, science, and history. Global awareness, for instance, allows students to collaborate “with individuals representing diverse cultures, religions,

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and lifestyles in a spirit of mutual respect and open dialogue” in order to understand and address global issues that arise in a global economy (P21 Framework). Similarly, financial, economic, business, and entrepreneurial literacy empowers students to make personal economic choices and to enhance their career options by understanding the role of economy in society while civic literacy enables students to fulfill their roles as citizens and to understand the local and global implications of their decisions. Finally, health literacy and environmental literacy encourage students to make informed decisions about their own health and public safety and to understand how all of their decisions affect the natural world. Thus, these themes infuse the core subjects with authentic, meaningful applications to the real world.

Life and career skills embody the traits that students need “to navigate the complex life and work environments in the globally competitive information age” (P21 Framework). Students need to exhibit flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social and cross-cultural skills, productivity and accountability, and leadership and responsibility. This list of skills, which can be broken down into a longer list of more specific skills, is reminiscent of the 16 Habits of Mind that reflect “the characteristics of what intelligent people do when they are confronted with problems, the resolutions of which are not immediately apparent” (Costa 2008, p.

15). Today’s global economy is a complex and diverse world full of gray areas and dilemmas instead of absolutes and certainties. Thus, all schools and teachers need to be more concerned with “enhancing the ways students produce knowledge rather than how they merely reproduce it” (Costa 2008, p. 16) – how students balance diverse claims and manage compromise instead merely enforcing the right solution for all.

Given the increased visibility of and our increased dependence on multi-media technology, successful students must also develop and exhibit a “range of functional and critical thinking skills related to information, media and technology” (P21 Framework).

With the explosion of digital information, students need to be able to access and evaluate information as well as use and manage information effectively. Similarly, they must learn to analyze media and create media products of their own. It is no longer enough to merely consume information, blindly trusting published sources and the words of others. While students of all ages should have questioned the bias towards the printed word, today’s students must be even more equipped to navigate cyberspace as they learn to apply technology effectively not only to consume information but also to contribute to the discourse as responsible digital citizens.

The final category of 21st century skills is the domain that often receives the most attention. Learning and innovation skills include creativity and innovation, critical thinking and problem solving, communication, and collaboration. While the Partnership for 21st Century Skills refers to these as the 4Cs, Pat Bassett, the former

21ST CENTURY STUDENT OUTCOME AND SUPPORT SYSTEMS (from www.p21.org/about-us/p21-framework)

president of NAIS, adds cosmopolitanism and character to his list of 6Cs. Even though all four categories included in the Framework are vital to personal, career, and societal success in the 21st century, learning and innovation skills focus specifically on the higher-order skills that are often missed on standardized testing and ignored by the sage-onthe-stage approach to instruction. More importantly, these learning and innovation skills permeate the other three categories and lay the foundation for a critical approach to the core subjects and themes, life and career, and information, media, and technology. They also top the list of skills that ESD Tomorrow charges us to remain focused on as ESD strives to “renew our academic programs continuously” with an “intentional path towards 21st Century Learning” (p. 17). Thus, they reside at the heart of ESD Tomorrow as a fresh re-affirmation of our school mission.

For teachers, understanding what students should learn is just the starting point. We also need to understand how students learn these skills the best. Certain types of pedagogy and assessments are better suited to bring about these student outcomes that exceed mere recall achieved through lecture and memorization, measured by multiplechoice tests. Inquiry-based, problem-based (PBL), and project-based learning (PjBL) – none of which are new to this century or the previous two – develop higher-order skills in students. Although these different approaches surface as innumerable variants and combinations, a good way to distinguish them is to consider their nested relationship. The best examples of PBL and PjBL involve in-depth inquiry that allows students to pursue their own interests and motivates students through a sense of urgency and a need to know. Although the purest forms of inquiry-based learning afford students a tremendous degree of choice and may not develop into either problems or projects, grade-level learning objectives, subject areas, and resource limitations naturally constrain pure discovery models of inquiry in the classroom.

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Very often, however, with the appropriate guidance of the teacher, in-depth inquiry leads students to a problem that requires a breadth and depth of understanding that aligns with the 21st century themes.

Students must develop their own cultural awareness, conduct costbenefit analyses, demonstrate a degree of technological know-how, and consider a broad range of environmental and societal implications when weighing and comparing possible solutions to real-world problems. Moreover, solutions to real-world problems very often result in physical artifacts or projects whose public demonstration serves as part of the process of determining which solutions address the greatest need most effectively.

Just as all inquiry learning doesn’t necessarily lead to problems or projects, many problem-based and project-based approaches to learning are devoid of real inquiry. In fact, poor examples of both PBL and PjBL lack connections to student interest or authentic real-world experiences. Moreover, whereas the worst problems have just one right solution devoid of the complexities and dilemmas of a diverse global economy, the worst projects emerge as mere afterthoughts of the learning process – mere educational epiphenomena. Instead of emerging from the process itself, they are tacked on to the end as some sort of verification that students have learned the material.

In fact, most of the evaluation of a good project is process-oriented.

Teachers should evaluate how students come to their solutions, how they collaborate and communicate, and how they grow as learners, not just the final product presented on a poster or in an iMovie. Finally, all good PBL and PjBL culminate in reflection that makes the apparent unit of learning part of an on-going process.

At ESD, we strive for a balance of instructional methods and learning outcomes as we enhance our academic program by matching enduring learning objectives with the most appropriate pedagogy, technological support, and demonstrations of learning.

Guided by our mission and strategic plan laid out in ESD Tomorrow, direct instruction will continue to complement increased opportunities for studentTomorrow, p. 26) centered, collaborative, and experiential learning; face-to-face discussion and collaboration will long be the measure of innovative and purposeful integration of technology; and high-quality standardized testing will continue to supplement enhanced masterybased formative and summative assessments that afford students

In this sea of trendy change and hype, ESD’s mission, statement of educational philosophy, and the principles enumerated in ESD Tomorrow reiterate our steadfast commitment “to create the best possible culture and conditions of great teaching at our school.”

(ESD

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opportunities to solve problems, think critically, and otherwise demonstrate their mastery of the skills they need to be successful in the 21st century global economy.

The 16 Habits of Mind as identified by Art Costa and Bena Kallick

“Our focus is on performance under challenging conditions that demand strategic reasoning, insightfulness, perseverance, creativity, and craftsmanship. The critical attribute of intelligent human beings is not only having information, but also knowing how to act on it. Employing Habits of Mind requires drawing forth certain patterns of intellectual behavior that produce powerful results. They are a composite of many skills, attitudes and proclivities.”

– The Art Costa Centre For Thinking

1. Persisting 2. Thinking and communicating with clarity and precision 3. Managing impulsivity 4. Gathering data through all senses 5. Listening with understanding and empathy 6. Creating, imagining, innovating 7. Thinking flexibly 8. Responding with wonderment and awe 9. Thinking about thinking (metacognition) 10. Taking responsible risks 11. Striving for accuracy 12. Finding humor 13. Questioning and posing problems 14. Thinking interdependently 15. Applying past knowledge to new situations 16. Remaining open to continuous learning

SIR KEN ROBINSON INSPIRES STUDENTS AND TEACHERS TO

‘CREATE AN OPEN MIND’ “Walk towards the things that scare you,” suggested Sir Ken Robinson, internationally renowned leader in education reformation, addressing a crowd of students and teachers at Southern Methodist University’s Tate Lecture Series. More than a dozen Upper School students and ESD faculty members had the privilege to attend the moderated Q-and-A session on Tuesday, November 19.

When discussing education in America, Robinson asserted that teachers need to provide students with “rigor and discipline, as well as opportunity,” so that students can “find what they are good at.” He argued that as a result of such inquiry, creativity, and discovery, students “are more fulfilled and feel a greater sense of purpose.” Education’s ultimate purpose, according to Robinson, is “not to fill an empty mind but to create an open one” by personalizing a student’s educational experience.

“Robinson expressed the importance of creativity for our society and even for the survival of our species,” Cal Etcheverry, a freshman at ESD, said. “Influencing creativity helps students find their own personal talents and skills so they can strive to achieve them. Robinson’s ideas about personalization and encouraging creativity in school honestly

reminded me of ESD.” “I appreciated that Sir Robinson approached the topic of our education system, which sounds pretty dry, with humor and meaning,” Emily Barnes ’14, said. “The biggest thing he said that stood out to me was that we need a revolution in education, not just reform. His ideas really made me think about the way our society views learning and school – we take for granted that the system works well, but in reality there is so much more potential in education than we realize.”

Robinson inspired and challenged not only the students, but also the teachers. He suggested, “How you work with students is their education.

The only thing that truly changes education is a great teacher.”

Tolly Salz, Upper School English teacher, said, “At ESD, teachers take that suggestion to heart, striving to create a culture and climate where students have a sense of autonomy and ownership while exploring ideas in community – focusing perhaps not on only one predetermined destination, but rather on discovering various avenues of learning with others along the way.”

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SUZY WHEELER CARY

Beginners Serving the ESD Community since 1984 How do you see your students grow from the day they arrive in your class to the last day of the school year? I watch my

Beginners grow both socially and emotionally during the school year. They go from parallel play with their friends to playing one on one or with a group. The children begin the school year with no knowledge of simple things like lining up, walking in a line, knowing their carpool number, sitting on the carpet for listening time, and knowing their friends’ names. By the end of the first semester, they develop these skills and are able to follow the classroom routine. They are like sponges, absorbing everything they see and hear. Their curiosity is insatiable.

How do you see 21st century learning and/or the role of technology impacting your classroom? 21st century learning has definitely entered the classroom of the threes and fours.

The young children are very skilled at handling iPads, computers, and iPhones. It is amazing to witness how a child’s questions can be so quickly and easily answered through these devices. Documenting through pictures is a great activity for the children. They love to see themselves

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Albert Einstein said, “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” The Episcopal School of Dallas is blessed to have some of the most gifted “artists” within our faculty. Expertly balancing compassion with command, the ESD teacher is the conduit by which our students are prepared for lives of intellectual discovery, integrity, and purpose.

These four masters have served the Episcopal School of Dallas for more than 100 years. What happens in their classrooms, and the classrooms of their peers, is, in a word, transformative.

BILL COOK

Seventh Grade Dean Seventh Grade English Serving the ESD community since 1983 How do you see your students grow from the day they arrive in your class to the

on the cameras.

What is your favorite tradition at ESD? The Beginners make

Easter crosses and carry them in chapel services the week after Easter break. They march down the aisle carrying their crosses to “Lift High the Cross.” There is not a dry eye in the chapel!

What excites you most about teaching? The thing I love most

last day of the school year? In general, beginning seventh graders want to be comforted and told they are right. As they begin to feel at ease, they emerge as risk takers. By the end of the year, they comfort themselves by knowing when they are right.

What are some of your favorite lessons that have withstood the test of time?

Everyone likes a good murder, particularly when it’s found in an Agatha Christie mystery. Make it a play, and that’s what the students do. Seventh grade students simply love playing with The Mousetrap. I’d like to tell you about Planet Verbo, but the Federation won’t allow me. (This one will only make sense to my former students.) Fahrenheit 451 also burns brightly.

How do you see 21st century learning and/or the role of technology impacting

about teaching is watching a child grow in so many ways right before your eyes. I love hearing my former students tell me how much they loved our classroom and relate special stories about things that really shaped their lives. I am excited to watch a child discover new things and listen to what they have to say about their discoveries.

your classroom? It’s ironic how the issues discussed in old, reliable, mid-20thcentury Fahrenheit 451 speak so eloquently about the need for what is now called 21st century learning. Quite often, learning occurs better when the student seeks out information of personal importance rather than being force-fed nuggets of “wisdom.”

What do you love most about the ESD community? The

What excites you most about teaching? While it’s horrible that disease can spread

ESD community has been my family for over 33 years.

My “teacher friends” are some of my best friends. We have helped and loved each other through good times and bad times. The parents of students that I have taught are also wonderful friends. They respect me as a professional and listen to my suggestions for their child.

What do you love most about the ESD community? I love the trust spread

in this world, it’s only fair that contagion can take nicer forms. When someone breaks out with a bad case of intellectual delight, I love it when others fall victim.

throughout our community; it’s what makes us unique. The Board trusts the administrators and the administrators trust the faculty to the extent that, when the faculty in turn trusts the students, the students feel it and trust us back.

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KAREN GINSBERG

Third Grade Serving the ESD community since 1993 How do you see your students grow from the day they arrive in your class to the last day of the school year? They really arrive in third grade like second graders. The first month or two of school they struggle to sustain attention after 2:30, their previous carpool time. By the end of the year, incredible growth is seen, especially in cognitive development, organizational skills, and independence as learners.

