COMMENTS METAIRIE PARK COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL
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COMMENTS METAIRIE PARK COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL
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As I begin my third year as the leader of Country Day, I remain awed and inspired by so many elements of our school culture. Indeed, so many of our beloved traditions create our unique ways of being and doing. From schoolwide activities like field day and the ringing of the bell, to the “givens” of our outstanding dining program and the pride and passion of our alumni community, over the last 90 years we have created a remarkable community, replete with strength of intellect and strength of character. Another feature of our culture that inspires me on a daily basis is our widespread drive for excellence. We see this in so many realms. Each morning, I pass by my colleague Larry, who dutifully clears Chandler Circle of debris, creating the first glimpse of our welcoming and inclusive community. I watch Katie, our Arts Department Chair, gently guide our string students’ finger placement and pitch. I catch Steven in the late afternoon, running sprints around Wenzel Field between weightlifting reps. I read an excited email from Eileen, just back from a workshop on writing instruction. Each of these moments showcases our school’s hunger for quality, improvement, and ultimately, excellence. This attitude is not accidental. It comes from years of belief in our Mission, perseverance in the face of adversity, and structures and systems that promote the pursuit of improvement. It also comes from hiring and supporting great people, the dedicated, compassionate, creative, and articulate adults who populate our 15 acres. Each member of our adult community brings commitment, passion, and a belief in young people to work each day. I am intensely proud of our team. This edition of Comments features many episodes of our culture of excellence, from our fascinating and noble past to our exciting and visionary future. You’ll explore the outdoors as you learn about our middle school outdoor program, relive Country Day’s history through a thoughtful piece on Country Day’s previous headmasters, and see how our students adapt and boundlessly learn from the world around them. Your reading of this magazine and your ongoing commitment to Country Day are yet more examples of our drive and commitment to excellence. I thank you for your consistent support of our School and wish you an outstanding summer! Sincerely,
Matt Neely Head of School
COMMENTS ONLINE
REACTIONS? NOTES? STORIES FOR COMMENTS?
julie_bordes@mpcds.com
Read this issue of Comments magazine online at mpcds.com/comments.
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CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Nan Barlow,
Alan Malone 1960,
Paul Frantz,
Matt Neely,
Susan Gisleson,
Sean Patterson,
Country Day Early Childhood Center teacher
COMMENTS MAGAZINE 2019 Matt Neely
Head of School
Lori Gordillo
Director of Development
Elaine Montgomery Associate Director of Development
Jennifer Marsiglia 1997
Director of Alumni Relations
Pam Guter
Development Assistant
Julie Bordes
Middle School Principal Country Day Creative Arts Director
Director of Marketing & Public Relations, Editor, Comments 2019 Magazine
Howard Hunter,
Betsy Petersen
Conley Kronenberg 2018,
English Teacher, Editor, Comments Magazine
Academic Dean, History teacher
Country Day graduate
Linda Lawrence,
Department of Applied Technology Chair, Director of Technology Development, Computer Science teacher
Marisa Ledet, COMMENTS 2019
Physics teacher
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Country Day graduate and former teacher Head of School Drama teacher
Betsy Petersen, English teacher
Shay Steckler 2002, Country Day graduate, French teacher
Katie Vanderbrook,
Country Day Early Childhood Center teacher
Ninnette Varisco, K/1/2 Teacher
Chris Young,
Middle and Upper School Librarian
2018-2019 BOARD OF TRUSTEES Mr. Gerard W. Barousse Jr. 1976, Chair Mrs. Rachael Tullis Gambel 1987, Vice Chair Mrs. Robyn Schwarz Treasurer Mr. Odom Heebe, Jr. 1985 Secretary
Mr. Greg Feirn Mrs. Dathel Coleman Georges 1986 Dr. Shammi Gupta Mrs. Jennifer Heebe Mrs. Yvette Jones Mr. John Kazour
Mr. Matt Neely Head of School
Mr. Barry Kern
Mr. Andrew D. Weinstock Past Chair
Mr. John Little III 1962
Mrs. Katie Antis Faculty Trustee Mrs. Sherri O’Bell President, Parents’ Association Mr. John Schwing 1982 President, Dads’ Club Mr. Paul Viguerie 1986 Alumni Board President
Mr. Wan Kim
Read about our talented faculty at mpcds.com/facultystories and our amazing alumnus at mpcds.com/alumstories!
Mrs. Heidi Morse Mrs. Shelby Mayhew Saer 1985 Mrs. Susan Taylor Mr. Franco Valobra Country Day accepts qualified students without regard to race, color, disability, gender, sexual orientation, religion, national or ethnic origin.
METAIRIE PARK COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL
TABLE OF CONTENTS 2019
FEATURES
8 6
4 A Country Day History
Building Relationships with our Families
12 Into the Woods
Coming to Life
22
18
30 26
Connections
"Yes, And..."
Boundless
What Kind of World Do We Live In?
38 36 Adaptability
Physics in Motion
42 Summer Reflections
58
Library as Laboratory
QUICK TAKES Leadership Takes Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Celebrating Meb Norton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Celebrating Mary Beth Ellis . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
44 A Tale of Country Day Headmasters
College Bound . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Student Art Section . . . . . . . 63
A Conversation with Shay Steckler 2002
Student Artwork
A Country Day History BY HOWARD HUNTER, ACADEMIC DEAN AND HISTORY TEACHER
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While the year 1929 was hardly propitious for starting a school, Edith Stern and fifteen families were committed to the idea that New Orleans needed a school that was childcentered based on what was called the new progressive model. Daughter of philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, and a prodigious civic activist in her own right, Edith Stern envisioned a nonprofit private school that would serve as a laboratory for the public sector. With this as the underlying mission it seems perfectly fitting that Mrs. Stern would choose Ralph Boothby, a Vermont native as the founding headmaster. Boothby graduated from Harvard in 1912 with a degree in classics but he rejected the traditional educational practice of rote learning, opting for Plutarch’s dictum that “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” Inspired by the philosophy of John Dewey as well as by the new pedagogy, Boothby was eager to make Country Day a school that served as a “laboratory and demonstration station for promoting general educational advancement in the community and beyond.” What was this new education? When Country Day opened its door to 56 students (in grades one through six) in 1929 the stated aims were to provide an education that met the needs of the individual child; that taught the skills necessary to adapt to a rapidly changing world; that emphasized cooperation rather than competition; that integrated shop, weaving, dance, music and play into the curriculum; and prepared girls and boys for college. The school did not give grades and instead of individual subjects, the academic disciplines were combined into “units of work.” Students also took a battery of standardized tests because it was considered an effective way to measure growth as well as to determine the appropriate rigor for the individual student. By 1940 aspiring teachers from all over the state came to the campus to study the new education. Yet from its inception the school never wavered from developing an academic program that would gain a student’s admission to the most selective colleges. And the exigencies of college admission also fueled the rise of both Advanced Placement courses and academic honor societies. Nevertheless, even with roughly 740 students the visions of Edith Stern and Ralph Boothby live on — Lower School continues the practice of multi-age classrooms in K-1-2 and 3-4 with instruction geared toward the individual child; technology has effected new pedagogies in project-based learning and creative design; and the school is still committed to the proposition that one size does not fit all when it comes to educating young people for the future. The visual and performing arts are still essential to the school and even with a no-cut policy, athletic teams have won over 50 state championships in both girls and boys sports. Moreover, the school still encourages its students to take a challenging academic schedule, compete in multi-season sports and participate in the fall Shakespeare and the spring musical performances. The notion of learning through a myriad of experiences is the essence of a Country Day education.
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BY: NINNETTE VARISCO, K/1/2 TEACHER
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My 30th school year began with a visit from a former student. I had taught her many years ago, and this year I would have the privilege of teaching her child. Although she is now an adult with several degrees behind her name, I remember her well as a young child. She was incredibly creative and was one of those children who was always inventing something. In one of my treasure boxes, I still have artwork from her that was mailed to me in envelopes that she carefully crafted out of pages from a magazine. How she was able to fold it just right so that her preferred images were in just the right place? I’ll never know. But as the recipient, I was struck by this little person whose brain worked in such fascinating ways. Her bright nature and wide creative streak were not the only reasons that I remember her so well. Although it was about two decades ago, I recall the adults who were in her life then, and I see them interact with their grandchild now. I feel a connection to them as a family, and I believe this is so because we did not spend nine or ten months of school life together; we spent three consecutive years together. In Country Day’s lower school setting, students are with the same teachers for Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grades (K/1/2). This three-year span means that our relationships are allowed to grow deeper, our attachments tend to become greater, and our knowledge of our students accumulates over time, involving their academic life as well as their social-emotional development. So many of our community ties are built during these early years. Not only do we spend several formative years with our young students and their parents, but we also get to know their extended family members. Over this lengthy period, we might meet grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other important members in our young students’ lives. A favorite tradition in K/1/2 is what we call VIP week. Each student has a turn being in the spotlight, and students look forward to their week. Many schools have something similar, but what makes it unique in our setting is that families often plan for this over three years: Aunt Sally might come in dressed as a witch to tell Halloween stories one year, Grandpa might come in to talk about his time in the Army the following year, and Grandma might come in to complete a piece of art with the class, each child painting one square that will fit together like a beautiful quilt and hang in the classroom for years to come. Parents often come in as well to read or share professions or hobbies but meeting the extended families of our students means connecting with their personal lives in a way that is genuine and makes a lasting impression. These connections are deep and last as long as we nurture them. Associations like these are beneficial to our students. Research clearly demonstrates that building trusting relationships in the classroom can have long-lasting effects on a student’s life. This has been proven to impact both student academics and general well-being. A classroom environment where students feel known and validated puts them on a path toward becoming more accepting of others and more apt to build stronger relationships in their future. They are also a gift to the adults. We all benefit from creating meaningful relationships with other humans. Building communities that are this strong has positive ramifications for everyone, and few other professions have the distinction of being able to do so as richly and deeply as those of us in schools. That is priceless. h
Note: Originally published in the CSEE Connections Quarterly, Spring 2019 Issue
INTO THE WOODS:
THE VALUE OF THE OUTDOORS IN EDUCATION
BY PAUL FRANTZ , MIDDLE SCHOOL PRINCIPAL
When we think of teaching and learning, perhaps we conjure up images of a classroom filled with desks and whiteboards, where the teacher lectures from the front of a class filled with students dutifully listening and taking notes. While much of what we learn comes from the traditional “bricks and mortar” construct, we know there is much more to effective teaching and learning. We know that effective student learning involves student engagement through curiosity and exploration, relevant hands-on and collaborative projects. Another, and often underappreciated, component to effective teaching and learning is time spent outdoors. Outdoor education complements and enhances our learning in the classroom. Outdoor experiences feed our intellectual and social-emotional growth.
fears, learning the value of taking risks… perseverance, strengthening their sense of self, and understanding the value of friendships and the importance of community. While summer residential camping has been around well over a century, what we consider the modern outdoor education movement began over seven decades ago with organizations such as Outward Bound. For over thirty years, schools have been incorporating elements of outdoor education into their curriculum. There are many organizations that focus solely on outdoor educational experiences for schools.
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When I think of the value of outdoor education, I often refer to my experiences at summer camp. Camps are designed to create an environment, in a natural setting, where children can leave behind the daily stressors created by popular culture and social media, that pressure children to grow into adulthood before they are ready. In the absence of these pressures, camp creates opportunities for children to connect with the natural environment, with others and, most importantly, themselves. Through many different experiences, children learn new skills in a fun and challenging environment. I often hear students, who have attended summer camp, talk about gaining a greater appreciation for the outdoors, learning to face
Why this trend and what are the benefits of these experiences? Looking at over forty years of research, the evidence is compelling. Several meta-analyses of research show that there is a correlation between academic/life success and outdoor education. Studies also suggest that just spending time in the outdoors has its benefits as well. In general, studies saw immediate positive effects and, depending on the focus and length of the program, these positive effects were sustained over time. The findings from this research can be summarized into three broad categories that highlight the positive effects of outdoor experiences: sense of self, community, and performance.
