Ethical Culture Fieldston School Viewbook

‌to make a better world

“The ideal of the school is to develop individuals who will be competent to change their environment to greater conformity with moral ideals.”

—Felix Adler, Philosopher, Educator, Humanist, and Founder of the Ethical Culture Fieldston School

www.ecfs.org/about/missionhistory/mission.aspx

Our children grow up with a sense that what they do matters, and that who they are matters.

Our Founder Felix Adler’s‌ educational vision is as important today as it was when the Ethical Culture Fieldston School was founded in 1878. We continue to realize that vision by embracing the following ideals:

Ethical Learning Academic Excellence Progressive Education

Ethical Learning Exploring what it means to be an ethical and responsible member of society forms the core of our curriculum and our school community.

We value inclusion and economic and racial diversity, and we honor all of our students for their unique contributions, cultural backgrounds, and beliefs.

Service is critical to the development of character— we incorporate ethics and community service into the children’s school experience from the earliest grades.

> At ECF it is learning with a purpose: to be a clear and daring thinker, to be good and kind, to be competent and skillful, to be a citizen, to be an agent of positive change.

Two Campuses

www.ecfs.org/academics/intro.aspx

Our school achieves academic excellence by challenging students to reach their highest potential in body, mind, and spirit through the humanities, sciences, the arts, and physical education. > ECF is proud of its curriculum which ranks among the best schools in the nation. It is a program of study that balances high standards with traditional core subjects and skills, while offering innovative courses, independent work, community service, ethics, and a breadth of electives for upper school students. > Our students become active learners and engage in vital discourse in a community of dedicated teachers and an atmosphere of intellectual discipline and creativity.

Academic Excellence > Committed to academic excellence, ethical learning, and progressive education, ECF offers a rich and challenging curriculum in the arts, sciences, and humanities.

A coed, nonsectarian school, it serves a diverse community of 1,700 students from PreK to 12th grade on two campuses—one in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, and the other in Manhattan. > See more of our campuses at www.ecfs.org

We believe that an educated person is one who pursues truth without fear or prejudice, and who will dare as well as to question.

www.ecfs.org/about/missionhistory/mission.aspx

Progressive education insists on the primacy of the learner in the act of learning.

At ECF, learning to think and to understand are the essential skills that best come from doing. When students can explore, imagine, invent, critique, test, and validate their ideas and experiences, that is when genuine learning occurs.

Cooperative, creative, student-centered and teacher-guided discussions, theme-based learning, and the freedom to make mistakes, are all part of our students’ everyday lives.

Progressive Education

“Here may each eager worker find a workshop for a thoughtful mind….

May youth by service nobler grown give life to brick and quarried stone.”

—Fieldston School Song

Manhattan

How We Teach

www.ecfs.org/admission/process.aspx

PreK-5

Ethical Culture

> The curriculum pages, available on our website, provide an overview for each grade level of the year’s program for reading, writing, and math. > Our students also work with specialists in art, science, Spanish, ethics, library, computer shop, music, and physical education.

> The library, in many ways the heart of the school, is our springboard for creating and sustaining a culture of reading, for helping children develop their research skills, and for introducing them to technology. > Technology is woven into the curriculum in creative and appropriate ways.

DIVISIONS

At Ethical Culture, we start with the learner; we want our students to be successful readers, writers, thinkers, creative and ethical problem-solvers, and independent learners.

PreK-5 > Manhattan

At every grade we teach common beliefs, such as understanding multiple perspectives, seeing the world beyond the self, creativity and imagination, developing habits of justice, fairness, and empathy, respect for all people and points of view, and a critical approach to decision-making.

Each grade’s work is built around an essential question, one that gets to the heart of what we want children to take away at the end of each school year. In PreK, the question is, how do I work, play, and learn, while in fifth grade, students explore the question, what are the roots of American democracy and the evolution of human rights.

The knowledge, concepts, and skills most important to each grade are built into this yearlong discussion. We get to know each child very well and want each child to achieve his or her full potential.

> The Manhattan campus of ECF is located on Central Park West, between 63rd and 64th Streets.

www.ecfs.org/fieldstonlower/welcome.aspx

PreK-5

Fieldston Lower School RIVERDALE

At Fieldston Lower we work to create an environment where the complex dimensions of children’s lives are understood and respected, and where a rich diversity of people, ideas, and experiences is embraced. Children come to school with different strengths and weaknesses, interests and fears, joys and disappointments, and an enormous range of experiences.

Our classrooms are places where all these differences can be accepted, appreciated, and valued as each individual learns how to be a responsible and contributing member of the group.

> Children, particularly young children, learn best by engaging in active learning experiences.

By working with materials in the classroom and in the world around them, our students are able to build their own knowledge using the teacher's help in focusing and organizing their thinking.