How has ESD continued to prepare students for lives of intellectual discovery, integrity, and purpose? There is a magical quality about our

school that addresses kids’ needs where they are. I love that integrity is so important to us, and lessons will stop on a dime whenever an issue of character development requires instant attention and time.

What excites you most about teaching? The future is what I find so exciting!

Learning and teaching have changed so dramatically in the last five years or so, and I have delighted in watching the children respond to these newer techniques. When kids are totally engaged in their learning, it is as if a magic spell has been cast. Delight. Sheer delight!

What do you love most about the ESD community? The people make this

place so special to me – my fellow teachers and staff, the parent community,

and mostly the kids. People are the heart and soul of ESD. ESD faculty members are known as being “life-long learners.” What is the latest lesson you have learned? I have tremendously enjoyed all the opportunities I have had this year to attend conferences to better develop my skills with the new teaching styles and with the excitement of having iPads available to the children. The most important lessons I learn, I learn from the kids.

What is your favorite tradition at ESD? I really like the little

things: an entire advisory waiting until everyone has returned to the pew to sit down after Eucharist, eating around a table with my advisory, birthday blessings – that kind of thing.

What excites you most about teaching? I get asked periodically, “Mrs. Mrozek, doesn’t it get boring teaching the same thing year after year?” I can honestly say that it never seems like the same thing. Every year, the kids are different, I am a little different, and this changed dynamic means the material doesn’t look like it did before. It always gets me kind of revved that maybe something that we talk about in class or advisory will help one of these kids become the game-changers that they all have the potential to be.

CLAIRE MROZEK

Upper School History Chair of the History Department Serving the ESD community since 1988 How do you see your students grow from the day they arrive in your class

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What do you love most about the ESD community? This is really just such

a warm and positive place. It has allowed me to be myself, but it has also brought out the best in me. There is a reason I’ve been here so long; I can’t imagine a better place to teach.

to the last day of the school year? I am lucky enough to teach juniors,

ESD faculty members are known as being “life-long learners.” What is the

so my students generally come into the classroom with good habits and strong motivation. What I see most often is students who figure out how smart they are and how interesting and important it is to develop their own opinions.

learning, etc. have reminded me that teaching is an incredibly dynamic field and that I still have a lot of work to do.

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latest lesson you have learned? New initiatives in technology, collaborative

APPS IN EDUCATION

Applications, more commonly known as apps, integrate into classroom curriculum to help boost student engagement and create an interactive multimedia experience with sounds, graphics, and goals. As we explore apps and all of their uses in education and our interconnected world, let’s take a look at how each division at ESD is using different apps.

UPPER SCHOOL APPS Google Drive

PhET

Upper School teachers are utilizing Google Drive to collaborate and give/receive feedback on assignments.

Students share their essays with their teacher or their classmates for peer editing and are able to work together simultaneously on presentations for group projects in a protected digital environment.

Chemistry teacher Elizabeth Peterson uses this app to show demonstrations of concepts in her class and to conduct virtual labs. She noted, “It is nice because students can see concepts in 3D or they can simulate something that is too small or too fast for us to see with the human eye.”

WolfRam Alpha Mark Mrozek, Maggie Ferris, and Elizabeth Chura are planning to use mathematical and scientific software to create various problembased projects for students that focus on the themes of optimization and computer graphics associated with mathematics in pre-calculus, calculus, and physics.

MIDDLE SCHOOL APPS iMovie

KidBlog

Membean

Adam Willis frequently uses iMovie to flip his science classroom and create videos of lessons for students to watch as their homework. When they get to class the next day they are able to dig straight into hands-on projects.

Middle School teacher Meg Fahrenbrook ’01 uses this app alongside reading assignments for students to respond to prompts along with their classmates’ thoughts and ideas.

English teacher Steve Gende uses Membean in his classroom to explore root words and buzz words in order to create an extensive vocabulary and reinforce learning through repetition and memorization.

Keynote

Show Me

Fourth grade students in Emily Romprey’s class used the keynote app on their Texas regions project to create their own presentations and share what they learned with their classmates.

Primer students in Allison Hogan’s class use Show Me to create tutorials and classroom lessons for each other with the touch of their fingers.

LOWER SCHOOL APPS Explain Everything Second and third grade students in Rhonda Bier and Jenny Esteve’s classrooms use Explain Everything to record their voices and create video tutorials to explain to classmates what they are learning in class.

ESD was recently named a Common Sense Signature School because we are “dedicated to teaching digital literacy and citizenship to young people.” ESD has been using Common Sense Media’s innovative and research-based digital literacy and citizenship resources, which were created in collaboration with Dr. Howard Gardner of the GoodPlay Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

The resources teach students, educators, and parents tangible skills related to Internet safety, protecting online reputation and personal privacy, what to share and what not to share, managing online relationships, and respecting creative copyright. ESD is the second school in Texas to reach this status.

To learn more visit commonsensemedia.org

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THE HEAD OF THE CLASS:

Three ESD Projects Featured on NAIS’s Inspiration Lab The National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) is globally recognized as the voice for independent education. Serving more than 1,700 independent day and boarding schools, 1,400 in the United States alone, NAIS provides guidance and research on best practices in education leadership, professional development, and governance. The Inspiration Lab seeks to highlight innovative approaches to learning and teaching. Three ESD projects were featured in the fall semester.

To learn more, please scan the QR codes with your smart phone or visit www.inspirationlab.org.

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Students Model ‘Entrepreneurial Spirit’ at

ESD’S FIRST INVENTION CONVENTION Thomas Edison invented the light bulb; Marie Curie helped pave the way for the development of X-rays; and László Bíró created the ballpoint pen. Over the years, researchers have collaborated to improve these inventions and to sustain an environment that fosters creative thinking. These individuals not only changed our world, but also greatly influenced generations of inventors, including the Episcopal School of Dallas’ first Invention Convention.

Fourth graders spent the month of November studying some of the world’s most influential inventors. Then, they collaborated with peers to create their own inventions.

Classes as a whole brainstormed different problems that needed solving, and worked together to develop potential solutions to fill the voids. Students also pondered how inventions could emerge from combining two existing items.

“Invention Convention encourages our students to dream about ways to improve our world, and then formulate a solution to

these problems,” Sandy Kerr, Head of Lower School, said. “The project gave our students the perfect opportunity to celebrate the design and entrepreneurial spirit that is alive in our classrooms.”

Brenda Wilder, one of ESD’s fourth grade teachers explained that after students had the initial idea for their invention, they had to fill out a “Student Patent Application” that included a sketch and explanation of how their creation works. If their product was approved, students were administered a patent number and could proceed with creating a tri-fold board displaying their complete business plan, including product and consumer information.

“Students were expected to come up with a creative name for their invention, a name for their company, the price, and where it could be purchased,” Wilder said. “Some students even created slogans and jingles for their item.”

SNACK SACK PROJECT

Integrates Math, Wellness, and Community Service The Competition Gym at the Episcopal School of Dallas was buzzing with students and parents at the first “Snack Sack” presentation in November. Students were responsible for working in small teams to research and assemble nutritional snacks to donate to students at the St. Simon’s After School Program at Stephen C. Foster Elementary. The students then explained their selections to their parents on hand-made poster boards.

“This project was just one of several steps we’re taking to help raise student awareness about hunger insecurities in North Texas Food Bank, and learn how their actions are making a difference,” Christi Morrow, ESD’s Director of Community Service, said.

Through ESD’s Learning Innovation Grant program, Jill Simpson, a fifth grade math teacher, teamed up with Morrow over the summer to develop an integrated learning unit that would not only sharpen students’ math skills, but also make them more aware of hunger issues and food insecurity challenges in North Texas and identify how they can help.

“I decided to tie it in with my decimals

study,” Simpson explained. “It was too easy to simply ask the students quantify the costs of the boxes, so we made them discover snacks that have no more than 400 calories per serving, and put together a sack that falls within a budget.”

“The math part of the project was really fun and challenging, because we had to use the total calories in a box of snacks and divide it by the serving size,” student John Stallings said. “We could use the iPads to look at calorie counter.com to help us find the numbers to

start with, and then we worked together to come up with a solution that met the project’s requirements.”

“We learned that some students have access to food, but it might not be healthy food,” Sumner Wooldridge explained. “We were sad to learn that healthier food is more expensive than nonhealthy food, so we’re really grateful to see these bags will help.”

Students Create AUTONOMOUS

SYSTEM FOR AERIAL TRACKING

As a part of their Honors Advanced Computer Science class, Renner Brown ’15, Alexander Eggers ’15, and Michael McCrory ’14 are tackling a year-long learning project. They will create an autonomous system for aerial tracking, following, and filming mobile objects over multiple terrains, including water. The ultimate goal of the project is to follow a crew boat during practice to film the boat for later analysis of rowing technique. Follow the team’s progress at esdartemis.wordpress.com or by scanning the QR code on the right.

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WOLF RUN

BOUNDLESS Located just outside of Anna, Texas, Wolf Run Outdoor Education Center provides a spectacular and unique 300-acre learning laboratory for in-depth study and experiences in community. Nature trails, a lake, a low ropes course, two bunk houses, a lodge, an outdoor chapel, and a working ranch create boundless opportunities for our students, grades one through 12, to grow.

For more information about ESD’s exemplary outdoor education program, visit www.esdallas.org/outdooreducation or scan the QR code with your phone.

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FROM PILOTING TO

IMPLEMENTATION: PREPARING FOR YEAR THREE OF ESD TOMORROW

By Eric Boberg, MEd, MBA, PhD

The uncertainties associated with change can be both disquieting and exhilarating, but perhaps the most crucial lesson over the past few decades is that there are two certain times that organizations need to consider change. One is obvious if you take a look at GM or Kodak, for instance: organizations need to change when things are going poorly or risk extinction. The other is equally obvious if you take a look at Apple or Google: organizations need to change when things are going well in order to remain industry leaders. In today’s flat, fast-paced global economy, change is essential to ensuring that an organization’s legacy persists well into the future. A built-to-last organization must embrace meaningful change aligned with its mission, vision, and core values. At ESD, we are not engaged in change for the sake of change, nor are we, in fact, set on changing who we are. We are actually changing so that we can remain true to who we are, and we are fortunate that ESD Tomorrow, our strategic plan, provides a set of guidelines and recommendations to help ensure that ESD embraces meaningful, measurable change aligned with our remarkable heritage.

Inaugurating ESD Tomorrow’s strategic plan in 2012-2013, teachers, staff, administrators, and other community members embarked on a Year of Learning that is essential to innovation and sustainable change.

They formed Learning Teams, visited benchmarks in educational innovation, attended conferences and other external professional development opportunities, and applied for Learning Innovation Grants (LIGs) that supported teachers who wanted to field test innovative ideas within the ESD setting. Currently during our Year of Piloting, teachers continue to adopt,

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assess, and adapt innovations within their classrooms, nurturing an innovative culture built around a three-stage, iterative process (see diagram below) that manages how ideas are generated, how ideas are selected and implemented, and how ideas are diffused throughout the organization. Hansen and Birkinshaw (Harvard Business Review, 2007) refer to this process as the innovation value chain. They maintain that an innovative organization has to be good at a “sequential, threephase process that involves idea generation, idea development, and the diffusion of developed concepts.” While the process of idea management moves through logical, roughly demarcated stages, it becomes part of an ongoing approach to learning and teaching guided by constant reflection, assessment, and redesign. Moreover, broader institutional policies and programs must remain focused on the innovation value chain. While continuing to support their strongest links in the chain, innovative organizations have to develop their weaker links through proper hiring, training, funding, and restructuring.

Although Year Three is designated as the Year of Implementation, it is important to remember the overall goal of the plan: “continuous improvement in our academic and other programs” (ESD Tomorrow, p. 17). Thus, the guidelines and recommendations set out in the strategic plan are intended to foster a professional learning culture where community members not only generate ideas, but also implement, assess, and adapt their ideas in a collaborative environment of strategic inquiry. Our goal is to develop a culture of learning, piloting, and implementation that thrives well beyond the designated stages of the 10year strategic plan. Such professional learning cultures involve teachers and students

“

Guided by our tradition articulated in our mission, vision, and core values, the school is on the path to perpetual, meaningful change as an essential part of our existence. The more versed we become at leading change, the less likely we will be led by change.