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“I have changed how I act and see the world. I love and understand teamwork, I have defeated my fears, I am independent, friendly, and fearless.” - 8th grader From a developmental standpoint, outdoor experiences help to nurture both intellectual and social/emotional development. Through fun but challenging activities children are pushed as individuals and as groups to step outside their comfort zones. Through these experiences children build self-confidence, independence as well as an appreciation of working together as a group. They also nurture creativity and build resilience as they face and overcome the challenges presented. Out of these experiences, children also develop empathy for others and their natural surroundings. They learn to take risks, experience failure and success in a healthy supportive environment allowing for this wonderful and important growth as individuals.
PRINCIPLES INTO PRACTICE At Country Day we see the benefits of outdoor education through our own practices and programs. While opportunities exist throughout the school, middle school focuses on more formal outdoor experiences. In sixth grade, students have a full two-day experience at a nearby state park that includes team building, learning camp craft skills, and canoeing on a bayou. The seventh grade experience builds on the sixth grade experience with a three day, point-to-point canoe experience, camping on sand bars, and learning more camp craft skills. In addition, the 7th grade tends the middle school garden and participates in the LSU Coastal Roots program. In eighth grade, students travel to the mountains of North Carolina for a week long experience that includes three days backpacking, ropes course, rock climbing, and whitewater rafting.
BUILDS COMMUNITY “This trip helped me to get to know my classmates and I grew close to many of them. I really liked how my group was always together and helping each other.” - 6th grader Outdoor experiences also prompt a strong sense of community. Spending time in the outdoors, working together as a group, children learn their interdependence to each other and to their environment. These experiences engage children in ways that help to build positive attitudes and behaviors that promote civic mindedness and environmental stewardship. This work translates back into the school community, supporting a culture of caring for others and the world around them.
OUR GOALS ARE TO: 1) Get our students outdoors, out of their comfort zone, disconnecting from social media and technology, providing a common group experience. 2) Challenge our students as individuals and as a group to take risks, to face their fears, to try new things that help to build self-confidence, and become more self-aware. 3) Grow as a group with opportunities to learn the importance of working together, supporting each other, strengthening bonds, and enhancing the group experience. 4) Gain a greater appreciation for the outdoors.
ENHANCES PERFORMANCE “We learned how to use things in our environment to help find solutions to our problems.” - 7th grader Research has also shown that students tend to have more positive feelings about school and the outdoors as well as raising expectations and standards for their own participation in learning. As a result, studies show that performance in school increases. This is largely due to the emphasis on self-reliance, as individuals and as a group, in the wilderness by being responsible for their own shelter, helping with food preparation, and collecting wood for the campfire. Problem solving also is enhanced as they are often challenged to deal with these tasks in an ever changing, natural environment. None of these essentials would happen without total engagement from all. BEYOND THE WILDERNESS The benefits of being outdoors is not just about camping in the wilderness. Students can reap the benefits of the outdoors at school and in our community. We have many opportunities within our Country Day community to connect with the outdoors while investing in learning. Country Day is well suited for this with our beautiful, open, 15-acre campus and intimate courtyards. Allowing our students to engage in the outdoors with friends during recess, studying in the library courtyard, working in the gardens, or sitting together on the lawn discussing Shakespeare help to further build and nurture all these values. These are a “natural” extension of outdoor education.
At each grade, I have witnessed countless examples of children showing the courage to push themselves to take risks and to celebrate their accomplishments. I also observed great acts of kindness where students reached out to support a classmate, to ease their burden on the trail, to encourage them on the ropes course, and to support the efforts of the group as a whole. I also enjoyed seeing the students come together as a class, a community, all sharing this incredible experience together. Our challenge and opportunity as teachers is how to sustain the benefits of these valuable experiences at school and in the classroom. Throughout the year, our teachers, who chaperone these trips, draw from these experiences to create opportunities and remind the students of what is possible when they face their academic, extracurricular, and social challenges. CONCLUSIONS “The hike up the mountain was so hard, I was scared I couldn’t make it. My friends encouraged and helped me up the trail. I surprised myself that I could make it to the summit. Watching the sunset with my friends, feeling like we were sitting on top of the world, was worth the struggle to get there.” - 8th grader In an age where children are spending up to ten hours a day on their devices playing video games, disconnected from the world around them, the need to connect to the outdoors has never been greater. As educators, understanding the value of going “into the woods,” we will continue make these valuable experiences a priority. Visit www.mpcds.com/outdoors to review Mr. Frantz's citations.
“The hike up
was so hard, I was
friends encouraged and helped me up the trail. I surprised myself that I could make it to the summit. Watching the sunset with my friends, feeling like we were sitting on top of the world, was worth the struggle to get there.”
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scared I couldn’t make it. My
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the mountain
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COMING TO LIFE COUNTRY DAY
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BY BETSY PETERSEN, UPPER SCHOOL ENGLISH TEACHER
13 COMMENTS 2019
level. After doing some preliminary research, students were assigned to groups, where they did some basic calculations and made decisions about what their rocket might look like. At this point, Kate took the role of facilitator. “That allowed me to check in with the kids more often, see where they were, see their strengths and weaknesses. We did two or three rounds,” she says, “so they had the opportunity to go back and tweak their design. There was a lot of trial and error, going back to the drawing board, making adjustments.” Science, especially physics, lends itself to projects. Like the eighth graders, Marisa Ledet’s juniors and seniors study Newton’s laws of motion. For the first law (an object in motion stays in motion and an object at rest stays at rest), students found sports videos on YouTube and assumed the role of a sportscaster, except that instead of reporting on, for example, the fine points of curling, they’re reporting on how the stones keep going on the ice because there’s no other force acting upon them. For another project, students designed a power crane with popsicle sticks and hot glue to apply their understanding of rotational equilibrium. “After we test them all, we discuss why one was better than another,” based on which cranes can support the most weight on the long end, and why. One of Ledet’s favorite projects involves students making a sound show out of instruments they build themselves in class out of test tubes, water, drinking straws, fishing line, and other odds and ends. “They have to make music with them,” Marisa explains, “and then discuss what they’re doing to make a certain frequency in terms of velocity.” In AP Computer Science, students use programming techniques they’ve learned in class to create digital pictures of themselves on the moon. “There’s an aha moment,” says Linda Lawrence, “when they say, ‘This is like PhotoShop!’ And I say, ‘Yes, you’ve created it – you’ve learned the underlying techniques of PhotoShop.” When they’ve accomplished the goal, they write reflections explaining what they learned from the project and how it ties to the real world. Linda grades on the extent to which they’ve applied what they learned in class.” For English teacher Mike Miley, projects allow students to “make things with their hands, but also to make analytical work more creative – because it is creative. You want them to defend the choices they make, which is what we ask them to do in an essay.” Affirming Kate Turnbull’s ideas about voice and choice, Mike says that projects allow for individualized learning. “I get to know them better through this kind of work. And because they usually do well, I have a success story that I can use to encourage them that they’re doing good work.” When juniors read Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Mike says, “they got to be angry about how bad the published book covers are” (there are more than twenty editions on Amazon), and then make their own covers. “Then they had to defend their choices. They’ve got to think about their audience, who’s it for, and what impact they think it’ll have on them and why. And they need to have some sort of written statement where they defend their position – here’s what it says about the work, and here’s why that matters.” The Awakening tells the story of a married woman in New Orleans at the turn of the century and the ways her life is constrained by the expectations for women in that time and place. “It’s about a woman trying to break out of the boundaries of society,” says Kristian Brooks. On her cover, Kristian drew a ring with a break in it, “and what comes out
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uffin Henry 2020 is drawing on the whiteboard during English class, describing his staging of Lady Macbeth’s “Out, damned spot!” speech. “Here’s the hallway, and here’s a table with candles, and this is where Lady Macbeth passes the doorway.” The doctor and the gentlewoman are sitting at the table, he explains, and they look up and follow Lady Macbeth into the hallway, where they see her washing her hands at a sink – he draws the sink, back in a far corner of the hallway – “and it’s really odd and creepy, because it’s a sink in a hallway.” Ruffin is one of a growing number of Country Day students whose teachers are exploring project-based learning in addition to more traditional methods like lectures, labs, essays, and tests. Like educators across the country, our faculty is seeing the benefits of allowing students to go deeply into a topic and share their own unique perspective with classmates. Edutopia, the George Lucas Educational Foundation dedicated to “transforming K-12 education so that all students can acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to thrive in their studies, careers, and adult lives,” defines projectbased learning as “a dynamic classroom approach in which students actively explore real-world problems and challenges and acquire a deeper knowledge.” According to the Buck Institute for Education, a nonprofit professional development organization, project-based learning engages students in “solving a real-world problem or answering a complex question,” which in turn allows them to “demonstrate their knowledge and skills by developing a public product or presentation for a real audience.” At Country Day, projectbased learning energizes teachers and students at every grade level and in every discipline. Ruffin’s teacher in Sophomore English, Erin Walker, gave students two options for a final project on Macbeth: after choosing a scene, “they could do a movie pitch, or they could actually film it. Either way, they had to have a rationale for every choice,” including the casting, the characters’ motivations, the setting, the color palette, the camera shots, and so on, “and they had to give textual evidence from the play for their choices.” Ruffin’s pitch, she said, “was great. He had music, he showed where the camera would go. He had a reason for everything – he did a brilliant job of explaining his choices.” The Macbeth project followed a day-by-day close reading of the play in class. At that point, Erin said, “I’ve done my job. Now they’re doing the work, they’re doing the learning.” In describing and defending their choices, students created the equivalent of a five-to-six-page literary analysis, “but they didn’t realize how much they were doing. It was work, but it was fun.” Voice and choice: those are the hallmarks of project-based learning, according to Kate Turnbull, eighth grade science teacher. “I love the process,” Kate says, “because it allows for personalized learning. The content is whatever you need it to be, and it allows students to delve more deeply into what interests them.” For example, for a unit about Newton’s laws of motion, Kate introduced the topic in a lecture and assigned a lab to process the information. Then she gave students a design challenge: create an air- and water-powered rocket, starting with a two-liter bottle. She consulted with Marisa Ledet, who teaches physics and AP Physics in the Upper School, about how to bring the material to an eighth grade
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is nature. So I have a wave to symbolize what women can do.” On the back cover, birds fly out of a larger wave. A bar across the cover “symbolizes limits that hold down that freedom, but there’s a little crack that gives a little room that says, ‘Hey, you might be able to fly.’ I love it, because I got to visualize it and create something that shows the writing.” In geometry, Andy Talmadge provides students with what educators across the country refer to as “genius time.” Students get one week each quarter to work on “anything you like that helps you connect geometry to your life, or just your interests.” Each student gets to decide what they want to do, and every day during genius week they keep a record of what they did. At the end of each quarter they write a short summary and what they plan to do next. For example, Tre Reginelli discovered there’s more geometry on a basketball court than the visible lines. Using Geogebra software, he investigated “how many types of shapes I could create within a hexagon,” he says. In March 2018, Andy showed Tre a Ted Talk of artificial intelligence guru Rajiv Maheswaran talking about “the math behind basketball’s wildest moves.” Tre decided to analyze all the shots Pelicans star player Anthony Davis made over the 2017-2018 season. He learned to use a 3D printer so he could represent the patterns tangibly. “It will give viewers a second look at where he’s strong, where he makes the most shots from,” Tre says. “I’ve always been fascinated with basketball. It’s amazing, because I’m able to think outside the box and learn something I never thought I would learn about, something I was so fascinated with. It’s amazing what you can learn if you just put your mind to it and allow yourself to think more broadly!” Projects lend themselves to foreign language, not only for basics like learning and retaining vocabulary, but also in understanding a world that is increasingly multicultural, multilingual, and interconnected. Middle school Spanish teacher Courtney Twitchell, inspired by a workshop with Kate Turnbull during fall workshops in 2017, developed a project for her seventh graders similar to one she experienced herself as a second grader. “I was Sally Ride, the astronaut. I have an abysmal memory – I can’t remember anything from my childhood – but I do remember standing on a milk carton, and people would come and push a button,” and she’d speak as Sally Ride and tell them about herself. “I had a little helmet,” she recalls. She wanted to leave her students with something they’d remember forever, as clearly as she remembers Sally Ride. She decided to have students choose significant people from Spanish-speaking countries and called on Spanish department chair Ellen Cohen to help her make the project age appropriate, and on middle-upper school librarian Chris Young to assist with the research and show students how to cite their sources. Courtney made a list for them to choose from; they did their research in English, wrote and memorized their monologues in Spanish, and chose outfits that suited their characters. On project day, parents and faculty members gathered in Country Day’s Bright Library and went from one student to another, pushing the “button” (printed on paper and taped to the wall) to start the students talking. “Their outfits were incredible,” Courtney says, “and their parents kept saying, ‘I never knew they could speak Spanish this well.’ It was fun to see how much more in depth you can
get when you embody the person. They blew me away!” While teachers still give traditional assessments, many have found that project-based learning not only supplements traditional pedagogy, but goes a long way to help students consolidate, retain, retrieve, and apply what they’ve learned. “There’s a big difference between projects and project-based learning,” says Kate Turnbull. Project-based learning “puts the learning back on the student, puts it in the real world.” Increasingly, says Mike Miley, “I’ve moved to the idea that students learn more when they make something.” They also learn from each other, not only when they collaborate in work groups, but also when they see what their classmates have accomplished; then they’re inspired for the next time. Students “get to figure out how a subject is connected” to their lives, says Andy Talmadge. “You [the student] bring your creativity out, and whenever you do that, you’ve actually made your life better.” It works for teachers, too. Project-based learning not only
promotes real-world connections and connections among students; it also inspires teachers to cross disciplinary lines and learn from each other. Before Courtney attended Kate’s design thinking workshop, she “had heard of design thinking, but I’d never gone through the process myself. We were all coming up with ideas, and something just lit up in me.” What benefits teachers benefits students. Ruffin Henry, who worked on creating optical illusions during his genius time in geometry, confirms the value of voice and choice. “It’s cool the way [an optical illusion] forces the perspective on you.” To explore the possibilities, he taught himself the programming language Python in order to represent his discoveries. “It shows you how, especially in 3D, there’s more than one way to look at something – there’s more than meets the eye.” Choosing what to work on was a big plus for him. “It’s so cool that I can take what I taught myself and use it to do something.” At one point he couldn’t make the program do what he wanted it to do. And then he did. “And all of a sudden, it’s seeing something that you did come to life.” h
A note from the Chairman, Conley Kronenberg 2018: “Hi, my name is Conley
Leadership Takes Form
Kronenberg 2018, and if you’re reading this it probably means you have just picked up the latest issue of Comments Magazine. I was honored to serve as chair of Relay for Life for the Greater New Orleans Independent Schools during the 2017-2018 school year. Being chair carried a lot of responsibility, and at times it was extremely stressful, but when the day of the event came, it was worth it all to see how the hard work (yes, it was a lot of hard work) came together and resulted in a great event that benefited so many who battle cancer.”