> The curriculum is designed to engage all aspects of their development, from their intellectual, creative, and artistic sides, to their physical, emotional and social sides. > Our dedicated teachers make great use of the outdoor campus environment as well as the resources of the greater New York area to bring our students out into the world and to bring the world back inside the school.

“We work to build in our students the power to learn, the confidence to take risks, and the courage to stand on their own convictions.”

—Joan Kaiser Rosen PreK Teacher

PreK-5 > Riverdale

Our goal is to create a community of learners who reflect the wide diversity of the world we live in and who develop the skills they need to work and live together both at school and in their lives outside of school.

DIVISIONS

As part of the Middle and Upper School campus, Fieldston Lower is located in the greenest part of New York. Students enjoy the benefits of a small and comfortable campus environment which is only a 15-minute drive from the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

www.ecfs.org/fieldstonmiddle/welcome.aspx

Grades 6-8

Our expanded middle school is housed in a new 48,000-square-foot academic building, complete with a “green” or vegetative roof.

A new athletic facility supports an exciting physical education program for both middle and upper school students.

Fieldston Middle School provides both a distinct educational experience and a thoughtful gradual transition between elementary school and high school. Our guiding concept is “the culture of consideration,” which we use to guide us in our behavior, decision-making, and planning.

Culture of consideration defines the way we treat each other, the way we treat our environment, and the way we treat our responsibilities as students, teachers, and community members.

“One of the things you find over and over again is that children really buy into quality when they are doing genuine work, and technology allows that to happen whether you’re interviewing people at Plimoth Plantation or downloading the track of a hurricane. It’s real work.”

RIVERDALE

DIVISIONS

Fieldston Middle School

Grades 6-8 > Riverdale

> the academic program for grades 6-8 provides a continuous journey for our students. the curriculum thoughtfully moves students from concrete to abstract ideas, just as their thought processes developmentally begin to move towards abstract thinking. Our students, for example, not only study scientific principles, they also become scientists with projects designed at each grade level.

> Our teachers use a variety of teaching styles. Students experience lectures, small group activities, experiential learning and a variety of individual and group classroom presentations. technology is used in our classrooms when it enhances our learning goals for the students. Smartboards, for example, allow teachers to prepare lessons using a variety of sources, including the web, to capture the day’s work, and have a reference for future classes. Class websites are numerous and many have been structured using Moodle, a secure, interactive tool, to allow conversations outside of class.

DIVISIONS

Grades 9-12 > Riverdale

Fieldston Upper School

RIVERDALE

The concept that students should participate actively in their own education shapes the lives of Fieldston students today.

If you look at our course offerings, our classroom web pages, our sports calendar, our community service program, our clubs and activities, you will see for yourself how actively our students are engaged in their own learning and in exploring the world outside the school.

> The rigorous academic and co-curricular programs in ethics and the performing and visual arts fully challenge and engage each student. > Students enjoy a respectful but informal relationship with faculty and strongly believe that their teachers care about them as people and not just inhabitants of their classroom. > The students are mentored by form (grade) deans who focus on the emotional, moral, social, and academic development of each child. > Newly renovated facilities enable us to provide a rich learning environment: • new music and performing arts center • separate rooms for band, chorus, strings, jazz percussion, electronic music, piano, dance, costume and scene shop • new dining hall • new student commons • new athletic complex

Brown University Cornell University Dartmouth College George Washington University Harvard University MIT

Pomona College Stanford University University of Pennsylvania Vanderbilt University Wesleyan University Yale University

For a complete list go to www.ecfs.org/collegedestination

College Placement

> One measure of the success of our students is the outstanding college acceptance rate ECF students enjoy. Choices vary widely but will typically include many of the most selective colleges and universities in the world. The greatest number of recent ECF graduates have chosen the following schools:

> Fieldston is known throughout the New York area and across the nation as a progressive school. Our decision several years ago to not offer AP courses confirmed our position as an educational leader and innovator in the independent school world. We believe that AP courses as a whole do not answer our students’ needs for courses that explore a variety of disciplines in greater philosophical and technical depth. The unique ECF experience distinguishes Fieldston from other independent schools in New York and across the nation and enables us to attract students of the highest intellectual caliber.

www.ecfs.org/fieldstonupper/welcome.aspx

The student should attend the institution that is the best match, one where he/she can be socially happy, intellectually challenged, well cared for, and ultimately successful in as many ways as success can be interpreted.

www.ecfs.org/arts/home.aspx

The Arts

For ECF students of all ages, encounters with the arts occur in formal art, music, drama, and dance classes, as well as in history, social studies, math, science, and English; in extracurricular activities and special trips; in festivals, productions, and performances.