”

in ongoing innovation as a process of idea management. Within such a value network, the system itself, not just its individual members, innovates. Since the entire system is involved in the process, innovations are more likely to include new processes and new relational models as well as new products. Finally, this view of innovation as a process of idea management respects the fact that selecting, implementing, and diffusing ideas can be just as difficult as generating those ideas in the first place. Therefore, focusing too intently on the process of idea generation can result in a stockpile of great, yet unfulfilled ideas.

This process of idea management is essential to ESD’s strategic plan to develop and implement programs that will give our students the tools and thinking processes needed to meet and exceed the challenges of our rapidly changing and interconnected world. Last year, 17 learning teams spent the year examining, evaluating, and researching topics, processes, and programs related to ESD Tomorrow’s four key initiatives. This year as old and new learning teams continue their work, small groups of teachers are piloting ideas supported by Learning Innovation Grants (LIGs). These LIGs reflect a small-batch approach to idea generation and implementation that encourages teachers to explore and implement new technologies, curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment. Although many of the LIGs served multiple purposes, Diagram 2 categorizes the most salient areas of innovation. While a handful of LIGs redesigned institutional processes that support learning and teaching indirectly, the overwhelming majority of LIGs directly affected student learning. Many of them explored technological innovations, either enhancing current pedagogy and assessment or adding blended components in the form of flipped lessons or iPad stations. Finally, most of the LIGs incorporated elements of inquiry-based learning designed to develop students’ 21st century skills.

Teachers involved in LIGs and numerous teachers who are pursuing these innovations on their own are becoming in-house mentors to assist other teachers as they select, implement, and assess learning and teaching innovations. Through countless informal interactions and more formal in-service sessions, their learning experiences are already providing ideas and lessons for other teachers to adapt to their own disciplines and classrooms. Additionally, innovation specialists and educational

technology coaches are holding small sessions throughout the year and during in-service to help teachers select and develop new techniques in their own classrooms.

Ultimately, individual teachers and their department colleagues are the practitioners who will adjudge whether these innovations serve their learning objectives for students in their domains. Moving beyond Year Three, the system itself will be primed to support teachers in their decision-making as individual teachers leverage organizational learning by applying and adapting that learning to their particular needs.

As we move forward into our Year of Implementation, we will begin by fortifying the learning experiences that already exist, guided by the learning and teaching goals enumerated in ESD Tomorrow. Instead of merely looking for external ideas to impose on our teachers and students, we are looking for opportunities to enhance current ESD programs, classes, and methods of instructions that avail themselves to review and refinement, not because they are currently ineffective or poorly designed, but because they provide a wonderful foundation for continued growth.

Therefore, as we continue this year to “optimize our class schedule,” we are also in the process of “re-envisioning current course offerings to incorporate more interdisciplinary content [...and promote] 21st century skills,” “developing new courses based on innovative, interdisciplinary content,” and “conducting a fresh review of our Wolf Run programming, with an emphasis on providing enhanced opportunities for project-based learning and innovative outdoor education.”

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to collaborative reflection and perhaps even re-envisioning. The World Cultures and English I classes offer tremendous opportunities to create a complementary course that combines readings, discussions, and assignments in a yearlong project-based learning experience for all ninth graders. Instead of replacing what we currently offer with something entirely new, interlocking these two courses in a mutually reinforcing manner can facilitate the learning objectives of each course while magnifying the authentic and long-lasting nature of the learning. Teachers have begun to work on an interwoven framework that will encourage students to examine themselves from a cultural lens. As the year progresses, these teachers will collaborate to adjust the readings, assignments, and assessments to allow students to create digital portfolios that visually address this driving question. Another course that lends itself to revision is physics. After years of reflection, the College Board is changing to allow teachers opportunities to explore in-depth, student-led inquiry.

Recent changes to the AP Physics curriculum, for instance, are designed to move from a cursory coverage of physics topics to a cultivation of understanding. By splitting AP Physics B into two years of study, the College Board has organized physics content around “seven foundational big ideas in physics” and “focused on a series of learning objectives that clarify the knowledge and skills that students should demonstrate.”

Most importantly, the new course design emphasizes science practices and inquiry-based investigations. In fact, the “amount of instructional time devoted to laboratory investigations has increased from 20 to 25 percent,” and the AP Physics exam now incorporates more opportunities for students to apply their reasoning skills, including experimental-design questions that demonstrate students’ understanding of science practices.

Among other benefits, these changes move students from confirmation and structured inquiry of science principles to guided inquiry and open inquiry during which “students investigate topic-related questions that are formulated through student designed and selected procedures.” ESD teachers welcome this shift because the amount of material covered on many AP exams often hinders the amount of time a teacher can devote to in-depth study of required content.

Out of all of the potential curricular changes, I am most excited about the opportunities that abound with our current Wolf Run programming because they involve the greatest number of students and provide us with the most natural interdisciplinary setting. For over two decades, juniors have ventured to Wolf Run to record their observations 22

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“

ESD Tomorrow, our strategic plan, provides a set of guidelines and recommendations to help ensure that ESD embraces meaningful, measurable changes aligned with our remarkable heritage.

”

about nature, create visual and narrative sketches, conduct research, and present their reflections about how their experiences of the outer world inform their understanding of their inner selves. This project presents a terrific opportunity for enhancement because it already embodies many of the desired outcomes driven by the five-year cycle. Later this year the junior-level teachers will evaluate and redesign this project to include technology integration, more student choice, increased opportunities for artistic expression, and more encompassing public presentations of learning. Other opportunities that tap into the wonderful resources and experiences at Wolf Run exist throughout the curriculum and across divisions. Ninth-grade students, for instance, already conduct field research for their biology classes, and we can enhance this experience through proper technology integration, interdisciplinary infusion, increased student and teacher collaboration, student choice, increased opportunities for student expression, and venues for student demonstrations of their learning.

Although these potential changes may seem overwhelming to some, they provide the type of challenge, excitement, and opportunities that teachers and students need to ensure that the academic programs here are as fulfilling and rewarding as they can be. As part of a professional learning community, teachers need these opportunities to come together regularly to reflect on, assess, and redesign their programs, classes, and methods as an ordinary part of their practice. Guided by our tradition articulated in our mission, vision, and core values, the school is on the path to perpetual, meaningful change as an essential part of our existence.

The more versed we become at leading change, the less likely we will be led by change.

LEARNING TO LEAD THROUGH SERVICE AND COMPASSION STUDENTS SHOULDER-TO-SHOULDER

I

magine walking the streets of a hurricane-stricken neighborhood nearly eight years after Katrina demolished dozens of homes, shovel in hand. Now picture a group of high school students traversing the land and planting new trees in an effort to rejuvenate the barren landscape that was once home to thousands of people. Harry Hull, a junior at the Episcopal School of Dallas, spent one week of his summer doing just that, bringing new life to an otherwise desolate neighborhood in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans.

“We also installed energy-efficient light bulbs in peoples’ houses for free and saved them money on their energy bill,” Hull said. “When we told them how much they would save over the year, their faces lit up with happiness. It was great to see.”

Hull’s efforts, as well as those of his classmates, were organized by a group called Students Shoulder-to-Shoulder, an international organization founded on the premise of service learning and engaging students in responsible and global citizenship. Over the years, more than 25 ESD students and teachers have traveled to New Orleans and South Dakota, as well as Bolivia, Kenya, Nepal, Peru, and Tibet.

“At ESD, we are all taught to engage ourselves in the community and to help make a difference,” Hull explained. “With Students Shoulder-toShoulder, we are able to do this on a national or global scale.”

The opportunities to help others both domestically and abroad go hand-in-hand with one of ESD’s Founding Tenets: Service to Others.

Not only does the School strive to prepare “young men and women for lives of intellectual discovery, integrity, and purpose,” it also encourages students to actively engage and observe different cultures as a participant, rather than just a bystander.

“The entire program is ethics-based,” Eleanor Arnold, ESD’s Director of Global Education said. “When the students return to Dallas they get to share what they have learned and experienced with members of the ESD community.”

Founded in Vail, Colorado, Students Shoulder-to-Shoulder is an independent, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that challenges students to become responsible, active, and engaged citizens, and to recognize and address the fundamental issues related to endemic poverty.

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photo taken by Danielle Berg ‘14

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Each summer course begins with an online curriculum that preps students and instructors on the area they will be visiting. The variety of online activities allows students to compare their own surroundings to that of another area based on culture, economics, ethics, geography, and politics. Once on-site, students work shoulder-to-shoulder with local members and NGO’s (non-governmental agencies) of the community on sustainable projects geared towards the needs and desires of local citizens.

This past summer, 20 ESD students went to New Orleans, South Dakota, Bolivia, Kenya, Peru, and Tibet. Participants included: Matt Baum ’16, Danielle Berg ’14, Ford Berry ’16, Donny Carty ’17, Ann Dockery ’17, Matthew Dross ’16, Jackson Fitzgerald ’16, Daniel Hull ’13, Harry Hull ’15, Grant Krumholz ’16, Evan Marshall ’16, Dillon Montgomery ’17, Jack Neuhoff’17, McKenna Pressley ’16, Matthew Redish ’14, Kathryn Robinson ’16, Megan Rooney ’14, Logan Smith ’17, William Watson ’17, and Catlin Young ’14. As a member of the Global Schools Coalition, ESD has immediate access to new programs and the ability to shape programs to cater specifically to students’ learning goals.

“Our membership in Students Shoulder-to-Shoulder’s Global Schools Coalition means that we can help shape the program as it grows to ensure that it is always congruent with ESD’s own values and mission,” Arnold explained.

Allison Hogan, the Primer teacher at ESD, spent two weeks in Kenya on her first experience with the organization. During her stay, Hogan and McKenna Pressley ’16 helped with work around the Kithoka Amani Community Home, a residency for children.

“It was mesmerizing to go on the tour the first day and see the previous projects that Students Shoulder-to-Shoulder has collaborated on with International Peace Initiatives (IPI) to help them towards this goal,” Hogan said. “Past projects include a greenhouse, drip irrigation system, goat pen, and fence. This year we built an eco-cottage to help IPI gain revenue to be self-sustaining.”

Meg Fahrenbrook ’01, an ESD history and English teacher, has participated in the program as a course instructor for two years and co-led the Nepal trip both times.

“The programs give our students the chance to be part of finding real solutions to real problems,” Fahrenbrook said. “Through the homestays and relationships the students built with the locals we worked with side-by-side, the students became a part of the culture and were not tourists. The problem the community faced became personal to the students.”

Over the years, Robert Bandoni, the executive director of Students Shoulder-to-Shoulder, has coordinated several of the trips with ESD students and teachers.

“The people we work with at ESD are collaborative, bright, invested, and positive about our work together with their school,” Bandoni said. “It’s our honor to share them as colleagues.”

For more information about this program and ways to be involved, please contact Eleanor Arnold, arnolde@esdallas.org.

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PARTNERING WITH

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IMAGINE a science curriculum that integrates classroom lectures, hands-on experiments, iPads, and special “Science Nights,” all with the guidance of your own instructor from the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. Next, mix in projects that include raising Monarch butterflies, interactive tours of Texas, and live demonstrations of digestive systems, and you have a learning environment perfect for promoting intellectual discovery.

The Perot Museum and the Episcopal School of Dallas have created a learning partnership that allows young scientists to soar to even greater heights. The foundation is simple: partner with teachers to bring the Museum to classrooms, allow students to explore concepts at an experiential level, and develop a deeper understanding of the world of nature and science.

“We want to encourage students’ natural curiosity while making science fun and accessible,” Marc Horn, the ESD-Perot Museum Coordinator, said. “Students learn concepts in the classroom, engage in hands-on activities, and expand on those lessons at the Perot Museum.”

Horn, who has worked with the Museum since January, joined the ESD faculty in August. Since then, he has become fully immersed in ESD’s already abounding Lower School science curriculum, working alongside Laura Talbot, ESD’s Lower School science liaison, to foster a variety of hands-on experiments.

“In all the lessons, students take information they already know, ask questions, collect data, and then work together to interpret the data,” Horn explained. “ESD teachers do an exemplary job of fostering a curious state of mind that makes students of all ages eager to learn more.”

This year, the partnership has identified a project at each grade level within the ESD curriculum to further examine. For example, first graders were engaged in raising Monarch butterflies that students hoped to release and track the movement of using a tagging program.

Horn and Talbot are facilitating student learning on how to research the appropriate plants and environmental factors necessary to ensure Monarch butterflies’ survival, including an updated memorial butterfly garden and Monarch way station.

“ESD classrooms are full of wonderful ideas as children experiment to build knowledge and test hypotheses,” Talbot said. “Students notice opportunities to frame questions, postulate hypotheses, and create verifiable experiments to test these ideas. Our relationship with the Perot Museum helps support this process by providing additional resources and perspective.”