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Leadership takes many forms. From faculty members who serve as department chairs, to 5th graders helping as servers during lower school lunch, each and every role enriches our School’s sense of community and fulfills our mission. Often times, our community reaches beyond our campus to help those in need and heed a call to service. Whether it is students boxing canned goods with Lower School Teacher Mary Beth Plauche at Second Harvest or our Upper School Principal Howard Barton and Chef Mark Uddo rallying our community to assist victims of flooding in Denham Springs or Houston. Our community cares, deeply. One student-lead activity that exemplifies a true “strength of character,” a trait we cherish and nurture in all our students, is Relay for Life. In 2018, 300 participants, 26 teams, and many Independent School students, joined together to raise over $57,000 towards finding a cure for cancer. Then in 2019, Nicole Roach, the 2018-2019 Chair, lead 300 students on 25 teams to raise $65,000. Besides being consecutive record-breaking fundraising years, what was most impressive was that these events are completely student-lead, student-staffed, and student-supported. Beyond just mobilizing Country Day students, parents, and faculty, the Relay for Life leaders rallied schools, many who had never joined in before, from around the greater New Orleans area. With this success, one might think the goals of this group had been accomplished. However, after talking with Event Chair and Country Day 2018 Chair Conley Kronenberg, these students have only just begun. h
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Other student-led service efforts:
SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK OPERATION DONATION RELAY FOR LIFE
Shinwoo Kim Named 2019 U.S. Presidential Scholar
COMMENTS 2019
Shinwoo Kim 2019 was recognized as a member of the 55th Class of U.S. Presidential Scholars. Shinwoo is one of 161 students chosen in the United States and one of two in Louisiana for her broad academic achievements, leadership, personal characteristics, and talents in various fields. Shinwoo began at Metairie Park Country Day School in 2013 and immediately jumped into activities, athletics, and academic work as a 6th grader. Her interests ranged from performing as the principal cellist in the Greater New Orleans Youth Orchestra to performing in musicals and plays, to giving back to the community through participation in the STEM program called Electric Girls and Second Harvest food bank, to filling her academic time with math, science, English, and language AP courses. Throughout all these endeavors, Shinwoo's strong leadership skills emerged and she co-founded a club aimed at raising awareness of global issues called Global Citizens: Fight for Freedom, and lead other important clubs as president including, Culture Club, Mathletes, Autism Awareness Club, and PACE (People for Acceptance, Change, and Equity). Shinwoo was able to do all this while maintaining an exceptionally high GPA, playing soccer and cheerleading, and leading her class in student government as first Middle School Executive President, then 9th-grade class president, Community Service Chair, Discipline Committee member and Chair, and as High School Executive Treasurer. Shinwoo's strong work ethic, impeccable character, and intellect resulted in her induction into Metairie Park Country Day's National Honor Society in 2016, Cum Laude Society in 2018, and was why she ultimately was chosen as a National Merit Finalist and Scholarship Winner and Presidential Scholar. Shinwoo will attend Columbia University in fall 2019.
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Cum Laude Society The Cum Laude Society, the high school equivalent of Phi Beta Kappa, is a national organization founded in 1906. Its primary goal is to recognize and honor superior scholastic achievement. Country Day is limited in the number of junior and senior students elected each year; faculty nominate students based on their superior GPA, good character, honor, and integrity. Faculty members who have received outstanding scholarly recognition are also eligible. Congratulations to this year’s Cum Laude Society members. SENIORS Esme Benjamin Caroline Conwill Michael Culicchia
Scott Freeman Halley Phan Ansley Schwing
JUNIORS Anna Patricia Cutrone Simran Gupta Katherine Hennessy
Kate Launey Dorie Le
SENIORS ELECTED LAST YEAR Beverly Caplan Katie Davidson Caroline Fiore
Kate Goodwin Shinwoo Kim Nicole Roach
National Honor Society Fifteen new members of the National Honor Society were inducted this year: Christian Becnel (2019), Caroline Carazo (2019), Halley Phan (2019), Marceline Yu (2019), Jacob Mushatt (2020), Abby Myers (2020), Sydney Wright (2020), Blythe Bouza (2021), Maddie Canter (2021), Kristin Kempton (2021), Caroline Koppel (2021), Grayson Myers (2021), Emma Morton (2021), Lauren Perlis (2021), and Elizabeth Rogers (2021). National Honor Society speaker and mathematics and computer science teacher Dr. Andy Talmadge shared his thoughts on how our students can act as conduits through which the NHS tenets of scholarship, character, leadership, and service can be shared in the world. He concluded his remarks by asking all our students, to “work to strengthen these connections (or conduits) to build a happier more understanding world.” NATIONAL HONOR SOCIETY OFFICERS President: Nicole Roach Vice President: Caroline Fiore CLASS OF 2019 Kristian Brooks Beverly Caplan Caroline Conwill Michael Culicchia Colleen Daly Katie Davidson Elizabeth Downs Caroline Fiore Kate Goodwin Shinwoo Kim Logan Landry Nicole Roach Ansley Schwing
FROM THE CLASS OF 2019: Christian Becnel Caroline Carazo Halley Phan Marceline Yu FROM THE CLASS OF 2021: Blythe Bouza Maddie Canter Kristin Kempton Caroline Koppel Emma Morton Grayson Myers Lauren Perlis Elizabeth Rogers
Country Day holds each and every student to impressive standards. So why, some may ask, is it necessary to have an organization that recognizes those who go above and beyond? My answer is this: our athletes are recognized for their success on the field, and our performers showcase their talents on stage. Rarely, however, are students publicly commended for the hard work they put into their academics. The National Honor Society acknowledges superlative academics and motivates members to continue to strive for excellence. Though scholarship is one qualification for membership, the three other criteria are character, leadership, and service. These values overlap rather seamlessly with Country Day’s own mission: to instill strength of intellect and strength of character into students. Thus, in being inducted to the National Honor Society, members prove their position as bona fide Cajuns.
Please join me in congratulating both our new members on their induction and our existing members on their continuous accomplishments. Thank you.
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Part of fulfilling the requirements that create both an NHS member and a Cajun means not only shining in the classroom, but also influencing the community. To help our members in fulfilling this task, the officers wish to make National Honor Society more visible than ever before. We, with assistance from our members, hope to organize a Thanksgiving food drive, a holiday toy drive, and a mentorship program with lower school and middle school students. These are just a few of the ways our chapter will attempt to give back to the community that has given us the opportunity to thrive in the first place.
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CLASS OF 2020 Peter Cannella Anna Patricia Cutrone Simran Gupta Katie Hennessy Ethan Katz Ellie Kelleher Kate Launey Dorie Le Emma Meyer Abby Rosenberg Jacob Mushatt Abby Myers Sydney Wright
Secretary: Ethan Katz Faculty Adviser: Ellen H. Cohen
I am Nicole Roach, and I was elected National Honor Society President for the 2018-2019 school year.
