ECFS Reporter Magazine Winter 2020

ECFS Reporter Ethical Culture Fieldston School Magazine Winter 2020

Living Our Mission Every Day Our team is honored to have the unique privilege of telling the stories of the Ethical Culture Fieldston School each and every day. From our vantage point on two campuses, spread across four divisions, we capture the magical moments as they happen and share them with our community. This issue of the ECFS Reporter showcases how our administrators, faculty, students, and alumni are living the school’s mission every day. In the words of Jessica Bagby, our Head of School, “The world has never needed ECFS more.”

Your ECFS Communications Team, Lauren Coulston, Director of Communications Robin Becker, Communications Manager Kevin Ko-wen Chen, Communications Manager Julia Sonenshein, Communications Manager

Don’t miss a moment!

Here’s where you’ll find us:

ecfs.org/en/news @ecfs1878 @ecfs1878

Ethical Culture Fieldston School

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In This Issue

Parting Words for the Class of 2019 Graduation remarks from Head of School Jessica Bagby and David Belafonte ’75, producer and humanitarian

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Follow the Cyber Brick Road

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Inspired by ECFS, a Graphic Novel Now Inspires Students

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Phillip Bettencourt Puts Students in the Spotlight

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2nd Graders Discover a World of Knowledge in the Hudson River

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Naomi Randolph Finds Music Wherever She Goes

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Upper Schoolers Meet The New Yorker Editor in Once-in-a-Lifetime Visit

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Ethical Culture’s Indigenous Studies Unit Gets a Social Justice Update

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Alumni Q&A: Kim Smith Spacek ’91 Ira Resnick ’67

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Class Notes

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Ethical Culture Fieldston School

2019 Commencement

Parting Words for the Class of 2019 At 2019’s Commencement, students threw their caps in the air with pride, but not before hearing compelling advice and reflections on life’s bigger questions. Excerpted here are the graduation remarks from Head of School Jessica Bagby and David Belafonte ’75, producer and humanitarian.

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Balancing Faith and Doubt Bagby shared her experience with learning to live with doubts, and how love for our communities can help us remain grounded.

Bagby’s personal journey: Both of my parents knew that I would always be a seeker and that nothing pat or orthodox would assuage my queasy soul or preoccupation with injustices. My mother probably knew it first as she sat on the edge of my bed every night saying my prayers with me. In those quiet moments, I first began to vocalize my questions. She didn’t have all the answers, and she helped me to imagine how I could live my life fully and richly, with the peace of mind that my days would have worth despite the inevitability of doubt.

My father, I would learn, was also someone who lived in that curious space of ambiguity and paradox. He was deeply principled, but his ethical sense was not religious.

Both in how he lived his life and in how he faced his death, he proved rather pragmatic about faith and doubt. For him, living was about living, not worrying about dying.

So at 55 years old, where am I in my struggle with faith and doubt?

I am my mother’s child. I am my father’s child. I am still in formation.

And so this brings me to my vocation: teaching. I will begin by confessing that I fought being a teacher. The script of my life I had in mind turned out not to be authentic — it was authored by voices other than my own inner voice. I share this part of my story with you, seniors, because I know all too well how deeply students in schools like this one identify with the pressures to pursue extrinsically versus intrinsically determined notions of success.

Stepping out of the script was scary.

In truth, some days and even some years, like this one, have been overshadowed by profound doubt, almost unbearable doubt about whether any of my efforts or values were understood or mattered or made a difference for anyone. Sometimes courage and faith alone have had to carry me. And then other moments in this work have been so deeply rewarding and life-affirming that I cannot imagine doing anything else.

Nothing inspires my faith more than students and teachers. I believe in the power of education to give life meaning and to help us understand that not much makes a lot of sense in this world except our love and care for one another. Our shared humanity is what sustains us.

Bagby’s advice to the graduates: Seniors, you have struggled mightily and valiantly in your time here with doubt and faith — painful and punishing doubt and dubious faith — about yourselves and others. As you move forward from this place, I exhort each of you as individuals to find your way to live in love and redeeming grace — for your own sake, for one another, and for all of those souls you have yet to encounter in your lives, some of whom will need your courage or your forgiveness or both. Your life is a gift. Listen to your life telling you who you are. Embrace the questions. Author your own script. And live fully in your own humanity and in the humanity of others, whatever your particular journey may bring.

I hold you in faith and love.

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Encouraging Graduates to Take on the World with Enthusiasm Belafonte shared his wisdom and perspective, covering his own personal story of being the child of a high-profile interracial marriage, his experience with activism as an ECFS student in the 1970s, and his hopes for the generation entering the adult world.

On confronting racism head-on: At the cellular level, I don’t believe there is a human genome that predisposes any of us to be racist.

Somewhere along our journey we are infected with that insidious virus.

It is learned, whether taught directly, through observation, or through cultural osmosis. It’s in our water, in the air we breathe, in our media, and in our art.

How do we unlearn what has seeped into us for so long? Better yet, how can we create a dialogue and a curriculum, starting with the wee little ones, that puts racism, at least, on par with bullying, smoking, or drug abuse? How can we create an atmosphere where one should feel ashamed to be labeled a racist?

There must be a collective willingness to understand and embrace the realities and cold, hard facts of a brutal history — what has led us to this perilous place. We need to begin a healing dialogue, or the world as we know it will never know peace.

Such a dialogue will be uncomfortable and emotional, and extremely angry at times. But the forum has to be a safe place for that discourse to take place, or no one will ever dare speak.

Belafonte’s advice to the graduating class: Know how lucky you all truly are. Know how lucky you are to have each other. Know how lucky you are to discover yourselves and life’s challenges in this amazing environment while two-thirds of the world’s population walks barefoot and goes hungry.

Recognize the enormous gifts at your disposal that we often tend to take for granted. High on that list: the right to vote. I hope and pray that your generation nationwide learns from generations past and turns out en masse at the voting polls, to be sure that the likes of the madness we are experiencing today never happens again.

Grind until the job gets done. The problems that we have created and tasks that we have set for ourselves as a species can’t possibly yield the desired results in our lifetime. A shift in the thinking paradigm has to take place.

Find pride in working to advocate some kind of change that will set in motion a mandate and an ethic that reflect generosity and empathy in thinking: How will the choices I made today affect my kid’s kid’s kids?

What an incredible opportunity to show the world as it could be.

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Tech Tools

Follow the Cyber Brick Road A roadmap of technology and your child

As children grow, their relationship with technology changes. Restrictions are lifted, new apps are explored, and children develop their own networks online. Using technology can be a minefield, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.

The ECFS Ethics and Technology Team developed this roadmap to give parents a glimpse of what is on the horizon as children grow older, and to help families have deeper conversations about technology use. The questions provided are framed for children, and are meant to guide parents in creating open conversations to support both their children and themselves.

Ethical Culture Fieldston School

Know who your child can talk to if they see troubling content online

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Level 1

Young children with occasional, supervised access to the internet, but no social media accounts

CONVERSATION STARTERS

• If you see something online that makes you feel sad, scared, or upset, which adults would you feel most comfortable talking to?

• How is communicating online different from communicating in person?

• How do you know if something is “real” on the internet?

• What information is “private” on the internet?

Help your child understand how content on the internet is created

Set up healthy habits surrounding technology and bedtime, such as no phone use one hour before bed, and charging devices in another room (buy an alarm clock, if necessary!)

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Level 2

Keep tabs on children using group chat — either through texting or through gaming — as a social media platform

Children who are getting ready for their first phone

Establish clear family guidelines and developmentally appropriate consequences

CONVERSATION STARTERS

• How and when will the phone be used?

What are the consequences when you do not follow those guidelines?

• Online interactions are different than inperson socialization, so what are some of the things you will do to make sure your online and IRL (in real life) personas reflect the same person?

• If you ghost — or are ghosted by — someone you go to school with, how is that different from ghosting someone you only know online?

Develop policies for technology use at home, setting realistic limits and expectations for phone use Be aware of children sharing images and secrets online, ghosting, and harassment

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Initiate deeper conversations about harassment and online personas

Establish routine check ins with your child to talk about their online experience and review accounts together

Explore digital consent and why it matters

Get to know basic security and privacy practices

Level 3

Children getting ready for their first social media accounts CONVERSATION STARTERS

• Everything sent over the internet or a cell phone can be shared with the entire world. How will you use good judgment when sending messages and pictures?

Have you asked for consent before posting images or messages featuring someone in your immediate community? How will interactions with people you know vary from those interactions with followers, friends, and people you do not know? Are you familiar with the privacy settings on social media sites you are using?

• Have you ever received a picture (or a request for a picture) that has made you feel uncomfortable? Have you ever pressured someone for a picture? What are some signs that someone might not be comfortable when texting? Have you heard of sexting? What do you think it is?

• What apps do you use the most and why? In what ways does the app fit into your life, and how does it help you stay connected?

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Level 4

Highly connected children who have multiple social media accounts and spend the majority of the day on their phone CONVERSATION STARTERS

• What information on your social media profiles is publicly viewable? When is the last time you checked the privacy settings on your social media accounts? Is there any benefit to having a public profile? What criteria, if any, do you have when accepting friend or follower requests? What is the benefit, if any, of having “friends” or “followers” on social media that you have never met in real life?

• How would you react if you came across offensive comments about an acquaintance or friend online? What would you do if you felt that an interaction in an online space had crossed the line? At what point, if at all, would you involve a trusted adult?

What is trolling, and what are some strategies that people use online to troll?

• Have you heard of the term “social media dysmorphia”? In what ways could social media filters distort our perceptions of our bodies and self-image? What aspects of “selfie culture” could contribute to negative perceptions of self-image?

Familiarize yourself with privacy on social media, and with what is public or private by default — encourage your child to set up privacy settings before their first post

Keep issues related to body image on your radar Develop a plan for reacting to online harassment and being an online ally

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Bonus Level

Highly connected adults CONVERSATION STARTERS

• How does my technology use impact my family?

• What was the longest amount of time I recently went without using technology? How did it feel?

• Do I have trouble setting aside technology and creating no-tech spaces?

Establish no-tech family time

Have open conversations with children about adult tech use

Model positive tech practices and behaviors

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Ethical Culture Fieldston School

Inside the Classroom

Inspired by ECFS, a Graphic Novel Now Inspires Students Author Kevin Ko-wen Chen

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hat did you have to do to make your characters talk realistically?” Gunnar E. ’26 asks.

Jerry Craft ’80 — writer, illustrator, and Fieldston alum — answers without hesitation. “That comes from listening. I have to say, I’m almost never not paying attention.”

Gunnar and roughly two dozen of his classmates are gathered for a Literary Lunch to hear Craft talk about his creative process. Earlier in the day, Craft — whose graphic novel New Kid was the much-beloved summer read for all Middle Schoolers — spoke to the entire division at a town hall. Now, as he takes question after question from a smaller group of students, he shares a bit of everything: the inspiration for his characters, tips on how to draw realistic figures, advice gleaned from starting his own publishing company.

Craft also isn’t afraid to talk about the struggles he faced along the way. “If you could give one piece of advice to the younger self that got three rejection letters, what would you say?” Zachary L. ’26 asks.

“It’s just personal opinion,” responds Craft. He compares publishers rejecting his work to someone not liking the tie he wears — understanding that everyone is entitled to their own opinions helps him to not take rejection personally.

Craft was undaunted when he began his professional career, and he remains undaunted now — and, with multiple books and several awards under his belt, he’s back at his alma mater to show that grit, determination, and a passion for one’s work really do pay off.

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I’m almost never not paying attention.

— Jerry Craft ’80, Writer and Illustrator

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ew Kid is a coming-of-age story that centers on Jordan Banks, an African-American boy who lives in Washington Heights, and his experience as the “new kid” at the preppy Riverdale Academy Day School, where most of the student population is white. A funny, personable narrator and a talented artist, Jordan takes us on his journey as he sketches, questions, and navigates his way through middle-school life.

Craft was inspired to create a protagonist who would have resonated with him as a student growing up. “I always wanted to do a book that showed kids of color, specifically African-American kids, as regular kids,” he says. “If you go to any school library, most of the books are about slavery or civil rights or some really tough struggle. Those books are important, but I think it’s also very important to show kids happy and doing regular things: playing video games, eating pizza, eating ice cream.”

Though its setting and characters are fictitious, much of New Kid is based on Craft’s memories of entering the Ethical Culture Fieldston School as a 9th Grader and finding his place over the next four years. Like Jordan, Craft grappled with the unease of inhabiting a liminal space as a student: “Every day, [I was] going to two completely different worlds, where one is my neighborhood, where my block is all African-American and Puerto Rican, and then coming to Riverdale that was majority-white.”

As readers, sometimes we chuckle, like when Jordan encounters “salmon”-colored shorts for the first time. At other times, we grit our teeth, like when Jordan faces yet another microaggression at school or returns home to find a growing rift with his childhood friends.