In October, third graders ate bread and crackers to see first-hand

how mechanical and chemical digestion works. Earlier in the year, fourth graders researched and built a series of projects utilizing Edmodo to exchange information between student learning partners that created virtual tours of Texas, including presentations about the weather, geology, and demography of the state.

Three Science Nights will be held on the Lower School campus throughout the school year to provide opportunities to engage in ESD’s science curriculum, thematically focus on super heroes. The first one was held November 7, 2013, for Pre-K students and their

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LOWER SCHOOL

SCIENCE NIGHTS In conjunction with the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, the Lower School developed three “Super Hero Science Nights” featuring grade-level appropriate experiments and presentations for students and parents. The Beginner and Pre-K classes kicked off the event on Thursday, November 7; a second event for first and second grade followed on Thursday, January 30. For two hours, children had the opportunity to engage in hands-on experiments that demonstrated everything from aerodynamics and buoyancy to nature and wildlife. There were also live demonstrations presented by staff members from the Perot Museum that showed students how to make gigantic soap bubbles, measure their heart rate, and search out insects and plant species in the grass.

UPCOMING “Super Hero Science Night” Grades 3 and 4 Thursday, March 27 5:00 p.m.

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families. Students, ages three to six, discovered the real science of super heroes as they explore energy, forces and motion, smart materials, magnetism, levitation, x-ray vision, lasers, and properties of light. In addition to two Super Hero Science presentations by the Perot Museum, discovery centers lined the Pre-Elementary halls and Perot Science night activities and exhibits filled the Dining Commons allowing ESD’s youngest students to measure, analyze, propose hypotheses, predict, design, build, test, model, and imagine within a wide variety of scientific topics.

First and second grade students participated in the fun on their Science Night, held Thursday, January 30. Another event for the third and fourth grade will follow the same theme, with grade- and age-appropriate activities and experiments, this spring.

“Science Night is the perfect opportunity for our community to celebrate a child’s capacity for ‘wonder’ and to deploy them to build, take apart, sort, name, and compare in unique ways,” Chelle Wabrek, ESD’s Assistant Head of Lower School, said. “Super powers have long captured the imagination of children all over the world. To examine the scientific magic of inimitability and levitation make us all super heroes.”

The partnership between ESD and the Museum encourages and applauds the innate “scientist” in every student.

“Everything within this partnership is really a team effort based on the teachers’ lesson plans,” said Horn, who has completed course requirements toward a Ph.D. in Education from Texas A&M. “ESD is an amazing school where we have the opportunity to not only expand on what we’re teaching the students, but then investigate how we can carry them forward. There is always something more that can be done, our job is to find out what else our students can learn in the

“

We want to encourage students’ natural curiosity while making science fun and accessible.

”

classroom and at the Museum.”

The benefits of ESD’s partnership with the Perot Museum are expected to be off the chart.

“ESD’s relationship with the Perot Museum is the ultimate gift that keeps on giving,” Wabrek said. “As our Museum Coordinator invests his time in our teachers, they are gaining additional expertise and efficacy to act as scientists themselves. Everyone, from our most seasoned educators to our youngest Beginners, is further developing the mindset of designers and innovators who are eager, like super heroes, to make the world a better place.”

The Episcopal School of Dallas is proud to announce the 65 students being recognized as 2013 Advanced Placement Scholars from the College Board’s AP Exam Program.

More than 92 percent of ESD’s 2013 graduates scored a 3 or higher on at least one or more AP exam, compared to 51 percent of all Texas seniors.

Eighty percent of all ESD students taking an exam scored a 3 or better. The ESD average score of 3.67 was more than one point higher than the state score of 2.56. The United States’ average score was 2.89.

AP SCHOLARS

NATIONAL AP SCHOLAR AWARDS AND AP SCHOLAR WITH DISTINCTION

(Earning an average score of 4 or higher on all AP exams taken and a score of 4 or higher on at least eight exams)

Daniel Hull ’13

Wilson Miller ’13

Matthew Mrozek ’13

AP SCHOLAR WITH DISTINCTION

(Scoring an average of 3.5 points on all AP exams and a score of 3 or higher on five or more exams)

Blake Archer ’13 Arthur Beckel ’13 Kirby Brand ’13 Mitchell Burden ’13 Ines Bustamante ’14 Claire Cahoon ’13 Catherine Duffy ’13

Amanda Eggers ’13 Baron Farmar ’13 Emily Fitzgerald ’13 Anna Hansell ’13 Maya Harris ’13 Daniel Hull ’13 Crawford Kob ’13

Rithia Kotamarti ’13 Austin Magnuson ’13 Wilson Miller ’13 Blake Moore ’13 Matthew Mrozek ’13 David Saustad ’13 Sarah Spellings ’13

William Stargardt ’13 Jonathan Stern ’13 Grace Trammell ’13 Ann Walker ’13 E Marie Witkin ’13

AP SCHOLAR WITH DISTINCTION

(Scoring an average of 3.5 points on five or more AP exams as a junior)

Megan Sims ’14 AP SCHOLAR WITH HONOR AWARD

(Earning an average grade of at least 3.25 on all AP exams taken with scores of 3 or higher on four or more of these exams)

Kathryn Anderson ’13 Alexander Beane ’13 Caroline Brennan ’13 Mary Cole Daulton ’13 Asia Hawkins ’13

Katherine Kob ’13 William Lipscomb ’14 Catherine Lovitt ’14 Sydney Narvaez ’13 Carolyn Overbeck ’13

Michael Pappas ’14 Anderson Riddick ’14 Cliff Ritter ’13 Megan Rooney ’14 Megan Sheets ’13

Jory Shive ’13 Ellen Sliva ’13 Alexandra Snyder ’14 Catherine Talbot ’13 Matthew Wheeler ’13

Hudson Leiser ’13 Ryan Meier ’13 Vinita Mundluru ’13 Brittany Perry ’13 Sophie Sisson ’14

Leah Smith ’13 Seth Stukalin ’13 James Walker ’13

AP SCHOLAR AWARD

(Scoring a 3 or higher on three or more AP exams)

Alex Aronowitz ’14 Emily Barnes ’14 Ryan Converse ’13 Sara Jane Emmons ’14 Lindsay Gerard ’13

Lauren Griffin ’13 Alexander Gulis ’14 Cyrus Hamid-Khani ’13 Wynne Hobbs ’14 Todd Jensen ’14

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THE PROJECT Interdisciplinary Independent Study on Mid-19th Century North Texas THE CLASS Junior English and History Classes THE DETAILS Students in the Class of 2015 were hard at work this fall brainstorming, researching, developing, and presenting their Wolf Run projects to their teachers and peers. A curriculum staple since 1997, this inquiry-driven project allows students to create their own projects without any concrete guidelines set in place to hamper their curiosity. The process includes a Lewis and Clark-style sketch book and five sketches of the barn, the archeological site or artifact, the house, the hike, and one other observed aspect. These drawn, photographed, and written sketches often spark the genesis of the student’s project, in which they must incorporate historical fiction or creative non-fiction, along with in-depth research, to support their written argument, as well as their final piece and oral presentation.

“The only real requirement is that the topic must be grounded in mid-19th Century Texas with specific connection with the land on which the David Shields family settled in 1854 – what

we now call Wolf Run,” Greg Randall, Upper School English teacher, explained. “Students are challenged to develop a relevant argument that juxtaposes a lifestyle in the 1850s in North Texas to one in today’s society. Then they must examine what we have gained, as well as what we have lost as a society.”

Some of this year’s pieces included musical interpretations of old folk songs, a 3D model of the effects of a drought on ranchland, caramel made with ingredients and utensils available in the mid-19th century, a 3D printer-created replica of a windmill, hand-made dolls, and charcoal sketches of nature and wildlife.

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AROUND CAMPUS WITH MR. EASON

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WINTER, AT FIRST GLANCE SOME OF US THINK “YUCK.” It is dark when we go to work and dark when we come home. We are smack dab in the middle of the third-quarter grind, and now we have to deal with the effects of the Polar Vortex, a.k.a. Global Warming’s evil twin. But wait, this is ESD, and we are in Texas. True, it is dark outside when I leave the house in the morning and return home in the evening, but the reality is that I have jogged in a T-shirt and shorts ten times as often as I’ve donned a winter jacket, and ESD in the winter is everything except “yuck.” To me, winter at ESD can be summed up with two words – tradition and community.

Winter on campus kicks off with two of my favorite school traditions – Lessons and Carols and the Lower School Christmas Service. Yes, seventh graders, eighth graders, and Upper School students have exams the following week, but the other Middle School students are engaged in holiday community service projects, trips downtown to see A Christmas Carol, and time spent at Wolf Run playing games, making ornaments, and baking cookies. If you can think of a better way to kick start winter and head into the holidays, let me know.

Upon returning in January, we pick up right where we left off.

The fifth grade goes to Wolf Run for their annual overnight trip, soon followed by the third grade pioneers. One of the lesser-known community components of our Outdoor Education programming is the use of freshmen advisories as student helpers on the Lower School trips. The older kids take their mentoring responsibilities very seriously, and it warms my heart to watch the big kids become the shepherds. They lead their little buddies from station to station and supervise their activities. I do not doubt that some lifetime friendships are formed. Kids, young and old, have a new-found understanding of why community is one of ESD’s four Founding Tenets, and why it will always be one of the hallmarks of the ESD experience.

Winter and January are not all about Wolf Run. Several other traditional events and community experiences flood the school calendar: AP art shows, Jump Rope for Heart, Bingo Night, and Eagle Night, just to name a few. If you want to catch an all school spirit event at its fever pitch, go watch the Just Skip It Team perform on an Eagle Night. Wow, raise the roof, Eagles!! Speaking of raising the roof, this past January ESD kicked off what it hopes to be a very special annual tradition, building a Habitat for Humanity house.

Thanks to a generous donation by the Casey Family, ESD volunteer teams comprised of students, faculty, staff, parents, and alumni will spend nine Saturdays from January 11 through March 22 building

a complete house from start to finish for the Lopez family in West Dallas. Many volunteers appear at school on Monday morning massaging sore muscles they didn’t know they had, but they all are quick to claim it was worth every ache and pain. My favorite quote was from ESD Director of Community Service, Christi Morrow: “I do countless hours of community service all the time, but this Habitat experience was life-changing.”

We reach the end of January and it is time for the sixth grade trip to Washington D.C. Former NAIS President Pat Bassett frequently spoke of the importance of signature events in a child’s school experience. I can’t think of anything other than the senior retreat that comes close to providing a life-long class bonding experience that the sixth grade trip provides. Experiencing the Smithsonian, Colonial Williamsburg, Mount Vernon, numerous museums, and touring the White House build memories that will bond relationships and be remembered for a lifetime.

An ESD winter does not end in January. February brings with it another round of time-honored traditions. The Upper School mountaineers make their annual trek to Enchanted Rock. This trip is very popular with the seniors. I know in my heart the popularity of the trip is the seniors’ way of honoring and saying thank you to Peter Lutken for the numerous adventures he has taken them on, some dating back to the first grade. They desire one last chance to sit around

“An ESD winter does not end in January. February brings with it another round time-honored traditions.” the camp fire and hear his stories, or to gaze upward as he points his laser-guided star finder towards the great winter hexagon in all of its glory. It is an astronomy lesson they will never forget.

Too quickly, it would seem, the middle of February is the third quarter interim, and Roger Bannister’s annual chapel talk, via Peter Lutken. As fatigue creeps in, we must find the strength and courage to overcome the inner thoughts to cruise to the finish, or worse, quit altogether. We use the annual motivation talk to turn the difficult second half of the third quarter into an advantage – a record breaking finish.

And in the blink of an eye, winter has passed, and spring has arrived. Some people, as they get older, have a desire to leave and live in warmer climates. Not me. Winter at ESD provides all of the warmth and excitement I’ll ever need.

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Christmas at ESD burst with joyful traditions: students decorated

ornaments and hung them on the tree, performed at North Park, and inspired at Lessons and Carols, just to name a few. This year, the Middle School choir was invited to perform live in the Ryan Seacrest Studio for Children’s Medical Center Red Balloon Network.

To help spread the Christmas cheer, students at the Lower School decked the halls with Santa and reindeer paintings before they busied themselves with memorizing songs for their musical performance.

Fifth grade students teamed up with their senior buddies to craft sparkling ornaments for the majestic tree in the Commons. Middle School students jingled into seasonal action with the annual Jingle Bell Run and community service projects inspired hope and gratitude.

