GCDS News, March 2023

ALTERNATIVES

TO THE AP

FREIGHT CONTAINER FARMING

MANDELA GRANDSON VISITS

UPPER SCHOOL

ChatGPT

Is It a Big Deal?

MUSIC & MOVEMENT in Lower School

MARCH 2023 GREENWICH COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL

Ndaba Mandela with Upper School students

FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL

Just a few weeks ago we were honored to host Ndaba Mandela, the grandson of Nelson Mandela, to speak to our students as part of our Black History Month celebrations. Of the many powerful messages that Mandela shared with our high school, perhaps the one that resonated the most was the idea that the students sitting in the audience could, tomorrow, become change makers. Mandela empowered the students to think big, to serve others, and to change the future. He even quipped that the students held greater power than school administration, based on sheer numbers, and

thus, they could and should push for changes they believe in. As you might guess, this was met with thunderous applause. While I am not advocating for a student take-over of our school, I was struck by how in-sync Mandela’s message is with what we are trying to teach our students every day. As you will see in this edition of the GCDS News, we empower all the children in our care to become passionate about learning, to champion causes that help others, to discover and develop what is finest in themselves, and to truly Think Big!

You will also read about the teachers, coaches, alumni, and speakers that inspire our students with industry, field, and experiential expertise—applying their learning in real world scenarios. They are musicians, artists, lawyers, authors, historians, athletes, scientists, engineers, investors, and marketing professionals—and they also include our older students as role models and mentors for our youngest students, as they work collaboratively toward a common goal. The world our graduates will enter looks very little like the

world I entered upon graduating high school. Yet, I know with certainty, our graduates will enter that world with the skills needed to succeed, and the heart to make the world a better place.

Adam C. Rohdie

MARCH 2023

Greenwich Country Day School

P.O. Box 623, Old Church Road Greenwich, CT 06836-0623 www.gcds.net

HEAD OF SCHOOL

Adam Rohdie

DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS

Kim Eves EDITOR

Moina Noor

PHOTOGRAPHY

ChiChi Ubiña, Ariana Lubelli-Brown, Chris Mantz, Jen Donnalley, Austin Lehn

MAGAZINE DESIGN

Foogoo Communications Design

MARKETING GRAPHICS

Kirsten Bitzonis

WEBSITE

Kate Flanagan

Please share your comments, address changes, and inquiries

GCDSNews@gcds.net

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Liz Orum Duffy ’98 Director of Alumni Relations liz.duffy@gcds.net

GCDS News is published four times each year and is distributed to alumni, GCDS parents and grandparents, faculty and staff, and friends of the school. All rights reserved.

Greenwich Country Day School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin or any other category prohibited by law, in admission policies, scholarship programs, athletic and other school administered programs.

On the Cover: Chiara Andrade, Grade 9, Steve Paul, Grade 11, Hadley Cmiel, Vivienne Esquenazi, Luca Della Pietra, all Grade 3, work on friendship bracelets together during Tiger Time, a clubs period in Upper Elementary School.

Cover

INTERSESSION Applied Studies in Anatomy

ATHLETICS AWARDS

Photo: Ariana Lubelli-Brown

DESIGNING A RICHER ALTERNATIVE TO THE AP Advanced Research & Study in the Upper School

As students and families navigate our diverse and rigorous Academic Program, we’re frequently asked why we don’t offer Advanced Placement (AP) courses at GCDS. APs offer a widely recognized standard of rigor—the AP Exam. Most AP exams, however, require teachers and students to sprint through a highly prescriptive curriculum that focuses primarily on content volume and a vast amount of memorization. To be sure, content mastery is a crucial skill and over their four years in the Upper School, GCDS students will dedicate significant time to memorizing the subject area content needed to solve complex, real-world problems. Having both taught and served as leaders in nationally recognized high school AP programs, we know first-hand that the AP alone offers little room for higher order thinking and deep understanding of content, for the construction and long-term retention of knowledge, or for the interdisciplinary connections that make learning

ACADEMIC PROGRAM DESIGN

Our Upper School Academic Program is designed to provide students with a strong college preparatory education, including the core skills of critical reading, effective writing, quantitative analysis, and other capacities that would be familiar to most AP programs. Additionally, at all levels of our program, students are asked to apply their learning. This is where the GCDS Portrait of a Learner Capacities—essential skills like collaboration, interdisciplinary thinking, and solution design—and our project-based learning approach differentiate our program, as outlined below:

• As students learn the core concepts and skills for any given course, their teacher also works with them to design, build, and apply the knowledge and skills they have acquired.

• Students demonstrate their learning through tests and assessments, but they are also guided to utilize the principles learned in a math class, for example, and blend them with their studies of aesthetics in art, social policy from

By DR. CHRIS WINTERS Head of Upper School DR. ANDREW RUOSS Upper School Academic Dean

meaningful. In other words, the AP lacks the skill training for the application of knowledge.

APPLICATION OF KNOWLEDGE

For Upper School students, application is not just an add-on. It is crucial preparation for university study and for the adult world. It represents more challenging work, more complex conceptualization, and the need to develop a process for testing and revision missing from a purely traditional AP curriculum. In order to design and teach our curriculum, for the Upper School faculty, we recruited teachers with expertise in their subject areas, as well as in applied learning—from the university world, from industry, and from other leading independent schools across the country.

“Step on any university campus, the newest, most expensive, and busiest building will be the Center for Applied Studies,” says Gordie Campbell, Head of the Creative Applied Technologies

history class, and environmental impact from the Sustainability Diploma Program.

• In the 9th and 10th Grade years, our faculty design these projects and units for students, guiding them to build the core skills and reflexes of application in preparation for what comes next.

• In 11th and 12th Grade, students build their own schedules and increasingly fashion for themselves the interdisciplinary connections and project design that link their courses.

• Students choose from an array of increasingly specialized courses, personalizing their interests and their schedules.

This program design allows for a wide range of learners to increasingly discover, cultivate, and advance their talents. It also teaches students to transfer their knowledge and skills to new and complex challenges—an increasingly crucial skill for success in university programs and in the adult world.

and Computer Science programs. “We train our students in application so that they can take advantage of those cuttingedge opportunities day one.”

Whether in English 10, Physics, or Graphic Design, our faculty craft lessons through which students are trained to channel their learning into application. As students engage with our Honors program, they pursue opportunities that pose additional challenges in both subject skills and in application.

Every academic department also now offers Advanced Applied courses. These courses extend far beyond the AP standards, requiring significant content and skill mastery, along with strong application and independent research.

COLLEGE & UNIVERSITY TRENDS

Building a faculty of experienced teachers with significant academic and professional expertise allows us to offer a dynamic and unique academic program. It also enables us to base our academic program on exhaustive and continuous research. This includes tracking the nuanced and evolving narrative around APs. Over the past decade, many of the most competitive colleges and universities have stopped accepting AP credits altogether, and leading independent schools across the country have moved away from the AP curriculum.

Drawing from his experience in independent schools, as well as in the Princeton University and Bowdoin College admissions offices, Director of College Counseling Andy Ramirez adds,

“At no point has a school’s move away from the AP adversely affected students’ admissions prospects to the most selective colleges in the country.” In fact, according to Ramirez, “Our four years of admissions results show that our signature experiences in application-based learning, including the Junior Thesis, Advanced Applied Courses, and Independent Studies, provide our students with significant advantages in the college process.”

Our Academic Office works closely with College Counseling to monitor trends and policies at the college level, and to guide our academic program to maintain students’ advantages in the college process. For example, with the dissolution of the SAT II subject tests, many university engineering programs, which long used the SAT II as an admissions requirement, have turned to the AP as a temporary replacement. Our STEM faculty adjusted our program in anticipation of this shift.

While our Math department does not formally offer the AP, for example, Honors Calculus teacher Annette Iversen has created a pathway for students seeking to pursue admission to the most competitive engineering programs: “Starting in Honors Pre-Calculus, we work with students to identify those who can manage mastery of the content requirements for AP, while also continuing to develop their applied problem solving skills.”

Her students thus pursue a course of study that can be validated by the AP (the average score for her courses is currently a 5), but Iversen also ensures that they gain the advanced training in application that distinguishes our program.

For Upper School students, application is not just an add-on. It is crucial preparation for university study and for the adult world. It represents more challenging work, more complex conceptualization, and the need to develop a process for testing and revision missing from a purely traditional AP curriculum.

Chris Winters and Andrew Ruoss

RIGOROUS & REWARDING PREPARATION

The strength and experience of our faculty ensure that the school’s program can pivot and evolve to continue to provide a challenging and engaging academic program, while effectively preparing our students for the next steps in their education, and ultimately, to make an impact in the field of their choosing.