> Fourth graders at Ethical Culture perform in a musical production each year and create the scenery. > At Fieldston Lower, the medieval feast is the pinnacle of the fifth grade’s study of medieval history; students in period costume dance and play music, joined by faculty and parents, also in costume. > In the middle school, highlights of the year include the arts festival in January and the annual musical in the spring.

< The arts are everywhere at ECF. You can see and hear students’ work in the classrooms and the halls as well as on the stage. They can be found in an exciting production of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath to a celebration of International Children’s Day and a spring “fashion” show in which high school art students create amazing outfits out of non-clothing material (like MetroCards!).

> In the upper school, opportunities abound in arts, from the advanced visual arts curriculum to the photography magazine. Throughout the year, the Fieldston community enjoys musical performances by the chorus, the orchestra, the percussion ensembles, the chamber music groups, and jazz ensembles. Dance students present their work at four concerts during the year, performing works by students and established choreographers. The theater at Fieldston is vibrant and ambitious, ranging from the fall drama and the student-directed plays to the spring musical.

Interscholastic Program 7-12 Physical Education Program PreK-12

www.ecfs.org/athletics/intro.aspx

We believe in cultivation of the body as well as the mind and spirit through our extensive physical education and our interscholastic athletic programs. Along with skill development, our teachers and coaches promote teamwork and sportsmanship. > At Fieldston over the past eight years, our athletic program has grown considerably, adding six exciting new team sports— ice hockey, boys’ and girls’ lacrosse, golf, and ultimate Frisbee.

Today we have 73% of the student body playing at least one sport. We invite you to take a look at our busy sports calendar on the website.

The new 38,000-square-foot athletic complex for middle and upper school students provides an exceptional venue for athletics. Features include: > Double gym that allows for two simultaneous full-court basketball games > Six-lane, competition length pool > New fitness center and training rooms > Two PE classrooms

Athletics

Our program has enjoyed considerable success. > In the last 10 years, we have won 25 league championships and 12 state championships. > Field Hockey won the AAIS League championship 11 consecutive years. > In 2007 we won 6 league championships (field hockey in two leagues, volleyball, boys lacrosse, girls lacrosse, golf) and two state championships (girls basketball and boys lacrosse). > The football team played for the league championship, girls soccer played in the state championship game, boys basketball and field hockey played in the state semi-finals, and volleyball and softball played in the state quarter-finals. > 12 teams made the NYSAIS State Tournament.

Ethics

The ethics program, an integral part of all formal and informal studies throughout the school, is based on the personal, social, and intellectual development of students and responds to the moral issues that students experience.

> The ethics program helps students identify moral problems, drawing on the humanistic traditions, to develop skills of judgment, and increase their sensitivity to the moral dimension.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our unique quality is the composite of our accumulated impact on the lives of generations of our graduates and their impact on the lives of countless others.

Fieldston graduates carry on their shoulders a history and sense of purpose that would have been different if they had not been shaped by the school. Ethics is not theory but action.

Ethics is lived, not simply imagined.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Joseph P. Healey, PhD. Former Head of School 1998-2007

Community Service “…But what the school is for is to make a better world.”

—Felix Adler, Thanksgiving address to Fieldston students, 1931

Third graders participate in the annual Penny Harvest. Collected pennies are donated to charities selected by the students. > Participation in such work requires analyzing information, thinking critically and creatively, taking action, and reflecting on the service experience. > Through service projects students are engaged in meaningful and challenging tasks that meet community needs in New York

City and beyond. Each grade level participates in numerous projects ranging from first graders growing plants to raise funds for the Central Park Conservancy to upper school students assisting firsthand in the rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. > In order to graduate, Fieldston students must complete a minimum of 60 hours of documented community service earned either through individual volunteer activities or special elective courses.

www.ecfs.org/academics/communityservice.aspx

At ECF work in service to others has been a long-held tradition at the school.

Community service is woven into the daily curriculum of all grades.

www.ecfs.org/about/diversity/welcome.aspx

Diversity

> Diversity, inclusion, and equity are core components of our pedagogical strategies and are critical to our continually evolving curriculum. Commitment is supported throughout our community and by numerous student organizations, standing parent committees, faculty groups, and the board of trustees.

The Ethical Culture Fieldston School has a long history of diversity and inclusion in its broadest sense. It is deeply rooted in our mission and in the social and educational philosophies of our founder, Felix Adler. From the school’s inception ECF has been a leader in diversity among independent schools in New York City.

Our alumni have made contributions in every critical field of endeavor.