The celebration culminated with all students, parents, alumni, and faculty and staff members singing together at the annual Lessons and Carols service in the Competition Gymnasium.

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LOWER SCHOOL WELCOMES

JARRETT KROSOCZKA 10TH ANNUAL ELIZABETH ANNE WORSHAM VISITING AUTHOR The Elizabeth Anne Worsham Endowed Visiting Author Fund was created in 2004 by Mr. and Mrs. Joseph I. Worsham II, friends, and family in memory of Elizabeth Anne Worsham ’13. “Children who love to read become adults who love to read, a wonderful gift for a lifetime of enjoyment,” says Bonnie Tollefson, Lower School Librarian. “The annual Visiting Author Program supports that development, and we think of Elizabeth and her love of books and reading every day when we gather round her special rocking chair to read books aloud for story time. The chair features the scripture from Mark 10:14, ‘Let the little children come to me.’

It is depicted by an intricate carving of Jesus surrounded by children.”

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Jarrett Krosoczka, author and illustrator of nearly one dozen beloved children’s books including Baghead, Punk Farm, and the Lunch Lady series, visited with Lower School students on Monday, October 21, encouraging them to persevere as they pursue their dreams. He regaled students with humorous stories of the numerous rejection letters he received from publishers before finally opening an email that gave him hope.

“I thought that Jarrett Krosoczka was super uplifting,” a fourth grade student said. “He inspired me to start creating picture books. When he was talking about how he never gave up and how he wrote his books, it was really amazing. I wish I could be like him. He taught me to never give up, and keep on trying.”

Krosoczka’s visit was made possible through an endowment given to the school in celebration and honor of the life of ESD student, Elizabeth Anne Worsham. A curious child and an avid reader, the Worsham family is certain their bright, creative, and engaging second grader, Elizabeth, would have loved to hear the authors’ inspiring messages.

The Saint Michael School started the tradition of inviting children’s authors to visit students in 1975, and this endowment ensures that one special author will visit the ESD Lower School every fall in perpetuity. Children’s author and illustrator Jarrett Krosoczka served as the 10th annual Elizabeth Anne Worsham Visiting Author.

“The Visiting Author Series has been such a special way to honor the memory of our daughter, Elizabeth,” Katherine Worsham said. “With the hard work and help of our incredible librarians, the series continues to introduce dynamic authors to

our children. The kids get to engage in questions with the author, helping to bring to life the process of taking original ideas from abstract to concrete book form.”

Krosoczka wrote and illustrated his first book while in the third grade. An avid reader and writer himself, Krosoczka would come home from school, staple a few sheets of paper together, and write whatever story his imagination conceived. The packed theater of students, teachers, and parents listened with rapt attention. Allison Hogan’s Primer class wore paper bags over their heads, just like their favorite character from Krosoczka’s book Baghead, and students in Wendy Dalton’s first grade class made “bagheads” for their beanie babies.

In a TED Talk he delivered in October 2012, Krosoczka told the story of his grandfather sending him to art classes at the Worchester Art Museum when his own school cut funding to the arts program. In high school, Krosoczka started drawing cartoons of his teachers and passing them on to his friends. It was these comedic drawings that got Krosoczka noticed by teachers, who recommended he start drawing for the school newspaper. For more than three years, he served as the cartoonist for the paper.

His fortune cookie one night read: “You will be successful in your work.” The fortune is still taped

to his drawing table. “On my fourteenth birthday, my grandfather and grandmother gave me the best birthday present ever, a drafting table that I have worked on ever since,” Krosoczka said. “Here I am 20 years later and I still work on this table every day.”

“He engaged our students with his presentations and taught them that perseverance is a very important part of experiencing success,” Sandy Kerr, Head of Lower School, said. “The students were captivated by his stories and illustrations, and by the fact that he has been passionate about storytelling since he was their age.”

Krosoczka also gave students a sneak peak at his newest book Peanut Butter and Jellyfish, before doing several live drawings of the students’ favorite character, Baghead, who encourages children to be comfortable with their own creativity and individuality.

“I was most excited about how Jarrett’s visit motivated the children to write,” Bonnie Tollefson, Lower School Librarian said. “Several students talked to their teachers about writing their own books. All of the books the students create will be placed in our own library for circulation.”

Books written by Lower School students and inspired by Krosoczka’s presentation will be on display in the Lower School Library next to Elizabeth’s engraved rocking chair. The chair, often used by the Lower School librarians for reading time, includes the scripture verse “Let the

little children come to me,” and an intricate carving of Jesus surrounded by children.

“You don’t have to be able to even write to become an author,” Krosoczka said to the littlest of listeners. “Go home from school and tell your parents the story that your imagination created. You, too, will be an author.”

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“

When people see the piece, I hope they will reflect on ESD as being a place where everyone is accepted.

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MIXED MEDIA COLLABORATION CELEBRATES SCHOOL’S DIVERSITY AND EPISCOPAL IDENTITY

Not just any painting would do. The art that would serve as the centerpiece over the fireplace in the Episcopal School of Dallas Study Commons needed to be one-of-a-kind. It would also need to encompass not only ESD’s Episcopal identity, but also represent ESD’s diverse and pluralistic community. Charlotte Blaine, the ESD employee tasked with decorating the space, thought it essential members of the student body create the piece.

“Ms. Blaine asked us to create something that embodies the entire school… something that everyone could connect with,” Kathleen Raymond, one of ESD’s Fine Arts teachers and facilitator of the project, said. “Our process was ‘artwork by committee.’ The imagery came from the freshmen and senior art students, and then everyone from the community was invited to add a prayer.”

Over the course of several weeks, Middle and Upper School students met to decide what kind of artwork would adorn the Study Commons, and choose which images would be used to capture the essence of the School. The group, led by senior Jenkins Bender and freshman Grant Hemingway, settled on a mixed media piece that would involve using metal spoons and solvent to transfer-print images of All Saints Chapel and an eagle onto a custom canvas.

“It was really important to us that the entire ESD community be invited to participate in the making of the print,” Bender said.

With the creative process underway, a group of students turned their focus to collecting handwritten prayers from their peers and teachers to transfer onto the canvas. Requests of different faiths and languages

flooded in and students worked together to arrange the phrases and uplifting words around the campus imagery.

“It really did take a village to get this project completed,” Raymond said. “Everyone was able to add their own special touch to the artwork.”

Bender agreed, saying “It was all of the hands that touched this piece that make it so special. Watching the different classes and divisions interact and write their personal prayers on the canvas added a sentimental value.”

When the images were pressed and dried, and the prayers meticulously placed to frame All Saints Chapel and the eagle, the words “faith,” “hope,” and “love” were printed larger and bolder than anything else.

The size of each component directly represents the heart and warmth of the School.

Hemingway, who pitched the idea of including an eagle in the piece, said he drew his inspiration from a statue he saw in Greg Randall’s classroom.

“To have the eagle be seen flying over All Saints Chapel shows that we as a community are one with God,” Hemingway said. “When people see the piece, I hope they will reflect on ESD as being a place where everyone is accepted.”

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A View from the Office of Admission WITH DIRECTOR OF ADMISSION CINDY NEWSOM

Although I have been involved in the Office of Admission for 13 years, this is my first year as Director. With that in mind, I thought it would be nice to review the past year and share some of the reasons I am so proud to be a part of the Episcopal School of Dallas. The stats speak for themselves…

In 2013-14, we welcomed 162 bright new students into our community, with a selective enrollment of 29 percent of all applicants, compared to the NAIS national average of 44 percent and ISAS’s average of 50 percent.

Our attrition rate was 5.9 percent, well below the NAIS national average of 9.15 percent and the ISAS average of 8.2 percent. (NAIS’s StatsOnline, 2011-12) We were able to offer spots to many sibling and alumni-children applicants, continuing the rich tradition of the importance of family within the ESD community.

This year we are pacing ahead of last year’s numbers and expect another strong admission cycle. We look forward to welcoming our newest Eagles this spring.

If asked what I could attribute ESD’s continuing success to in such a competitive market, I would have to credit several things:

1.

ESD’s continued focus on the whole child is something that families are drawn to and appreciate. This focus noticeably continues to lead all that we do within the classroom and beyond. Every child matters and is valued at ESD. When we are able to clearly communicate this to prospective families, they understand the difference that ESD can make in their child’s life.

2.

ESD’s vision for the future within the framework of the ESD Tomorrow strategic plan is well respected. Our reputation within the Dallas community will continue to open doors, but our clearly defined plan for 21st century learning is attracting new families and garnering additional positive attention.

3.

This community is unequivocally special. This is possibly the hardest thing to articulate, and yet it is often something our applicant families notice when touring. They observe a conversation between a teacher and a student. Or they hear about our Name Game tradition and the fact that

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two seniors were able to name every student in the Upper School, both first and last name, as well as all the teachers and advisors in order to earn a free-dress day for the entire Upper School. Or they witness our fourth graders serving as Tour Guides and Ambassadors during Lower School Admission Previews – the students were so outstanding in that leadership role. It is our advisory system, our committed and well-organized parent organizations… it is, simply, “our way.”

Each year, we reach out to our new families once the school year has begun to see how they are settling into life at ESD and ask for feedback on the process so that we can continue to grow. We are always curious to know if they are happy with their decision. A few examples of the responses we received are shown at right.

I feel incredibly fortunate and blessed to work with such outstanding people in Admission. Our team jumps into action and everyone is responsible for their own “specialty” and somehow we make it all come together. Ashley Beck, Shelle Montgomery, Casey Dobson, and Corey Henderson all give so much to this community and the families we work with throughout the process. However, our team is much larger than the five of us. So many of you have given of your time to help interview applicants, welcome a tour into your classroom, serve on Admission Committees, speak at one of our Admission Previews or events, been flexible enough to allow us to use various spaces on campus or allow us to take up parking places that we know inconvenience you. Special thanks to our Alumni Association whose role in the admission process continues to grow, including interviewing for scholarships and insightful contributions to our Admission Learning Team. We must express, as well, our deep gratitude for the outstanding efforts of our Parents’ Association volunteers who welcome our new families. And from all of us, we thank you for walking this journey with us.

When we pick up [our son] and ask “How was your day?”... we hear “IT WAS AWESOME!” and then he launches into stories of this and that cool, funny, interesting thing that happened!

Thank you to Mrs. Rosenthal, Mr. Willis, Mr. Cook, and all the other faculty who make it an amazing experience for us.

[My son] really is enjoying school and this makes us happy. He speaks of the centers, Spanish, and music often.

We can say without equivocation that we are thrilled with ESD, and [our son] loves his classes and new friends.We have been so pleased with Mrs. Stanford’s approach to things and philosophy on teaching.

Life at ESD is good!

Overall, I couldn’t be more pleased. [My child] and I also feel welcome at every event we attend and look forward to getting more involved in the community as time goes on.

[Our son] is like a new kid! He is loving school.

In the past, there were lots of struggles and stress in the evenings after school – no more! We wish we would have done this earlier!

Knowing my daughter is excited about going to school everyday makes for a great morning commute and reassures me that there is truly a school for each child. ESD is definitely the perfect fit for [our daughter].

The teachers, students, and parents have gone out of their way to make our entire family feel welcomed. We truly feel like [our daughter] has found the right school for her and we are very blessed.

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GLOBALLYGLOBAL With contributions from Eleanor Arnold, Eugenia Haapanen, Allison Hogan, Claire Mrozek, and Denise Stark

Global Education at ESD isn’t an office, center, or single program: it is infused into every aspect of school life. In the same way that the School’s Mission shapes everything we do at ESD, it also serves as the starting point for envisioning what it means for our students to be “globally educated.”

Many of our youngest students will live through the 21st century and beyond. To prepare them for the rapid changes and ultimate unknowns of that life span, we offer them myriad opportunities to learn about the diversity, the delights, the challenges, and the experiences that the broader world provides them.

Global Education encompasses four main aspects of student life at ESD: curriculum, programming, travel, and extracurricular activities. Global issues, geography, language, culture, and history are interwoven throughout classes at all grade levels. Visitors from around the world bring their perspectives to challenge and enrich our students’ understanding of the world and their places in it, and a growing number of opportunities exist for students to travel globally to learn and to serve.