Soon Wiley, Head of the Upper School English Department and a published novelist, teaches the popular Advanced Applied Creative Writing course: “Teaching at GCDS means that I can offer my students a rigorous and rewarding experience without sacrificing classroom time for test prep. As an educator, there’s no greater reward than knowing you have the curricular freedom to equip your students with the skills that they will need if they want to continue pursuing this field beyond our campus.”

Paula Russo, a former practicing attorney and law school dean, joined the GCDS faculty for the opportunity to infuse Upper School students’ foundational learning in the social sciences with experiences decoding real-world problems in law and international relations. According to Russo, “Having the freedom to structure courses to prepare students for what I know they will encounter at the college level—including independent research,

and crucially, interdisciplinary problem solving—that’s such an advantage for our students, and a far richer learning environment than prescribed programs can provide.”

MISSION CRITICAL

Looking toward the trends and landscape of colleges and careers, Coleman Hall, Head of our Math Department, agrees: “With our school’s mission to enable each of our students to discover and develop what is finest in themselves, we believe that it is critical to provide authentic, enriching opportunities to explore concepts in both the applied and theoretical way.”

Hall and all of our faculty have channeled their experience and expertise to build an academic program that can continually adapt, prioritize research over ideology, and encourage ambition and innovation over competition and conformity. And in a world where the pace of change only continues to quicken and the complexity of problems continues to deepen, Country Day’s mission has never been more crucial. )

Please look for more on this topic in our June 2023 issue as we showcase examples of applied learning across programs and grade levels.

“With our school’s mission to enable each of our students to discover and develop what is finest in themselves, we believe that it is critical to provide authentic, enriching opportunities to explore concepts in both the applied and theoretical way.”

— Coleman Hall, Head of Math Department

Artificial Intelligence in Schools

ChatGPT: Is It a Big Deal?

BY ADAM ROHDIE, HEAD OF SCHOOL

Dr. Jim Cullen, an Upper School history teacher, holds lunchtime roundtables for students and faculty to come together to discuss interesting and controversial topics. Last week, I joined a very popular session on the impact and role of open Artificial Intelligence (AI)—specifically, ChatGPT. If you are unfamiliar with ChatGPT, it is a technology that can answer questions in essay form by scouring the internet. I asked the AI language model to write a paragraph explaining itself; here is a part of the response:

ChatGPT is an AI language model developed by OpenAI. It is a type of neural network that uses deep learning to generate text based on input it has been trained on. It has been trained on a large corpus of text data and has the ability to generate text that is coherent, grammatically correct, and relevant to the input it receives.

What has sent many teachers and school districts into a tailspin is that there is no easy way to detect whether this was written by a computer or a human. If I had not provided attribution, this could easily have been passed off as my own writing. Thus, the discussion at Dr. Cullen’s roundtable became quite robust, very quickly. Students see this technology as “not a big deal.” Much like the smartphone, the graphing calculator, Grammarly (also a form of AI), or spell check, students see this as just another technological tool to be placed in the toolbox. Teachers, on

the other hand, are a bit more skeptical. How can the 16-year-old student, overloaded with work from many classes, avoid the temptation to use this tool to create all or part of their essay on the three main causes of the Civil War? Even if you just read the output of ChatGPT and then wrote your own version, would there not be a “residue” of unauthorized aid on your assigned task? It would be well written and untraceable. By the way, ChatGPT can also solve math problems, write computer code, balance a chemical equation, and it recently was given the Bar exam in the state of New York and was able to pass it.

While the use—or misuse—of this technology has recently seen some school districts ban ChatGPT, the outcome of the GCDS roundtable was different. Students and teachers agreed that this technology is here to stay—and will only get better, more efficient, and more detailed in the future. They determined that as we learn to live with this new technology, we need to craft language that places communication and trust between students and teachers at the forefront. Therefore, a school-wide position on the platform’s acceptable use has been developed (see sidebar)

While this new technology is clearly a work in progress and will continue to evolve, the commitment to academic integrity—a commitment deeply ingrained in GCDS’s almost 100-year history—is the foundational premise we rely on for navigating the constantly changing learning environment.

GCDS Policy on Artificial Intelligence and Academic Honesty

Any use of generative AI requires instructor permission as well as acknowledgment when signing the honor pledge. Failure to disclose the use of AI is a violation of the Academic Integrity Policy.

As students enter into conversations about this new technology, we ask them to consider the following:

• Like most things, new technology comes with both positives and negatives; we are still figuring out what artificial intelligence tools mean for teaching and learning. It would be beneficial to create a think tank made up of students and faculty to further explore AI and its impact on education.

• Are you using the technology to aid research or further curiosity—or—are you using it as an inappropriate shortcut or crutch.

• The information from ChatGPT is not currently citable, and thus, right now, not a credible academic source—regardless of how reliable it seems.

• ChatGPT can give false or misleading information.

• Don’t rob yourself of the experience of learning to be a great writer.

• Academic honesty applies in all aspects of teaching and learning.

History Teacher Jim Cullen leads a ChatGPT Roundtable with Upper School students

Is Real Life INTERSESSION

By Erik Johnke, Upper School Math Teacher and Intersession Coordinator

Intersession, which takes place over three weeks in January, provides a unique opportunity for our Upper School students not only because it is a break from “normal school.” The question I often ask myself as an educator is this: how do we design deep and joyful learning experiences? First, we look for authentic problems to solve in the real world. How do you start a business? What are the causes of hunger and homelessness? How can we integrate differently abled people into our community? How do we save coral reefs in South Florida? These are not problems that educators are inventing to make a curriculum more connected to real life. They are real life. Second, we study topics that are interdisciplinary. How do the geography, history, and built environment intersect to create a sense of place in New England? How do we study both the science and the artful engineering of our body, this amazing biological structure?

Intersession is also valuable because it often asks students to develop the skill of empathy. Whether we are listening to the stories of senior citizens, trying to understand what third graders

need to learn science, or seeking to understand the experiences of residents of Jackson Heights in NYC, we are asking students to find a connection to people who are different from them; and then of course, they will also discover how those people are also profoundly similar to them.

Finally, we are asking students in Intersession to take risks and use their creativity. This is why we are not giving out traditional grades, which tend to inhibit risk-taking. While this is obvious in topics like NYC Arts Scene or playwriting, it also comes into play in STEM fields and in the humanities. Students are encouraged to say something bold, to make connections that are personal or intuitive and hard to “prove” analytically, to design something that may fail, and then have the chance to redesign it.

If we are successful, we engender a sense of play, but it is purposeful play. And learning is truly joyful.

Here’s a sampling of our Intersession offerings.

PROJECT TYPICAL

Studied

AMERICAN POLITICS Met with state representative Hector Arzeno and state representative Steve Meskers in Hartford.

neurodiversity and physical disabilities and Zoomed with Temple Grandin, an academic on animal behavior and advocate for people with autism.

ONE-ACT PLAYS

Investigated food insecurity and homelessness and supported local organizations.

EMERGENCY MEDICAL TRAINING

GUATEMALA

Renovated Antigua Green School in Guatemala, as part of a Spanish language immersion program.

SCIENCE EDUCATION

Designed lessons for elementary school students at Waterside School in Stamford.

HUNGRY FOR CHANGE

SOUTH FLORIDA Learned about reef restoration.

Chance encounter with Lin-Manuel Miranda at the Drama Book Shop in NYC!

What are you working on?

In this series, we highlight students as they are deeply engaged in the process of learning, taking responsibility for extending their knowledge and skills, and constructing opportunities for realworld application. The following students used Intersession to pursue independent studies.

Charlie Benincasa is well-known at the legal department of United Rentals, the world’s largest rental company headquartered in Stamford. This January was his third time returning to the company for internships. Benincasa, a senior, was there during the 2022 Intersession, last summer, and again this January.

“I’ve been able to do meaningful work and that’s what keeps me going back,” says Benincasa.

Most recently, Benincasa conducted a survey of all 50 states and their rules about international driver’s licenses. There is no uniform federal standard for driving in the U.S. with a foreign license. He cross referenced his research with the policies of car rental companies and presented his research in a report, “The United States’ Driving Codes for an International Driver’s License.” Parts of the report are being used by the

United Rentals’ legal department to update terms and conditions for renting vehicles.

Benincasa is particularly interested in the intersection of business and law. In addition to his internships, last year he took Advanced Applied Constitutional Law with Paula Russo, a class that studies and simulates Supreme Court cases, and his Junior Thesis topic focused on intellectual property. This year, he is taking International Relations with Russo. Next year, Charlie plans to study Economics and Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University.