In 2019, New Kid won the Kirkus Prize for young readers’ literature, making it the first graphic novel to receive the honor. Craft sees this recognition as validation of the graphic novel as a serious literary form.

“There are still people that think that a [traditional] prose book is like a steak dinner and a graphic novel is like cupcakes after,” he says. “I want to show that I use the same kind of plot points, when you talk about character development and story arc, that other people use in creating their books.”

And Craft hopes that New Kid, by virtue of its visual form, will help spark

Ethical Culture Fieldston School

a love of literature in students. “I heard someone once say that there’s no such thing as a kid who doesn’t like to read; there are just kids who haven’t found their book yet,” he says. “And it has seemed like New Kid is that book for a lot of kids who haven’t traditionally been seen as being a reader.”

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arlier in the week, Craft joined 4th Graders at Fieldston Lower as part of a series of author visits hosted by the Celebration of Books. For years, Craft has been working with Fieldston Lower students who eagerly anticipate the hour they get to see him work his craft.

On sheets of paper stuck to the whiteboard, Craft is drawing shapes.

He narrates as he draws — a capital C, a capital L, the number 3, a capital M — and the letters and numbers slowly come together to form a greater picture. The children are barely able to stay in their seats as they crane to get a better view. “Oh, I see it now. The ‘3’ is his arm,” Alex A. ’28 says. And then, all of a sudden, there it is: an illustration of Charlie Brown, from the Peanuts.

Craft astonishes the 4th Grade students by calling many of them by their names, which he gathered ahead of time from their teachers. It’s a way of building rapport with students, and it’s a demonstration of how earnest Craft is in trying to connect with young readers.

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ack at the Literary Lunch, it’s clear that New Kid connects with Middle Schoolers. Some students, like Malaika S. ’26, are aspiring writers and illustrators themselves, and the techniques and strategies Craft shares inspire them as they continue to develop their artistry. Others find a special resonance with the characters of the book: “I’m also from the Bronx, and I was a new kid last year in 6th Grade, so I felt I could share some of the experiences with Jordan and his life and his school,” Brandon B. ’25 says.

“All that he’s saying about how he’s very observant and how he’s looking around at his surroundings — I think it applies to anything we do, in any occupation,” says Wesley M. ’25.

It’s an approach that will serve our students — new kids or not — for years to come.

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Faculty and Staff Profile

Phillip Bettencourt Puts Students in the Spotlight Author Justin Racz

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Read more profiles of ECFS faculty and staff at ecfs.org.

very other week, 5th Graders at Ethical Culture have the option to spend their Monday recess in Phillip Bettencourt’s classroom, an expansive space on the 5th Floor. The room is festooned with props from past performances — painted vases and festively wrapped presents from last year’s production of Annie immediately catch the eye.

Music recess is unstructured time for students to experience performance on their own terms, guiding the 30-minute session with support from Bettencourt. A typical day might include a lip sync battle (“a serious musical pedagogical activity,” Bettencourt deadpans); explorations of the metallophone, the piano, or any number of percussion elements; a musical theater sing-along; or improv games.

Letting students self-direct their musical exploration is part of Bettencourt’s teaching style: he aims to give students the tools to feel ownership of and confidence around performing arts. As Ethical Culture’s Music Teacher and Theater Director, he teaches over 130 4th and 5th Graders the fundamentals of performance, letting them find their place in the spotlight.

Bettencourt also directs the 4th Grade musical, a significant milestone for Ethical Culture students. The question of which production is a closely guarded secret, and Bettencourt says the rumor mill starts churning with vigor as the students try to suss out the production choice before it’s revealed each December. “I just have no clue where these rumors come from,” he laughs.

The play is an event students look forward to from the start of their time at Ethical Culture. Every 4th Grader gets a role, and with Bettencourt’s help, even the shy children find their voice. Whether or not a student

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performs a line or a gesture to the letter of the script, the audience responds and the “kids realize they’ve [elicited that reaction] and they’ve put themselves out there so vulnerably,” Bettencourt says. It “does a lot to support the children’s development of their self-esteem.”

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ettencourt — who is ineffably charming — comes from a rich background in theater. His first performance was nerve-wracking: “The first time I looked out at an audience, I quickly covered my face with my hands” — which wasn’t in the script. “Unexpectedly, I got a laugh,” he says. “I was hooked.”

Bettencourt was talented, and word spread. When he was in 5th Grade, the local high school in his Southern Massachusetts town invited him to play the role of Patrick Dennis in its production of Mame. “Stars lit up in my eyes. It was like, ‘Oh my god, this is better than Broadway!’

It was terribly wonderful,” he laughs.

He continued starring in theater productions throughout high school, nabbing lead roles in The Human Comedy, Little Shop of Horrors, and Anything Goes, to name a few. Outside of school, he participated in community theater and regional theater shows and — remarkably — started a summer arts festival for children in elementary and middle school, inviting theater, dance, and art organizations to participate. After attending Boston Conservatory where he majored in musical theater, he headed to New York City, where he appeared in a variety of off-Broadway and regional theater productions.

In 2006, Bettencourt started work at a theater’s afterschool program on Roosevelt Island. He spent seven years directing the children’s theater division, as well as music-directing the division for teens. During that time, he started working at Metropolitan Montessori School as the Theater Arts Director. He spent 10 years there, including a period where he worked at both MMS and Ethical Culture, filling in for a teacher on sabbatical.

When that teacher announced his retirement three years ago, Bettencourt assumed the role, and this is his fourth year at Ethical Culture.

Ethical Culture Fieldston School

Theater instruction doesn’t stop with summer break. When school ends in June, Bettencourt heads to Connecticut, where he leads another 100 students for nine weeks at Broadway Bootcamp, a performing arts camp he co-owns that’s in its 17th year. Between his work at camp and at school, Bettencourt has produced around 80 productions starring children.

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ettencourt says his students arrive in September with a wide range of abilities, personalities, and fears. “Whether a child is introspective or an extrovert, my job is to set them up [to succeed], to feel confident they can do things, and later reflect on their time in this class — that they created and performed something impressive that they enjoyed sharing publicly.”

Bettencourt works with his students to help them make their mark on a musical. He teaches them to respect the instructions of a script, but notes that scripts leave room for personal expression. “The fluidity comes in interpretation and learning how to bring scripts to life,” Bettencourt says. “There’s always room for discovery.”

And that work goes beyond the stage. Really, the students are learning to communicate, Bettencourt says.

Bettencourt’s students have gone on to work on Broadway, off Broadway, in television, in major motion pictures, in the New York City Ballet, and in the Metropolitan Opera Children’s Chorus; many of them attend top college theater programs across the country.

But the sense of accomplishment Bettencourt takes from his work comes less from accolades and more from quiet moments in the classroom. “I like the joy [students] find in what we do — and how much fun it can be for them,” he says. It’s those “moments of discovery,” he says, that add a sense of wonder to the work.

“I love what I do. Kids can feel it when I walk through the door. It’s truly a privilege to teach them, and I’m grateful. They create something that’s meaningful for them, that they always remember” — a love and appreciation for theater that lasts beyond curtain call.

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The fluidity comes in interpretation and learning how to bring scripts to life.

There’s always room for discovery.

— Phillip Bettencourt, Ethical Culture Music Teacher

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Ethical Culture Fieldston School

Inside the Classroom

2nd Graders Discover a World of Knowledge in the Hudson River Author Kevin Ko-wen Chen

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all has barely set in at the Center for the Urban River at Beczak, an environmental education center in Yonkers, but students in Monique Astengo-Rosen’s 2nd Grade class are already bundled in sweaters and jackets, anticipating the cool breeze from the Hudson River. On the bus ride over, they are happy and hyper, chattering and asking each other if they’ve been to Yonkers or the surrounding towns in Westchester County. Sketchbooks in hand, they clamber off the bus and shift impatiently as they wait in line, eager to go out into nature. It’s looking to be a beautiful day.

From September to June, 2nd Graders at Fieldston Lower study bodies of water. It’s an ambitious, sprawling curricular piece: students might craft haikus and multimedia collages dedicated to waterfalls around the world, or they may construct a life-sized model submarine in their study of deep-sea exploration. What’s particularly exciting is that students can experience many bodies of water firsthand, on class field trips to the rivers, ponds, and seaports that surround them in New York City.

Today’s assignment, to draw the natural environs at Beczak, is an introduction to the unit. Students spread out across the dock and the sandy riverbank and put pencil to paper. Anna K. ’30 depicts the river grass with energetic strokes. Dylan A. ’30 sketches the cliffs of the Palisades with a steady hand, but also adds in tugboats, imagining what they would look like if they were drifting along the river.

Already, our 2nd Graders are finding the river a fruitful source of inspiration — one that will continue to inspire throughout the year.

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n an easel in her classroom, Sari Givner has shaded in a sinuous blue curve and labeled it with the parts of a river. At the top: the source. Next to it: thin tendrils marked as tributaries, which feed into the river as it moves past an area of erosion, past another freshwater source, and into the mouth, where it joins the ocean. Elsewhere on the chart: a waterfall, a delta, a meander — used here not as a verb but as a noun to signify the winding path of a flowing body of water.

It’s a lot of terminology for 2nd Graders to process, but they manage it with aplomb. (Ask anyone in 2nd Grade what an estuary is, and you’ll get an eager response.) Students read about rivers — their nomenclature, their flora and fauna, the science of their movement — and compile the information they’ve learned in hand-drawn flip books pinned to the wall.

There’s a tactile, experiential component, too. Students recreate miniature riverbeds in plastic boxes, sticking labeled flags into the clay to match the various labels on Givner’s chart. They then drip water into the boxes, watching how it moves. On a sunny day, they go out into the playground to construct a large-scale version in the sandbox, filling it with water from a hose. This multisensory experience is a prime example of progressive learning: “it’s something we can literally smell, feel, and touch and observe firsthand,” says Givner.

A couple weeks later, it’s time for Givner’s class to visit Beczak, where students encounter the most elaborate river model yet. The class gathers around a rotating table on which a scale model of New York has been embedded. The table tilts as Elisa Caref, Director of Education at the Center for the Urban River at Beczak, cranks a wheel on the side, allowing the water placed on the table to flow in the direction of gravity.

Looking at this topographical map of their city, students point to geographical features they recognize. The Hudson River, just to the west of school. The Harlem River, just to the south. The East River; Governor’s Island; Randall’s Island; the Palisades, across the Hudson River from Beczak, where they are. Someone points at dotted lines and asks if they

Ethical Culture Fieldston School

All children are natural scientists with their eager curiosity and drive to explore the world; I just give them the platform to do what comes naturally to them.

— Monique Astengo-Rosen, Fieldston Lower 2nd Grade Teacher

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It’s science, it’s language arts, it’s learning new and different things.

— Sari Givner, Fieldston Lower 2nd Grade Teacher

are railroad tracks — they’re in fact state lines, but this opens the door to talk about man-made features as well: the George Washington Bridge, the Tappan Zee Bridge, the Lincoln Tunnel.

This geographic fluency is a testament to a broader initiative by Fieldston Lower faculty to foster in students an increased awareness of their surroundings. As students progress through the grades, they develop a mindfulness of how they interact with their world, starting with the classroom and expanding to the school, to the neighborhood, to the New York metropolitan area, and finally to society at large. It’s a pedagogical decision that’s ethical as well, in line with ECFS’ mission of educating informed citizens of the world.

At the water table, Caref spritzes dyed water from a spray bottle to demonstrate the fall of rain. Students take a minute to discuss how homes near the water — perhaps even theirs or their friends’ — are affected when heavy precipitation leads to flooding. A sprinkling of black pepper represents the dumping of waste and chemicals into the water supply, and students pause again to consider the ecological ramifications of pollution.

Finally, students have the chance to interact with the water table themselves. One by one, they take turns pouring water into the model river, watching how their actions affect the world around them.

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ack at Fieldston Lower, Astengo-Rosen is holding a plastic cup with a dollop of shaving cream suspended on top. She drips blue dye into the foamy mass until it’s oversaturated and releases its contents — drip, drip — below. A raincloud in a cup — the students are delighted, and they rush to recreate the experiment themselves.

Experiments and arts and crafts projects like these offer insight into the science of water, another integral component of the 2nd Grade study of rivers. Outside the classroom, Astengo-Rosen’s students have glued together collages of pipe cleaners and sequins that represent the cycle of precipitation, collection, and evaporation. They’re fun hallway decorations with a scientific bent.

Ethical Culture Fieldston School

“Water is something [students] experience every day,” says AstengoRosen, “but they may not have given much thought to it — to rain or to how clouds form. It’s something that’s part of their everyday lives — it’s something they interact with regularly — so it has a real meaning to them.”

In the classroom, there’s another visualization of the hydrologic cycle.