Here is a sampling of global highlights from the fall 2013 semester at ESD: 42

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VISITOR FROM NEPAL

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As a bonus for our active partnership with Students Shoulder-toShoulder (SStS), in October, ESD was privileged to host Sonam Sherpa, co-director, with her husband Karma Sherpa, and founder of The Small World NGO (www.thesmallworld.org). Sonam spoke of her work to students in Middle and Upper School chapels and met with students in all three divisions. Middle School teacher Meg Fahrenbrook ’01 has worked on projects in Nepal with Sonam and Karma for the last two summers and plans to go back in the summer of 2014 with another SStS group.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH

Another benefit of participation with SStS is the opportunity for faculty and students to attend the organization’s Global Solutions Forum in Vail in late October. This year, Eleanor Arnold, Allison Hogan, Meg Fahrenbrook, and Christi Morrow participated in sessions for SStS course instructors and global liaisons; students Harry Hull ’15, Catlin Young ’14, and Jack Neuhoff ’17 engaged with students from around the country in workshops on non-profit advocacy.

SPOTLIGHT ON TURKEY

Through our affiliation with the Dallas/Fort Worth World Affairs Council, Upper School teacher and Chair of the Religion Department Kimberly Rogers visited Turkey over the summer as part of a special tour designed for educators. In the fall, she shared her experiences with Upper School World History students. Also through the WAC, ESD hosted the Turkish Vice Consul, His Excellency Abdullah Topçu, who talked about modern Turkey with interested students, including Mrs. Rogers’ Bible Literature class and members of the ESD World Affairs Club.

RUSSIAN PARTNERS

Dallas and the Russian city of Saratov are official “sister cities.” For the last two years, ESD has hosted visiting students from Saratov for a day on campus. A dozen students visited in November, attending chapel, meeting with groups of interested students, and sitting in on World History classes. They also engaged in a discussion with students in the U.S. Constitution class after hearing their presentation on the Fourth Amendment in the context of national security issues.

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE

In October, three young women from Palestine and Israel regaled members of ESD’s freshmen class with stories about perseverance, courage, and respect. The women are members of Creativity for Peace, an organization dedicated to developing the next generation of female leaders and peacemakers in the Middle East. Kimberly Rogers organized the visit.

We offer myriad opportunities to learn about the diversity, the delights, the challenges, and the experiences that the broader world provides.

WORLD AFFAIRS IN ACTION

”

The Upper School World Affairs Club, headed by senior Ines Bustamante and sponsored by the Chair of the History Department Claire Mrozek and the Director of Global Education Eleanor Arnold, is an umbrella organization for students involved in several activities focused on current events and world affairs. Ten members of the club spent a Saturday in November debating and discussing current events at the Dallas Area Model United Nations held at North Hills Preparatory School. Representing the nations of France, Turkey, and Australia, the students attempted to develop responses to contemporary issues like the use of torture in interrogation, the peaceful use of outer space, and the appropriate role of private military contractors in war zones. Students also took part in an international trade simulation that demonstrated the vast differences in international resource wealth. Junior Tate Curington won an award as an “Outstanding Delegate.” In March, the group participated in the North Texas International Model United Nations at the University of North Texas. In February, teams of students competed in the Dallas/ Fort Worth World Affairs Council’s World Quest competition at the University of Texas at Arlington. Members of the club also participate in the Kiva micro-lending program and engage in spirited discussions of international events during regular meetings.

CONFUCIUS CLASSROOM

As the Chinese language program continues to develop at ESD, so do activities to familiarize our students with Chinese history, culture, and arts through our membership in the Confucius Classroom program, sponsored by the Confucius Institute at the University of Texas at Dallas.

• Throughout the month of October, fifth graders practiced Chinese martial arts and Tai Chi Chuan fundamentals in their physical education classes under the direction of Dr. Nick Chamberlain, owner of Chamberlain Studios of Self Defense. The program will be expanded to include sixth-grade physical education classes in the spring.

• A group of Chinese language students from Eugenia Haapanen’s classes prepared for a performance with other Confucius Classroom schools in celebration of the Chinese New Year. The performance was on February 8 at the University of Texas at Dallas. Instructed by Lili Shi, an experienced teacher and performer of traditional Chinese dance, the students danced to the tradition folk song “Feng Yang Flower Drum.”

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The dance represents the festive atmosphere of the New Year through drumbeats and flying ribbons.

NAIS 20/20

• Early in the New Year, Chinese students visited the Crow Museum of Asian Art to view the gold zodiac heads created by the internationally renowned Chinese artist and dissident, Ai Weiwei.

The NAIS Challenge 20/20 pairs U.S. classes with classes in other countries; together, the teams find local solutions to one of twenty global problems.

LEARNING ABOUT THE REAL WORLD

• ESD Primer students are currently studying the global problem of guaranteeing an opportunity of “education for all.” They have learned several reasons why children in many parts of the world are unable to go to school and are working to formulate a solution. They have partnered with the Bullis School in Maryland on this project.

Seventh grade Global Studies students spent several weeks during the fall semester examining the issue of illegal immigration. After reading Lupita Manana, the realistic story of a young Mexican girl and her teenaged brother who illegally immigrated to the United States from Mexico, they examined the push/pull factors of those who enter the United States illegally. Using their research skills, seventh graders then determined the difference between a U.S. policy and a U.S. law, while finding information about Deferred Action for Childhood Immigrants, a Homeland Security policy, and the “Dream Act,” a proposed law. Several flipped classroom assignments challenged the students to discern biases and identify incorrect information broadcast in public videos about the policy and the proposed law. The well-informed seventh graders then engaged in a number of lively and passionate classroom discussions on the topic of illegal immigrants in the U.S., and are on the way to

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• In January, the third grade class taught by Natalie Amato began collaborating with Wilder Waite Grade School in Peoria, Illinois, and an international college in Lebanon to address the issue of global warming.

HOLIDAY CARD EXCHANGE

Five Lower School classes participated in the Holiday Card Exchange: Lauren Hill’s Beginner class, Allison Hogan’s Primer class, Rachael Bingham’s and Monica Frymire’s first grade classes, and Natalie Amato’s

SAVE DATE THE

MARCH ESDPA SPEAKER SERIES PRESENTS

third grade class. Each class connected with 29 other classes and made and exchanged cards.

An additional card was made for Project Amigo, an organization that supports the children of Colima, Mexico. Carolina Cadena, one of the Lower School Spanish teachers, also incorporated this project into her classroom. She used Google Earth to locate the school and then the students made a card in Spanish for the Project Amigo school.

SKYPE IN THE CLASSROOM

Teachers at the Lower School are connecting with guest speakers and other classes using Skype.

For example, Rhonda Bier’s second grade class gave a school tour with her students for another class in London. Allison Hogan’s Primer class Skyped with John Tait, a torch carrier in the London Olympic Games. Students were able to ask questions about the torch and “virtually” hold the torch.

DR. LEONARD SAX

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APRIL 9

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ESDPA SPRING LUNCHEON

MAY PASS IT ON

OLYMPIC GAMES

Lower School students prepared for the Winter Olympics in a big way. In the fall, fourth grade students were offered the opportunity to come before school one day a week to work with Zora Skelton on Olympic problems. Third and fourth grade students also composed Winter Olympic facts to share via the morning announcements. In physical education, students learned about winter sports and were divided into teams representing different countries. They held modified winter game events during PE, including hockey, pairs skating, cross country skiing, and bobsledding. Students also researched their country during other subject-area classes and worked on ways to communicate what they learned through their library and technology time.

GRANDPARENTS’ DAY

8

HONORS ASSEMBLIES 16 GRADUATION

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SUMMER PROGRAMS BEGIN

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SPOOKTACULAR On Friday, October 25, the Lower School playground was transformed into a spooky landscape filled with live music and dance contests, two fortune tellers, and dozens of carnival games. The annual Spooktacular Carnival was once again a terrifying success thanks to the efforts of many volunteers and the leadership of Ginny Searcy and Tiffany Loftus. Hundreds of Lower School children and their families enjoyed an afternoon full of fright-filled fun! Proceeds from Spooktacular benefit the ESD Parents’ Association’s projects, including the faculty innovation grants.

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DEAR ESD PARENTS AND FRIENDS, I once read “volunteers do not necessarily have the time; they just have the heart,” and I am grateful for all the BIG hearts in our ESD community! The ESD Parents’ Association is fortunate to have the support of so many parents who give their time and resources to benefit ESD. Thank you.

It has been a privilege to serve as your Parents’ Association President during such an exciting time in ESD’s history and support our new dynamic Head of School, Meredyth Cole, as we enter this new chapter in ESD’s legacy. I have learned so much and still have much to learn, but I am proud to reflect on the accomplishments we have made thus far.

Looking back and before school began, I outlined three simple goals for the Parents’ Association which included: •R egrounding our Purpose The PA’s role is to work together with the administration and the Board of Directors in achieving the School’s Mission through the following objectives: • Supporting Educational Goals • Building Community • Welcoming Members • Encouraging Volunteerism • Contributing Fiscal Support • Strengthening School Spirit • Providing Parent Education •E stablishing a Brand to help identify and clearly communicate who we are within our communities by designing a new logo. The eagles represent the parent-child relationship; the tagline “Let our Spirit Soar!” symbolizes our school spirit and spiritual faith; and “Soar” is a reference to our Eagle mascot.

• I nspiring Ambassadors by calling all of our volunteers to be Ambassadors for ESD within our various communities by standing up for our school.

In addition, the PA Executive Board voted to designate 100 percent of this year’s fundraising proceeds to the goals of ESD Tomorrow by providing support for Learning Innovation Grants, 21st-century Technology Tools, Strength in Faculty Development, Excellence in Learning and Teaching, and Operational Support.

With our goals in place, we were hard at work over the summer planning a special Back-to-School Reception for the faculty and staff.

Ellen Carrie and Chandra Burress put so much time, heart, and effort into chairing this wonderful tradition for our beloved faculty complete with prizes and gifts.

Next, the PA opened the school year with our series of Back-to-School Coffees. The theme was “Stand Up for ESD” and we asked parents to stand up for our new leadership, stand up for our children, and stand up for our community. The coffees also welcomed our new Head of School, Meredyth Cole, and Assistant Heads of Middle and Lower School, Libby Conder and Chelle Wabrek. A heartfelt thank you to our administration, Board of Directors, and community leaders for their time in attending every coffee to reach out and ensure our parent community was informed.

A unique factor to the ESD Parents’ Association is the strong

communication channels between parents and faculty. Thank you to our Division Heads, Division Coordinators, Lauren Swann, Nancy Neuhoff, Amy Osler, and Laura Boeckman, and 56 Grade Level Representatives who devote their time and efforts into informing our parent community, planning parent events, and organizing student socials.

In October, the PA celebrated its newest tradition by honoring our past presidents at a beautiful luncheon hosted

by President-elect Sally Dutter in gratitude for their service and leadership.

Fall brought our treasured tradition, the Spooktacular Carnival, which was a spooky success thanks to our boo-tiful Chairs, Ginny Searcy and Tiffany Loftus. Their organization, enthusiasm, and passion made this community builder our most successful.

Auction was next, and our chairs, Cecilie Holman and Nancy Saustad, did an amazing job planning one great gig called “ESD City Limits” on March 1 at Trinity Groves! They kicked off their efforts in November with a fun party hosted at the beautiful home of Darren and Amy Kozelsky and unplugged performances by our very own Darren Kozelsky and Frank Hamlin of Big Wheel. They also launched the “Buy It Now” catalog and unveiled all the exciting offerings which raised over $45,000. The great auction party on Saturday, March 1, was complete with live music by Skyrocket and Whiskey Pants, food truck fare, libations, Live and Big Board, and all things that make ESD awesome!

The new year was jump started with a “Cow-A-Bingo” good time thanks to our totally awesome Bingo Chairs, Sherry Yeaman and Adrienne Wooldridge, who planned a fun-filled community event for all our Lower School families.

Many thanks to Lori Watson, our Speaker Series Chair, who has done a phenomenal job in planning a year of engaging and educational speakers.

From Kay Wyma to Chico West, we have grown and learned so much as a community.

There are so many more in the PA who contribute their time behind the scenes, from Meleta Smith and Ellen Carrie, our Resale Chairs, to our Eagles’ Nest Volunteer Coordinator, Michelle Mann. There are also many junior moms to thank who work tirelessly to raise funds for Prom led by Caroline Gehan. The list continues, and I hope to recognize more of our remarkable volunteers throughout the year.

All these achievements have only been possible because of the wonderful Board with whom I have had the opportunity to work with every day. Their commitment, creativity, and selfless leadership in serving our school continue to amaze me. So “thank you” to the more than 100 PA volunteers for loving our ESD community as much as you do!

Sincerely,

Christine Cook ESDPA President 2013-14 WINTER 2014

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SUPPORT WHAT YOU LOVE. This year the ESD community has been charged to “Support What You Love” by giving to the 2013-14 Annual Fund. Co-chairs Kathryn and Lance Etcheverry have led a successful campaign, which was celebrated December 4, 2013, with a special night at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. The evening epitomized ESD’s foundation: an exemplary community of educators and families that loves learning.