“GCDS has been very accommodating in letting me pursue these Intersessions for two years in a row. I’ve been able to create a relationship with United Rentals and I’ve learned so much. The experience has helped me to know what I want to do in the future.”

There’s only one flight a week to Palau, an archipelago of over 500 islands off the coast of Guam. This past January, Kendall Collier, a junior, was on one of them. Led by Dr. Julie Hartup, Director of the Micronesian Conservation Coalition, Collier traveled there with a group of marine scientists to study the manta ray population.

Collier explains that there is a micro population of manta rays in the region. Known for having the largest brain among fish species, manta rays are classified as a vulnerable species.

Collier, who is passionate about marine science, wrote her Junior Thesis on oceanography, under the supervision of Upper School Science Teacher Dr. Nikki Barratt. She pursued her interests to contact Dr. Hartup about field research opportunities.

Collier participated in 12 days of diving along with the rest of the team. She took photos and videos of the manta rays, measured them, and recorded her findings in a database. She studied what they eat, their mating practices, and travel patterns. In addition, Collier worked with scientists to help tag the manta rays, which she described as a “very particular process.”

“I have been looking at photos and videos of manta rays for years,” she said. “Now I was the one who was actually taking the pictures and swimming alongside them.”

In addition to learning about marine science, Collier appreciated learning about the culture, history, and politics of Palau. In order to preserve the local culture, Palau requires every business to be owned 51% by a Palauan, she explained.

When she returned from her travels, Collier presented “Palau Marine Ecosystem—How It’s All Connected,” to Dr. Barratt’s marine science class. “Teachers have taken an interest in my trip and what

I’ve learned. I am so glad that our school has an Intersession. If you apply your time well, there are unlimited possibilities of what you can do.”

CHARLIE BENINCASA, GRADE 12

The Intersection of Business and Law at United Rentals

KENDALL COLLIER, GRADE 11

A Deep Dive to Investigate Manta Rays

Wouldn’t it be great to have fresh greens in your backyard in winter? Starting this year, GCDS is growing spinach and a variety of lettuce and herbs in a freight container behind the school. The effort, initiated by the Upper School Sustainability program, provides more fresh food to the Dining Hall. More importantly, however, container farming is a way for students to learn about growing food for communities to create a more sustainable local food system.

Hawkins Barratt Heitmann, a recent college graduate who studied biology, was tasked with getting the container farm up and running with the help of the Sustainability Diploma students. The school acquired the container through “Freight Farm,” an agriculture technology company that manufactures container farms with retrofitted hydroponic farming systems. Using automated temperature controls, LED lights, and a water system, containers like this one are located around the world and are able to grow produce year-round.

“Our goal is for it to be completely student run,” said Barratt Heitmann. “Students will coordinate with the Dining Hall to meet their needs as locally available produce changes.”

Senior Tyler Rosolen works closely with Barratt Heitmann on the farm— seeding, transplanting, and harvesting. Moving into the spring, he will be taking a larger role and run the farm as a student leader. Tyler will also work on the farm for his Senior Internship, a signature GCDS program during which seniors put their learning to work on a real-world problem or challenge. Recently, Tyler gave the Upper Elementary School Gardening Club a tour of the container to learn about a different way of “gardening.”

I have learned a lot not only in terms of agriculture and how to run the farm, but also about myself. When I am able to explore a passion like this and when what I’m doing is for a larger cause, I become truly dedicated and want success.” — TYLER

ROSOLEN, SENIOR

Freight Container FARMING

THE RHYTHM OF LOWER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Every Tuesday morning at 10:30 a.m., Kindergarten classes file into Molinari Hall in the Lower Elementary School where they are greeted by music teachers Billy Janiszewski (with a guitar over his shoulder) and Anitra Brooks. For 30 minutes, 90 children sing—in loud and soft voices, in English and other languages, trying to hit high notes and low notes. They also dance—tapping their bodies, waving their arms, and jumping. On a recent morning, they were learning songs

for Kindergarten Circus, a tradition performed by thousands of GCDS kindergarteners: “Flap, flap, flap, flap. Here come the seals with clap, clap, clap,” they sang, pretending to be seals.

The class is unbridled joy during which the students are fully engaged—body, mind, and heart. Nothing about the class, however, is random. Every moment of the class is planned and thought through.

“First and foremost in our minds is joy, joy, joy. We want them to walk out of class loving music,” says Ms. Brooks, who teaches Nursery, Pre-K students, and Kindergarten along with Mr. Janiszewski. “Part of how we achieve that is making sure that every single moment is planned and intentional.”

usic & Movement M

“We never teach a song unless there’s a lesson in that song,” says Mr. Janiszewski, who also teaches Grades 1 and 2. “So it has to be either a rhythmic lesson, a pitch lesson, a lesson on dynamics, or a lesson on tempo.”

Mr. Janiszewski and Ms. Brooks, who started at GCDS in the last four years, are trained musicians who sing and play a variety of instruments, and they bring their expertise to work with LES students.

“All of the music work I’ve done really fuels my teaching, keeping the standard for excellence no matter what the age is,” says Mr. Janiszewski. “The only difference between how I approach a group of elementary age children versus how

I approach a group of adults is the difficulty of the repertoire.”

“When I get into a classroom, I think to myself: ‘What can we create?’ What can we build with the sound that you just made? My focus is to get students to hear a rhythm, but more importantly, to feel the rhythm,” says Ms. Brooks.

“When they come to me in Kindergarten, they have a really strong sense of rhythm,” says Mr. Janiszewski.

In his classes, students put names to musical concepts. They learn the names of notes and concepts like piano (soft) and forte (loud), and begin the process of reading music. Students begin by playing small hand percussion instruments in Nursery and eventually play xylophones in Grade 2. In addition, students listen to a variety of music through their “Composers of the Week” program, learning about the music and lives of wellknown artists.

By the time students leave the Lower Elementary School, students have participated in several performances including the Halloween Parade, Winter Concerts, the Kindergarten Circus, Spring Concerts, and Grandparents’ Day.

The performances represent a shift that is occurring in the LES music program. “It’s an ‘informance’ as much as it is a performance, showcasing what we are learning in our classes,” says Ms. Brooks of the Nursery and Pre-K presentations.

The music teachers collaborate with the classroom teachers based on what the students are learning in class. For example, they look for harvest songs during the Pre-K farm unit and Lenape songs for Grade 2 when they study the indigenous tribe. Mr. Janiszewski works very closely with the Grade 1 and 2 teachers when they put on their classroom plays, often writing the music for them.

Mr. Janiszewski and Ms. Brooks spend a great deal of time and effort on music selection. They take into consideration the vocal range of children, which is much higher than an adult’s range. They also select from a broad range of composers to represent different cultures.

“I’m extremely particular about song choice. I want the children to sing high quality music and something worthwhile. It should also be a challenge, but an achievable one,” says Mr. Janiszewski.

For Ms. Brooks, music is a language unto itself, and she selects music in a variety of languages. She and Mr. Janiszewski both say that over their careers as singers they have sung in dozens of languages and they are excited about this growing part of the program.

“Intonation and the way that children use their voice and wrap their mouth around a word is something one can

learn really early on. Parents have been amazed by what their children can sing,” says Ms. Brooks.

As Mr. Janiszewski and Ms. Brooks develop the LES music program, they look to their colleagues in the other divisions for both alignment and inspiration. The entire N–12 performing arts department meets regularly to discuss each other’s practices and chart the musical skills they are teaching from year to year, division to division. “It’s an incredibly talented team with a diverse, rich skill set. We are thinking about how what we teach in Nursery affects musical ability in Grade 12,” says Ms. Brooks.

Ms. Brooks: A singer-songwriter who is well-known in Greenwich for her music classes, she comes to music education from a theater and dance background. After receiving her degree in Theater Arts, she toured internationally with performance ensembles that created avant-garde musical and theatrical experiences. In the classroom, she draws on decades of being a performing artist.

Mr. Janiszewski: After graduating with a degree in music education as a voice major, Mr. Janiszewski received a master’s in choral conducting, and was the assistant director for the Oratorio Society of New York, a symphonic chorus founded in 1870.

Tigers Together

Upper School Students Work and Play With LES and UES Students

This winter, more than 30 Upper School students made their way to Old Church Road on a regular basis to spend time with Lower Elementary School during the Afters program and Upper Elementary School during Tiger Time, a club period. During the volunteer program organized by The Center for Public Good, Upper Schoolers generously and patiently shared their time and talents with their younger classmates, playing board games, engaging in service projects, and doing crafts and science projects.

Upper School students who participate in the LES Afters programs support co-teachers by facilitating activities. Our youngest children look up to the Upper Schoolers and anticipate their arrival each week. These opportunities for the oldest and youngest to get together build Tiger Pride and community.”