Including: > Mildred Johnson Edwards ’32— founder of the first AfricanAmerican independent school in harlem > Robert Socolow ’55— an expert on global warming > David Grossman ’57— a visionary robotics engineer > Sheryl WuDunn ’77— co-winner of the Pulitzer Prize with her husband nicolas Kristof, for reporting on the tiananamen Square protests for The New York Times > Eve M. troutt Powell ’79— associate professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania and recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship > Alan Gilbert ’85—recently appointed new music director of the new York Philharmonic > Lev Sviridov ’00—winner of a Rhodes Scholarship

Clubs and Organizations • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Acapella Club Architecture Club Asian Club Biking Club Cancer Awareness Club Chess Club Club for the Cure: Breast Cancer Awareness Current Events Club Dance Club Dance Dance Revolution Diaspora Club Dope Ink Prints Eagle Eye Environmental Club Fieldston Fair Trade Club Fieldston Gay-Straight Alliance

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Fieldston Improvement Club Fieldston News Foreign Film Club Frok Girls Learn International Global Warming Awareness The Gouda Infamous: The Official Fieldston Dance Squad Lit Mag March of Dimes Middle School Book Club Mock Trial Club Model Congress Club Model United Nations Operation Smile

• Outhouse • Outside the Dream Club • Principal’s Advisory Committee - PAC • Peace Action Collaborative for tomorrow - PACt • Prevent Abuse of Children Everywhere - PACE • Rwandan Children’s Club • Rock And Roll Club • Rugby Club • Students Activities Club - SAC • Season Pass • Seventh Grade Sports Club • Science Olympiad Club • Social Justice Club

• South African Student Outreach Program • Sports Debate Club • Street Art Club • Students United for Multicultural Education SUME • Technology Fellowship Program • Technical Theater Society • Ultimate Disc and Games • Vegetarian Club • Weightlifting Club • World Awareness Club • Yearbook: Fieldglass • Youth Aids

www.ecfs.org/admission/welcome.aspx

We look forward to meeting prospective students and families, and to talking with them about their educational goals. We try to create a friendly and accessible process for all our applicants, and we take our responsibilities seriously.

We understand fully that each year we have the honor of helping shape a community that most reflects the mission of our school, which believes in a rigorous academic education that allows students to discover for themselves the true rewards of learning. Our school celebrates social and ethnic diversity and believes it to be a valued part of our curriculum both in and out of the classroom.

Financial Aid

17,107 gallons wastewater flow saved 1,892 lbs. solid waste not generated 3,727 lbs. net greenhouse gases prevented 28,525,931 BTUs energy not consumed Savings from the use of emission-free windgenerated electricity: 1,936 lbs. air emissions not generated

4,607 cubic feet natural gas unused In other words the savings from the use of wind-generated electricity are equivalent to: not driving 2,097 miles

> We are committed to making our educational opportunities available to qualified students regardless of their familyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s financial resources. To ensure economic diversity in our school community, we have one of the largest financial aid budgets of

any day school in the country, making needbased financial aid grants each year. > Please visit our web site www.ecfs.org for more information or call our Financial Aid Office at 718-329-7341

OR

planting 131 trees

The Ethical Culture Fieldston School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, or age in the administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, or any other school-administered programs.

Ethical Culture

Fieldston Lower

Fieldston Middle

Fieldston Upper

33 Central Park West New York, NY 10023 Ph: 718-329-7575 Fx: 718-329-7337

3901 Fieldston Road Bronx, NY 10471 Ph: 718-329-7575 Fx: 718-329-7337

3901 Fieldston Road Bronx, NY 10471 Ph: 718-329-7575 Fx: 718-329-7302

3901 Fieldston Road Bronx, NY 10471 Ph: 718-329-7575 Fx: 718-329-7302

> Printing: Lebon Press, Inc.

www.ecfs.org/admission/finaid.aspx

> The centralized admissions office for all divisions is located on our Riverdale campus. Please feel free to contact us for any additional information regarding our admission process. You can also visit our web site at www. ecfs.org to download application material and learn more about our scheduled Open Houses.

116.29 lbs. waterborne waste not created

> Design: Gaby Kahane Hoffman â&#x20AC;&#x2122;77, Good Design, LLC

> Our main entry years are PreK, Kindergarten, 6th grade, and 9th grade.

Applications to other grades are accepted; however, interviews and tours are based on attrition. Candidates are contacted on a rolling basis throughout the year as openings become available.

40.27 trees preserved for the future

> Photography: Eric Botnick, Lore Eiwen, Bob Falcetti, Richard Howard, Erica Lansner, Stan Schnier, Diane Silverman, Kathy Zeiger

Admissions

This book is printed on Mohawk paper which is manufactured with wind generated electricity and has a post consumer recycled percentage of 100%. The savings are:

The Ethical Culture Fieldston School Office of Admissions 3901 Fieldston Road Bronx, NY 10471 718.329.7575 www.ecfs.org

www.ecfs.org