Taped to the windows of Astengo-Rosen’s classroom are plastic bags students have filled with water, dyed turquoise. When sunlight hits, it turns into vapor, condenses on the side of the bag, and slides back into the pool at the bottom, completing a cycle that the students have mapped out with arrows on the bags. Some students have even drawn trees, to illustrate how the transpiration of water from plants contributes to the movement of water through nature.

“The water cycle in a bag is a great example of hands-on learning that we try to incorporate as much as possible,” explains Astengo-Rosen. “All children are natural scientists with their eager curiosity and drive to explore the world; I just give them the platform to do what comes naturally to them.”

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inter momentarily puts a halt to the field trips to Beczak, but the 2nd Grade will return in the spring. When the weather has warmed, students will go seine fishing as they explore the creatures that live in the river. They’ll also venture to the South Street Seaport to go sailing and trawling, and to Van Cortlandt Park to fish with bamboo rods, exploring the many waterways of the city.

As Givner explains, “[This unit] brings in all the pieces that [students] need to develop. It’s science, it’s language arts, it’s learning new and different things.” Outside her classroom is a collection of watercolors her students have painted of the Hudson River. Underneath each painting is a caption students wrote with the help of a thesaurus, expanding their vocabulary and their appreciation of poetry as they talk about “shimmering sunlight” or the Palisades that “guard” and “protect” the river.

Eitan S. ’30 writes, “The Hudson River is breathing life into nature.”

Breathing life into nature, and into our 2nd Grade classrooms as well.

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Faculty and Staff Profile

Naomi Randolph Finds Music Wherever She Goes Author Julia Sonenshein

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Read more profiles of ECFS faculty and staff at ecfs.org.

s a freshman at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, Naomi Randolph was intrigued by the sound of a piano playing one afternoon. She meandered around campus, following the hypnotic music, until she arrived at the library’s archway.

There, she found a man playing on a weathered upright piano as students rushed past on their way to class. Randolph couldn’t resist joining in, so she started singing along and improvising a melody. Wowed by her talent, the man begged her to join his band. “It’s the best thing in St. Paul,” he told her. “You’re going to start tomorrow.”

Soon thereafter, Randolph began singing rock songs in grimy basement bars with the band. She had to sneak in and out back doors to play the shows, since she was only 18 and not allowed in the venues legally. “It was St. Paul, so you never had to get dressed up. We were grunge,” she says.

Singing with the band came at a critical point in her life. She was away from home for the first time and beginning to define herself as an adult.

Returning to music felt like coming home. “It was amazing,” she says.

When Randolph was a sophomore, a friend introduced her to an a cappella group called the Macalester Sirens, whose members were “always super pretty and super glam,” she says. The group sang pop songs like Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” in perfect harmony. “I was looking for a family, and the a cappella group became my family — my home away from home. I pretty much didn’t stop singing after that.”

As the Assistant Principal at Fieldston Lower, Randolph often turns to song as a means to meet her students’ unique needs. “I sing to [them] a lot,” she says. “I sing to them when they come in from the bus, and we sing together as a big group: everything from ‘This Little Light of Mine’ to silly call-and-response camp songs. If I have to discipline a Pre-K kid, I usually sing to them.”

She starts singing, her voice gentle and her face fixed with a serene expression: “Remember that time when you hit Susie? How do you think she felt?” It’s a novel approach to discipline, one that’s built on her almost

Ethical Culture Fieldston School

20 years of experience as a teacher. “I try not to overwhelm young ones, and so if I need to, I use the power of song. I use the power of melody.”

Randolph’s voice is musical even when she’s not singing — she takes rests, floats up and down the scale, and alternates between pianissimo and mezzo forte. The effect is spellbinding. You find yourself swaying to her rhythm.

“Music has given me the opportunity to find my identity, to learn my identity, to play with my identities, to figure out who I am,” she says. “Music is like my family. It is my inner meditation. It is the thing that sits with me in my solitude. It got me through labor. Music is the thing that gets me through my worst life pain, and it’s always there during the highest of highs. Music is my friend.”

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andolph was born in New York City and raised in Washington Heights. She went to independent schools beginning in Kindergarten. After being “über-social” in 5th and 6th Grades, her life was upended in 7th: her father passed away. Randolph’s father had come to the United States at age 11 from Costa Rica, where his only exposure to English was during Bible study. He was able to improve his English at a public school in the Bronx, and with the help of his mother, who studied nursing at NYU, he attended Princeton and Columbia. Still, he went on to champion the underserved and marginalized populations in Brooklyn as an attorney for the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Project.

He eventually opened his own law firm.

Randolph’s father had been “an incredible force and motivator in [my and my brother’s] education,” she says. His death also came as she started a new school — one that was all girls, nine times the size of her elementary school (she went from a class of four to a class of 36), majority-white, and uniform-mandatory. “I remember feeling a sense of culture shock,” she says.

She found her niche singing, both in Glee Club and as the title role in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe. “I remember loving putting on costumes and being other characters and sharing myself in that way,” she says.

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In order to change the experiences of students that are walking through our halls, we have to systematically break down and rebuild from within.

— Naomi Randolph, Fieldston Lower Assistant Principal for Student Life

But in 11th Grade, Randolph made the decision to stop singing. Her mother, an original member of The Chantels, encouraged her to shift her priorities. “It’s great that you can sing, but I expect you to do so much more. There are many black entertainers and many black women who can sing, but that doesn’t ensure your financial security.”

Reluctantly, Randolph agreed. “I knew that I could do more and that I wanted to do more,” she says. At the same time, she felt she was garnering unwanted attention as a black female performer. “I was becoming keenly aware of being a black person in a majority-white school and being the songstress — being this song and tap girl. I didn’t want to sing anymore.”

This wrestling over racial and gender identity dovetailed with her involvement in the school’s Cultural Awareness For Everyone (CAFE) club.

Even though she attended supportive, progressive academic environments her whole life, she often felt othered. Her teachers were wonderful in many ways, she says, but often “ill-prepared to protect a young girl from teasing and insults and prejudice and discrimination that was coming from [her] peers.” CAFE empowered her to put words to painful childhood experiences and work to advocate for racial equity. “Once I joined that group, I had decided to pretty much become a crusader,” she says. She helped put on assemblies about Black History Month. She made sure Women’s History Month assemblies featured women of color. She wrote articles for the school newspaper. She was tireless.

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fter college, Randolph returned to New York City to work as a Pre-K and Kindergarten teacher at Columbia Prep. She was there for 18 years in total before joining ECFS in July. Her aunt, Renée T. White ‘83, the provost of Wheaton College in Massachusetts, is a Fieldston alumna.

In her 20s and 30s, Randolph sang with one of her best friends from 4th Grade in a rock-reggae band. Together, they played all the downtown clubs and even won the Bronx Battle of the Bands.

As a member of the band, Randolph’s stage name was Swan —

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she identified with the story of the ugly duckling’s transformation, which mirrors “finding my black beauty amidst and amongst this glaring master narrative of white beauty,” she says. “I always considered myself kind of this black swan that just stepped into her glory and stepped into her black beauty.” And the story is also part of why she’s stayed in the independent school space. “I’ve always known that I can effect change, knowing what the struggle is for young black girls in independent school settings. I’ve always felt that I could really make a difference and lead and guide and support them on their journey to finding their own beauty.”

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andolph sees a changing tide when it comes to dealing with race, privilege, and oppression in independent schools today. “In order to change the experiences of students who are walking through our halls, we have to systematically break down and rebuild from within.

And that’s one of the reasons I’ve come here. I feel that Fieldston is doing just that.”

Randolph describes a four-stranded braid that attacks these issues head-on. Fieldston Lower’s classroom experience; advisory groups; CARe program, for discussions about race and ethnicity; and Banana Splits program, for children whose parents are divorced or separated, aim to engage students at a young age with questions of identity, disposition, race, and culture.

Supporting those programs, Randolph says, is the core of her work.

“I just want to do everything I can to nurture this community, to help them become the best that they can be. And I’m just grateful that we’re allowed to look at all aspects of identity and boldly talk about all aspects of identity,” she says.

Randolph knows she has the power to ignite change and is determined to make sure her high school experiences won’t be repeated for coming generations. “We’re charged with doing so much more — with doing so much better,” she says. She’ll use every tool available to her to make it happen.

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Inside the Classroom

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Upper Schoolers Meet The New Yorker Editor in Oncein-a-Lifetime Visit Author ECFS Communications Team

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he elevator zooms skyward. A few ECFS Upper School students — a little nervous, but beyond thrilled to be riding one of the fastest elevators in the world — are thrown back into childhood, suddenly desperate to press all the buttons and test the limits of what this feat of engineering can do. In just a few seconds, the class lands at their destination: floor 23.

The 22 students and two teachers make their way past reception, along rows of desks where writers, editors, and designers, heads down, are typing away at their computers. A long hallway, its walls Scotch-taped with familiar cover pages, leads them to the conference room where they will have their meeting.

The students take their seats around a large rectangular table — not dissimilar to the Harkness tables they use in their English and history courses at ECFS. The group waits quietly; a few students fidget in their seats, looking around, taking it all in. A moment later, a man bustles into the room, all smiles, and joins them at the table.

“Hi, I’m David!” he says cheerfully.

David Remnick, Editor of The New Yorker, has started the meeting.

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Getting to see the setting where all the writing takes place definitely gave us more context into the operation of making each issue.

— Mira G. ’21

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he ECFS Upper Schoolers are members of a new interdisciplinary English and history elective that investigates media and culture, focusing on The New Yorker. The class reads articles from each week’s issue that span topics from Impossible Burgers; to Amazon, the tech behemoth; to a look at the oppression of the Muslim population in India.

Students revel in the beauty of the language and craft, but also use a critical eye to examine The New Yorker’s influence, biases, and shortcomings.

In the classroom, the scene is like a newsroom: students poring over articles and writing their own, periodically seeking editorial guidance from English Department Chair Vincent Drybala and History Teacher and Director of Student Programs Nancy Banks, who together lead the class. At the end of the semester-long course, students craft their own magazines inspired by The New Yorker, complete with longform articles, short stories, reviews, and humor pieces. Divided into four groups, each with a different vision statement, the class tackles everything from fostering bipartisan dialogue around gun violence to uplifting youth activism.

In addition to creating their own magazines, students also write essays that scrutinize The New Yorker as a literary and cultural artifact — what is distinctive about its short stories and poetry, how its reportage causes a ripple effect across the journalism industry, and even where it could stand to improve. Lucas S. ’20 is eager to dissect a recent piece written by a prominent journalist, which he feels lacks depth and nuance.

Banks reminds him, “A critique doesn’t necessarily have to be all bad.”

One of the class assignments is to offer a longitudinal critique of The New Yorker, examining how the magazine builds its content across successive issues. Mia M. ’20 asks about the scope of articles she can pick, and Drybala advises her to imagine sitting in Remnick’s chair, planning out the next month’s articles.

“We want you to put yourself in Remnick’s shoes,” Drybala says. And, thanks to their field trip, the students can.

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ack on the 23rd floor of the One World Trade Center — where The New Yorker is housed within the famed Condé Nast offices — the students are a bit starstruck but are beginning to open up. Prior to their visit, the class wrote a list of nearly 30 questions they hoped to ask Remnick, then spent time whittling the list down to their top choices.

The students knew they were meeting with an important voice in American media; they wanted to make their hour with him count.

Banks and Drybala take a backseat and let the students lead the discussion. One by one, their hands shoot into the air, asking Remnick questions such as “How did you get to where you are?” and “What do you want your legacy to be?”

Remnick answers each question thoughtfully, then fires back questions of his own. He asks the students how their college applications are going — and is met with several groans.

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“I’m sorry,” he laughs. “But look, good things will happen. You will all go to good schools.”

Hearing Remnick, the father of two ECFS alums, speak highly of their future is a real comfort for these students. Around the conference table, shoulders relax and sighs of relief can be heard.

The conversation continues, and Banks points out that “Remnick didn’t have a canned presentation for them. He genuinely wanted to hear from our students — not just their questions, but their critiques. It was a conversation rather than a speech,” she says.

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fter over an hour of back-and-forth, the students file out of the conference room, ride the elevator back down to the lobby, and head outside. It’s clear the visit has left a deep impression.

“Getting to see the office and the setting where all the writing takes place definitely gave us more context into the operation of making each issue,” says Mira G. ’21. “It definitely gave me a better understanding of how the articles come out and what makes The New Yorker so different and special.”

“I like how genuine and kind and funny Remnick was,” adds Raz M. ’21. “He’s just such a down-to-earth guy. It’s kind of surprising, but it’s also reaffirming.”

The students are eager to get back to their own New Yorker projects — with elevated stakes: when Remnick heard about the assignment, he requested to read the final copies, to the glee — and panic — of the students. As one student tells Banks and Drybala: “Look, we love you, but now we need to make our magazines good, because we care that he’s reading it. That’s the pressure.”