— Anne Allen, Assistant Director of the Lower Elementary School, Afters & Co-Teacher Program Coordinator

Pairing Upper Elementary students with our Upper Schoolers not only cultivates a strong sense of community and collaboration, but also offers valuable role models and mentors for our students. The service projects organized by CPG present a unique opportunity for students of different ages to work together towards a common goal, while honing important skills such as empathy, leadership, and communication.”

—Nina Basinet, Head of Upper Elementary School

Middle School Tackles Anti-Semitism HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE

During their trip to the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center in Glen Cove, Long Island, GCDS eighth graders met Rosalie Simon, a 92-year-old Holocaust survivor. When Simon was 12, she was sent to Auschwitz and, tragically, lost her mother and brother in the concentration camp. After reuniting with her sister, Simon boarded a train that was intercepted by American GIs and the sisters made their way to the United States as refugees. As students listened to her first-hand account, they were captivated and horrified.

“Being in the same room with a Holocaust survivor and hearing about her experience was very powerful because it reminded me that this tragedy was not long ago,” said eighth grader Anika Khichadia. “The entire experience left my peers and me reflecting on the hardships of the survivors and the importance of honoring them.”

Every year, eighth graders study the Holocaust as part of their World War II unit. “There’s nothing more important in history class than spending time learning the most harrowing times,” said eighth-grade History Teacher Ellie Aronowsky. “It gives us an opportunity to have conversations about how they happened and how to make sure that they never happen again.”

As part of the study, Marlene Yahalom, a representative from Yad Vashem, the world’s largest Holocaust memorial in Israel,

GCDS works hard to consider really what’s happening in the world right now and the needs of the students, what questions might they be having about what they’re seeing on their social media feeds, for example, or if they’re unaware, really helping them to develop awareness.”

visited GCDS. She brought blueprints of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest concentration and extermination camp built by the Nazis in Poland.

“It’s important for young people to understand that the Holocaust involved careful planning and was systematic,” said Ms. Yahalom who visits GCDS every year.

The trip to the Long Island museum, which happened for the first time this year, occurred during the Middle School Teach-In, a one-week Health and Wellness Program in the middle of January that includes themes of identity and belonging. Middle School leaders chose to focus this year on anti-Semitism because it has been on the rise. According to the Anti-Defamation League, which began collecting data in 1979, 2021 was the highest year on record for documented reports of harassment, vandalism, and violence directed against Jews.

“GCDS works hard to consider really what’s happening in the world right now and the needs of the students, what questions might they be having about what they’re seeing on their social media feeds, for example, or if they’re unaware, really helping them to develop awareness,” said Ms. Aronowsky.

During the Teach-In, the entire division learned about the roots of anti-Semitism and common Jewish tropes. They also met Jordan Sonnenblick, author of The Boy Who Failed Dodgeball, on Zoom. He recounted stories from his childhood of being bullied because he was Jewish. “If you are part of the majority, stand up for those with a minority status.” The students attended discussion groups after the presentation to talk about what they learned.

“We always want to foster conversations about acceptance and inclusion,” said Ms. Aronowsky. “The Holocaust is the ultimate representation of hatred as an idea, and it provides the scope of just how bad it can get when we don’t speak up for each other.”

LUNAR NEW YEAR

Gung Hay Fat Choy! It’s the Year of the Rabbit! Renee Ng (mother of Emmy Parker) and Bee Shapiro (mother of Ellis Shapiro) shared Lunar New Year customs and activities with Mrs. Sweeney’s third grade class on Jan. 19.

Diversity Conferences FOCUSING ON BUILDING COMMUNITY

After three years of gathering on Zoom, the NAIS Student Diversity Leadership Conference and People of Color Conference were back in-person in San Antonio, TX, Nov. 30 through Dec. 3, 2022. GCDS sent a cohort of six Upper School students and nine faculty members for the annual gatherings organized by the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS). The conferences, which celebrated their 25th anniversary this year, focus on self-reflection, forming allies, and building community. This year’s theme was We The People: Leveraging Our Community to Preserve Our Humanity

A few of the participants shared their reflections:

“I attended my 12th SDLC/POCC this year. Everytime I go, I am inspired and amazed by the work of the BIPOC community in independent schools. As a chaperone for our Upper School students, there is nothing better than seeing our students come back on campus with their shoulders back and heads up.”

— ANDREW LEDEE, DIRECTOR OF DIVERSITY, EQUITY, & INCLUSION

“This conference is important to the school because we are able to bring back the lessons and skills we have learned and implement them in our school lives to help improve the great community that we have here.”

— STEVE PAUL, GRADE 11

“Knowledge is key to having a diverse and healthy community. It is important to work together to help people understand complicated or uncomfortable topics.”

— KITT KNAPP, GRADE 9

“I couldn’t help but notice the beautiful diversity that exists in many independent schools. We were close to 8,000 people! It was a rainbow of people, proud and happy to congregate together, do the work, and re-energize.”

— VERONICA VALENTIN, MIDDLE SCHOOL SPANISH TEACHER

NDABA MANDELA Grandson of Nelson Mandela Inspires Upper School

In celebration of Black History Month, GCDS was honored to welcome Ndaba Mandela, grandson of Nelson Mandela, to campus. He inspired Upper School students with stories of his grandfather’s courage and wisdom.

Born in 1982, Mandela was just eight years old when his grandfather was released from prison and 11 years old when he went to live with him. He recalled the crowds of people, miles deep, who would come to hear his grandfather speak of a free South Africa. “It was then that I began to understand his greatness and his impact on people. He was humble and treated everyone he met the same.” Mandela, who was recently named one of the “28 Men of Change” by BET, is the author of “Going to the Mountain: Life Lessons from My Grandfather.” He is the co-founder of the Africa Rising Foundation, an organization promoting the positive image of Africa to increase its potential for growth, and the Mandela Project. He also works with UN AIDS, which seeks to end HIV/AIDS.

Mandela encouraged students to realize their power and dream big to make change. “It was through young people, college students on campuses around the world who protested and put pressure on businesses to divest from South Africa, that change was able to come about.”

After the presentation, he met with students in smaller groups throughout the day, in a Leadership Ethics & Francophone World class with Dr. Flemens, a 10th Grade Seminar with Mr. Ramirez, and Sustainability with Dr. Barratt. He also had lunch with the Model United Nations Club.

“Ndaba and the Mandela family believe in the immeasurable power of the human spirit and empathy,” said Emmanuel Saldana, Assistant Director of DEI. “As a diversity practitioner, I hope our students learn to appreciate and value the individual identities of other members of their community; subsequently creating a more inclusive community. Students who feel included and have a sense of belonging can have a massive impact on their communities, locally and globally. Mr. Mandela helped inspire our students to consider how they can step out

Ndaba Mandela with Djeneba Dembele; addressing the Upper School; speaking to Mr. Ramirez’s Grade 10 Seminar class

profile:TEACHER

Words Matter to Middle School English Teacher Michael McGovern

BY ANDREW NIBLOCK Director of Schoolwide Initiatives

Middle School English teacher and Department Chair, Michael McGovern cares deeply about words and the craft of putting them together to say something important, whimsical, or magical. Spending time in his classroom is both a calming breath and a challenge to stretch and strengthen your literary muscles, but be prepared. He isn’t going to do it for you.

One of McGovern’s favorite analogies is of his class as a hardware store. He’s got lots of tools available and a knowledge of how to use each, and when. Every day, McGovern welcomes students to the store through an exploration of poetry and prose at a time in their lives when finding and cultivating a written voice couldn’t be more important, or challenging.

Middle School teachers are a special breed of educator, and McGovern has been navigating these waters for 22 years. I had the opportunity to ask him about teaching and about the wonder of words.

When did you fall in love with words?

The day I realized I loved the word “smock” simply because it’s fun to say, and because Bill Watterson loved it too when he used it in one of his Calvin and Hobbes comic strips which still makes me smile.

What is something we all should learn, or unlearn, about the English language?

Words matter. Words evolve. Choosing not to say or write something can be just as powerful as any word of hate, enlightenment, inspiration, or wisdom.

What about writing/reading inspires you?

Perpetual process. When I know it’s a worthy topic to think

about, that’s when I get excited to dig in. I’m like a fish sometimes when it comes to reading and writing. I chase the shining things that move elegantly in my imagination. Topics that have a purpose in the spaces I navigate, that seem relevant to my thoughts, struggles, needs, and curiosities. The challenge is making space for both reading and writing because they take so much time. Once I’ve cleared the decks, so to speak, I love the drafting, peer response, revising, choosing, discarding, saving, laughing, getting angry . . . frustrated, finding success. . . . There are so many emotions. It’s like living in a padded room with a prominent stage with bright lights at the far end if I’m lucky.