More than 80 percent of current families have given and 100 percent of the ESD Board of Directors, Parents’ Association Executive Committee, and Dads’ Partnership have also participated.

It’s not too late to make your gift. Visit www.esdallas.org/annualfund or call 214-353-5876 to support what YOU love!

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KEYSTONE SOCIETY To celebrate the beginning of the

new school year, the ESD community welcomed back former faculty and staff members for the inaugural Keystone Society event. More than 50 members of the community, including 25 former faculty and staff members, attended a breakfast and coffee on the morning of Tuesday, August 20, in the Susan M. Frank Center for the Arts and Humanities.

Meredyth Cole and Rebecca Royall worked closely together to create and organize the event as a way to keep all members of the ESD community connected to one another. Current and former members of ESD joined together to share stories of their time at ESD, as well as update colleagues about their lives outside of the School.

“Many, many people have worked hard to make the Episcopal School of Dallas great,” Meredyth Cole said. “The Keystone Society honors those faculty and staff that we no longer have the pleasure of seeing every day. We are grateful and want to keep them close.”

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FACULTYNEWS Christi Morrow was named a 2014 “Silver Star” recipient by Community Partners of Dallas for her tremendous impact and dedication to improving children’s lives.

Katie Grunst’s fiancé, Jason Vining, proposed to her on Christmas Eve in her hometown in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They plan to marry in Dallas in the spring of 2015. (photo a) Martha Bowden and Allison Hogan were selected to present a session at the Leading Future Learning 2014 conference in Worchester, Massachusetts in March. The presentation focused on instructing teachers how to incorporate programming skills into core subjects.

Cait Pennington ’07 married Jeff Dunn on January 4, 2014, at the Church of the Incarnation in Dallas.

Pennington works at ESD as the crew coach and communications coordinator; her husband is a restaurant manager. (photo b) Mike and Sarah Cogliandro are expecting their first child, a daughter to be named Nora Grace, in April.

Congratulations to French teacher Laila Kharrat for graduating with a Master of Arts and Sciences degree in French Language and Literature from the Toulouse Graduate School at the University of North Texas in December. Her thesis was titled, An Age-Based Etic Analysis of Orthographic Variation in ComputerMediated French Discourse. (photo c) Middle School science teacher Scott Goetsch and wife, Rhonda, welcomed Gwendolyn Eva to 52

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the world on November 27. The couple’s daughter was born weighing 7 pounds and 2 ounces and was 20.5 inches long. (photo d) Third grade teacher Natalie Amato had her article, Little Leaders: Elementary Students Proving that Neither Size (Nor Age) Matters in Leadership, published in the December Gardner Carney Leadership Institute’s fall/winter newsletter. She was also engaged to Tom Simms in July. The couple will marry on July 4, 2014 in the Virgin Islands. (photo e) Dr. Angela Fritsen will have a review published in Renaissance Quarterly. The forthcoming review is on “The Poetics of Patronage.

Poetry as Self-Advancement in Giannantonio Campano,” which deals with Neo-Latin poetry and the Renaissance literary patronage system.

Upper School physics teacher Elizabeth Chura administered a project-based semester exam, rather than a written exam for her fall classes. The students worked in groups to build rubber bandpropelled cars and then test them in a lab setting, rather than take a sit-down exam. (photo f) Several faculty and staff members accompanied a group of Upper School students to the NAIS People of Color Conference and Student Diversity Leadership Conference in December. Participants included: Francy Fulbright, Tanya Harris, Marta Milian, Vicki Patterson, Sharon Stout, and Tyrone Thornton.

French teacher Laila Kharrat presented at the American Association of Teachers of French’s French Immersion Day presentation about French slang and text messaging, and about the areas of Quebec and Montreal.

Lacrosse coach Pat Kennedy was selected to coach at the 3D Coaches Summit with the Notre Dame lacrosse team in Denver, Colorado in October.

Chinese language teachers Eugenia Haapanen and Faye Williams attended a workshop at the University of Texas at Dallas to participate in Confucius Classroom activities and integration.

Charlotte Chambliss presented a one-day College Board AP workshop on Studio Art in November.

Dr. Eric Boberg, the School’s Learning Innovation Specialist, presented his dissertation findings at the Texas Council of Professors of Educational Administration Graduate Research Exchange. His presentation was titled, High School Principal Transformational Leadership Behaviors and Teacher Extra Effort During Educational Reform. Two of Boberg’s other presentations were accepted for the annual Rocky Mountain Educational Research Association conference hosted by the University of Central Oklahoma in October.

ESD Lower School Physical Education Coordinator Kris Brockhagen was selected to serve on the American Heart Association Texas State Advisory Committee board in September. She will

be working alongside Douglas Dunsavage ’90 on local and national public advocacy issues.

Allison Hogan was selected to participate in the NAIS 20/20 Challenge that pairs U.S. schools with counterpart courses in other parts of the world. Primer students teamed up with the Bullis School in Maryland and Starlight Academy in Kenya to focus on improving education for children of all ages. Hogan was also asked to present at the Online Education Symposium for Independent Schools Conference, the EdTech Teacher’s iPad Summit, and serves on the Scholastic Instructor’s Teacher Advisory Board.

Congratulations to Paul Lee from the Eagle’s Nest for winning the 2013 Fall Faculty and Staff Ping Pong Tournament; he defeated David Azzi for the championship title. Scott Goetsch, Mark Oglesby, Bryan Powell ’07, Christian Remaud, Mike Schneider, and Tyrone Thornton rounded out the finalists.

Kimberly Rogers, Chair of ESD’s Religion Department, spent three weeks in Turkey over the summer with TCF Teacher Study Tours, and in conjunction with the World Affairs Council of America and the Turkish Cultural Foundation.

Rogers visited local schools and archaeological sites, and attended meetings with members of the Turkish civil society in more than 10 cities. (photo g) Primer teacher Allison Hogan and Meg Fahrenbrook ’01 traveled to Kenya and Nepal, respectively,

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as part of the summer Students Shoulder-to-Shoulder program. This is Fahrenbrook’s second year with the program, and Hogan’s first trip with the global service organization.

Eleanor Arnold, ESD’s Director of Global Studies, serves as the director of ESD’s Students Shoulder-toShoulder partnership.

Head of Lower School Sandy Kerr and Primer teacher Allison Hogan were invited to speak at the TEACH Conference in Jacksonville, Florida.

The presentation, Is Anybody Out There? Motivating Students Beyond the Walls of the Classroom, focused on helping elementary teachers motivate students to learn outside of a classroom setting via online tools.

of a series of paintings based on Ms. Martin’s trip to England that she took as part of a faculty grant to study the Neolithic sites of Stonehenge and Avebury. (photo h)

Vicki Martin, the Middle School Fine Arts teacher, had one of her watercolors selected for display in the Creative Arts Center of Dallas’ Annual Membership Show in August. The watercolor, Salisbury Plain Suite II (The Cove), is part

IN MEMORIAM: Andrea Sipes We honor and celebrate the life of Andrea Sipes, who retired from ESD after serving our school as a beloved Lower School teacher for 27 years. She died in January 2014. May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen. (photo i)

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SMUGMUG Parents can download and print photos from school events for free via SmugMug. Please note: these photos are snapshots of school events and are not representative of the entire student body, although we try to cover as much as possible. If you have any questions or experience any trouble in downloading any of the images, please contact Nicole at jacobsenn@esdallas.org.

• Upon logging into the “Parent Portal,” select the “SmugMug” tab along the top of the page.

• For each gallery, you will be prompted to enter a password. Please note these passwords are changed every month to protect our students’ privacy. You will need to enter these passwords each time you access a gallery, rather than save them in your browser history.

• Once you have access to the gallery, select the album you would like to view. When you have found the photo(s) you would like to download, hold the cursor of your mouse over the image until a small box appears in the upper right-hand corner of the photo.

• Click on the image with a small yellow folder and green arrow. This will download the photo to your computer. You can change the destination of the photo in your computer settings. Repeat this process for each image.

• To access another gallery, you will need to re-visit the Parent Portal and enter the new password for the respective gallery. For example, if you are viewing “Middle School” photos, you will need to log-in again to access “Lower School” photos. You do not need to login again to access different albums within the same gallery.

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HOW-TO

NAVIGATING THE

ESD CALENDAR HOW TO ADD ESD CALENDARS TO YOUR PHONE OR TABLET

Visit www.esdallas.org on your device and click “All School Calendar”

Scroll to the bottom of the events and click “Calendar Feeds”

*

Select a calendar that you would like to add

Click “Subscribe”

Click “Done” or you can view the calendar events on your device

We recommend adding the “LS Day Tracker” or “MS & US Day Tracker” to your device plus your division’s calendar and individual activities that your student is a part of. For questions about the different calendar feeds, any of the other calendars, including arts performances, college guidance visits, sports teams, parent events, that may be of interest, please contact Jamie at mitchamj@esdallas.org

HOW TO REMOVE A CALENDAR FROM YOUR APPLE PHONE OR TABLET

TO START GO TO “SETTINGS”

Select “Mail, Contacts, Calendars”

There is always something happening at ESD. To make it easier to keep track of school events, we recommend adding select ESD calendars to your phone or tablet. See step-by-step directions on how to add and remove calendars below.

Select “Subscribed Calendars”

Select the calendar you would like to remove

Select “Delete Account”

Confirm you want to “Delete Account”

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HOMECOMING Every fall, Homecoming Week provides the ESD community the opportunity to showcase not only their creative endeavors and athletic talents, but also exhibit their school pride. This year’s “Wild For a Night” theme gave students the opportunity to dress up like their favorite jungle cat or Indiana Jones on Monday, and don matching uniforms with their friends on “Twin Day.” Middle School students participated with “Crazy Hat and Sock” day, too. Thursday and Friday were saved for Spirit Days on both campuses for the pep rallies.

The weeklong festivities also included a pep rally at the Lower School, complete with cheers and chants and toy footballs for everyone. Several team captains and JV cheerleaders were in attendance to encourage game attendance and pump up the crowd.

Students wore their mums proud as the cheerleaders taught them a cheer for the Friday night football game against Greenhill.

At halftime of the Friday night football game, Meredyth Cole crowned Caroline Oden ’14 and Jack Mikeska ’14 Homecoming Queen and King. After the ceremony, the varsity sports took to the track to continue the annual Parade of Teams tradition, again complete with candy and prizes for all.

After defeating Greenhill, 59-21, students still celebrated throughout the weekend at Saturday night’s dance. Throughout the week, the School welcomed back many alumni for an annual BBQ, class reunions, and speaker panel.

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HOW ESD HELPED

GRADUATES MAP THEIR FUTURE

THIS MAP REPRESENTS THE 397 ESD graduates from the Classes of 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013. All said, they collectively earned nearly $37.5 million in merit scholarship offers and received 1,906 acceptance letters to 272 different

2010 - 2013 GRADS IN COLLEGE

As a small school and close-knit community, ESD encouraged me to value intellectual curiosity, hard work, and close friendships.

These values have made my transition into Stanford’s academic, athletic, and social spheres a smooth one. Perhaps more importantly, ESD taught me how to balance these aspects of my life in college.

Hannah Smith, ESD ’12 Stanford University

ESD prepared me for college by having a fantastic science department, through which I was able to learn chemistry, biology, and physics in-depth enough to excel in my general science classes. The school also encouraged communication between teachers and students, which meant that I was already in the habit of going to teachers for help the moment I didn’t understand something instead of waiting right before the test.

Sarah Bass, ESD ’12 University of Southern California

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ESD really taught me the importance of communication.

College is a place where thousands of people from different communities come together, but because of ESD’s emphasis on diversity and strong communication, I have been able to interact with anyone on campus, both in the classroom and outside the classroom.

In many ways, I consider ESD to be a small college because it resembles so many of the qualities you find in a university today. No doubt, ESD is a college preparatory school.

Tyler Good, ESD ’13 Southern Methodist University

colleges and universities. These students have chosen to attend 122 different schools, 86 percent of which are outside of Texas. Thirty-seven percent of these graduates elected to stay in Texas; the schools most often selected by these students were Alabama, Auburn, Baylor, Duke, Georgetown, Georgia, Harvard, Mizzou, NYU, Ole Miss, OU, Rhodes, SMU, Texas A&M, TCU, University of Denver, USC, University of San Diego, UT Austin, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, and Washington and Lee.

To be honest, ESD was hard.