The visit was “definitely a career highlight,” Drybala says. “It’s an opportunity to have a conversation with one of the more influential intellectuals of our time. More than that, it allowed our students to create the conversation with him. It was their conversation with Remnick, not mine. He was smart and articulate, and so were our kids.”

This type of learning typifies ECFS instruction as outlined in the School’s core tenets — the education is experiential, relevant, and responsive. By bringing their class outside ECFS’ walls, students see firsthand the impact of what they’re learning — and how they can use their education to influence the world around them.

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Inside the Classroom

Ethical Culture’s Indigenous Studies Unit Gets a Social Justice Update Author Julia Sonenshein

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n a bright November day, Inwood Hill Park — the last natural forest and salt marsh in all of Manhattan — plays host to Ethical Culture 3rd Graders, who use an “imaginative lens to think about what this island would have looked like 400 years ago, before European influence,” says Social Studies Workshop Teacher Leonard White. It’s a long day: the group leaves Ethical Culture at 9:00am and doesn’t return until 2:00pm. Over the course of the trip, students hike about two miles, stopping to explore caves, identify trees, and build shelters. White leads the students through discussions of natural resources and meeting basic needs — and how indigenous groups like the Lenape met those needs in sustainable ways.

The annual trip occurs at the beginning of Ethical Culture’s 3rd Grade indigenous studies unit, a yearlong exploration of Native American populations. The curriculum dedicates much of its time to a study of the Lenape people, who historically lived in what is now New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, New York City, western Long Island, and the Lower Hudson Valley. After a complex history of interactions, treaties, and alliances between the Lenape, Europeans, and the Haudenosaunee, colonial settlers ultimately decimated and expelled much of the population. Many indigenous people still live in Manhattan today.

The trip forecasts the unit as a whole, which touches on everything from climate change to natural resources to art to sports teams. Like the rest of the year’s work, the goal of the trip is “to ground their work in something that is experiential and connected to the land,” White says. “It’s a way of launching it in a way that’s fun and in a way that’s an experience that’s going to last with them.”

Ethical Culture Fieldston School

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few years ago, the 3rd Grade team realized the indigenous studies unit was due for an overhaul. Previously, instruction focused on the Lenape and the Mannahatta of the distant past, a focus that “kept perpetuating this idea that Lenape people don’t exist today,” says Cara Regan, 3rd Grade Teacher.

Redesigning the curriculum began with an examination of contemporary Native American issues, Regan says. The teachers worked backward from there to restructure the curriculum, pivoting toward a social justice lens.

First, the 3rd Grade team and former Diversity Coordinator Nayantara Mhatre examined the existing curriculum, which culminated in an endof-year presentation they called a “museum.” They realized that framing the presentation as a museum was harmful, as it reinforced the idea that Native Americans existed purely in the past. Thus, the museum became a “share out,” a presentation of the year’s work that focuses on indigenous studies with a more modern and critical lens.

To get to a more holistic look at indigenous studies, the 3rd Grade team tackled issues that impact indigenous populations today: forced movement around the country, access to food, and climate change, to name a few.

“We also try to balance presenting the challenges that Native American communities face today with presenting ways that they’ve found their voice and ways to empower themselves,” says Eliana Rivera, Language and Learning Specialist.

The team updated assignments and activities, bringing them into the present and grounding them in more nuance. “We have to put a more mindful spin on it,” says Yan Davydov, 3rd Grade Teacher.

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In previous years, students were divided into groups that focused on specific topics, like pottery, cooking, or clothing. Now the groups are approaching these topics from a contemporary angle. While the pottery group makes crafts in the Lenape tradition, they also focus on natural resources. While the cooking group might have simply made cornbread, they have added a focus on access to food in indigenous communities. The clothing group formerly made replicas of Native American clothing, but they have now switched their focus to changing sports mascots that are offensive and harmful to Native Americans.

When writing creation stories “felt more like appropriation than appreciation,” Davydov says, the assignment morphed into a deep-dive research project about a Native nation.

In the new curriculum, students begin the year learning about community, identity, and social justice. They then segue into in-depth discussions about stereotypes, examining those associated with their own identities before drilling down on those associated with Native Americans. This work is the crux of the study, and the effort to unlearn inherited biases is fierce.

The teaching is deeply interdisciplinary — in the clothing group, for example, students learn persuasive writing and craft letters to sports organizations arguing for a change from racist mascots. In the environmental activist group, students learn about the mechanics of cleaning up an oil spill from a scientific perspective, but also highlight the fact that the “Lenape were really on the front line of bringing attention to the fact that there was a proposed oil pipeline being built underneath the Hudson River,” says Math and Science Teacher Barbara Downing.

“I don’t know if too many other people were in tune with that until the Lenape started speaking out.”

The 3rd Grade team works to center indigenous voices in their instruction, from watching Teen Vogue video interviews with Native American teens to welcoming the Redhawk Dancers in an in-class workshop. Led by Cliff Matias, the Redhawk Dancers demonstrate

Ethical Culture Fieldston School

various ceremonial and social dances for a rapt 3rd Grade audience and invite the students to learn the intricate steps.

Exposure to current Native American voices is critical, and students learn firsthand just how relevant their unit is. Take for example, a question posed by a student to Matias: “Where did they do the dances?” Matias corrects the misconception: these dances — and Native American cultures — are still very much in existence today.

Students enter the yearlong study with varying degrees of understanding about issues affecting Native American populations, says 3rd Grade Teacher Kate Culligan, and that understanding is dependent on their own experiences and identities and on what conversations have happened at home or in school. But by the end of the year, the students are united in their zeal: “the majority of our kids left feeling like they wanted to do something to make it better,” Culligan says. “Our kids work to become allies and advocates for the Native population.”

At the share out, for example, the student presentations of their redesigned sports jerseys ask visitors to write letters to sports teams, urging viewers to “do some action rather than just looking at exhibits,” Regan says.

Engaging with a topic in such an in-depth manner clearly makes the learning stick. When the 1st Grade teachers wanted to center more indigenous voices around their Harvest Festival, Ethical Culture Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator Vanessa D’Egidio enlisted last year’s 3rd Graders to put together a mini-lesson, culling from what they’d learned the year before. “There’s power in kids teaching other kids,” D’Egidio says, and when she asked the current 4th Graders to volunteer, the result was overwhelming. The students were so dedicated to spreading their knowledge that they requested that D’Egidio host “working lunches,” and they met at lunch for a week and a half to prepare for their lesson.

“What 4th Graders would willingly give up their recess time?” D’Egidio laughs. “They were just so excited to share what they’d learned.”

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There’s power in kids teaching other kids.

— Vanessa D’Egidio, Ethical Culture Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator

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Alumni Q&A

Kim Smith Spacek ’91

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imberly Smith Spacek ’91 entered the Ethical Culture Fieldston School as a kindergartener in 1979. Since then, she’s remained an active member of the ECFS community — as an alum, a parent, a volunteer, and in the 2019–2020 year, Chair of the Board of Trustees. Today, she leads sales and marketing at a hedge fund in New York City. Here, we get to know more about her and her time at ECFS.

What was your favorite food at the dining hall?

That’s a tough one! It wasn’t at the dining hall — it was actually Bagel Monday. On Mondays, H&H Bagels would deliver bagels to campus!

What do you miss most about ECFS? The teachers. I still speak with Bob Montera and Joe Algrant. And I will never forget my science teacher, Peter Mott. He was always there to give out hugs.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Al Nivon teaching us the study of ethics and helping me to shape my core values that I still hold dear to this day.

What advice would you give to a current ECFS student?

To listen. I tell this to my oldest son, Cooper, a current ECFS student: sometimes you learn more from listening. Sometimes you’re talking, and you’re missing the point. My biggest advice is to listen.

What do you like about your job in finance?

I work at a hedge fund in sales and investor relations. My job involves speaking with a lot of different types of people and organizations. Whether it’s a high-net-worth family or pensioners, I love that I get to speak with people from around the world and all different walks of life. I find it rewarding and educational — there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t learn something new. ECFS really prepared me for the real world and being able to talk to people from many different demographics. That’s really a fundamental part of why I’m successful at my job, because I have the ability to communicate with a wide variety of people. I love speaking with people.

Ethical Culture Fieldston School

What’s an average day like for you?

I tend to get up between 5:30am and 6:00am and start to prepare for my day — whether it’s work or Board things — but I like to get up early and give myself like an hour before the boys get up. I must — because otherwise I can’t work out or spend any time by myself!

Typically, I’m at work from 7:30am–6:30pm. I spend my day meeting with clients and potential investors, so I’m pretty much on the phone or meeting people most of my day. I get home around 7:00pm, have dinner, put my babies to bed, and typically, I go to bed around 11:00pm.

Not so exciting!

What’s a special tradition for you?

When I was on the Fieldston Alumni Network (FAN) Committee, I started one of our community service projects, which was to decorate the Win Shelter in East New York for the holidays.

The Win Shelter has partnered with Robin Hood to allow donors to build gingerbread houses with the children who live at the shelter. But the room is incredibly drab — it’s in the basement of a former warehouse.

Several years ago, I was at the shelter decorating these gingerbread houses, and the staff said they really wished they could decorate the shelter ahead of the gingerbread event because it’s such a special day for the kids. So I volunteered to do it! I pitched it to the FAN committee, and it grew from there.

It’s truly my favorite day of the year. It’s a great partnership because we get ECFS 2nd Graders to make ornaments to decorate the center, so it’s an incredibly exciting time for the kids. It’s deeply rewarding. It’s our alumni, some faculty, it’s the kids, so it’s really an ECFS story.

What are you reading these days?

My friend just recently completed a book series, and I am in the process of reading the final installment, Insurrection. It’s a three-part series of a dystopian universe based in “New America.” It’s awesome.

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Alumni Q&A

Ira Resnick ’67

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ra Resnick ’67 entered the Ethical Culture Fieldston School as a 9th Grader. His ties to Fieldston run deep: not only did his son graduate in 2018, but he also remains friends with three classmates with whom he gathers for a monthly poker game. Resnick has followed a winding path through adulthood, working as a photographer (he has published two volumes of his work), gallerist and collector at the Motion Picture Arts Gallery, and real estate investor.

Where was your favorite place to hang out on campus?

The Quad. I played music with my pals there. We would sit on the grass in the spring and fall, and people would gather to listen to us sing — everything from folk songs to Beatles songs.

What’s a class or teacher you’ll never forget?

That’s an easy one. There was a history teacher: Dr. John Anthony Scott, who taught history by its songs and ballads. Every year, we would put on a history assembly — we did one on whaling, we did one on cowboys, we did one on New York City. I thought he was really terrific.

There’s another: my coach, George Martens, was a wonderful, wonderful guy. I played baseball and football for him, and after the fact, he became a good friend of mine as well. He watched out for me. He was as much of a friend as he was a teacher. He was a really great ally to have.

What class would you teach if you could teach anything?

I would love to teach film history because that’s always been a great love of my adult life. That’s where my true passion is in terms of the arts.

Ethical Culture Fieldston School

What would your syllabus include?

I think the greatest film is Citizen Kane, certainly — that would be a great start. I love the film Dodsworth, which was made in 1936. There are important films by Akira Kurosawa; there are films from Europe by Fellini, and some English filmmakers like David Lean. I think I would go with the ones I love best and try to get the passion that I feel. In many ways, I feel like they’re old friends. I would try to show the depth of the films, the artistry of the cinematography, and their lasting power.

What are you watching these days?

My wife and I like to binge-watch when we can. I just finished The Loudest Voice about Roger Ailes. I loved The Kominsky Method. We do the New York Film Festival every year, so I’ve seen a lot of the current movies that I love: Marriage Story, The Irishman, Parasite — all of which I thought were terrific.

What was it like to be a Fieldston parent?

There was no other school I was going to send my son to — it was something that I felt very strongly about. I felt a great love for Fieldston, and it was a part of my life for a long time. When my son went there, it was a kind of rebirth to go there and meet new people and go to the football field and see him in the jazz orchestras. I’ve been out of there for a year and a half since he graduated in 2018, and there’s a sadness that I feel — not having a reason to go up there, to hang out on the Quad or park in the upper parking lot and go down to the games — but life moves on. I love Fieldston. I wear its colors proudly, and I would never have wanted to go to any other school.

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Class Notes

Class Notes Class Notes are your chance to share your personal news and to keep up with what's going on with your fellow alumni.

1941 Simon Ottenberg writes: I am still alive at age 96, living in Seattle.

1944 Michael Wertheimer’s memoir, entitled Facets of an Academic’s Life, published by Springer, is forthcoming. A sixth edition of his A Brief History of Psychology (this time co-authored by Antonio Puente) — the first edition of which was published in 1970 — is also being issued by Taylor and Francis. Michael, now age 92, and his wife, Marilyn, have been enjoying for eight years a pleasant, small independentliving community a few miles from the house in Boulder, CO, in which they lived for 50 years.