When I get excited about something I’m reading or writing, it takes over my life. I talk about it. I use it to reason and make decisions all day. It’s like honey-paste all over my consciousness. I can’t wash it off. I love it when my brain drips into the imagination. That headspace where the internal monologue narrates and quotes and pushes thought.

How do you hope students enter your classroom?

Authentic. I hope they are whoever they are and are ready to be OK with that. I’m ready for them because I get it. Life in the Middle School hallway can be a Class V river. My room should be an eddy where students trust the fact that I’m going to help them transition into a moment I’ve crafted and/or my team has crafted. Hopefully, it’s a moment that lasts and they can find some nourishment.

How do you hope students leave your classroom?

I always say to students that they’re the luckiest people in the world. They wander into this place . . . this space with smart, interesting, and engaged educators. I don’t just mean the adults. Everyone. Students, teachers, staff, and administration. Why are we all here? To learn. There are so many moments in a day. Which ones are you going to choose to hold onto? Which moment did you take a second to jot down somewhere for later perusal? Which, if you’re lucky, will be one of those core memories that stick with you until you’re old and gray . . . a building block for the next step.

I hope students leave my classroom with an ember of impact that lasts at least until they find their next source of fuel.

What have you read recently that needs to be shared?

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

The Baseball 100 by Joe Posnanski

Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut

Any book a librarian suggests.

Why is poetry important for kids?

It’s a useful way to put their thoughts on the page and not be scrutinized for certain mechanics. Internal monologue on the page with a purpose. Mind dump. Truth bombs. Clarity clearance.

Why do you teach?

When I think back to when I was in Middle School, the memories are hazy and filled with angst, anxiety, mistakes, and grief. How cheerful. My father died when I was in eighth grade, and if I really think about it, I probably only have a handful of memories of sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. High school didn’t even start, according to my recollection, until I repeated my junior year to attend school where my mom found a job as an administrative assistant to the Head of School at University School in northeast Ohio. Those two years at U.S. taught me, truly, what being curious and a learner and what reading and writing actually meant. They started to matter. They started to be, well, something. Something that gave me a voice.

Before that? Yeah, nothing comes of nothing.

Why do I teach? I think part of reliving those years vicariously through my students is a sort of personal growth that I’m continually working on, but it’s also because I get really mad about how life can be so unfair to burgeoning and existing teenagers. It’s not fair, really. You have all this nonsense going on, social, educational, executive functioning, family, society . . . everything is bombarding you, and all you’re trying to do is exist.

I teach because I want students to experience meaningful moments in life and take note of them, and create useful strategies that might help them in their next step. I’m a firm believer that the mountain is only as big as the next step you take, so make sure you’re being deliberate.

I want them to leave artifacts for later perusal to be truly analyzed. I want students to have positive learning experiences that affect them and that they can build upon. I want them to go back and look at a journal or something they read and have memories that clearly represent building blocks to who they are as learners and participants in making the world a better place. I want them to know that they exist and that it means something to their circles of concern and consciousness.

I want them to know that all of this is really hard, and that’s OK. Practice makes better. Nothing is perfect, so put that on the shelf. No, practice makes better, and students need to keep at the writing . . . the reading . . . the business of learning. It’s their lifelong job, so it’s time to get after it. After they go outside, get dirty, and mess around a bit . . . of course.

I teach because I want students to experience meaningful moments in life and take note of them, and create useful strategies that might help them in their next step.”

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN ARTIST

At the inaugural Grade 1 Arts Night, students and their families worked together to move, sing, and create. The event, which took place on Jan. 26, was designed to give families a glimpse into a day in the life of a first-grade artist. Art, music, and Creativity Lab teachers designed a program around the theme of movement.

In the art workshop, families learned about Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes and incorporated her passion for circles, lines, and color into their own work. The concentric designs were added one by one to create a collaborative chandelier. In the Creativity Lab, families constructed a functional claw grabber using corrugated plastic, wood, brass fasteners, rubber bands, and tape. And in music, families learned “Babethandaza,” a Zulu song from South Africa, while playing rhythmic figures on egg shakers. The activity culminated in a coordinated dance using the “super stretchy,” a giant rainbow rubber band.

As the groups rotated through three activities, they experienced the hands-on, intentional, deep, and joyful learning that is central to our program. As an inaugural event, we could not have been more thrilled with the outcome.”

Trudy Davis, Head of Lower Elementary School

ART AS A FORM OF UNITY

Artwork by Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2 students was on display for the month of February in the Cos Cob Library. An opening reception was held on Feb. 6. The exhibit, “Art as a Form of Unity,” highlights collaborative artwork as expressed through murals. One of the murals is inspired by Romero Britto, a Brazilian artist, who used colorful patterns, shapes, and figures to spread happiness around the world. Kindergarteners created the background, first graders made Britto-style hearts and butterflies, and second graders drew Britto-styled people. The other mural, created by Kindergarten students, is inspired by Leo Lionni’s famous children’s book, Swimmy, and represents the strength of a large school of fish.

Aside from the murals, the art was connected to the LES curriculum. Inspired by their study of the Lenape, indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, second graders drew the rainbow crow from a story they had read. After learning how the Lenape used symbols to represent important parts of their lives, students designed personal symbols to incorporate into textiles they created. First graders learned the song “Los Esqueletos” in Music class and they drew skeletons in Art class. Kindergarteners collected pine cones and other textured items at French Farm to create backgrounds for their Little Red Hen collages.

These pieces along with the collaborative murals showcase the importance of interdisciplinary connections for our students. They are also hands-on experiences that challenge them to think critically about their artistic process.”

—Denise Meza Reyes, Lower Elementary School Art Teacher

ConcertsWinter

By Jonathan De Vries, Coordinator of the Arts

Over the course of December, the performing arts programs in all divisions treated audiences to a wide array of music against a backdrop of beautiful lights in the newly named Debbie Blake Kerrick Theatre.

The Upper School Concert highlighted the culmination of our student musicians through a capella, chamber, instrumental, and jazz music. The Lower Elementary had individual grade performances, and the Upper Elementary offered an exciting view into newly acquired instruments and talents. In a GCDS first, the Middle School bands and choirs joined forces in a combined piece filling the theatre with resounding music.

From 16th-century chorales to Duke Ellington to Ukrainian carols, musicians showcased their skills of reading and performing music, one of the best gifts the GCDS community received during the holidays.

Lower Elementary School

This page: 1 Arianna Ahmadzadeh, Ezra Shohet, Anna Galatioto, Mia Cohen, and Walker Lee 2 Serena Bauza, Leo Butler, Wes Holden 3 Walker Overbay, Max Morton, Nadia Wilson

Ashleigh Hahn, UES & MS Choral and Musical Theater Director, Jonathan De Vries, Arts Program Coordinator, N–12, Jesse Tennyson, UES & MS Band Director, Melanie Sasaki, LES, UES & MS Orchestra Director, Misty Sturm, UES & MS Music Teacher, Malin Carta, UE & MS Band Instructor and Jazz Band Director, Band Assistant, Anitra Brooks, Nursery & Pre-K Music and Movement Teacher, Jack Dod, Technical Theater Manager and Instructor

Upper Elementary School

1 Leah Bartley 2 Clementine Macon, Charlotte Albright, Isabella Coffin, Nina Loverro 3 Ellis Shapiro, Vivienne Grant 4 Reed Neumark, Ihsan Iftikar, James Mackay 5 Students in the Upper Elementary chorus pose at the end of “Jingle Bells”

Middle School

1 Charlie Gray, Kevin Politi, Nikhil Raval, William Curran, Jack Piper

2 Eighth-Grade Middle School Chorus; Nate Smith, soloist 3 Middle School Band

4 Middle School Chorus, front row: Henry Gittes, Ryan Walmsley, Matías Salazar, Corbin Gray and Eloise Rizzo 5 Charlie Heffer, Justin Royal, Buzz Fox, J.C. Guite

Upper School

1 Lucas Murray, Benjamin Gross 2 The Tiger Growls Jazz Band 3 The Tiger Tones 4 Harry Moloney, Grace Moloney 5 Leo Corsano-Leopizzi, Jane Tortorella, Spencer Hickok, Santiago Hahn

Athletics

That Support Our Community

GCDS Varsity athletics held several games this year that went beyond sport and competition. Working with the Center for Public Good, the teams raised funds for important causes that are near and dear to the community.