n o C c e n tio ns
evolve t o n s hat doe t n eyed; o n i k t i c d a a h r d T olid an t s s e m dition a r beco t m o t and reak fr s b a a p t e e h y from t s u s trying e e c s r r o e v i v d the uni r e d ntity. n e a d i w e v e i w collect e hold on r u o d to fin ition w d a r t g in ed By bend dear and sacr t is uture. f e to wha h t o ove int m e w as
BY HOWARD HUNTER, ACADEMIC DEAN AND HISTORY TEACHER
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19 COMMENTS 2019
My friend the Tulane professor Peter Ricchiuti once told me, “Over the decades I have had lots and lots of Country Day alums as undergraduate and graduate students here at Tulane. When they come to my office I can bring them to tears by mentioning ‘little lunch.’ It’s a warm memory held deep in their hearts.” No doubt looking back to the day when one did not suffer the encumbrance of having to forage for your own snacks strikes a mythical cord. After 35 years at Country Day, I tend to be agnostic about such matters — I don’t eat red beans and rice, I avoid Thursday donuts for obvious reasons; I can’t get wrapped up in the redblue thing, white suits I can take or leave, and I dread one day ringing the bell. But I would never gainsay any of these rituals that spring from the organic stuff of MPCDS DNA. All bespeak an authentic experience of institutional belonging. Over the years we have found that contrived attempts at building community invariably fail. One lead balloon was an All Community Event (ACE Day) when we linked to one another via pipe cleaners and then broke into song. Another disaster had something to do with holding hands around the football field, never a sure way to drum up support from our young adults (whatever). Yet there is magic in tradition; our fifth graders sprinting across Patrick Gymnasium’s floor at closing assembly does more for community than any adult plan can hope for. Community building is risky business but founding headmaster Ralph Boothby knew it was essential for the survival of the fledging school in 1929. As a civilized man he wanted a civilized place. This could not have been easy. The original constituency of parents included liberal intellectuals, conservative professionals as well as uptown reactionaries. It was a school of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews at a time when institutional divisions between faiths was far more defined. Boothby built community by demanding tolerance and good manners (the art of not hurting the other’s feelings) and this community fostered its share of traditions. Traditions tend to evolve over a continuum, while practices come and go. While community is in the hardwiring of the School, curriculum is subject to change. In the early years, Boothby was keen on students learning skills that would later be important to family life such as textile arts, cooking and gardening. He thought grades and student ranking as “factious” since motivation should come from within. For Boothby digging a latrine on a camping trip was as an important skill as solving a quadratic equation or conjugating a Latin verb. There was no educational or intellectual hierarchy. It was all about affirming life and being open to possibility. One of the early kindergarten teachers Rose Feingold who was a cultural force in New Orleans talked about how education was all about “attitude instillation,” planting a seed that eventually leads to a self-driven natural curiosity. Boothby was a member the Harvard class of 1912. They were arguably the first generation of modernists throwing off the bourgeois shackles of the 19th century. The new education was based on Darwinian science and the philosophy and psychology (most colleges had the two in the same department) of John Dewey and William James. There was
also a nod to Rousseau and his educational treatise Emile. Progressive education was really a three-legged stool — individual growth based on a child’s natural development; learning adaptation skills for a rapidly changing world; and educating for a democracy by building community in the school and breaking down walls between the school and society. Boothby knew John Dewey through taking summer courses at Teacher’s College Columbia and he corresponded regularly with William Heard Kilpatrick who took Dewey’s ideas from 30,000 feet and brought them down to ground level. It was Kilpatrick who developed the Project Method at Teacher’s College in 1919, the forerunner of what we now refer to as Project-Based Learning. Whereas community has been essential to the evolution and even survival of the School (e.g. Katrina) we are also hardwired for experimentation and flexibility. The Progressives emphasized skills over content and over the years we have tried to effect a proper balance by introducing A.P. courses and focusing on our mission of college prep. Nevertheless, we have maintained the tradition of experiential learning in our Lower and Middle Schools by infusing the program with new pedagogies. Upper School teachers are updating the old project method through technology. We have continued the tradition of civic engagement by writing and producing radio programs on New Orleans history and culture on the local NPR affiliate. Like Mr. Boothby, our faculty have been civically engaged by serving on the boards of charter schools and cultural entities like the New Orleans Jazz Festival Foundation, the Tennessee Williams Festival, the Tulane Shakespeare Festival, Le Petit Theatre, the Dickens Festival, the Louisiana Historical Society, the Louisiana Historical Association, the Louisiana Philharmonic, and Longue Vue Gardens. Boothby gave speeches on Progressive Education all over the country. Country Day faculty have given academic papers all over the world and have conducted works shops from Louisiana to Alaska. With our new Department of Applied Technology (DAT), not only will we expand our computer science curriculum, but DAT will also act as a think tank for linking the Liberal Arts and Sciences. In a sense, we are moving back to the original spirit of combining disciplines through problem solving as well as delving into new frontiers of knowledge. Tradition that does not evolve becomes stolid and hackneyed; yet a break from tradition divorces us from the past and we wander the universe trying to find our collective identity. By bending tradition we hold on to what is dear and sacred as we move into the future. Little Lunch is more than a donut or bag of chips. Learn more about the Department of Applied Technology on page 23. Read Yes, And… h
Sue Kim Named 2017 U.S. Presidential Scholar Country Day senior Sue Kim was selected as a member of the 53rd class of United States Presidential Scholars. Sue was one of only two scholars selected from Louisiana and one of 161 scholars selected nationwide.
National Merit Awards and Scholarship Award 2017-2018 FINALIST Reese Koppel, Darby Le, Logan Stouse, Conor Taliancich 2017-2018 SEMIFINALISTS: John Wisdom 2017-2018 COMMENDED SCHOLAR Spencer Chunn
2018-2019 FINALIST: Shinwoo Kim, Caroline Fiore
Sue moved from Korea to the United States the second semester of her 8th grade year and jumped into school life at Country Day wholeheartedly. As an eighth grader, she took four classes that counted for upper school credit, allowing her to get ahead on requirements. As a senior, Sue was able to take five AP courses, Studio Art, and Statistics. Sue is also musically talented and played the violin in the Greater New Orleans Youth Orchestra.
Sue currently attends Columbia University.
21 COMMENTS 2019
Outside of school, Sue has been a camp counselor at Electric Girls which teaches young girls about engineering, computer science, and electronics. She also has volunteered at Children’s Hospital where she worked with children receiving dialysis treatment.
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At Country Day, Sue was a cheerleader her freshman through junior years, and a Student Athletic Trainer all four years of Upper School. Her junior year she received the Yale Award and the Xerox Award (from the University of Rochester). She placed first in State at the Literary Rally in Computer Science and was a member of Mathletes, the Gender Club, the Culture Club, and a club leader of Global Citizens and PACE (People for Acceptance, Change, and Equality). She served as the Sophomore Class Vice President and the Junior Class President. She was nominated by the faculty to serve on the Honor Committee her senior year.
“Several of our graduates are now pursuing computer science degrees or degrees requiring proficiency in programming; they are also spending their summers working for companies such as Facebook, Amazon, and Google; and companies specializing in gaming, virtual reality, and data management.”
LINDA LAWRENCE
BY LINDA LAWRENCE, DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED TECHNOLOGY CHAIR, DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT, COMPUTER SCIENCE TEACHER
DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED TECHNOLOGY DAT MISSION The Department of Applied Technology (DAT) is a division of Metairie Park Country Day School that supports the infusion of digital technology into teaching and learning. Using an all-school approach, the department promotes computational thinking by teaching computer science to lower, middle, and upper school students. DAT works with faculty to link disciplines through technology and experiential problem-based learning and reinforces our community's efforts to develop students who think creatively, understand the world in which they live from multiple perspectives, and know how to delve into questions deeply.
A “Yes, and …” brainstorming exercise provided an avenue for members of the Metairie Park Country Day School community to imagine the limitless possibilities of the Lydia Sneed Engineering Lab, which opened in August 2017. “Yes, and …” exercises, frequently used in improv comedy, present a topic that cannot be disregarded, belittled, or negated; rather, participants are challenged to accept the scenario and expand on the idea. Last year, the topic was “The Lydia Sneed Engineering Lab is ready to be used and explored.” Responses included: “Yes, and for the fall student art show, students will utilize digital technology to transition manual papercuts to artifacts created with the laser cutter and vinyl cutter.”
“Yes, and parents will have Lunch and Learns to understand how our students discover in the Lydia Sneed Engineering Lab.” “Yes, and geometry students will collaborate during genius hour using robotics equipment, 3D printers, and the sewing machine.” “Yes, and history students will extend their research projects to include architecturally significant buildings that they replicated using 3D drawing and printing tools.” “Yes, and fifth-grade students will research explorers and plot their routes with robots using code and a floor-sized world map.”
“Yes, and fourth-grade students will expand their computational thinking skills by discovering Snap! with Finch.” “Yes, and after-school programs will be offered providing opportunities for fifth- through eighth-graders to creatively explore through coding and making.” “Yes, and first- and second- grade students will program Finch robots to dance the Transylvania Two-Step and traverse the trails of Golden Fairy Tales. “Yes, and all sixth- grade middle school students will spend one quarter of their Fridays learning to code and create with littleBits coding kits.” “Yes, and we will re-engineer the Creative Design Through Art, Math, and Computer Science course to include every digital equipment offering in the Engineering Lab.” “Yes, and we will add AP Computer Science Principles to our elective course offerings for Upper School students.” “Yes, and in the 2018-2019 academic year, we will create a new department at Country Day that supports the infusion of digital technology into teaching and learning while linking disciplines through technology and experiential problem-based learning.”
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“Yes, and middle school students in math and science will assimilate data and create large-scale infographic prints.”
“Yes, and every Saturday the lab, with its massive white boards, will serve as the gathering place for the top math students in the area to explore and discuss open-ended math problems and techniques while preparing for national math competitions.”
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“Yes, and students in the Upper School math modeling course will apply mathematical modeling techniques to determine optimal seating arrangements for the Coleman family dining room utilizing tools created on the 3D printer and laser cutter.”
“Yes, and eighth-grade science students will collect data using Scratch and Finch robots during their “Finding Speed” unit.”
YES, AND… Department of Applied Technology
BIG IDEAS
1 2 3 ENGINEERING LABORATORY
Assist all learners in utilizing digital technology to be creative problem solvers
COMPUTER SCIENCE INSTRUCTION Coordinate and staff computer science instruction PreK-12
COMPUTATIONAL THINKING Support vertical and horizontal curriculum infusion
The Department of Applied Technology was founded through assessing the needs, mindsets, and motivations of our community. Creativity, exploration, the joy of creating with our own minds and hands, and learning from experience are foundational ideals of the progressive school movement often identified with John Dewey and frequently cited when someone asks about the beginnings of Metairie Park Country Day School. Each of these ideals evokes an image of learning that is student-centered and active, though, as Dewey clearly warned, not without a clever pedagogical balance between delivery of knowledge and the incorporation of children’s interests. To that end, the newly minted Department of Applied Technology embarks on six big ideas within its mission.
BIG IDEA 1: ENGINEERING LABORATORY
How might we assist all learners in utilizing digital technology to be creative problem-solvers? As the center for physical computing at Country Day, the Lydia Sneed Engineering Lab provides tools and inspiration to create almost anything. “We want every student at Country Day to be a problem-solver,” states Emily West, Lower School assistant principal and innovation designer in the Department of Applied Technology (DAT). “Giving them opportunities to fail, try again, and persevere are goals of our new program. Engineering, robotics, and making allow for all of these to happen, and as a result, the students bridge their creativity and innovation.” Spatial reasoning and abstract implementation are fostered through projects that combine programming with physical problem-solving. “Hands-on, minds-on” active learning is encouraged as students solve problems through tangible interaction with robots, 3D printing, computer-aided design and creative programming kits.
BIG IDEA 2: COMPUTER SCIENCE INSTRUCTION How might we coordinate and staff computer science instruction PreK – 12?
For the past six years, Country Day has had tremendous success with its Upper School computer science offerings. Several of our graduates are now pursuing computer science degrees or degrees requiring proficiency in programming; they are also spending their summers working for companies such as Facebook, Amazon, and Google; and companies specializing in gaming, virtual reality, and data management. Exposing our students to computational thinking, coding, and computer science concepts enriches problem-solving skills while setting expectations that resulting artifacts will be refined iteratively.
BIG IDEA 3: COMPUTATIONAL THINKING
How might we support vertical and horizontal curriculum infusion? What is a 21st century education? This question reverberates through academia. Universities such as Harvard, Yale, and Johns Hopkins are experiencing explosive growth within their applied mathematics, computer science, and engineering sciences as well as enrollments in computational and technical literacy within their liberal arts colleges. In preparing our students for success beyond college, Country Day wants our students to understand global perspectives, address the ethical questions, and comprehend technology and its application and how these shape the human experience. “Digital technology is now ubiquitous in our world,” notes Dr. Andy Talmadge, innovation designer and Middle School computer science instructor, “and preparing students to understand and creatively harness this modern wonder is an appropriate reply. Our work will center on infusing coding and computational thinking into all aspects of teaching and learning so that our creative minds can delve into 21st century issues and ideas.”
4 5 6 FACULTY SUPPORT
Work with faculty to link disciplines through technology and experiential learning
MISSION SUPPORT
BIG IDEA 4: FACULTY SUPPORT
How might we work with faculty to link disciplines through technology and experiential learning? To provide depth and breadth throughout the school’s academic spectrum, the Department of Applied Technology serves as an outreach to our faculty and provides guidance and assistance with integrating curriculum with digital technology.