1945 Steve Wechsler (aka Victor Grossman) writes: After Fieldston and my Harvard B.A., and as ever a deep-dyed

Red, I worked in two Buffalo factories. Drafted in 1951, I was sent to Bavaria, not Korea. But the Pentagon discovered the leftist background I had fearfully concealed during those icy McCarthy-era years. Panicking at a threat of five prison years, I deserted, swimming the Danube to the Soviet Zone of Austria.

Sent by the Soviets to East Germany (the GDR), I learned to work a lathe, took a four-year journalism course, got happily married, and in East Berlin became a freelance journalist, lecturer, and writer — in German — on US history, folk songs, great American women, Spanish War volunteers, and — in English — about my life (including Fieldston), and in A Socialist Defector: From Harvard to Karl-Marx-Allee, shared my conclusions at age 91 about Germany, the USA, socialism, capitalism, and life in general.

Mine was a happy one. Pardoned and discharged by the US Army in 1994, I could then return and often visit my homeland.

Widowed since 2009, I have two sons and three grandchildren.

1948 Bob Burton writes: In 2019, I received a formal commendation from the City of Mill Valley and the County of Marin for 50 consecutive years (now 52) of volunteer public service. (I am still on two appointed county boards, Chairperson of one and Vice Chairperson of the other.)

I was also the recipient of a Milley Award from the Mill Valley Art Commission for my many years of contributions to the arts.

This award is shared with my wife, Elza (Mirsky) Burton ’47, who unfortunately died last year without knowing about the award. She knew we had been nominated, but not that it had been awarded.

1949 Jack Zimmerman writes: Finishing a book about relationships in elderhood when your life partner has passed...

The adventures continue as anticipated. The writing also connects the Path of Intimacy

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with the overarching evolutionary challenges we all face now...

Feeling more grateful for Ethical and Fieldston as the years pass and the deep river becomes the wetlands, while the great sea lies ahead. Living on the Big Island these past 20 years has been a great blessing.

1951 Peter H Schur continues to work full time as a rheumatologist at Harvard Medical School and greatly enjoys it — that plus gardening, biking (with wife), and thanking that he has good health and fond memories of his days at Fieldston.

1953 Ellen Bierman writes: After living in Scarsdale, NY, my whole adult life, I moved to Florida in 2017 to be near my daughter. I was widowed in 2003, so it was time to be close to family. I play duplicate bridge and am a gold life master. I love the game but no longer go to tournaments far away. I am enjoying the sun, warmth, and easier life. No more snow and ice for me. That said, I do miss the culture available in NYC. Stephanie Diamond Friedman writes: My husband, Donald Friedman, died on June 10 of this year. We were supposed to go on forever, but he stopped at 90. As our esteemed retired PCP used to say, “You go on until something happens.” Something happened.

Grief is unspeakably hard; it’s just a question of getting through it.

One’s life is changed forever by the death of a beloved spouse.

But 60 years of a great marriage is something to be eternally grateful for.

1954 The class representative Leslie Kandell reports:

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Our class laments the passing of Norman Steiger, who had many friends. They remained his friends, and Nancy Karp Steiger ’56, who handled his computer correspondence, remained his loving wife. He was up to great-grandchildren. After attending Johns Hopkins with classmates Ed Seigenfeld and Steve Kates, Norman became a doctor. He lived in Mamaroneck, NY, where, in addition to his practice, he was medical advisor for local organizations. He heartily attended reunion activities as long as his health permitted, keeping in touch with a large circle. Several people wrote of his sense of humor and of the value of his steadfast friendship.

Fred Greenman writes: Larry Gold, George Todaro, and I entered in Form III. We loved Fieldston and appreciated the expanded opportunities it provided. Fieldston was the guiding influence for my adult life. As I learned about the stressful times Fieldston was experiencing, my thoughts went back to how lucky I felt to be in the classrooms, walk the halls, and play on the athletic fields.

Fred’s regard for the school is shared. Here’s a sweeping update from Sue Sokoloff Michalson: I am living in Florida and trust you are in good health. I am well — no complaints as long as the pacemaker keeps tickin’!

I am involved with the Unitarian Universalist Church. It reminds me so much of Ethical Culture values that I am really at home.

Social justice issues are my focus as well as arranging educational trips and lectures.

Last March, 50 of us bused to Montgomery, Alabama, to the Peace and Justice Memorial and Museum that pays tribute to those lynched, through a long period of our shameful history.

It was extremely moving and evoked deep respect. Great steel pillars hanging from the ceiling represent counties throughout the states, engraved with

names and dates of lynchings.

I make floral arrangements for the church and work for the Democratic Party. Living with my dear friend Eleanor, three cats, and a chihuahua! My children, 63 and 57, have moved near one another in Port Washington, Long Island, and are happy about this.

The grandchildren, 20 and 18, are doing well. Eleanor and a bunch of friends are going on our seventh or eighth cruise with the magazine The Nation. We love the day-in, day-out seminars and meeting interesting journalists and people from all over the world. That is my story, from your old Fieldston buddy. Hair is white, I’m a bit overweight, love to smile and be with people. Constantly take courses to learn and study new things. Thank you, Fieldston!

And this tribute, from Barbara Lebow: The Reporter isn’t the same as an in-person meeting, but it’s heartwarming that we can find each other, including in unexpected locations. I’ve been living in Santa Barbara, CA, since ’04. Still writing plays (A Shayna Maidel the most performed, with a recent extended run in Chicago), doing “outreach” projects, and enjoying life — walking on bluffs that overlook the ocean, challenging myself in the mountains with my best friend goading me up the steepest hills. My three sons are sliding productively toward and into their 60s. Both grandchildren are in their 20s, following creative, humanitarian, and environmentally challenging pursuits. You remember that during sophomore summer, someone called to say that Donny Blau had died in a car accident. His sister, Meryl ’56, survived. Donny was the first we lost, and it was a shock. As we went on with our lives, I decided that I would purposely remember him, though I hadn’t known him well. I called the school and learned that there’s a gate on the Quad marked “From Muriel and Isaac Blau, 1952,” with a plaque in Donny’s memory. Maybe you will find it.

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And this reminiscence from Henry Friedman: My daughter sings in her husband’s church choir, and I join them for concerts they perform twice yearly, including Haydn’s “Creation” with soloists and full orchestra. I remember singing this in 1953 with Bernie Werthman. I believe Bob Schoenfein sang “Rolling in Foaming Billows.”

I also remember Fen Fuller and Spencer Brown straining to hit the high notes in the tenor section.

Larry Gold has Parkinson’s, his wife writes. We moved to Denver almost two years ago, so it’s a bit of a trek for us to return to the East Coast. (Leslie had a lovely and delightful lunch with them in Boulder, CO. Who didn’t love Larry? Remember how mad he got when Mrs. Brock served spaghetti sauce the day he wore a white shirt?)

Ilene/Pookey Shapiro Ginsberg gets to the point: I’m still alive (!) and still interested in keeping up with the class although I haven’t been to any gatherings.

Ann Cassell Doan, now Junia Doan, continues to broadcast her Michigan TV program, The Spark. Some of her guests have been her friends for years, and others do work that fascinates her.

Marian Brickner takes creature photos: birds, dogs, fish, insects, cats. She spent years studying bonobos.

Andrew Courtney recently finished a film: Threshold Stories, a documentary photo series in four countries and two occupations. He has worked in Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Palestine.

Stephany Fishman Cousins, whose colorful floral paintings are sometimes on Facebook, wrote while sailing into Le Havre, having

Class Notes

visited beaches and cemeteries at Normandy, accompanied by her eldest grandson.

Judd Ebersman says, in part: We live in northern Litchfield, CT. My wife (second) of 31 years, retired from the law after over 30 years of practice at Justice, NY, AG. First wife still living where we brought up our two kids, 91st St. and Central Park West.

Judd speaks of children and grandchildren, ending, “I kept busy as a commercial real estate broker. Would love to hear from others; lost my best Fieldston friends, Freddie Behrens and Bob Schoenfein, early on.

This is not a complete rendering.

A salute to all who contributed and sent in thanks for this way of communicating. Email forever!

1955 The class representative Lois Ullman Berkowitz reports: The class of ’55 is unique.

Despite our advancing age, class members continue to pile up honors and accomplishments.

We have about 50 names on an active email Listserv, where engaging discussions often take place, and we continue to organize our own social events.

Some outstanding honors and special work: In 2018, Alicia Suskin Ostriker was named the 11th New York State Poet in history by Governor Andrew Cuomo. Alicia, who was serving as Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, received the New York State Walt Whitman Citation of Merit for Poets.

More recently, Robert Socolow, professor emeritus at Princeton, was reappointed to the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which he chaired in the past. Rob’s illustrious career has included research

in environmental science, energy technology, geological engineering, and public policy.

He continues to explore the problem of climate change.

William (Bill) Cramer, Professor of Biological Sciences at Purdue’s Laboratory of Structural Biology, is still hard at work, studying the conversion of light to chemical energy in plants. He is also researching the import of protein toxins into bacteria.

Yale University Press recently published Adele Logan Alexander’s new book, Princess of the Hither Isles: A Black Suffragist’s Story from the Jim Crow South, a memoir about Adele’s paternal grandmother, Adella Hunt Logan. Adele also wrote a fascinating article about her grandmother, which was published in the SeptemberOctober issue of Harvard Magazine shortly before the book itself came out.

Joseph Amiel published not one, but two books in the past year. His most recent was a young adult novel called Fearsome Destiny: Brothers and Sisters. It followed the publication of his previous book by only a few months. The earlier book, which includes three short stories, is titled Death Can Delight: A Trio of Mysteries.

Both are available on Amazon.

Joe is a prolific author who is also interested in his ancestry.

Tamara (Tammy) Livingston Weintraub has signed him up to do a talk for her Brandeis study group about his becoming a Spanish citizen to memorialize his ancestors.

At the end of last year, Carl Leubsdorf published a memoir of his 58 years in journalism, Adventures of a Boy on the Bus, a great read for anyone interested in politics — also available on Amazon. Carl is still writing his weekly column for the Dallas Morning News and Tribune Service — he hasn’t missed a week since March 1981!

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Paul Kessel reports that his work has now been shown in over 50 group photography exhibitions in Europe, Asia, and America. He has also had three solo shows.

What makes his career unique is that he only began doing serious photography at age 70!

Lucy Soffer Blankstein has enjoyed a long career as an artist.

An active member of Group 93, an artists’ group in Washington, DC, she has exhibited her paintings on many occasions.

Most recently, she participated in a Group 93 show that ran at the Katzen Center at American University.

About 20 members of the class (and their significant others) gathered on May 23 at Serafina’s restaurant in Manhattan.

Mickie Schimmel Winkler came from California, and others were there from Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and Boston, as well as the New York area.

The dinner, organized by Ellen Sloame Fawer, Joe Amiel, and Joe Blumstein, won raves from all the attendees.

Andrew Frey suggested that the next time we gather, we should invite a classmate to talk about the work they are doing. At this writing we have scheduled another dinner, where Rob Socolow will discuss his study of climate change.

In a more local effort to get together, our entire Washington, DC-area contingent (Jeff Bauman, Lucy Soffer Blankstein, Judy Hellerstein Weisberg, Carl Leubsdorf, Peter Wolff, and I) gathered for a delightful Sunday brunch at my house back in February.

For a group of people in their early 80s, we are truly amazing!

1956 Fred Leventhal is the co-author (with Peter Stansky) of Leonard Woolf: Bloomsbury Socialist (Oxford University Press, 2019).

Linda Price Viiti Herbst with Jane Lehv Todaro and George Todaro at an Aspen Festival Orchestra concert

Linda Price Viiti Herbst writes: Have lived in Aspen, CO, full-time for the past 50 years. Retired 15 years ago, but still ski in the winter and bike in the summer.

Enjoy summer visits from Jane Lehv Todaro and George Todaro ’54, and going to Music Festival concerts and Aspen Institute lectures with them. Still serve on the board of the Aspen Music Festival and School, and keep in touch with and follow the careers of musicians who got their start here. Took a trip on the Danube with my daughter and her husband, and saw many changes in places where I spent time in the ’60s and ’70s.

1957 Martin “Marty” Lowey writes: My new book Capitalism for Democrats was published in 2019. Its goal is to get Democrats to understand better how

capitalism works to almost everyone’s benefit, not just the fat cats, and how it can be improved to better protect nonwinners (we do not talk about losers — that language is for others). Preliminary reviews are very good. One reader called it a “tour de force.”

1959 Steven Ablon writes: I am still enjoying a full-time practice in adult and child psychoanalysis and psychiatry, and teaching at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, where I am a professor. My fifth book of poetry, Dinner in the Garden, was just published.

Lesley Hartley Gise writes: I miss seeing patients after 50 years, but I’m very busy

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professionally, with mentoring, advocacy, teaching, and speaking. After being out of commission for one-and-ahalf years with a bad back and hip, and six months after getting a new hip in New York, I am now back to all my regular physical activities. Yaaay! Tennis, hula, and gym. I also had two cataract surgeries that turned out great. And I’m going to Egypt next year. The photograph below is of me just before dancing hula, at a local art gallery, with my halau (hula school/group), in January 2019.