The school is designed to be as hard as you make it. After pushing ESD to the limit, and having the teachers and classes push me, I moved on to one of the best universities in the country. It almost seems easier than my time in high school.

Nick Laba, ESD ’12 Washington University in St. Louis

I would say that ESD translated to college in a few ways. First, it focused on the student as a whole person: I feel comfortable having conversations with both my professors and my peers, but I also know how to balance athletics, academics, and a social life because I had to do so at ESD. Maybe the less formulaic answer is that ESD meant a lot to me personally, in terms of challenging myself to think outside the box–from Greg Randall’s writing assignments to Latin class with Dr. Angela Fritsen–I had to be intellectually curious in order to succeed.

That is certainly true at Dartmouth, as well.

Maura Riley, ESD ’10 Dartmouth College

Many teachers at ESD, especially those in the English department, welcomed individuality by making differing opinions acceptable in the classroom. As a government major, confidence in my ability to formulate an argument orally in the classroom, and on paper, has made me successful throughout college.

ESD gave me all the tools necessary to be able to ensure my own success in college.

When I walked into my first class at UVA, I felt entirely confident that, whatever was thrown my way, I could handle. I felt resourced. And when, inevitably, an assignment confused me or a class overwhelmed me, I knew how to ask for help–whether from my friends, my classmates, or my professor.

Caroline Brasch, ESD ’10 University of Virginia

Mikethion Williams, ESD ’10 The University of Texas, Austin

SCAN THIS CODE to see the full map, including number of students at each college. Note: the online map includes 2011-2013 only.

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DEDMAN LECTURE PROFILES The Robert H. Dedman Lecture Series provides students of the Episcopal School of Dallas with both academic and practical experiences in leadership education. The series enhances the School’s Mission to prepare students for lives of intellectual discovery and further distinguishes ESD as a college-preparatory school of the finest caliber. The inaugural lecture was given on April 12, 2002, by Mr. Robert H. Dedman, Sr., noteworthy philanthropist, found of ClubCorp International, and grandfather to Jonathan Dietz’03, Christina Dietz’09, and Jeffrey Dietz’14. Since that time, students have benefited from the wisdom of a wide range of leaders – a senator, a Marine, a cardiologist, a bank president, a chaplain, a professional athlete, a historian, and an architect, to name a few.

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During Homecoming Week 2013, a panel of five ESD alumni spoke to the Class of 2014 about their own experiences at ESD, college, and beyond. Each of them discussed not only how ESD prepared them for their current careers, but also how the School shaped their values. Lastly, the panel offered their single piece of advice they wish they could have been told before their own graduation.

GRANT BALDWIN ’99

As the Director of Business Development for projekt202, a Dallas-based custom software firm, my day entails a large amount of networking, attending client meetings, and creating proposals. I work with several of the world’s largest companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Pepsi, Mercedes-Benz, and Southwest Airlines.

Before the market crash, I had hired projekt202 to create a custom software for my then firm. While searching for my next venture, I remembered how inspired the people at projekt202 were so I went straight to the company’s CEO to ask for a job.

Fortunately, he was thrilled to have me back in office and offered me a position with the company that day.

While a student at ESD, I was in class with other students who were clearly brilliant, and I was not one of them. In an environment with so much talent, I could have easily seen myself as academically inadequate, but the wealth of positive experiences in sports, outdoor education, and academics provided by my teachers and coaches were the kinds of things that gave me the confidence to be successful in life.

If I could give current students one piece of advice, I would tell them find happiness right out of the gate, rather than try to shape the “ideal life.” Take the classes that most interest you, experience life in nature, give back to others, find a spiritual practice, and take care of your body. For me, all of these experiences started at ESD and are what propel me forward every day.

NATHAN MCFALL ’93

Right now, I’m working a few jobs. I own and operate a six-acre, organic vegetable, fruit, and livestock farm. In 2010, my farm became an educational non-profit organization with the goal of training the next generation of sustainable farmers. I also have a residential and commercial remodeling and construction business. My days vary depending on the season. Sometimes I will start my mornings in the field doing tractor work and then work on a remodeling project in the afternoon.

I got into farming while studying agriculture and environmental science at Texas A&M, and then while serving in the Peace Corps in Togo, West Africa. Farming taught me how to grow food, build structures, experience nature and true communities, live off the bounty of nature, and essentially fend for myself. The idea of it all came from a sincere desire to get back to a simpler mode of living.

ESD helped prepare me with the tools needed to navigate college life, and allowed me to get involved in leadership organizations that helped hone my skills as an effective member of society. The School also helped give me the confidence to pursue and achieve those goals.

If I could offer one piece of advice to current students, it would be to get involved. The world has so much to offer, but you have to reach for it. Everyone needs to be a powerful, confident, and good-natured leader to help shape the future. You have no idea the doors that will open to you when you apply yourself, but first, you have to knock.

ANDREA NAVARRO ’09

Working for Emily Summer Design Associates has been a privilege and incredible learning experience. As an assistant designer, I have the opportunity to oversee projects and assignments from every member of the team, including project managers, designers, and art consultants.

My job requires strong organizational skills, as well as the ability to act as a liaison between the Emily Summers team and our clients.

My normal day includes visiting job sites and showrooms, shopping for clients and project managers, and putting together schemes, research ideas, and concepts to present at client meetings. A lot of my time is also consumed understanding computer software, sketching designs, and using Photoshop. I am also required to be knowledgeable about textiles, furniture, finishes, and architecture.

Continuous amounts of internships, summer jobs, and focusing on my hobbies were really what helped lead me to my current position.

During my junior year in college, I decided I wanted to focus on design, and connected with a project manager who had a student at ESD. The next thing you know, she asked me for my resume and showed it to the senior designer and Emily Summer, and the rest is history.

ESD made me extremely aware of the importance and value of alumni relations. I also value strong organizational, managerial, communication, and problem-solving skills that I gained during my years at ESD. If I could pass one piece of advice along, it would be to never forget the relationships you form within the ESD community.

CESAR JASSO ’05

I am currently the executive producer at Slice Media. Every day is different – some days I am on set, or I may be out scouting locations with a film crew. If I am at the office, I do client management, or assemble project budgets, create proposals, coordinate film schedules, hire crews, and get everything else in order for other upcoming projects.

My business partner, David Redish, and I came together in 2010 to establish Slice Media, but our first experience writing, producing, and directing was in Mrs. Carona’s film class. Before we created Slice Media, I was living in Austin, and David was living in Los Angeles so we did a lot of initial research and development online and over the phone.

When I was a student at ESD, I learned how the School fully embodies the term “preparatory” because it did just that – prepare me for college and life beyond school. The faculty and staff, including the coaches, pushed me every day to be better. They encouraged me to explore subjects that interested me and taught me the tools necessary to achieve the goals I set for myself. If I could offer one piece of advice to current ESD students, I would tell them to do what you love and chase your dreams. Work is never work if you truly enjoy what you do.

DAVID REDISH ’05

Day-to-day I run an independent advertising agency called Slice Media with Cesar Jasso. My typical day is made up of being on sets, producing, directing, editing, meeting with prospective clients, and dealing with the details of running a fast-growing company. I am also in charge of the creative process that goes into each piece. The beauty of my job is that no two days are alike.

When I started studying film in college, I wanted to know all the “ins” and “outs” of production so I found local sets and shoots to intern with. I quickly worked my way into assistant positions with camera and art departments – more importantly, I was making connections with people who I still work with today. I worked harder than anyone else I knew and made myself a valuable asset to the producers I worked for.

I credit much of my academic success and social skills to ESD. Being able to relate to anyone who crosses your path is crucial in the professional world. More importantly, ESD and specifically Suzette Carona opened my mind to filmmaking. My appreciation for filmmaking didn’t start until I took my first film class at the recommendation of Cesar. It is pretty cool to think that my business partner turned me on to my life’s passion when we were kids.

If I could offer students one piece of advice it would be to try something and fail at it. It took me a while to be comfortable with this idea, but the only way to truly succeed is to try things that other people think are different and crazy.

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JOIN US

Thursday, May 8

PASS IT ON AND RECEPTION

Friday, May 9

CHAPEL MOCK CLASSES AND QUARRY MAYHEM ALUMNI GOLF TOURNAMENT

in support of Mary Elizabeth Williams ‘83 Endowed Alumni Scholarship Fund

Saturday, May 10

FAMILY COMMUNITY SERVICE PROGRAM EAGLE LAUREATE DINNER

Sunday, May 11

SPECIAL ALUMNI EUCHARIST SERVICE WITH FATHER SWANN

Watch your inbox for details or visit www.esdallas.org/foundersweekend.

Contact Megan Boyd ‘09 to help plot the shenanigans.

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DEAR ALUMNI FRIENDS AND FAMILY, The ESD Alumni Association had another great semester. Whether it was reconnecting with old friends or sharing traditions and memories with our new Head of School, Meredyth Cole, the last few months have been full of excitement. The school year started with many former students welcoming Ms. Cole to ESD. From day one, she has been working very hard to meet the alumni and has shown a real interest in learning more about us and ESD’s traditions. She has participated in alumni events, meetings, dinners, lunches, and breakfasts. We are lucky to have someone like Ms. Cole who is dedicated to maintaining ESD’s traditions while continuing to look for new ways to make our school better.

If you have not had an opportunity to meet Ms. Cole, I encourage you to do so. You will be proud of her hard work and dedication to ESD. The Alumni Association’s Executive Committee has been meeting every month to further our involvement in the ESD community.

In September, we adopted a new alumni mission statement: “The Episcopal School of Dallas Alumni Association exists to perpetuate the Mission, Founding Tenets, traditions, and culture of the Episcopal School of Dallas.” We believe this mission statement best outlines our purpose and hope you will join us in furthering this mission.

In October, the Alumni Association hosted another successful homecoming weekend. The weekend began on Friday night with a BBQ before the Eagles victory over Greenhill. Alums were able to catch up with old friends at the game and during various class reunions on Saturday night.

This year’s ESD Alumni holiday party was a huge success. Michael Munir ’92 hosted us at one of his company’s custom homes on Strait Lane. Alums from all classes enjoyed holiday cheer with their former classmates at this amazing home. The next morning, we were well represented at Lessons and Carols by Matson Pearce ’80, who read a lesson on behalf of the Alumni Association. It was appropriate to have a member of our first graduating class participate in Ms. Cole’s first Lessons and Carols.

We look forward to even more events this coming semester. In addition to our usual spring alumni gatherings, the Alumni Association is proud to announce the inaugural ESD Founders’ Weekend will be May 8-11. Alan Neuhoff ’89 has been working hard to organize an

action-packed weekend starting with the Pass It On Ceremony on Thursday, May 8.

On Friday, May 9, Ms. Cole will host a coffee and provide the alumni with a “state of the school” address.

Following the coffee, there will be a student presentation, chapel service, alumni panel, classroom visits, and lunch. After lunch, alums can decide whether to stay on campus for tours of the new buildings or go to the ESD Golf Tournament benefiting the Mary Elizabeth Williams Endowed Alumni Scholarship Fund. On Friday night, certain classes will have reunion parties.

On Saturday, May 10, the Alumni Association will participate in a kidfriendly community service project.

That night will be the fourth annual Alumni Eagle Laureate Dinner, chaired

by Carol Vig ’89. At this dinner, the Alumni Association honors faculty for their commitment to ESD by inducting those with more than 20 years of service into the Keri Scholz Hall ’87 Convocation and presenting a select four with the Inspirit Accolade Award. Founders’ Weekend will conclude on Sunday morning with a Eucharist service officiated by Father Swann in ESD’s All Saints Chapel.

I look forward to seeing you at one of our events this semester.

As always, please contact me with any questions or comments.

Sincerely,

Brian Rawson ’96 Alumni Association President

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3D PRINTER ADDS NEW DIMENSION TO PROJECT-BASED LEARNING; PRINTING CONTEST COMING THIS SPRING Made possible by an anonymous gift as part of ESD Tomorrow, the 3D printer has been used in computer science classes to create pontoons for a quadricopter drone, a model of Chichen Itza for a Spanish class presentation, and a smaller representation of the windmill at Wolf Run. “Our 3D printer is a real world tool used to solve real problems,” Deb Goudy, Chair of the Computer Science Department, said. “Some of our students actively used 3D printing during internships this past summer. The possibilities are endless.”

Later this spring, the donor plans to unveil a 3D printing contest for ESD students in which the winning group will receive a 3D printer to share. The intention is to inspire and encourage the exploration of engineering. More details will be announced in late March.

To read more about the 3D printer and see photos of the students’ projects, please visit the printer’s blog, “ESD3D.”

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