BIG IDEA 5: MISSION SUPPORT
How might we develop a community that thinks creatively, understands the world, and delves deeply into questions? “The key word in the naming of our new department is ‘applied,’” states Linda Lawrence, director of technology development and chair of the Department of Applied Technology. “‘Applied’ implies active learning through the use of technology and technical tools. Our challenge is making connections between studies and use, while linking innovations, effects, and impacts to the human experience. Our students learn that it’s OK to be uncomfortable while asking questions and pursuing answers; we’ll also have to nudge our students to go beyond the first or second answer, too.”
BIG IDEA 6: RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
How might we work with our partners to develop real world experiences for PreK – 12 learners? “The Department of Applied Technology is not just about finding answers through problem-solving,” observes Academic Dean Howard Hunter. “It’s about discovering new realms of knowledge and learning what we don’t know. And through that process we learn to ask questions that expand our intellectual horizons. It’s all about possibility.”
Develop a community that thinks creatively understands their world and delves deeply into questions
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT Work with our partners to develop real world experiences for PreK-12 learners
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BY KATIE VANDERBROOK AND NAN BARLOW, EARLY CHILDHOOD CENTER TEACHERS
Behind the red door lies a place with boundless energy, unfettered excitement, and enthusiasm for learning: Country Day’s Early Childhood Center. To its many children, families, and teachers, the Early Childhood Center feels like a home. Each morning, the anticipation of a new day is met with warm greetings, teacher hugs, and the joyful uniting of friends. New experiences are plentiful throughout the year, filled with exploration and discovery through the art of “play.” Play is the language of children, and it shows that sometimes “the simplest things are the most important.” As young as six weeks old, the Sweethearts begin interacting with one another in subtle ways. Sounds are heard, textures felt, and colors are seen in a new environment. Tastes are also acquired as new foods are introduced. Sensory exploration occurs amongst the Sweethearts as they are exposed to paint on their fingers and toes, splashing in water, and as they begin to understand their own mobility. There are many “firsts” in this room: sitting up, rolling front to back, and taking first steps are all ways these children play. The progression from one stage of development to the next flows as seamlessly as does the transition from one classroom to the next. Transformative new experiences beckon one and two-year-old Butterflies to play. Finding their balance and discovering how things move, stack, and tumble are new and exciting. In keeping with the philosophy of the program, the Dragonfly year offers the opportunity to explore the children’s natural progression and to “meet the children where they are.” Play in this classroom embraces the social and emotional aspects in their development. By the end of the year, Dragonflies are soaring into the threeyear-old world with greater ways to communicate and an increasing awareness of themselves. The Peppers are the imagination movers of the center. These two and three-year-olds, envision endless possibilities in which to use materials and make connections in pretend play scenarios. Their kind of play involves lively, experimental fun: building tall towers, connecting train tracks, and experimenting with magna tiles. There is much to see, and lots to hear, as little conversations lead to great ideas and new possibilities. Social and emotional development is
also rapidly progressing. The play here is organic, child-led, and occurs with even greater independence. There is much to celebrate with the Peppers as they reach milestones and become prideful in their achievements. In the world of a three-year-old, EVERYTHING is exciting, and costumes are always a must. And finally, the Dinos! These three and four-year-olds put all the pieces together like a giant jigsaw puzzle. They are architects by design, and builders with a strong foundation. Theirs is a collaboration of interactions, negotiations, and acquisitions. The roles of students are clearly defined as each child takes on a task. The social director, problem solvers, and creative doers readily accept the challenge. The social director greets friends as they arrive into the classroom and offers a hug or big smile to welcome everyone. The problem solvers are right there when you need them to help out and the creative doers are testing out new ways to use the classroom materials, inventing their play, as it follows no predictable pattern. From the moment these young students enter through the red door until the moment they leave for the "big school," our students learn, grow, problem solve, and explore the unique world offered through Country Day's Early Childhood Center.
Early Childhood Classrooms: SWEETHEARTS 6 week - 1-year-old BUTTERFLY 1-year-old - 2-year-old DRAGONFLY Young 2-year-old
PEPPER Older 2-year-old 3-year-old DINO Older 3 year old 4 year old
Cajuns Count Parents of graduates from the class of 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, and 2014 joined together for a special brunch to reconnect, remember, and reminisce.
Legacy Lunch Over 200 alumni grandparents and parents of current students enjoyed Country Day's annual Legacy Lunch this fall.
BY BETSY PETERSEN, UPPER SCHOOL ENGLISH TEACHER
“It’s freeing, because you get to let your spirit run without anyone telling you you can’t; it’s a different type of freedom of expression, a sharing of culture and language.” Brice Berger 2018
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to the music, the rhythms, the chanting. Even then, he said, he wanted to be part of something great. And now he considers it a spiritual obligation to hold that culture together and take it farther. That’s why he holds classes to teach sewing, dancing, and chanting, and why he brought pictures of children in Indian suits to show our students. “The pictures of kids were cool,” said senior Nathan Blancher 2018, and Reese Koppel 2018 found “the mentoring program for kids” the most memorable part of the presentation. Others, like Evie Green 2018, mentioned learning about “the evolution of how it started,” or, as Beau Dupaquier 2018 said, “how it was secret for so long.” Michael Skinkus had already demonstrated the survivals of west African rhythms in Cuban music, which he called “miraculous” because when Africans were brought to the new world, they brought nothing with them and spoke different West African languages. Tootie’s Last Suit had allowed students unfamiliar with the Indians to see and hear street performances and the months of design and sewing that led up to them. But what impressed students most was to see Chief Miller’s own suit, “seeing it up close and being able to notice all the details,” as Annie Gitter 2018 recalled. Chief Miller explained that it took most of the year leading up to Mardi Gras to make the suit, and that each tribe members designs and sews his own suit and then competes to be the “prettiest.” For many, Chief Miller provided a glimpse of a world they knew little about. Others, like Brice, know that world well: “It’s freeing, because you get to let your spirit run without anyone telling you you can’t; it’s a different type of freedom of expression, a sharing of culture and language.” h
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What kind of world do we live in? Seniors in Global Humanities address that question in a variety of ways as they study cultural interactions around the world. In the third quarter, for example, they hear about the influence of African culture in lectures by U.S. history teacher Lucas Miller on the Atlantic slave trade and musician and fifth grade teacher Michael Skinkus on AfroCaribbean music, followed by a film, Tootie’s Last Suit, on New Orleans’ own Mardi Gras Indians. And last year, they got a good look, up close and personal, at what it means to be an Indian, when Big Chief Howard Miller of the Creole Wild West tribe brought a suit to Country Day and talked to them about the many strands of cultural interaction that lead from Africa to New Orleans. Chief Miller, a family friend of Country Day alumna Brice Berger, talked about the history of the Indians, explaining that the Creole Wild West tribe is the oldest Mardi Gras organization in New Orleans, black or white. He explained that, because runaway slaves sought refuge with local Native American tribes such as the Houma and intermarried with them, African and Indian culture have a long history of mutual influence. Originally, legal restrictions on the lives of AfricanAmericans, both enslaved and free, motivated New Orleans people of color to form secret societies which allowed them to retain and celebrate their culture, including survivals from Africa such as beadwork and call and response chanting. Indian tribes allowed — and continue to allow — their members to express their identity, Chief Miller told the seniors. “The essence of the indian is an expression of our black self,” he explained in an interview on WWOZ. He told the seniors that he had been “grabbed by the spirit” as a child, drawn
COMMENTS 2019
BY SEAN PATTERSON, DRAMA TEACHER
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One of the things I love most about my position here at Country Day is selecting material for our Middle and Upper School students to explore on stage. If I plan well, or if I’m lucky, there is some unifying aspect that connects the shows. It might be a thematic connection, such as the theme of transformation that unified our 2014-2015 productions of As You Like It, Into the Woods, and Story Theatre. Our 20152016 shows, Macbeth, Grease, Spoon River Anthology, and the devised production The Poe Project, were connected by a more abstract concept, that of outcasts and the ways they strive for inclusion and acceptance or else reject community altogether. It is not a precise science, this connection-making,
of terrific roles. For the musical, I had my heart set on The Mystery of Edwin Drood, a fantastic, clever, musical murder mystery that invites the audience to vote on the solution, resulting in a different ending for every performance. Like Hamlet, it’s a show that demands a lot of its performers; and as both shows involve characters trying to catch a murderer, they seemed to fit well together. For the Middle School presentations, however, I have different factors to consider. All 6th graders take Drama, while 7th and 8th graders may take it as an elective. Beginning in the 2018-2019 academic year, my 6th grade classes were split into semesters, with half the grade taking Drama in the
“The process of selecting those last two adaptations actually foreshadows the real lesson of the season and the school year for me. While the link that ultimately and it occasionally demands some near-Herculean feat of justification to get a particular show to fit. The relatively lightweight Grease, for example, becomes so much more interesting when you see the supposed “cool kids” as more of a band of misfits who’ve formed their own supportive community and now have to decide whether to welcome a newcomer into their circle. Whatever the association, when I can align the shows in a satisfying way, the relationship between those shows undeniably helps me guide instruction from grade to grade and across the divisions. It also helps me teach lessons greater than the shows themselves, things I hope the students can take with them even if they never set another foot on a stage. My understanding of this link between the shows changes and evolves as I plan. Most often, I start my process by picking the shows for the Upper School. I usually choose the Shakespeare production first. I also consider the students who will likely be involved, to make sure there are exciting opportunities for them. For our 2017-2018 season, for example, I began with Hamlet, a challenging show with a slew
fall and the other half in the spring. This meant choosing two shows for 6th grade, as well as a show for the 7th and 8th grade. For the 6th grade, I wanted shows that had relatively equal weight, with content worth exploring over a semester and plenty of characters to give every student a nice chunk to do. Since the fall performance was scheduled for early December, A Christmas Carol seemed like a worthwhile choice; and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland felt like a worthy complement to it for the spring. Both shows feature main characters who take unusual journeys, which led me to The Wind in the Willows, a show I’ve considered for a few years, as the choice for 7th and 8th grade Drama. While it’s a bit quaint nowadays, The Wind in the Willows is witty and heartfelt, and its anthropomorphized characters offer a wonderful opportunity for young actors to develop their skills. Then I began looking for connections between the fiendish mysteries of the Upper School and these fantastical journeys in the Middle School. For instance, the shows all feature heightened language, theatrical dialogue that is in some way exaggerated, poetic, or otherwise non-naturalistic. They are
school year for me: adaptability. In theatre, we’re forever making and remaking plans, trying out different options, collaborating and compromising. Theatre is a discipline which requires flexibility and resilience. Problems that arise in the theatre almost universally require creative solutions, with the daunting question of, “How on earth are we going to do that?” being met with a brave, “Well, what would happen if we try this?” Every production has some complication that must be sorted out. What happens when an actor is too sick to perform? What do we do when we can’t line up a costumer? How do we rehearse a show that’s half-improvised and
connected all those shows was adaptation, what they really brought home for me—and what I hope I passed on to our students—was the importance of adaptability.” depends on audience interaction? How do we pull off a production when we only have 80 minutes a week and there’s barely enough time for the students to learn the lines? There’s always something to solve, and the solutions come from being flexible, resourceful, and adaptable. Even in the 2018-2019 school year, each show presented challenges. For Love’s Labour’s Lost, we had to adjust our performance schedule and replace two actors on short notice. With Mamma Mia, we had to find ways to do the show with fewer guys than we really needed. In 6th grade, we experimented with performing a program of poetry rather than a full-length play; and in the 7th & 8th grade, we explored letting the students do it all, from playwriting and acting to designing and directing in a series of original one-act plays they conceived from one-word concepts. (Unifying theme: Idea and inspiration.) No matter the challenge, the show must go on so we have to get creative. We face the challenges. We take risks. We try something new. We adapt.