Louis Livingston writes: Thanks to Jeannie and Allan for reviving the class information train. My railroad ticket includes retirement from private law practice earlier this millennium,

Lesley Hartley Gise prepares to hula dance

Class Notes

returning to school for a master’s degree in history, and then writing — for publication — about Theodore Roosevelt and, eventually, the influence of every presidential family on politics and public policy. I am obviously among the classmates who were profoundly affected by the exciting teaching of Ed Pearlstein.

I reside geographically far from New York, dividing my time between Portland, OR, and Maui.

I was pleased to see Jeff Moskin in Hawaii a couple of years ago, a unique Fieldston ’59 visitor from the mainland. As my Tennessee wife has been known to say, y’all come.

Jay Pobliner writes: In 2009 I retired from my fire department as a lieutenant, and I was also an EMT. I moved to Florida and live in Wellington, which is near West Palm. Being too old for firefighting, I joined CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) to help with disasters. I am living with a retired RN who is presently fighting breast cancer, which she also had 20 years ago. She’s a wonderful person and a fighter.

Ruthie Neubauer writes: Lovely to see all you good-looking elders in the photo from our last reunion!

Hugs to each and all.

Judith Raices writes: I had a one-woman show at Hebrew Tabernacle last May and June here in Washington Heights — the Heights having very active arts and music programs. My show was of original artwork and tabletop products developed from it. I’ve also been in several photography shows up here as well. For about seven years, I volunteered at the Fortune Society teaching newly released prisoners how to go through job interviews. I am now retired, though I still teach a few classes.

I saw Bill Weber at his cousin’s 75th birthday party, and I’ve been going to concerts with Daniel Siff ’57 and master classes with Fred Siegel ’57.

Richard Price writes: Just moved back to the USA after 30-some years based in Martinique. Now in Coquina Key, FL, trying to adjust.

Jean Senegas writes: Here are a few things I’ve done over the years: I drove a bookmobile; collected insects in the Rocky Mountains; canoed in the Ozarks (with a copperhead curled up at my feet); took classes in juggling, lace making, scientific illustration, and calligraphy; did Scottish country dancing; and, while in Boston, learned the centuries-old skill of change ringing on church tower bells. I lived for 13 years in Lawrence, KS, and loved the flat countryside with its corn and wheat fields and its enormous cumulus clouds. When “it was time” to move back East, I looked for a town like Lawrence and found Ithaca.

Ethical Culture Fieldston School

Allan Shedlin writes: I’ve devoted my life’s work to improving the odds for children and families. I couldn’t help smiling when I was recently called the “Daddy of the Daddying Movement,” a gentle social evolution I identified and named in a 2008 New York Times/Hearst News Service commentary distributed worldwide. I coined the term “daddying” 25 years ago and have been writing, advising, consulting, and speaking about it ever since — most important, I have been joyfully practicing it with three daughters and five grandkids. The motto of the Daddying Movement is “Being a father is not what you are, it’s what you do.” Most recently, I was invited to write a piece for CodeM, a digital magazine — the piece is titled “Daddying — the Great Equalizer.” I was invited to discuss my work and the distinction between fathering and daddying at the last two annual meetings of the Strong Families Commission of Pennsylvania. And my Daddy Appleseed Fund’s commissioned dance, “For My Father — A Call to Arms,” which premiered on Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery, was performed aboard the Intrepid Sea/Air/Space Museum in NYC.

1960 Abram Epstein writes: My most recent novel, The Matthias Scroll-Select Second Edition has attracted the attention of a documentary filmmaker. I should show up on YouTube next year in an interview. My blogs on the internet “Times of Israel” (3 million readers) are mostly about the disaster done to Jewish values and, more importantly, to the Palestinians by a heartless right-wing Likud coalition.

Coming soon: a new treatise entitled Responsio Iudaeorum Nostrae Aetatis: A Response from the Jewish People of This Time Eternally Accused in the Christian Gospels of

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Conspiring to Kill Jesus with the subheading A New Defense Based on Recent Scholarship in the Matter of His Judgment and Crucifixion.

1961 Peter Rosen writes: The guys from the class of ’61 meet at least once a year. Here at the Ed Pressman Super Bowl party.

1962 Jonathon K. Rosen was presented with a 2018 Volunteer Excellence Award from the American Lung Association for outstanding service and leadership over the past 36 years.

The award was presented by the National Board Chair, John Emanuel, and the American Lung Association’s President and CEO, Harold Wimmer, at a dinner in Chicago.

Jeffrey Lyons and his son Ben attended the London Series between the defending World Champion Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees — the first MLB games ever played in Europe. Jeffrey just signed a contract for his eighth book, Hemingway and Me: Stories and Letters from a Life-Changing Family Friendship, due out in 2020. He continues to review movies on WCBS Radio nationwide and broadcasts daily baseball trivia questions to sports stations.

Front L–R: David Denby, Joel Perlman, Bob Abrams, Ben Pressman (son of Ed Pressman), Mike Sukin, Ed Dudley; back L–R: Ed Pressman, Eli Zabar, David Rosen, Roger Hayes, Peter Rosen, Bob Levy ’66

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Class Notes

Florence Lemle (left), Joan (Kaiser) Rosen (center), and Jenny Morgenthau (right) visiting Grand Teton National Park

1963 Florence Lemle writes: Joan (Kaiser) Rosen and Jenny Morgenthau visited me in Jackson Hole. We went to a local rodeo!

1964 Richard Paul Handler writes: Retired from a fun and rewarding career in private medical practice in Saranac Lake, NY, in 2011, moved to Evergreen, CO, for backcountry skiing and road bicycling. Relocated

to Jacksonville, OR, in 2018 for denser O2 necessitated by life altering injuries bicycling.

Found nirvana here: no physical challenges, nice community.

Leslie and I are happy. Kids and their families are spread across the US doing good things for the world (removing colon polyps, saving lives, teaching college).

Leslie and I are in our 52nd year of marriage. Former patients are my FB friends.

Dr. Thelma Boozer Baxter was honored as a Trailblazer in Education by the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. at the charity organization’s 8th

Annual Scholarship Gala on April 13, 2019. She is the retired Superintendent of the Harlem School District.

Victoria Traube received a special Mr. Abbott Award from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation on March 25, 2019, at the Metropolitan Club. This award is in honor of renowned director George Abbott and presented to a director or choreographer in recognition of lifetime achievement. Vicky — whose father Shepard Traube was a founder and first president of the Stage Directors and

Ethical Culture Fieldston School

Choreographers Society and mother Mildred Traube, who was the Society’s first executive secretary—received this special award for “her extraordinary passion and commitment to, and profound understanding of, the work of directors and choreographers who bring theatre to life.

1966 The class representative Steve Pike reports: Having spent the last four winters in the South, I moved this past summer full-time to Boynton Beach, FL. Enjoying retirement, I have been exploring more opportunities through the volunteer group of the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach. Also really enjoying being a grandfather to two adorable, funny, and very bright boys, ages six and three.

South Florida alums have been enjoying the warm winter temps, sunshine, and blue skies. The Three Amigos from ’66 in Palm Beach, FL, are Steven Pike, Allan Schwartz, and Robert Fagenson. Congratulations to Robert on the birth of his grandson, Miles Jordon.

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53+ years out from our graduation finds some exploring new careers, new roles, volunteering, retirement, new adventures, travel, the joy of grandkids, loss, and new love.

We were saddened to hear of the passing of our classmate Steven Oreck. He attended ECFS through 11th Grade and then moved with his family to New Orleans. A number of classmates were in touch with him for our 50th reunion. A tribute in The New York Times reveals he had a very accomplished professional career, was a wonderful family man, and seemed to be the same great guy that we remember.

Meni Rosensaft has been named Interim Deputy CEO of the World Jewish Congress, in addition to his role as the organization’s general counsel.

Jeff Katz writes: I am enjoying my episodic retirement. Noel and I spent four months based in Abidjan earlier this year as I was doing a review for the African Development Bank.

Otherwise, when not adventuring, we are greatly enjoying our four grandchildren, who are scattered across the country.

Peter Kinoy writes: Working with Skylight on Borderlands, a nonfiction series on the current immigration crisis and what activists are doing to combat it.

Also, I have been working with the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.

I am creating and teaching media with the New York State chapter of the PPC. Our recent video “Empire State Rumblings” was recently broadcast on Free Speech TV. Robert Gordon writes: I married Shizuka Sudo on May 3. Shizuka is a hospice nurse at Hospice by the Bay in Marin County, CA. I’ve never been happier!

I know you all join me in offering them our congratulations and sincerest best wishes.

1967 Ira Resnick’s photographic memoir, The Seventies: A Photographic Journey, publisher Abbeville Press, is available on Amazon and in fine bookstores everywhere. Also the deluxe version, A Decade Through My Lens, is available on Amazon.

Left: Steven Pike, Allan Schwartz, and Robert Fagenson; right: Robert Gordon and Shizuka Sudo

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Class Notes

Candice Feiring writes: Those ethics classes still motivate political action and community service and also find their way into my research on romantic relationships — taking different points of view and making meaning of conflict.

SJ Rozan (Shira Rosan) had her 16th book come out in July. Paper Son, published by Pegasus Books, is a detective novel set in Mississippi among the long-established but little-known community of Mississippi Delta Chinese.

SJ is also proud to be celebrating her 26th year of sharing a summer house with, among others, Steve Blier ’68.

Gigi Goldin Lincoln, longtime school librarian and Holocaust educator in Battle Creek, MI, was proud to have been invited to Washington, DC, for a special tour of the exhibition “Americans and the Holocaust” at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Joan Beranbaum retired after working for 41 years at DC 37 Municipal Employees Legal Services, the last 17 years as Director and Chief Counsel of the program, which provided free legal services to members of the largest municipal employees’ union in New York City.

Top: Ellin Kardiner Curley (right) and Susan Pomeranze (left) enjoy a mini reunion; bottom: Penny Mishkin and Steve Rothschild

The class representative Gigi Goldin Lincoln reports: Ellin (Kardiner) Curley keeps in touch with fellow ’67 Fieldstonites including Wendy Kalmanoff and Susan Pomeranze on Facebook and in person. Ellin shared this update: I write scripts with my husband for our audio theatre group, VoiceScapes Audio Theater. We perform live and also post recordings of our short comedies and dramas online.

This past year I wrote a moving one-hour script commemorating the 100th anniversary of a horrific 1919 pogrom that wiped out half of a Jewish town in the Ukraine, called Felshtin. The piece was

Ethical Culture Fieldston School

performed, with live music, to a standing ovation at The Center For Jewish History in New York City on April 14, 2019.

Danny Goldberg’s Serving the Servant: Remembering Kurt Cobain was published in April 2019 by Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins, and has received the highest praise!

Barbara Kahn Stewart and her husband, Burr, celebrated the marriage of their daughter, Laurel, at a lovely wedding in Ithaca, NY, on September 7.

Penny Mishkin and Steve Rothschild celebrated their 70th birthdays in Sun Valley, ID, and wish the best to fellow ’67 classmates also marking this important milestone!

1968 Katrin Belenky Peck, a resident of Vero Beach, FL, was elected to the Board of Directors of the Vero Beach Theatre Guild, where she also serves as Board Secretary and Chair of the Fundraising Committee.

Formerly a Wall Street corporate attorney, Katrin founded and grew her consultancy, Nonprofit Consulting Associates, from 2005 to 2018. She and her husband, Samuel Peck, enjoy their “next stage” in South Florida, where Katrin also sings Broadway tunes in the local “Guild on the Go” group and serves as co-president of her Vassar College class in the ramp up to the class’ 50th Reunion in 2022. Sam enjoys financial research, gym workouts, gardening, and spending quality time on the beach with their two Brittany Spaniels. Jamie Katz visited them in Florida last spring, and the Pecks also connected with Jayne Dworman Greenwald and Dale Kahr Moses, both of whom live in South Florida.

Gerry Myerson writes: Retired.

Decompressing.

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Rick Strong writes: I just completed a move back to my native Riverdale, and after 22 years in Manhattan, I’m enjoying the green and the quiet. Professionally, I continue to work as a software engineer at Columbia University Medical Center, a.k.a. The Day Gig That Took Over the World, and I’m practicing bass and playing out as much as I can. I’m beginning to understand what Pablo Casals said when asked why he was still practicing at 93: “I’m beginning to notice some improvement.”

Ruth Acker writes: The magic of Disney World is seeing it through the eyes of grandchildren! Our older granddaughter was transformed by a fairy godmother into a beautiful princess. While I struggle with gender typecasting, she was absolutely radiant, with her four-year-old imagination running wild! The whole family was singing along to “Let It Go” during a Frozen show. So much fun!