Hoops Night for Girls & Boys Varsity Basketball

The energy was electric and the stands were overflowing at this double header against King School on Jan. 6. The Varsity Baseball Team put on a fantastic bake sale and chuck-a-duck competition and raised $682 for Good Sports, which provides equitable access to youth sports in high-need communities.

MIDDLE SCHOOL NIBLOCK CHALLENGE

MEET OUR COACHES

The following profiles showcase the depth of talent, experience, and expertise of our coaches in their respective sport and how they inspire our student athletes.

CAITLIN COPELAN GIRLS VARSITY LACROSSE COACH

Caitlin tells her students: “Do the little things at a high level, control the controllable and everything else will fall into place . . . and hate losing more than you enjoy winning!” She describes herself as “balanced and approachable” while holding athletes accountable. On the team, she values ethics, discipline, leadership (on and off the field), and character.

Tiger Pride is working hard when nobody is watching, doing what’s right (on and off the field) even when it’s not the easiest path, holding yourself and teammates to a higher standard.”

Bio: Copelan attended University of North Carolina Chapel Hill where she played four years of varsity lacrosse. She played one year of varsity lacrosse at Fairfield University as a graduate student.

Copelan is a Wilton High School Hall of Fame Inductee, 2009 NCAA National Championship Participant (UNC Lacrosse), NCAA D1 Statistical Leader (Caused Turnovers / Fairfield Univ Lacrosse Grad Student), Head Coach UA CONNY Championship Teams, 2022 Head Coach Team CT National Champions (American Select Lacrosse). Copelan is also the owner and director of Sound Lacrosse Camps.

OLLIE HOLLAND VARSITY BOYS & GIRLS SQUASH COACH

I believe in producing champion people, so not only is that success on the squash court, but also off of the court. Creating self-belief is key. We are a fair, hard-working team with a longterm vision to grow the squash program at GCDS. Right now we are laying the foundations and I am extremely proud of how we are doing so far.”

His favorite quote is, “Discipline begins when motivation ends.”

Tiger Pride is teamwork, enjoyment, relationships, spirit, and heart. Tiger Pride is leaving no one behind and going the extra mile for those around you. Hard-working students in the classroom and committed athletes on the court!”

Bio: Holland attended the University of Nottingham and was #1 on the varsity squash team and a sports scholar. The team placed 2nd in the BUCS Squash Championships, a British tournament. Holland was World Junior #1 and European Junior Champion. Holland also works at MSquash Accelerator in Port Chester, NY.

IRINA ACSINTE MUTESCU GIRLS & BOYS ROWING HEAD COACH

Irina values and encourages persistence, reliability, heartiness, and most of all integrity. “I believe coaching goes well beyond teaching our student-athletes the sport related skills. We spend time with our athletes during their formative years and it is important to me to nourish skills and qualities that will benefit them outside the boathouse.”

Her favorite quote is, “Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground,” by President Theodore Roosevelt. I tell my rowers ‘Keep your eyes on the goal and your head in the boat.’ With every workout completed, with every struggle, they put a receipt in their pocket that is going to help them own and achieve their next goal.” She describes her coaching as “stern but nurturing.”

Tiger Pride is coaching with integrity and thoughtfulness and leading by example. It gives me peace of mind to know that at the end of the day every member of our rowing team feels valued and respected.”

Bio: Mutescu competed for the Romanian national team in five World Championships, winning three gold

medals, one silver medal and one bronze. She rowed Division I at Northeastern University, where she received a full athletic scholarship and stroked the Varsity 8+.

Mutescu also works in the GCDS Technology Department.

Caitlin Copelan

Ollie Holland

Irina Acsinte Mutescu

Middle School Niblock Challenge

On Jan. 26–27, Girls and Boys Middle School Basketball teams played local middle schools to help raise funds to support ALS research. Athletes played hard, dancers pumped up the crowd with their energy, students organized a bake sale and raffles, and this two-day event brought in nearly $11,000 for ALS Therapy Development Institute.

Boys Hockey Plays For Golden Lights Foundation

On Feb. 7, Boys Hockey beat Fieldston School at the Greenwich Skating Club and raised $6,000 for the Golden Lights Foundation, dedicated to pediatric cancer research and treatments.

Girls Hockey ALS Face Off

On Feb. 22, the girls varsity hockey team raised $14,000 for ALS Therapy Development Institute at a friendraiser event where mixed teams of students, partner, faculty and coaches faced off against each other. A special shout out to our Athletic Director Tim Helstein who volunteered to partake in the ice bucket challenge on a very chilly night.

GIRLS HOCKEY ALS FACE OFF

Director of Athletics Tim Helstein took the Ice Bucket Challenge to support ALS research.

BOYS & GIRLS MIDDLE SCHOOL NIBLOCK CHALLENGE

Upper School Teacher Writes Sports Psychology Book

In Everything I Got, GCDS Psychology

Teacher and mental skills coach Julia Allain shares lessons from growing up in a world of sports to help players find success both on and off the playing field. Using her personal playing and coaching experience, academic research, and sports history, Allain provides thirty powerful lessons that challenge us all to re-examine the concept of an athletic identity, harness the power of emotions, and redefine the goal-setting process.

According to Allain, a 2019 national survey revealed that the average kid in the United States quits the sport they are playing by the age of eleven because it isn’t fun anymore. Plagued by the pressure, emotional stress, and the constant fear of failure, athletic experiences have started to take more from many athletes than they give.

In this book, athletes find the true value of the game and elite sports performance.

“As I have worked as a coach and sports psychology consultant, I have seen a shift that has started to take a lot of the value away from sports. This both worries and saddens me. Whether it be a focus on status, money, or trophies, the games we play have evolved from an experience to a means to an end, robbing us all of not just the experience of competing, but also the ability to perform at our best due to the increased pressure. Therefore, I hope this book offers both perspective and strategies to keep the love and fun of the game alive and help us all become the best versions of ourselves both on and off the field,” said Allain.

“An excellent roadmap for how you can grow your mental game and get the most out of the sport you love. I would recommend this book to players, coaches, parents, and anyone that wants to take steps toward their full potential.”

GIRLS HOCKEY ALS FACE OFF

BOYS HOCKEY PLAYS FOR GOLDEN LIGHTS FOUNDATION

GOLDEN LIGHTS FOUNDATION

—Dan Muse, Head Coach of the USA Hockey National Team Development Program

Athletics

PRIDE AWARDS

A student-athlete who is the definition of Tiger Pride, giving their heart and soul to the team. This individual was always willing to learn, overcame adversity, and displayed growth throughout the season.

Upper School

VARSITY BOYS BASKETBALL

Noah Weiner, Sebastian Matz, Christian Baldwin, Calder Perry, Cal Cunnion, Thomas Steel

JV BOYS BASKETBALL

Spencer Moore

3RDS BOYS BASKETBALL

Walker Laitala

VARSITY GIRLS BASKETBALL

Kylie Frank, Izzy Turek, Carmie Zuniga, Nina Ferry

JV GIRLS BASKETBALL

Annetta Solari

VARSITY BOYS HOCKEY

Will Wingrove, Jared Maloney, Brandon Hackett

Middle School

BOYS BASKETBALL

VARSITY GIRLS HOCKEY

Lila Braddock, Katherine

Salce, Leighton Krueger

VARSITY WRESTLING

Josh Lunder

VARSITY SWIMMING

Chris Suy

VARSITY BOYS SQUASH

Cooper Taylor, Wyatt Lupo

VARSITY GIRLS SQUASH

Sofia Orr, Natalie Simpson, Bridget Day

Black: Jack Rubenstein, Eli Etra, David Gittes, Whit Anderson

Orange: Zac Britt, Lachlan Hill

Gray: Alexander McCormack, Teo Della Pietra, Luke Balducci, Oliver Servedio, Oliver Jackson, Nate Collins, Sterling McCall, Nate Weintraub, Charlie

Robertson

6th Grade: William Sachs, Ryan Robertson, Major Warren, James Harty

GIRLS BASKETBALL

Black: Mildred Osafo-Bekoe, Sasha Mollett, Jane Loverro

Orange: Aerin Schwartz, Jordan Feighery, Anna Triplett, Talia Sandhu, Maya Angelov, Emma Pless

6th Grade: Chloe Cranston, Sophie Pless, Thea Klemperer, Marina Vinitiadis, Soraiya

Dupree

HOCKEY Mod-Contact: Grayson Eisenberg, Ferdinand Hood, Grace Kepler

Non-Contact: Lilly Picket, Charlie Heffer, Eamon Lavin, Lily Hillenbrand

WRESTLING

Henry Gittes, Kelly Corson, Luc Presutti, Caleb Goldman, Nicholas Triplett

CROSS TRAINING

Maddox Monterisi

DANCE

Chloe Kilts, Sofia Balducci, Abby Israel

SQUASH

Black: Piper Wilson, Frances Fazzinga, George Belshaw, Cece Salyer, Dylan MacDougall, Katie Le, Zoe Le, Corbin Gray

Orange: Abbie Mackay, Mary Chickering, Melissa Kushner, Reed Foster, Sarimir Nusseibeh, Siyana Dupree, Gabe Chinchilla, Maddie Milgram, Jackson Lieberman, Creighton Jones

COACHES AWARDS | UPPER SCHOOL

This student-athlete demonstrates the highest qualities of sportsmanship, character, leadership, devotion, and skill. This individual shows a constant desire to improve, works hard, and pushes their teammates.