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died before he completed his final novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which not only influenced composer Rupert Holmes to consider it as source material for a musical but also inspired the musical’s intriguing structure and multiple endings. There are numerous adaptations of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol; the Royal Shakespeare Company version I chose was extraordinarily faithful to the original text, with much of the language taken directly from the novel. I couldn’t find a similarly faithful adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, so I wrote my own, employing Carroll’s language almost exclusively in both dialogue and narration. I’d been drawn to a beautiful adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows by playwright Alan Bennett; but when the performance rights proved difficult to obtain, I found a more freewheeling version in the spirit of British panto, a performance style similar to vaudeville that I thought would be a lot of fun for the students to experiment with and explore. The process of selecting those last two adaptations actually foreshadows the real lesson of that production season and
COUNTRY DAY
also all period pieces or pieces set in a time period other than right now in the 21st century. They’re all tied to England in some way, either by setting (Drood, Christmas Carol, Alice in Wonderland, Wind in the Willows) or by origin (Hamlet). And, of course, they are all adaptations. Adaptation is the process of taking source material from one medium and re-envisioning or reinterpreting that material for another medium. Shakespeare adapted Hamlet from a Scandinavian legend popularized by another Elizabethan play which is now lost to us, and I adapted it even further by whittling it down from its four-hour length to a more manageable two-hour version. Charles Dickens
Boothby Dinner Members of the class of 1939 through the class of 1994 enjoyed an evening of fun and friends at the annual dinner named after Country Day's headmaster.
Celebrating Meb Norton - 43 Years of Service
35 COMMENTS 2019
– per student. Amy White and the admission team always mention our policy on their tours. We’ve had some feedback from new parents who say this library enrichment helped to tip the scales in our favor. Another time, Meb read a short article in American Libraries Magazine. From the seed it planted grew the Stump the Librarian contest that has been running since 1982. This year we had 187 entries. We have alumni who still participate. There are families who keep a notebook in the car to jot down possible questions. One parent told me her daughter works on her question all year round. Some of our best and brightest students call it a favorite part of the Country Day magic. Then, again, Meb read an article about a research game called Calendar Clue, and lower school students have been playing it ever since, coming in each day to check new clues and hone their research skills. Again, Amy and her tours can tell you all about it. Meb’s abilities have not gone unnoticed on the national scene. She served on the American Association of School Librarians board, representing Independent School Librarians for 3 years, on the Pura Belpré Award Committee of the American Library Association for two years, and on their Caldecott Committee the year they chose Paul Zelinsky’s Rapunzel. And she had a night job! -- Meb spent ten years teaching a class in “Information Literacy and School Library Administration,” at UNO. Bringing it back home, she has been invaluable as Director of Libraries. Her passion is for Country Day and its libraries. She insists that we librarians serve our community – students, faculty, staff, whoever wants to learn – to know. Withal, she is practical – she plays to our strengths and helps us to give our best. She is discerning and does not mind telling us when we go awry. She is encouraging – she gives her all and leads by example. She takes the high road in all of her dealings. Oh, yes, Meb Norton’s voice is probably in your head (listen to it). It is certainly in mine – and I am so glad of it! Thank you, Meb. Meghan Kelly, Lower School Librarian
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Meb and I were sitting at lunch on the lakefront one Saturday, and a woman came up to our table. “You’re Mrs. Norton, aren’t you?” she said in a tone of delight. “Your voice is in my head!” “I remember you reading us stories when I was in lower school.” I think this is a form of immortality! Her voice is in my head, too. I can still remember when I answered a blind ad for a librarian for a private school in Metairie. I got a phone message: “This is Meb Norton from Country Day. Please call to schedule an interview.” “Wow,” I thought. “Country Day – great!” If I knew then what I know now, I might have said, “Wow, Meb Norton – great!” Because, lots of the wow factor of Country Day for, lo these many years, is attributable to Meb Norton. The “Howards” (Howard Barton and Howard Hunter) have spoken of her contributions to middle and upper school, so I will try to limit my praise to her lower school efforts – many of which resound throughout what she has identified as our beloved community. Meb Norton started at Country Day as the lower school librarian in 1975. There was no library program then – she built it all. We now teach 22 classes – with her customary vision and intelligent enthusiasm, she has set us a high standard. One of her great gifts is the ease with which she turns abstract ideas into tangible reality. This might best be illustrated by the lower school library itself. Initially, it was two adjoining classrooms. Meb had the idea to improve it by combining the rooms into one large space. This plan was met with approval, and the demolition project was placed on the “TO BE DONE” list – we all know these lists. Meb grew impatient with the time it was taking so one weekend she, her husband Dwight and her assistant Bonnie Tollefson came in and knocked down the wall. By Monday, it was a fait accompli – and open for business. She went to a conference once and heard noted librarian Dr. David Loertscher talk about an unlimited checkout policy as a central part of the best school library programs in the country. We are the only school in New Orleans that has this – the other ISAS librarians speak of it with awe and a touch of envy since they allow one or two checkouts – total
CASE STUDY
IN MOTION
COMMENTS 2019
BY MARISA LEDET, PHYSICS TEACHER
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Many are impressed by the cosmos, by advances in medicine, or by the latest breakthroughs in science and technology. When I ask other teachers and students about “the great scientific breakthroughs” many respond by citing Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, or Marie Curie. Rightly so, these individuals greatly advanced theories and concepts of physics, discovered new elements, and introduced lifesaving medicines. However, I would argue that watching our students progress through mathematics problems, computational thinking, and design solutions is just as aweinspiring. I guess that’s one of the things that define me as a teacher and as a lover of learning. Below are examples of how Country Day prepares our students for life’s unknowns and for a lifetime of discovery. Here students are completing a rocket lab, where they predict the motion of the rocket based on the calculation of its initial velocity. Students first shoot the rocket straight in the air, and use their stopwatch to measure how long it takes for it to reach the ground. This time is divided by two to get the time to the highest point, where the velocity is known to be 0. Using the equation vf = vi + at, where “a” is the free-fall acceleration of gravity, students can then calculate the initial velocity of the rocket when launched. After they complete this initial calculation, they then launch the rocket at an angle that is measured with a protractor. Using their knowledge of projectile motion, and that gravity only affects the vertical component of their rocket’s velocity, they calculate how far the rocket should travel horizontally. After all the calculations are complete, they test their calculations by firing it near the football field. The distances are always nearly perfect, with some error due to air resistance that cannot be accounted for in an introductory physics class.
The physics course at Country Day exposes students to the mathematics that predicts the outcome of phenomena in the real world, while also challenging them to put to use their knowledge of mathematics into design solutions. These design can be high or low-tech, depending on the situation. For example, one of the high-tech design projects involves the use of whitebox learning software, a program that allows students to master concepts of Newton’s Laws, Center of Mass equations, frictional forces, with an introduction to drag forces, that gives the students the basis to design the fastest dragster. This engineering project involves students switching out wheels, drafting the shape of their cars, etc. to produce the fastest model. These models can then be tested in the simulated software, so that students can make iterations of their designs in a timely and cost effective manner. Another project that students completed, is a traditional design of a vertical loop roller coaster. After studying both conservation of mechanical energy, and circular motion, students have to design a pipe insulation roller coaster for a marble. The two criteria are that the marble has to be able to make it around the top part of a vertical loop, while also keeping the centripetal acceleration at the bottom of the loop to less than 4G’s. Students first calculate their designs then test their marble to see if it works. All activities and projects in the course are designed to give our students the foundation to continue to build their science knowledge from the basics of Newtonian Mechanics, waves and sound, and electricity and magnetism. The course is designed so that students not only observe the natural phenomena, but they can represent it mathematically, make predictions about future outcomes, and to also put their knowledge into new products and designs. That’s magnificent.
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The Country Day Creative Arts Program Experience BY SUSAN GISLESON, CDCA DIRECTOR
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would teach classes that were more like collaborations with children-the original surrealists. For my final summer teaching we built a miniature golf course based on the Odyssey. The kids made their clubs from baluster dowels. Every hole illustrated a different island where Odysseus MA K E LIS TS was stranded. For the island of Polyphemus, the Cyclops, the kids made a garden of giant eyes using slide carousels for the irises. For the Land of the Lotus Eaters they each made a huge flower, the kind you find on Orpheus floats. Country Day Creative Arts culminates with the arts festival. At the end, we display thousands of original works of art outdoors from classes that include projects in drawing, painting, sculpture, mixed media, comics, book making, mosaics, fiber arts, woodworking, costumes, claymation, animation, photography (darkroom and digital), puppetry, robotics, video, and more. We have over 25 performances that include acting, drumming, singing, dancing, Capoeira, Giant puppets, stilt-walking, and Circus arts, to name a few. It is a phenomenal evening that is open to the community, a lot of educators from surrounding schools attend to get ideas for their school year curriculum.
SUMMER FUN
I remember the first time I went to camp. It was 1976, the year when everywhere you looked you saw red, white, and blue. We were performing a skit, and someone put a black flamenco hat with red ball fringe on my head, grabbed a piece of charcoal from a cold BBQ pit, and drew on a mustache. Just like that I was a flamenco dancer! It was epiphanic! When you put on a costume, when you pretend, you can become someone else, if only for a few moments. It awoke my love of costumes and the use of non-conventional materials to tell stories. There is an unmistakable magic of a childhood summer. It’s a relatively short time, only a couple of months, but substantial in terms of a life. Children dream of summer throughout the entire school year. But it is also a time of huge growth, metaphorically and literally. Kids are more willing to try things when they ALLY are not being graded or judged. U S VI In the summer, the days are K N longer, bedtime is later and there is less pressureexcept perhaps for the humidity. I know students who think about CDCA all year long and have a countdown on their phone until the program begins.
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For the last nineteen summers I have been involved in an extraordinary enterprise. It is a collaboration between 400 artists, 75 professional ones and 325 between the ages of seven and 14, which takes place over five glorious weeks on the most beautiful campus in the state of Louisiana. During the five-week program we create a community with kids from over 50 schools in the surrounding parishes. We believe in the limitless ability of children to imagine, to make believe, to dream a world where anything is possible. We create an atmosphere of support that gives our young artists the ability to take risks and grow. I believe in the power of arts education, the power of making things, in the magic of a childhood summer and the impact it can make on a child’s growth and self-esteem. Arts education promotes critical thinking and problem solving as well as exercises the imagination. Imagination is a vital skill; you can’t have empathy, one of the most important human traits, without imagination. Walter Isaacson wrote biographies on Albert Einstein and Leonardo Da Vinci and discovered that what they had in common was the propensity to dream and to ask questions that most people stop asking when they are seven years old: “why is the sky blue?” or “how do birds fly?” Arts education encourages inquiry at all levels. For thirty-seven summers, Country Day Creative Arts (CDCA) has nurtured inquiry in thousands of children. Sara Stevenson created this program, and I would venture to say that she thought about how to make it better every single day. Even before the program starts the kids are part of the process. Art is a series of decisions and participants begin the art making process by choosing what classes they want to take. There are over 120 classes taught every day in visual, performing, and physical arts and these classes are taught by dedicated professional artists who fervently believe in their craft. The kids choose their classes before the program begins from a packet of enticing course descriptions that is 16 pages long. They circle ten from the list but ultimately take five classes a day. We have two full-time schedulers who, over the course of two weeks, make 325 different schedules. Changing classes is a big responsibility for kids, moving from building to building on what is for many a new campus, but they do it and some are seven years old! That in and of itself is a big accomplishment. It demonstrates to them right away that they are capable of big things. I have taught at CDCA for eighteen summers. My background was costume design and for the first two summers I taught classes based on costumes or textiles. I gradually became more interested in sculpture in my personal work-although you could argue that costumes are a type of sculpture. I found that teaching people ages 7-14 was a huge thrill as well as inspirational. Children have an innate inquisitiveness. One summer, I taught an armor class and one of the boys found a box of pull tabs from soda cans and used them to make chainmail for his helmet. He saw the world and the materials around him with a different perspective. One of the great assets of the program is Country Day’s campus. Every summer the courtyard is transformed. I
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I believe in the power of make believe, the power of creativity. I believe imagination is important. Inventions require imagination. The printing press wasn’t conceived of as a whole; it was a modified wine press. Guttenberg saw one machine and imagined another. It is an integral part of evolution. Walter Isaacson wrote, “What made Leonardo a genius, what set him apart from people who are merely extraordinarily smart, was creativity, the ability to apply imagination to intellect. His facility for combining observation with fantasy allowed him, like other creative geniuses, to make unexpected leaps that related things seen to things unseen.” For years CDCA has explored countless ways of making art. We have embraced technology as another tool, another way to express ideas. This summer we will be offering classes in Adobe Photoshop, filmmaking as well as classes that will have projects that explore projection mapping, green screen technology, robotics, and understanding electricity. During the summer, these sophisticated tools co-exist with the understanding of the importance of play. That play is research for children to understand the world around them.