1969 Jon Kramer writes: After an attempt at retirement, I have joined Shopperception, a camera-based in-store shopper monitoring platform. In partnership with a leading media company, we are building the first retail learning lab network.

This is an exciting opportunity to provide never-before-seen shopper activation insights to the fast-moving consumer goods industry and its distribution channel partners.

Nancy Scheck has recently become a grandma, and now, instead of selling books, she is appraising them.

1970 Holly Herman writes: International lecturer on physical therapy topics with a clinical practice in Cambridge, MA. Soon to be a grandma. Enjoying life and shaking things up.

After many years of research, writing, and hunting for a publisher, Dee Michel reports that his book, Friends of Dorothy: Why Gay Boys and Gay Men Love The Wizard of Oz, is available!

1971 Nancy Lowenstein writes: I am living my best life with my husband of 31 years, Joe, and two sons, David (30) in Austin, TX, and John (28) in Somerville, MA. Joe owns and runs three premium homemade ice cream stores.

I took up ballroom dancing three years ago and compete locally and love it. I am not ready to retire, and work at Boston University as a Clinical Associate Professor and Program Director.

Mimi Kim Klausner writes: After 34 years in San Francisco, I will be back in NYC from September 2019 to May 2020.

Looking forward to seeing what’s changed and what’s the same, as well as spending time with my younger son, Oscar, who lives in Astoria.

1972 Richard Wexler is executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, a small nonprofit organization that works to change policies concerning child welfare — in particular, to reduce the class and racial bias that permeate the system.

1973 Susie Linfield’s second book, The Lions’ Den: Zionism and the Left from Hannah Arendt to Noam Chomsky, was published in March by Yale University Press.

The New York Times called it “original… interesting… important” and “urgent.”

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1974 Jonathan Pollock writes: My daughter Rachel Pollock is in her sophomore year at UCSB. My wife, Jean Freedman, wrote a biography on Peggy Seeger, published by University of Illinois Press. She also wrote a play on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on Lysistrata, entitled Lysastrata in Jerusalem. I am still at the National Institute on Drug Abuse as the Chief for the Genetics, Epigenetic, and Development Neuroscience Branch after 23 years. I recently published a commentary in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

My program has supported the identification of genetic variants for nicotine addiction and, consequently, lung cancer. I keep in touch with Kevin Fox and Sarah Durand.

Eve F. Wahrsager’s (Eve F.W. Linn) debut collection of poetry was published by River Glass Books in July 2019. Linn received her B.A. cum laude from Smith College in Studio Art and her M.F.A. from the Low Residency Creative Writing Program at Lesley University, Cambridge, MA. She has attended the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, The Frost Place Conference on Poetry, and the Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference.

She is a published poet and book reviewer. Her favorite color is blue. She lives west of Boston with her family and one demanding feline.

Robyn Roth-Moise writes: It was great seeing and catching up with classmates, either in person at our 45th Reunion, or in my reaching out to all of you.

Let’s start planning for a huge turnout to our 50th. Save the date — the first weekend in June 2024. I have been lucky that, in recent years, I have been able to combine my love of ice skating, theatre, and photography. I have been called upon to photograph some of the skating greats (whom I now

Class Notes

can call my friends) through my associations with Rockefeller Ice Skating Rink, Ice Theatre of New York, and Figure Skating in Harlem. I get to spend my Thursdays during the summer in Central Park (on the fields where we played softball while at Ethical) photographing various Broadway show teams who are part of the Broadway Show League. This past summer, I photographed for Hamilton and Harry Potter. I was recently given the honor to co-chair, along with Timothy Goebel, this year’s Ice Theatre of New York Gala.

as well as loving nieces and nephews. In addition to being a loving wife, mother, sister, aunt, and dear friend, Rori was a child psychoanalyst who had dedicated her life’s work to helping others. In messages after her death, our classmates recalled Rori’s sweetness and warmth, soft sense of humor, striking beauty, and light-up-theroom smile. We miss her and will always remember Rori as a delightful member of our class.

1975

Jennifer George, a clothing and jewelry designer, had one of her necklaces featured this past year in the Burning Man exhibit at the Smithsonian. She also runs Rube Goldberg, Inc., a not-forprofit 501(c)(3) that uses the work of her grandfather to inspire STEM learning, machine thinking, and creativity through its annual competitions. She has written two books, The Art of Rube Goldberg, now in its fourth printing, and an illustrated children’s book, Rube Goldberg’s Simple Normal Hum-Drum School Day, which won last year’s Parents’ Choice Award. This past October, the Queens Museum mounted its “The Art of Rube Goldberg” exhibit. It will be there through February 2020.

Jennifer Schwamm Willis writes: Still happily living in Maine with Clint, my husband of 39 years. I recently retired from 20 years of teaching yoga at the Waynflete School in Portland, ME, and Clint is transitioning into retirement from The Writing Company, which he founded and ran for over 25 years. Our sons both live back in NYC. Harper, 33, is a music engineer and producer, as well as one half of the indie-pop duo Eighty Ninety with his younger brother, Abner, 30. Harper and his partner, Sarah, are the doting parents of Sawyer, age 15 months. Abner and his fiancée, Alexandra, will be married next summer. Life is good! No complaints. :)

1976 The class representative Debra Ruder reports: The class of ’76 was heartbroken to learn of the unexpected death of classmate Rebecca Schwartz Shaffer in December 2018. Rori, as we all knew her, died peacefully in New York City, surrounded by her family. She left behind her husband, Steven; her son, Daniel, and daughter, Jenny ’13; her sister, Karen Schwartz Hart ’77; and her father and stepmother, Stephen and Lety Schwartz,

1977

Gabrielle Hoffman writes: Happily living in Lyme, CT. I own a marketing and web design firm going on 32 years.

I have two sons — the oldest is a sophomore at MICA; the youngest is a junior at Killington Mountain School. It feels a bit strange being empty nesters.

We are filling the space with dogs! I am in close contact with my best friend, Valerie Colville Nierenberg. We are godparents to each other’s children. I have most recently reengaged with ECFS through my work with the Advancement and Communications offices. We are designing a few projects for them. It was nice to get a tour of all the campuses!

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treatment program in Spring 2019 in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Alice Jankell and husband, Jess Shatkin, face impending Empty Nest Syndrome (daughter Parker is at Oberlin, and son Julian is off to drama school). Alice continues to write and direct in NYC. She helms the new musical An Enchanted April off Broadway this fall.

1980 Valerie Colville Nierenberg and Gabrielle Hoffman, May 2019

1978 Mitchell Hauser writes: Just celebrated 25 years of owning Barney’s Restaurant in Locust Valley, and 20 years of owning Crew Restaurant in Huntington, NY. And, most importantly, completing my Addiction Recovery Therapy Training on Long Island in June. On to a new career in the field of recovery!

1979 Alexandra Chasin received a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation in 2020, granted to support the research and writing of a book of general nonfiction entitled The Family of UnMan. Eve Niedergang writes: I’m in the middle of my first year serving on town council in Princeton, NJ. It’s been a steep learning curve and is very time consuming — 40–60 hours a week — but so far very rewarding. Recently, someone told me I was doing a great job because I was asking a lot of good questions — something I credit, at least in part, to the

excellent education I received at ECFS, although I’m not sure that all my teachers appreciated that trait at the time! I also work at a local environmental organization focused on clean water issues.

In my personal life, I recently celebrated 30 years of marriage, and next year will mark my 35th here in Princeton. Two adult children, one living at home and working 80 hours a week on our local state assembly campaign, and one who recently moved to the Boston area. Really enjoyed our reunion in June and hope such get-togethers will happen more frequently.

In fall 2018, Robert Weiss received a doctorate in clinical sexology after 25 years of providing clinical social work and clinical program development.

Today, “Dr. Rob” is the author of 10 books on intimacy, sex, and relationship problems, including the 2018 publication, Prodependence: The End of Codependency. Rob lives in Santa Monica with hubby of near-20 years, Jon, along with their much beloved and everslobbering bulldog, Dozer.

Rob opened his fourth intimacyfocused residential addiction

Jerry Craft has a new graphic novel published by HarperCollins called New Kid, which was inspired by his four years as one of the few kids of color in his form at Fieldston. The New York Times Book Review says, “New Kid is at once tender and tough, funny and heartbreaking. Hand this to the middle-grade reader in your life right away.”

Jordana Pomeroy resides in Miami, FL, where she is the Director of the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University.

1981 Anthony Howell is working as Behavioral Health Consultant/ CASAC at the Jewish Board for Families and Children at the Co-op City branch in the Bronx.

He loves his work and is grateful to God that he is able to practice resiliency, courage, humility, and unconditional love in working with marginalized populations.

Sending God’s blessings and balloons to the moon.

Doug Levy writes: Life is grand in Tucson, where we have lived since 1995. Older daughter Rae Levy is entering her senior year at UM Ann Arbor (sociology major and Judaic studies minor).

Younger daughter Maya is taking a gap year because she was elected President of the North American Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY).

Maya then expects to enter

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UM Ann Arbor in the fall of 2020.

I experienced TWO awesome visits with Eric Berman and Ubie Rubel this summer and unfortunately missed seeing Greg Linn. GO BLUE!

1982 Lisa Fier writes: Living the good life in AZ. Have my own tutoring business. It consists of mainly middle- and high-school math, with some science, history, and writing thrown in to keep it interesting. Always grateful that I attended Fieldston, as I have a handful of friends from high school who help me celebrate the good times and support me through difficult ones.

1984 Sam Braverman writes: Still practicing white collar criminal defense work in New York and New Jersey, but also cases in North Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts in the last few years. Since the last reunion, have seen fellow ’84s Juan Aruego, Eric Greenberg, Paul Arnsten, Ron Saltz, Peter Garcia, and others (including loads of classmates on Facebook — great to see what all of them are doing!).

I am ever more appreciative of the foundation of academics, curiosity, ethics, passion, and purpose instilled in me at ECFS starting nearly 50 years ago.

One of the class representatives, Joshua Howard, reports: I continue to teach Chinese history at the University of Mississippi. I just completed my second book, Composing for the Revolution: Nie Er and China’s Sonic Nationalism (University of Hawai’i Press), and am a resident fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. I’m still fiddling away (now working on my two favorite pieces, the Sibelius violin concerto and the Bach

Class Notes

Chaconne) and trying to keep in running shape.

Chris Tejirian, who works for the Foreign Service, and his family just moved back to Japan. He writes, “We’ll be in Yokohama until summer 2020, then escaping just before the Olympics and living between Osaka and Kobe for a few years after that.” His twins are starting 6th Grade.

Amanda Bailey is a Professor of English and Department Chair at the University of Maryland.

She is the author of several books and currently completing a monograph entitled Shakespeare on Consent, which reevaluates Shakespeare’s work in light of #MeToo. She lives in Washington, DC.

1988 Eve Grubin lives in London with her husband and their two boys.

She teaches at NYU in London and The Poetry School. She has published two books of poems, Morning Prayer and The House of Our First Loving.

Elizabeth Lynn is VP of Grants and Research for Selfhelp Community Services, a notfor-profit organization serving Holocaust survivors and other older adults throughout New York City. She has enjoyed catching up with other ’88 graduates over Facebook. Elizabeth lives in Brooklyn with her husband, David, her 15-year-old, Lee, and two guinea pigs.

back to Brooklyn after two years in Seattle. It is wonderful to be home, and our families are thrilled (and relieved).

Andrew Langer had a great time speaking at Fieldston in 2019 on the topic of using specific policy issues to bridge political gaps and bring people together. In addition to continuing to do his advocacy work, Andrew is still hosting a talk show on WBAL NewsRadio 1090 in Baltimore, and this fall, 30 years after setting foot on campus as a freshman, he is returning to his college alma mater, William and Mary, to join the faculty in the university’s public policy program.

1991 In October, Rachel Hochhauser joined Robert Tucker ’88 at T&M Protection Resources, where Rachel is now a Managing Director in the Sexual Misconduct Consulting & Investigations Division. In other news, Rachel and her 2.5-yearold twins have been enjoying the doughnut-making adventures of Tristan in Jessie Janowitz’s middle-grade novels The Doughnut Fix and its sequel The Doughnut King.

1993

Alysia Reiner just finished her seventh season as Fig on Orange is the New Black and the third season on HBO’s The Deuce, and is starting her fourth season on F/X’s Better Things. You can also watch her latest film, Egg, on iTunes and Amazon.

David Harrison writes: Life has been great with my wife, Mai, and our three kids, Kayla (15), Amanda (14), and Bryan (11). Nostalgic for the good ol’ football days, I’m now in my fourth season helping coach my son’s Pop Warner football team. I juggle two jobs — medical director and VP of physician affairs for Teladoc Health, and primary care internist and pediatrician at Massachusetts General Hospital. Hope everyone is well — go Eagles!