FLOREN BASKETBALL AWARD

Brianna McDermott

H. TERRELL VAN INGEN

HOCKEY AWARD

Teddy Minchin

GIRLS VARSITY

HOCKEY AWARD

Morgan Dall

SCHERMAN WRESTLING AWARD

Thayer Ross, Max Dubner

BOYS VARSITY

SQUASH AWARD

Alex van Niekerk

GIRLS VARSITY

SQUASH AWARD

Kim Konigsberg

VARSITY SWIMMING AWARD

Hunter Amen

Varsity Wrestler Thayer Ross was 22-5 this season. He was champion at the Brunswick Invitational and runner up at the Western New England Championships. He took 7th place at the New England Regional Championships. He will be the first wrestler in GCDS history, during our first-ever year as a competitive varsity program, to attend the National Prep Tournament at the Showplace Arena in Maryland.

Teammate Max Dubner placed 4th in weight class at the Western New England Tournament.

CONGRATULATIONS TIGERS!

• Boys Basketball made it to the FAA Championships against Brunswick. JV Boys Basketball came in 2nd place in the FAA Tournament. Go Tigers!

• Girls Basketball reached the quarterfinals of the FAA tournament. Girls JV Basketball came in 4th place in the FAA Tournament

• Boys Swimming had a 2nd place finish in 500m freestyle and a 3rd place finish in the 200m individual medley.

UPPER SCHOOL

Junior Captain Brianna McDermott earned her All League Honors for the second consecutive year.

UPPER SCHOOL

AMBUSH DANCE TEAM

MIDDLE SCHOOL

MODIFIED CONTACT HOCKEY TEAM

MIDDLE SCHOOL

Congratulations to the Middle School Squash Team who were invited to play at the U.S. Squash National Championships in Philadelphia!

PARENTS ASSOCIATION SPEAKER SERIES

GUEST SPEAKER: BO SEO How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard

When two-time world champion debater Bo Seo was 8 years-old, his family immigrated from South Korea to Australia. Knowing no English, Seo struggled with school before he discovered competitive debate, a passion that helped him excel both socially and academically.

Seo went on to become a two-time world champion debater, journalist, and aspiring lawyer. One of the most recognized figures in the global debate community, he has won both the World Schools Debating Championship and the World Universities Debating Championship.

On Jan. 18, the GCDS Parents Association hosted Seo for an interactive discussion with parents and students on how to view a debate from the opposing perspective, to listen actively, and to disagree with respect.

“Every disagreement should start with some agreement,” said Seo to the audience. “What is it that you are disagreeing about? Answering this question helps us to make more progress than we otherwise might.”

In his memoir, Good Arguments: How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard, Seo explained how the central pillars in the art of debate—fact-finding, reason, persuasion, and listening to opponents—are important across all aspects of life, from ensuring a healthy democracy to everyday conversations. Seo shared vital lessons on how to build a community with empathetic disagreement.

In any argument, Seo says that one has to show that the main claim is both true and important. He noted that good debat-

ers also engage in “side switching,” which requires one to think about the other side’s arguments and the holes in their own. “A break from certainty unsettles us in ways that create a window for empathy to enter in.”

“A good argument is one in which both sides walk away and say ‘I would do that again,’” said Seo in closing. “That is what it takes to keep the conversation going.”

Aside from his passion for debating, Seo is a human rights activist who has previously held positions with the Human Rights Commission in Australia and volunteered with Harvard Human Rights in North Korea. Seo is currently a Juris Doctor candidate at Harvard Law School.

Special thanks to PA Speaker Series Co-Chairs Antonia Thompson and Ron Zate for organizing the event.

Bo Seo, world champion debater and author, spoke about empathetic disagreement.

Upper Elementary students had an amazing afternoon on the ice in early February.

Internships, Panelists, and Life Skills Alumni Help to Prepare the Next Generation of GCDS Graduates

By Joe Perry, Director of Senior Internship Program and Seminar Teacher

Greenwich Country Day has always prepared its graduates well for their next chapters by providing the tools, experiences, and confidence-building skills necessary to take on the inevitable curveballs that life throws. In keeping with this multigenerational mission, GCDS has established a Senior Internship Program to advise, teach, and provide real-life experiences for Seniors that will open their eyes, inspire their hearts, and expand their minds to prepare them for life after high school.

Our program consists of coursework during the spring semester focused on life-skill activities such as personal finance, understanding a budget, using digital calendars, resume and cover letter writing, social media dos and don’ts, and overall professionalism beyond the classroom. This program prepares Seniors for a month-long internship experience GCDS coordinates for each of the 114 members of the Class of 2023. These internships are created through a partnership between GCDS and a number of different companies, community programs, and other real-world experiences. Joe Perry, the Director of the Senior Internship Program, develops many of these relationships by working closely with the GCDS Alumni Office, Center for Public Good, and the current parent body.

A recent event sponsored by the Alumni Office to support this Upper School program presented a series of Alumni Panels for Grades 11 and 12 called College and Beyond. The panels were themed by three career fields: STEM, Communications, and Finance.

Alumni panelists currently holding careers in these fields spoke to the students about how GCDS prepared them for their journey. The panelists discussed how many of their high school passions

and ideas as well as their college majors did not directly support their current careers, but how learning skills such as collaboration, flexibility, research, reading for content, and interdisciplinary thinking has helped them in every experience along the way. They talked about the importance of the process of learning versus the specific content obtained. They also spoke about the specific fields they are currently in and the various options and opportunities these fields hold as well as what information is critical to breaking into each career industry. Developing presentation skills, empathy for others, and a solid work ethic, all of which are pillars of the GCDS education, have given each one of these panelists an advantage over others in their respective fields.

All panelists also stressed the importance of relationships, the wonderfully helpful GCDS alumni community, and how valuable all internship experiences are to help determine a path to pursue—or not to pursue.

Experiences such as our Senior Internship Program are key in helping our graduates transition successfully into life beyond GCDS. We’d like to extend a big thanks to our alumni community and look forward to developing more experiences of Tigers mentoring Tigers.

Share an Internship with GCDS: If you can offer an internship to our Seniors (this spring or next year) or if you know someone else that may, please contact joe.perry@gcds.net to explore a potential partnership with GCDS. If you would like to participate in future alumni career panels, please reach out to liz.duffy@gcds .net for more information about this and other alumni activities.

Our Senior Internship Program includes focused coursework and preparation for a month-long internship created through a partnership between GCDS and a number of different companies and community programs.

broad fields of marketing, entertainment, career services, and more.

1 STEM PANEL Alex Quintana ’98, Senior Product Manager, Growth, PagerDuty; Greg Weisbord ’03, Software Engineer, Ripple, a blockchain company; and Katie Dishner ’12, first-year medical student at SUNY Downstate, talked about technology, mathematics, and the medical fields.

2 FINANCE PANEL India Nix ’12, Associate at ICONIQ Capital; Joshua Beaton ’90, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley; Colin Daddino ’04, CIO at family office; Kenny Luse ’01, Portfolio Manager at Point72, a global hedge fund, biotech investor

3 COMMUNICATIONS PANEL Doris “Dottie” Catlin ’89, Executive Director of Career Services, Utah Tech University in St. George, Utah; Mac Bartels ’01, Media & Entertainment Executive; Alicia Del Vecchio O’Malley ’12, Digital Account Manager, MediaMax Network; and Cameron Sterling ’91, Content Strategy Consultant, discussed the

A Forty Year Love Affair

By Stephen & Dale Hoffman, 2022–2023

Annual Fund Grandparent Chairs

On a winter day in 1982, having decided to move to Greenwich from Manhattan, the two of us toured Greenwich Country Day School, hoping that the school would be a good fit for our daughters, Emily, age 6, and Anna, age 3. The trim white clapboard buildings; ebullient yet attentive children; and warm, involved teachers were then much as we find them today when we visit our grandchildren’s classrooms. That day we fell in love with GCDS, a love affair that continues 40-plus years later.