Past CDCA Program Director Sara Stevenson began her career in community organizing. She knew that community is essential to a happy life; that to connect to the people and events around you, FO results in an enriched and meaningful RI KE TS O experience. At Country Day Creative N SA W Arts, we have children from over 50 different schools. We create community through a shared space, our beautiful courtyard, and experiences such as Morning Meeting, Picnic Lunch, and our Noon Time Program where the kids experience a different performance every day. For the first two weeks of the program, the performances are by staff and community partners, but the last three weeks are performances by kids for kids. It is extraordinary to see what they can accomplish in just a few weeks. CDCA creates a culture of support. One of the purposes of our Noon Time Program is to teach the kids how to be a good audience. It takes a lot of courage to perform on stage and having a respectful and enthusiastic audience makes it worth it. Before the program begins, the kids sign the CDCA pledge which states that they will show respect to people and property. They learn how to make art as well as how to protect it. When the courtyard is filled with art, they know it is something to be respected and appreciated. Community gives a sense of security. We give our young artists security to take risks in a safe environment. Doing something you’ve never done before can be scary. We give them encouragement and support to try new things, use new tools, and that is very empowering. There is a great sense of accomplishment when you have an idea, develop it, and then make it a reality. Those two things: security and purpose are the roots of happiness. Sara Stevenson created a program that is founded on respect, the importance of community, and the belief that children are capable of great things. I’ve always thought of it like Brigadoon, a mythical village in the Scottish Highlands that is based on pure imagination. CDCA has a magical quality because it is composed of artists and children who collaborate to make an extraordinary experience. As we enter our 37th year, my goal is to continue this tradition of excellence, inquiry, and exploration, to create a world SY where anything is possible. TA While reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Leonardo da Vinci, I couldn’t help but recognize the similarities between the lessons he gleaned from da Vinci’s life and the daily machinations of Country Day Creative Arts.
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Immanuel Kant famously said, “I think therefore I am.” For me it has always been, “I make therefore I am.” I had a 1970’s childhood. I watched Sesame Street whose name came from the magic of “Open, Sesame,” something hidden, a mystery, coming to view. I watched O BS E R V E Mr. Rogers who spoke to children as if they were thinking, feeling human beings and not simpletons or playthings. He showed us how the world worked: the wonders of mechanics, mesmerizing Rube Goldberg machines, how one thing causes another and the importance of other people in the world, those who live next door. Down the street from us lived a woman who did art projects with kids all summer long as well as seasonal crafts. I still have a styrofoam Christmas ornament I made with her. She taught me the power of making things. That making things gives life purpose, gives life meaning. I remember taking scraps and sewing them together into squares and the squares into a quilt. Another time, we made marionettes with a wooden block for the body, dowels for the legs, and arms and a ball for the head. I learned that the word for doll comes from the word “idol” and that the word bead comes from the word to pray, “bede.” Working with children is, in itself, very rewarding but there is something really special about creating artwork with them. Childhood is only a fraction of our life and yet it informs who we are as adults. Their development is so rapid in terms of manual dexterity as well as grasping different concepts and ideas that their artistic abilities change greatly from year to year. A painting done one summer encapsulates that time and holds onto that moment in their life like an insect in amber. It is almost as though you can look back in time by looking through their art.
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American Association of School Librarians, “Shared Foundations: Engage,” National School Librarian Standards, last modified 2018, https://standards.aasl.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/SharedFoundations_Engage_2017.pdf. 2 Future Ready Librarians, “Empowering Leadership for School Librarians through Innovative Professional Practice,” Future Ready Schools, last modified June 2018, https://1gu04j2l2i9n1b0wor2zmgua-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/ Library_flyer_download.pdf. 3 Joyce Valenza, “Library as Domestic Metaphor,” Neverending Search (blog), entry posted August 25, 2008, http://blogs.slj.com/neverendingsearch/2008/08/25/library-as-domesticmetaphor/. 1
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Two national organizations unveiled new professional standards for school librarians, each highlighting the important role school librarians play in developing students’ media literacy. The American Association of School Librarians’ National School Library Standards ask librarians to help students “effectively communicate new ideas while acknowledging and respecting intellectual property rights.”1 The Future Ready Librarians Framework encourages librarians to empower learners to “become increasingly self-directed as they create digital products of their learning that engage them in critical thinking, collaboration, and authentic, real-world problem solving.”2 Librarians have always been concerned with media literacy. The earliest scrolls and tablets could be labeled as media, and librarians throughout time have collected and curated media in a variety of formats including books, manuscripts, academic journals, and DVDs, all in an effort to preserve knowledge and make it available to their patrons. Libraries are still places where patrons come to find and retrieve information (yes, even in the age of Google) in service of satisfying curiosity and synthesizing and sharing knowledge. In her 2008 blog post entitled “Library as Domestic Metaphor,” Rutgers professor Joyce Valenza, former school librarian and Assistant Teaching Professor of Library and Information Science at Rutgers School of Communication and Information, encouraged librarians to think of their spaces as kitchens rather than grocery stores. “Our libraries should not be grocery stores. We need to use those groceries, to open the boxes, pour the milk, mix the batter, make a mess. We need production space. We need to serve up our creations in presentation or story space. We need to inspire masterpieces of all sorts.”3 Valenza imagined school libraries as a space where patrons not only browsed and collected ideas, but mixed and experimented with them in an effort to create something new. This shift in mindset has significant implications for how we teach media literacy. It is still important for students to understand how media is made and distributed, how to identify a source’s authority, purpose, and point of view, and how to develop healthy habits of media consumption. It is also important to acknowledge that any definition of media literacy falls short if it fails to acknowledge our students as media producers. We know that smartphones and computers have empowered students to create content while social media platforms have allowed them to bypass traditional gatekeepers such as editors and publishers (and parents) to share their work with a wide audience. What is the school library’s role in this new media landscape? It is still important to continue our work of teaching students how to identify quality sources, how to seek out a variety of viewpoints in service of making informed decisions when producing scholarly work, and how to share that work responsibly and ethically. What has changed is our desire to support students’ roles as media producers - beyond the traditional research paper - and how this mindset can potentially open up dynamic, engaging pathways to teaching traditional media literacy skills related to consumption. As always, Country Day’s Bright Library is here to help students find and use quality media. As we look to the future, we also want to be a resource for stakeholders who are developing as media producers. A new video production lab - complete with green screen, camera and lighting equipment, and editing stations - as well as a sound recording room for creating podcasts and interviews is now available to students. With this ever-changing landscape before us, we can be certain of one thing; librarians will always have a place in supporting their community in collecting, synthesizing, and sharing information. h
A Tale of Country Day Headmasters
BY ALAN MALONE, CLASS OF 1960
COUNTRY DAY
45 COMMENTS 2019
My family arrived in New Orleans at the beginning of the summer of 1956. I was 14 years old at the time and had always attended public schools. Some members of our church persuaded my father that there was an exceptional private school in Metairie to which he should send me, taking advantage of one of the crown jewels of the progressive school movement, Metairie Park Country Day School. Thus, it was that I found myself in Mr. Boothby’s office being interview by the great man himself in hopes of qualifying for acceptance into the Class of 1960. Little did I know that the interview was the first of many contacts I’d have with various heads of the school. As a matter of fact, I only missed meeting one Country Day Headmaster, Mr. Carter Hall. I had various interactions with all the others. Here is my take on some of the illustrious individuals who have led the School throughout my life, starting at age 14 and ending at the present time, as I enjoy a continuing relationship with this wonderful school. Mr. Boothby was retiring that summer. As the founder of Metairie Park Country Day, he had been its only headmaster since the founding of the institution in 1929. Of course, I had no idea that this earth-shaking transition was taking place; but, looking back, two vivid impressions remain with me from my brief period of interaction with this legendary man. The first was that listening is an important part of a conversation. Mr. Boothby was a very talkative individual. He did about ninety percent of the talking during that initial interview, and I listened attentively to his every word. As we parted, he complimented me on being a good conversationalist. It took a while before I could make sense of that compliment. At first, I thought it pretty odd that he had judge me a good conversationalist when he had done all of the talking. But I think he was right, and I have remembered that incident ever since and tried to keep my mouth in check when another party gets up a good head of steam in the talking department. The other memorable Boothby interaction came later in the year when I was resting my brain out in the courtyard. Mr. Boothby would sometimes come to the campus and wander around. On this day, he approached me, something obviously on his mind. “What are you up to, young man?” he inquired. “Good morning, sir,” I replied. “I just finished all of my assignments for the day, and don’t have anything else to do right now.” “Have you read every book in the library?” he asked. I have a hunch I wasn’t the first young loafer to get that question from our founder. I don’t know whether this has any direct connection to that incident, but I now read a minimum of fifty pages a day and love it. Mr. Nelson took over the management of the School following Mr. Boothby’s retirement. He also took an active interest in the affairs of his students. I remember participating in something they called a “senior privilege” a few years later. After lunch, any senior who wanted to participate could repair to Mr. Nelson’s office for a gettogether with the head. This was in 1959, and the Surgeon General had not yet warned us of the deleterious effects of smoking. When we were participating in what amounted to a bull session in the office of the head, we were allowed to smoke if we wanted to. Of course, we all wanted to. Never turn down a privilege when it’s offered. The rule was that we could discuss any topic that anyone wanted to bring up, and we were free to express our opinions as we saw fit. Debate was supposed to be open and respectful, but there was to be no discussion when it came to matters of fact. It was one of our first exposures to the notion that we were entitled to our opinions but not to our facts. That’s a concept that seems to have lost some of its stylishness in recent times. Following my graduation, I got busy with some other matters as I passed through that difficult portal between adolescence and adulthood. During this time, I acquired two degrees, a wife, two years of experience teaching tenth-graders at West Jefferson High