1989

1994

David Bloom writes: This summer, my family and I moved

Stephanie Fagenson writes: I had a baby boy on August 9,

Ethical Culture Fieldston School

2018! After losing my mom in January 2017, I decided to stop putting off the one thing I’ve always wanted, which is to have a child, so I went for it! And now I have this wonderful blessing, Miles Jordan Fagenson, named after my late mom, Margaret Fagenson ’66, and my late grandma, Josephine. He is so beautiful and sweet and brings so much joy to my and my family’s lives!! (Including my father, Robert Fagenson ’66, and sister, Jennifer Fagenson ’96.)

Class representative Daryl Freimark reports: I produced A Bread Factory, Parts One and Two, which are currently streaming, as well as Framing John DeLorean and A Rising Tide. My most recent production, Giving Birth to a Butterfly, was showcased at US in Progress Paris in June, where I was awarded a Producer Network Market Badge for the 2020 Cannes Film Festival.

Jonah Geffen took a new job as Senior Jewish Educator and Campus Rabbi at Hunter College Hillel.

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Matt McGowan sold his business, Adestra Ltd., to Upland Software Inc. (Nasdaq: UPLD) and has been enjoying some well-earned R&R. He is currently planning his next endeavor.

Jeff Greenberg writes: I went full entrepreneur, launching Firefly Health — a tech-enabled primary care company — in December of last year. So far so good! My wife and three kids are great.

1995 Oliver Vaquer wrote, produced, and co-starred in the 10-episode fictional podcast The Angel of Vine, starring Joe Manganiello, Alfred Molina, Constance Zimmer, and Alan Tudyk, to name just a few. He has three more productions in the works, including season two of Angel.

He and his wife, Natasha Selver Vaquer ’96, just welcomed their daughter Lennon into the world in July.

Eddie Garcia writes: I was an infantry sergeant in the Marines before being wounded in Iraq in 2004. I then worked for a game company and was a playable character in a video game called

“First to Fight” for Xbox. I was an officer with DHS for about a decade, and I am currently a Special Agent with the FBI, Philadelphia Division. I am a thirdyear Ph.D. student at Alvernia University studying leadership and will begin my dissertation next summer. I have two sons; Christopher is 10, Evan is seven, and both are brilliant, healthy, and handsome.

Zora Fellerman Ginsburg is the Brand Image Stylist and Visual Coordinator for NYCbased womenswear brand Rebecca Taylor. Zora lives with her husband, Greg, and their two children, Izzy and Marty, in Brooklyn, NY. William DeMeritt writes: I’m currently performing in Paula Vogel’s award-winning play, Indecent, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. My 2019 started at my alma mater in Twelfth Night at Yale Rep, and my year ended with my getting married in NYC to my fiancée, Cassandra. The class of ’95 was well represented in the wedding party, thanks to Oliver Vaquer, Nar Dao, Paul Kahn, and Dax Munna. I continue to narrate journalism for the Audm app and the occasional audiobook. In 2020, I hope to reconnect with some ECFS folks out West while I’m in LA. Kore Nissenson Glied writes: I am a behavioral health psychologist at a primary care center for employees at NBC Comcast Universal and Warner Music. I also have a private practice in Midtown Manhattan.

My husband, Allen, and I have two sons: Kyle, age nine, and Asher, age six. We have all fallen in love with skiing, and this has made us all want more and more winter.

The class representative Elizabeth Kagan Arleo reports:

Jessie Janowitz at a book signing for her middle grade novels The Doughnut Fix and The Doughnut King with some current ECFS students and friends.

I’m an Associate Professor of Radiology at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell in

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NYC, subspecializing in women’s imaging, and Editor-in-Chief of a radiology journal called Clinical Imaging. My husband, Josh, and I have three girls: Sophia (Fieldston Middle School, 6th Grade, where she has Ms. Takoushian for history), Michaela (Ethical Culture, 3rd Grade), and Giordana (two years old).

Richard Kleiman reports that he is the manager/agent for Kevin Durant, a Partner at Thirty Five Ventures, and Vice Chairman of Kevin Durant Charity Foundation (KDCF). He has two daughters, Bella (10) and Olivia (6), with his wife of 15 years, Jana.

Ann Sharfstein writes in to say: We live in Lebanon, NH, where I teach reading and English at Lebanon High School. This is my eighth year teaching at LHS, and I love it. Sadie just started high school (where I teach!), and Helena is in 6th Grade at Lebanon Middle School. My husband, Dan, is a director at DartLab at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. We love living here; it’s such a beautiful and relaxed place to raise a family.

Last spring, we ran into Ethan Youngerman and his family at our local coffee shop. That was a fun surprise! We’d love to see any Fieldston alums who might ever be in the area!

Kate Lester reports: I just started a new job this summer as a Deputy Chief Development Officer for Individual Giving at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I live in Brooklyn with my husband, Andrew, and our two little boys: Max is almost seven, and Zeke is four.

Naomi Goodman writes: I’m a Senior Film/Commercial Editor at the San Francisco-based advertising agency Venables, Bell & Partners, where I work on commercials for Audi, Reebok, and Trulia, among other clients.

My husband, Michael, and I have two kids (Daniel, six years old and Abigail, three years old). We live just north of the Golden Gate

Class Notes

Bridge, in Mill Valley. I miss NYC terribly, but I’ve fallen in love with Northern California’s air, trails, and beaches.

1997 Ian Marks writes: My wife, Venessa, and I welcomed our son, Bennett Oliver Marks, on December 18, 2018. Big sister Hazel has been amazing with him. Although pretty much nocturnal for three months straight, he’s now only waking us up a couple times a night.

Yay, sleep. Also, after one full year, we’re still loving Colorado.

I really can’t get enough of all the sun, the wide-open spaces, and seeing the gorgeous mountains in the distance. We miss our NYC friends and family, but have made some great new friends and reconnected with old ones who moved here before us.

1998 Caleb Hurst-Hiller writes: After years serving as the high school principal and head of school at Community Charter School of Cambridge, I stepped down from the role this past June. Not quite sure what’s next, but the interim has me doing more kid dropoff/ pickup and enjoying a longer and more relaxing summer.

1999 Andrew Werts and his sister, Jennie Werts ’03, have opened a restaurant on the North Fork of Long Island called Ellen’s on Front (named after their mom).

Stop by at 38 Front Street in Greenport for Jennie’s fabulous food!

Gabriela Salazar writes: In May 2018, I had a sculpture, “Matters in Shelter (and Place, Puerto Rico),” open at Storm King Art Center as part of “Indicators: Artists on Climate Change,” and I got married! In January 2019, I gave birth to our daughter, Lucia

Vieve Salazar Williamson. In the fall of 2019, I started my seventh year of teaching art at the Grace Church School High School downtown, and I have a sculpture up at Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens until May 2020. Missed everyone at Reunion!

Carmen Epstein lives with her family in Lancaster, PA. Few things there remind her of growing up in NYC; however, she does frequently think about her alma mater. Carmen has spent her career teaching in many independent schools both in NYC and Pennsylvania. She is currently teaching at her first 6th– 12th Grade public charter school.

Central to the school’s mission is to close the opportunity gap for black and brown students.

It was at Fieldston that Carmen was first introduced to the idea of equity versus equality. This differentiation has proved vital in her teaching, parenting, and life philosophies.

One of the class representatives, Laura Gourdine, reports: I made my TV debut on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit this past March. Please check me out in episode 17, “Missing.” I play a nosy eyewitness (don’t say anything, classmates).

Our class of ’99 showed up in good spirits at our 20th reunion in June. It was great catching up with old friends and hearing about jobs, kids, travels, and all the adventures life has taken us on since we graduated 20 years ago!

2000 Rachel Bertsche’s third book, The Kids Are in Bed: Finding Time for Yourself in the Chaos of Parenting (Plume), will be published in 2020.

Emily Sussman recently launched “Your Primary Playlist,” an issues-focused politics podcast that puts women at the forefront of the conversation

Ethical Culture Fieldston School

about the 2020 presidential election, which includes interviews with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Cecile Richards. The podcast has five stars on Apple Podcasts, and Emily is planning a series of live events, including in NYC and DC, and would love to see fellow Eagles!

Alexandra (Ali) Jaffe Brandt lives in Berkeley, CA, with her husband, Eric, and their two-yearold daughter Zoe. She runs her own product consulting business and is currently working with GoJek, a leading tech company based in Southeast Asia. When she’s not working, Ali and her family explore campsites along the West Coast with their chocolate Lab, Penny.

2001 Shera Resch writes: A lot has occurred since I last submitted an update. After a year teaching at my daughter’s preschool, I’m now teaching in the Infant-Toddler Program at the Summit-Questa Montessori School in Davie, Florida. My five-year-old daughter, Elana, is enrolled in Summit-Questa’s kindergarten.

Sam Gladis Mellor is Vice President, Ad Product Marketing at Hearst Media Solutions. She and her husband, Ross Mellor, live on the Upper East Side in New York City with their yellow Lab, Booker.

2003 Jennie Werts and her brother, Andrew Werts ’99, have opened a restaurant on the North Fork of Long Island called Ellen’s on Front (named after their mom). Stop by at 38 Front Street in Greenport for Jennie’s fabulous food!

Ian Taubin ’03 was hired in August 2019 as Senior Vice President of Subdirect Digital Media Group, a magazine

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publishing and lead generation agency in Southport, CT.

2012

2007

Marisa Rackson married Scott Myslinski on September 1, 2019, in New Paltz, NY. The couple lives in Boston, MA.

Will Hershey and Tim Maloney have started a new venture together: Roundhill Investments will offer public market investors exposure to the fast-growing e-sports industry, starting with an exchange-traded fund.

Sherry Hochbaum has recently gotten engaged to Magnus Bakke and moved to Oslo, Norway.

2008 Hannah Hammel married Dustin Holloway on May 11, 2019. They moved to DeKalb, IL, where she will be pursuing an MFA in acting at Northern Illinois University.

2011 Noel Quiñones writes: I’m reporting from the South!

After three years as the Associate Director of Service Learning & Civic Engagement at the Brooklyn Friends School, I am headed back to school myself. While I’ve loved being an educator, I’ve decided to rededicate myself to poetry as an MFA in Poetry Candidate at the University of Mississippi!

Sam Ravetz headed to Madrid to teach English on a Fulbright fellowship after graduating from Occidental College. Since then, he’s returned to New York, working his way up from intern to Bombas’ Community and Giving Relationship Manager. Sam’s responsibilities at Bombas, a one-for-one apparel company, include working with 2,750 “giving partners” across the country to determine where Bombas’ 25 million donation pairs are donated across the country.

2013 Matthew Evans writes: Successfully completed my MPhil at Cambridge!

2015 My Birth and Other Regrets, the debut short story collection of author Ben Fitts, was released through the publisher NihilismRevised. Author Ben Arzate says: “In My Birth and Other Regrets, [Fitts] combines the humorous, the horrifying, and the absurd to create an excellent, unpredictable collection... His abilities as a storyteller cover a wide variety of genres and masterfully [mix] them.”

2017 Asher Muldoon is currently performing as an understudy in the first national tour of the musical Dear Evan Hansen.

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Ethical Culture Fieldston School

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Administrative Council

33 Central Park West New York, NY 10023 212-712-6220 3901 Fieldston Road Bronx, NY 10471 718-329-7300 ecfs.org

2019–2020 Jessica L. Bagby Head of School Chia-Chee Chiu Principal, Fieldston Middle Lauren Coulston Director of Communications Rob Cousins Principal, Ethical Culture Jeannie Crowley Director of Technology Liz Fernández Assistant Head of School for Ethical Education and Social Impact Nigel Furlonge Principal, Fieldston Upper Charles Guerrero Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Chris Harper Chief Financial Officer and Director of Human Resources Joe McCauley Principal, Fieldston Lower Betsy McIntyre Interim Chief Advancement Officer Gus Ornstein Athletic Director Kyle Wilkie-Glass Chief Operating Officer and Assistant Head of School for Strategic Initiatives

Board of Trustees

2019–2020 Jessica L. Bagby Ex-officio William Baker Susan Sarnoff Bram ’81 Margot Bridger Rosalind Clay Carter Samantha Dascher ’06 Ken Glassman Vice-chair Andrew Holm ’01 Treasurer Hazel Hunt Tal Kaissar Jesse Klausz Khary Lazarre-White ’91 Margaret Munzer Loeb ’90 Meghan Mackay Secretary Marti Meyerson Josh Nash Kathleen O’Connell Stan Parker Miriam Paterson Jonathan M. Rozoff Liz Singer Ex-officio Kim Smith Spacek ’91 Chair Emily Tisch Sussman ’00 Margot Tenenbaum Krishna Veeraraghavan Rielly Vlassis Stephanie Wagner Jeff Walker

33 Central Park West New York, NY 10023 ecfs.org

Ethical Culture Fieldston School

ECFS Reporter Winter 2020