GCDS has been a formative, positive influence on our children and, currently, our three grandchildren—a partner in helping them develop into the kind of human beings we hoped they would become. For us, the guiding concept of Tiger Pride says it all. It is a time-honored GCDS credo instilled in our children from nursery through high school—a focus on character development, integrity, engagement with the larger community, mutual respect and inclusiveness.

And this is not “lip service!” We hear these values embedded in our grandkids’ descriptions of their community service, whether it is high schoolers running weekly soccer clinics at the Boys and Girls Club; 3rd graders using walkathon funds to pack 160 kits of baby books for Read to Grow; 5th graders packing Thanksgiving baskets for Building One Community in Stamford; a high school Intersession project teaching science curriculum to students at Waterside School; or 6th graders packing Birthday Bags for Person to Person.

As grandparents, we have been privileged to witness the

birth of a world-class high school that reflects the values that Greenwich Country Day has developed and honed during the 40 years of our relationship with the school. The devotion and tireless work of Adam Rohdie and his formidable team of teachers, administrators and Board have created a culture and corresponding curriculum of collaborative, project-driven work.

Perhaps most important to us is that our grandchildren are so happy at GCDS. Each of the three kids feels a sense of belonging to a supportive community where their skills are valued and their participation is appreciated. What more could a grandparent want!

A HUGE THANK YOU to the nearly 550 families who supported this year’s Annual Fund, helping us exceed our goal and unlock an additional $250,000 for the Annual Fund!

You all came out and showed your TIGER PRIDE as you responded to our call to action —your gifts that will positively impact all students, faculty and staff at GCDS, making every day an extraordinary day! Also a huge thank you to the GCDS Board of Trustees for offering the financial support for the challenge.

If you have not yet supported the Annual Fund, there’s still time!

Give online today at www.gcds.net/give

Dale Hoffman, Charlotte Stern ’30, Will Stern ’26, Oliver Stern ’23, Stephen Hoffman

CLASS OF 2015

PARENTS OF ALUMNI RECEPTION

On January 19, Lisi Miller Vincent ’86 and Rob Vincent (P ’15, ’17, ’24) welcomed parents of students in the Class of 2015 for an evening to gather together. Head of School Adam Rohdie updated the group on our two campuses and former parents enjoyed conversation while reconnecting with Country Day Friends.

1 Lisi Miller Vincent ‘86, Lilla Arnaboldi Kelley ‘78 2 Michael Keigher, Michael Dubilier, Polly Hanson 3 Jim DeNaut, David Kelley 4 Jim Knight ’84, Adam Rohdie 5 Anne Denaut, Alison Knight, Adrienne Westerfield 6 Rob Vincent, Marie Cosgrove, Sunil Khanna, Sue Khanna, Wendy Dziurzynski 7 Louisa Winthrop, Jay Winthrop ‘79, Allyson Cowin 8 Alisa Brockelman, Cary Keigher

BETSY

A member of our Distinguished Faculty and GCDS legend Betsy Mena passed away on February 11. Betsy had retired from Country Day in 2021, after an amazing run that started on Old Church Road in 1994 in the Developmental Learning Program and then as a second grade teacher. Upon Betsy’s retirement, her colleague Chrissy Baird shared a few words, which are excerpted below and beautifully express how so many of us at Country Day think about Betsy.

By Chrissy Baird, GCDS Nursery Teacher, Distinguished Faculty, June 2021

Betsy brought an unflinching commitment to her students year after year, which manifested itself in ways big and small. Arriving early, staying late, crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s, guiding anxious parents to better understand their child . . . Betsy’s work ethic is stitched in her DNA. She set a high bar for the children in her class and guided each child to meet it, helping each boy and girl live the Country Day mission while in her care. Preparedness, thoroughness, and a healthy dose of humor are hallmarks of her teaching.

When I met Betsy and Dan, their three children were just about college age and Betsy’s mom, Oma, was a towering presence in all their lives. Now, the Mena children are grown and have families of their own...and Betsy carries her mom’s light forward as she has become the beloved grandmother. Betsy

and Dan will now have more time for globetrotting, for adventuring with their grandchildren and while I haven’t seen it yet, I’m sure Betsy’s new homewill include a table with a picture puzzle, a stack of books ready to be devoured, bird feeders and bird houses . . . and flowers and music and friends.

Betsy, I speak for your colleagues when I thank you for the steady, intelligent, thoughtful, no-nonsense presence you have been for

us. Your students and their families have been blessed to have you in their lives. The Country Day community is richer for your years of service and we all thank you for that and celebrate you today!

As described in her 25 Year Tribute hanging in the halls of Middle School, “Betsy combines the best of youthful verve with the wisdom of a seasoned educator and preserver of GCDS’s most cherished values.”

Barbara Shepley Beard King of Stamford, CT, passed away on December 30, 2022. Born on July 6, 1927, she was the daughter of the late John and Elizabeth Beard of Philadelphia, PA. For the first six years of her life, she lived with her parents and brother John Beard, Jr. of Charlottesville, VA, in Bryn Mawr, PA. She raised two daughters, Muffy King Fox ’72 and Boo King Huth ’75, both of Riverside, CT. She is survived by her son-in-law Andy Fox, and seven grandchildren and their spouses: Peter (Tayler) Fox ’06, Carter (Carrie) Fox ’08, Jack (Morgan) Fox ’09, Halsey Huth ’09, Abby H. (Peter) Donohue ’09, Phebe Huth ’12, and Brecky Huth ’13. Her son-in-law Henry C. Huth, Jr. predeceased her in August 2022.

Barbara graduated from Rogers Hall in Lowell, MA. She received degrees from Bradford Junior College in 1948 and Northwestern University in 1950 where she was a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. Following Northwestern, Barbara came to New York and worked as a copywriter for the advertising firm Batton, Barton, Durstine, and Osborn. Barbara met William “Bill” A. King at P.J. Clarke’s in New York and married the love of her life at Christ’s Church in Rye, NY, in 1953. After they were married, she changed careers and became a teacher at the Brearley School for two years in New York. Soon after, they moved to Riverside, CT. They were married for 67 years. He preceded her in death in 2020. Barbara and Bill were members of the Riverside Yacht Club, where Bill was a commodore for three years.

She was a trustee of Bradford College from 1985–1997, after many years as the quintessential Bradford volunteer. She served as a class agent, class correspondent, reunion chair, leadership council member, alumni association board member, and member of the annual fund executive committee. She was awarded the Jean Pond Medallion in 1993 and the Jane Cooke Runyan Award in 1998 for her service to Bradford. She was on the membership board of the Greenwich Chapter of the American Red Cross and St. Paul’s Church Day School. Other civic involvement included many roles at Greenwich Hospital, where she was a member of the cancer/hospice team from the early 1990s to 2015. She was chairman of volunteers at the Bendheim Cancer Center and secretary of the Greenwich Hospital Auxiliary. She served on the Ethics Committee from 2000–2022. Her dedication to the work of the Junior League of Greenwich was extensive. She helped launch the pre-kindergarten project at Hamilton Avenue School and Childcare 2000, which is now known as the Children’s Day School. She was co-chairman of the Greenwich Cotillion for two years. Barbara was the recipient of the Phyllis Finn Mentor Award in 1999, and the Betty Hinckley Award in 2004. She received the YWCA Spirit of Greenwich Award in 2009.

Barbara loved teaching kindergarten at Greenwich Country Day School for 18 years and enjoyed keeping up with former students and their families. She stayed active at Country Day long after her retirement through her involvement with the grandparents’ committee.

Above all, Barbara was a thoughtful and empathetic friend. She cared deeply about others and never forgot a name or a birthday. She could tell you something about everyone with whom she came into contact no matter how briefly. She was a terrific listener and her thank you notes were legendary. Crane & Co. has lost a valuable customer!

BARBARA BEARD KING, 1927–2022

Former GCDS Kindergarten Teacher, Past Parent and Grandparent

MENA: A TRIBUTE

Kindergarten students traveled to the Stanwich Road Campus and made a presentation to Upper School students about their Souper Bowl Soup Can Fundraiser. Afterward, they went on a tour of the building, including science and art classrooms. They were especially amazed by the plasma globe atop the spiral staircase!

Kindergarteners Tour the Upper School!

Greenwich Country Day School

P.O. Box 623, Old Church Road

Greenwich, CT 06836-0623

Return Service Requested

A single thought begins a journey of exploration and be the source for igniting passions, inspiring others, making an impact.

A single thought begins a journey of exploration and can be the source for igniting passions, inspiring others, or making an impact.

It’s how we think about teaching and at GCDS.

It’s how we think about teaching and learning at GCDS.