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School, and six years teaching people to fly at Lakefront Airport. During this interval I was out of touch with Country Day School, and I missed the balance of Mr. Nelson’s tenure, all of Mr. Hall’s and most of Mr. Wright’s. I know nothing about Mr. Hall except that I have seen his picture hanging on the wall in the room that used to be the library and is now a boardroom. I returned to my alma mater in the early ‘70s, having been offered a job teaching physical science. These were the days of double-digit inflation, and I hadn’t been getting any raises in pay out at the airport. One day, I went to the shop to pick up my Volkswagen Beetle and found that I didn’t have enough money in the bank to pay for the repairs. “What’s wrong with this picture?” I asked myself. “Here I am, a man of privilege who holds two college degrees, and I’m not making enough money to support a Volkswagen Beetle!” I am perhaps the first person in the history of western civilization to seek a job teaching school to increase my income. Mr. Wright received me in his office for my final interview, the one where we talked cash. I told him how little I had been making, and that I hoped that he could do somewhat better for me. The most lasting impression I had of Mr. Wright was how enthusiastically he supported my wish for better remuneration and that he promised he’d try his best to do right by me when he reviewed the matter with the board. Once again, I was joining the land of the daisies. Even though I was hired by Mr. Wright, it was Mr. Saltzman who took the reins the next school year. He was my favorite. Mr. Saltzman had been a fellow English major and thought it was cool that a guy with a graduate degree in that subject was coming aboard as a science teacher. I think he also liked that I wasn’t a professional teaching drone but carried with me a variety of interests and skills. Some years later he commented about another recent hire that that individual would probably be a spectacular success or a spectacular failure as a member of the Country Day teaching staff. I suspect that he held the same opinion of me in my initial months of employment. I now know you’re not supposed to do this, but I became good friends with Mr. Saltzman. He and his wife liked to hold faculty dinner parties, and my wife and I attended the little get-togethers regularly. It was a good way to keep his finger on the pulse of faculty affairs, and it also served to keep up morale among the teachers. I was sorry to see the Saltzmans leave; but, as Robert Frost’s poem states, “nothing gold can stay.” Ned Becker was next on the list of my employers. Ned saw a glaring flaw in the way the first two administrators had been operating, that flaw being that they were trying to pay the bills using only tuition money. Particularly in the area of maintenance, things had been suffering from neglect as a result of a lack of funds. Mr. Becker started a development program. “Development,” it turned out, was another word for fund-raising. He started a capital campaign in an effort to keep up with the double-digit inflation that had been inflicting our society and to pay for replacing some leaking roofs, drain pipes, and electrical circuits that were in need of attention. Mr. Becker said that he liked to hire competent individuals and then get out of their way and let them do their jobs. I appreciated that sentiment. I couldn’t remember a single time when my job had been made easier, or when I had been helped to be a more effective teacher. Mr. Becker resigned, and the School looked to hired an interim head to run the school while they could mount a search for a new permanent headmaster. The rule was that the interim head would serve for a limited term of employment, probably on the order of two school years, while the process had a chance to identify qualified candidates for our next permanent head. Supposedly, the interim head would not be a candidate for the permanent job. The interim person they selected was Dr. David Drinkwater. Dr. D, as I called him, was a very different kind of administrator. He developed a concept of involving the employees of the School in reorganizing the place to effect better efficiency. This approach made him somewhat controversial; and when he fell in love with the School and decided to throw his hat into the ring as a prospective permanent head, he became even more so. I liked Dr. D. He was extremely articulate and seemed well organized. At the end of the process, Country Day’s Board hired him as our next headmaster, and he went to work. Everybody was put onto a committee to work on some aspect of creating and implementing a plan to remodel the campus to create a more orderly flow of learning that would put less emphasis on the divisions among lower, middle, and upper schools. As an example, the dining room at the time was too small to accommodate
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the number of students as our population had grown over the years. It was necessary to have three separate seatings for lunch, and the serving of these meals had to be done on an inflexible schedule that sometimes interfered with the scheduling of other events during the day. Since the upper levels worked on a rotating schedule, it was particularly clumsy when guest speakers and field trips had to be worked into the mix. The solution was to enlarge the dining room so that more people could be seated and time could be freed up for other things. As much as I enjoyed working for Dr. D, I had come to a juncture in my life when the time demands of teaching and of keeping up with my secondary occupation of examining pilot candidates for the FAA were preventing me from starting anything new. For example, I had always wanted to write a novel. But there simply wasn’t time in my busy life to do that. My wife and I liked to travel, but prime travel time happened when kids were in school, and we were blocked from participating in some things we fancied that took place during the spring and the fall. So, at age 55, I decided to pull the plug on my teaching career. In 1998, I bid adieu to the teaching “profession” and set out to gain control of my own schedule. Not too long after that, a horrible storm had its way with the campus and drove many of our community out of town. Dr. Drinkwater had been pulling up stakes in preparation for leaving his post; but a steady, experienced hand at the helm was needed at this time, and he stayed behind to assist his replacement in getting the place back into functional shape. Thus, it was that we had two heads for a while. Carolyn Chandler was due to replace Dr. D. in the Head’s office, and the two of them had a cooperative relationship for a while during the recovery. I met Mrs. Chandler at a gathering of some old-timers on campus. Someone had gotten the idea that it would be a good idea to expose some newly hired staff to some of us veterans of the good old days, in an effort to acclimate them to the culture. The new head knew my name and greeted me like an old friend. She had a remarkable personal magnetism that made you an instant friend and ally. I’d appear, once in a while, for various functions on campus such as alumni weekends, and Carolyn would always look me up and have a conversation about something I’d be interested in. For example, I remember our talking for about a half-hour about what would be a good title for my novel. In the entire span of her leading the school, I never once heard anyone complain about her. When you think about the many groups with sometimes conflicting interests that a head has to handle, like a juggler with five balls in the air, that’s a remarkable achievement. She was one of those people who were married to the job; but that status never seemed to lead to burn-out, as it so often does with average administrators. Maybe she could see the end of a career looming on the horizon, but she certainly had a spectacular run as the first female head of school. It seems that she was also able to bring the master plan to fruition, with several new buildings going up and lots of remodeling taking place at the end of her tenure. Mr. Neely took over during the summer of 2017. It was a while before I had a chance to meet him. I understand that he did some traveling around the country to introduce himself to some community members who had not yet returned to New Orleans. I was looking forward to a meet-and-greet that he held in January for some graduates in the new Coleman Family Dining Room’s private dining space. He shook my hand and greeted me warmly. Unfortunately, right in the middle of our conversation, I was afflicted with aphasia, an inability to recall the words needed to form a sentence. The new head literally left me speechless! It turned out to be a very minor stroke, a so-called “TIA” that demanded my immediate presence in the emergency room of the nearest hospital; so I missed the remainder of that affair. I later had a chance to talk with him some more during the Boothby Club dinner and at the Crawfish Boil the next day. I got the impression that there’s a lot of substance within that attractive exterior. I’m looking forward to getting to know Mr. Neely much better and hoping that I can help him to succeed at the very challenging job he has taken on. That’s the story of my sometimes-brief encounters with eight of our nine heads-ofschool. They’re an eclectic collection of individuals and I count myself fortunate to have known them. h
Alumni Crawfish Boil
A Conversation with Shay Steckler BY SHAY STECKLER 2002
For many students, school brings a sense of boredom and dread. When graduation comes, they don’t come back for visits, but if you’ve ever attended or been around Country Day, you know that feeling is not prevalent here. In her May 2018 speech at graduation, Senior Class President Camille Shall stated, “Country Day is not just a school. It is so much more. It is not only the curriculum, but how it’s taught; not only the teachers, but the entire staff and the relationships made; not only the traditions, but the experiences we have had with these traditions.” This sense of belonging to the Country Day community can be felt not only at graduation, but at alumni events around the country and daily on campus. There is something unique about Country Day; most students like to come back, visit, and connect with their fellow grads. Some of us like it so much, we apply for jobs. Thus, there is a unique group of faculty on campus who have the shared experience of being alumni of Country Day. It’s a group that is fully invested in the success of the School, because it’s our School. It’s our home. I sat down with three of them last summer to talk about what being a faculty alum means to them and to chat about memories surrounding these shared experiences. Caitlin Hesse Collier, class of 1987, spent six years as a student and has just finished her twelfth year working here as the Lower School counselor. Alyce Newlin Hesse, class of 1997, is a thirteen year vet who has finished her sixteenth year here teaching Upper School math. Charlotte Haygood Gregory, class of 1998, is also a thirteen year vet who for the past ten years has been a K-1-2 coteacher and PMK teacher. Finally, I was a student for ten years and have been here twelve years teaching Middle School French. Mostly there was laughter and “oh yeahs” as we reminisced. Shay Steckler: First things first. Are you red or blue? Caitlin Collier: Red
AH: Yeah, I was a little surprised there. I was really feeling blue. CC: As soon as I realized the mistake, I told Maggie Millet, and she said, “Oh well, too late now. You’re red.” So there’s no going back.
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Charlotte Gregory: Red
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Alyce Hesse: Blue SS: Blue CC: Oooh, half and half. AH: It’s interesting to me how I always felt that some people were very red or very blue. It’s hard to describe what that means, but I always had a sense of it. CC: Can I tell you a funny story? When I started here, Maggie Millet, one of my teachers, said to me, “Do you remember if you were red or blue?” And I said, “I really don’t remember but for some reason red comes to mind.” She said, “Ok, because the records from your year are gone. We lost them in Katrina. So I don’t know what you are.” I said, “Ok, red’s fine.” Well, guess what, I was actually blue so my family is really mad at me. Audible gasps from the rest of us. AH: I was just gonna say I was feeling a little blue there. CC: Well, now we are all red. SS: You made everyone switch? Was Shelley like, “What are you doing? “[Shelley is Caitlin’s sister.] CC: Shelley said, “Oh my God, we were blue, Caitlin!” I was like, “Oopsies.”
SS: How long were you gone from Country Day? Do you know what I mean? For instance, I was gone a total of five years because I went to college and then to France. CC: A long time. Can I use a calculator? AH: I was gone for six years – college, and I lived in Birmingham, and I was an engineer. It’s scary when I think about it. Plus I was a 13 year vet. I’ve been here a long time. CC: I’m doing my calculations. What year did I start? CG: I think I was gone between eight and ten years because I went to college, and then I taught a couple of other places. Then when I came back to New Orleans originally, I was at a different school. Then Katrina happened, and I went back to grad school. I think it’s more like eight or ten. CC: Ok. [Caitlin holds up her phone’s calculator to show us.] Me, twenty. SS: That was a long hiatus. Fellow teacher and alumna Jenny Irwin refers to this as “the missing years.” CC: I’m glad I did everything in those twenty years before coming back. CG: Yeah, I agree.
SS: Are there teachers on campus now who taught you?
AH: Yup, Suzanne Perlis taught me. Ms. Plauche, too. A lot of the Lower School teachers were here.
Everyone in unison: Yes.
CG: Sandy Thornburg was here.
SS: Do you call them by their first names, and is it weird for you to do so?
SS: Who were your teachers in Lower School?
AH: I call everybody by their first name except Mr. Beachy, and I have really struggled with Howard Hunter.
AH: We were in room 5 together. I loved Ms. O’Neil.
CC: That was mine! AH: - Because he was Coach Hunter forever. CC: Me too! Yes. SS: I remember calling him Howard for the first time. We walked past each other on the walkway, and by the way, this was definitely year two or three for me, and I said, “Hey, Howard,” and then in my head I thought, “Oh my god! I can’t believe I just did that.” I was freaking out. Also Ms. Powell. I never did call her anything but Mrs. Powell. CC: Oh, I think I called her Mrs. Powell, too. CG: I saw her recently and called her Mrs. Powell. CC: It’s hard for me to say Bill for Mr. Beachy whereas for Mary Beth Ellis it was day one, “Hey, Mary Beth.” AH: See that’s funny cuz I call her Madame now but I didn’t call her Madame in class. I called her Mrs. Ellis. CC: Yeah, we called her Mrs. Ellis. AH: Now I call her Madame. CC: Now I call her Mary Beth, but she was easy, at least for me. Well, I was really close to her as a student. It wasn’t a leap for me. I was super comfortable with her because I could be myself. CG: If I ever ran into Louis P., I’d still call him Louis P. He loved our class. CC: We called him Monsieur.
CC: I wonder what mine was. Wait, remember how he’d have those colored things for the exam for orals? SS: I forgot about that! CC: When it was your turn you had to go pick your color. AH: Yes! He always had those. He took all the pictures for athletics, remember? And at the Athletic Banquet, you’d walk through the hall, and all of his pictures would be displayed. SS: He took the pictures for the shows, too Anyone else? CG: Barry Kaiser was my photography teacher. CC: I had Maggie Millet. AH: Anyone else who had me in class? Ms. Petersen. See, when I talk about being a student, I revert back to calling them by last names. Well, Mrs. Irwin was here. Jenny was here. She never taught me, but she was here. CG: Suzanne Perlis.
SS: I came in third, and I had Sally Treuting in Room 9. AH: I had Marsha Biguenet in Room 10. CC: So you have a lot of your teachers. AH: A lot of my teachers are still here. SS: How does being an alum help you connect with your current students? CG: My students love to know that I went to Country Day, and it’s fun because they always ask what room I was in, or they ask what did I like to do as a little kid, that kind of thing. It’s fun to talk to them about it. AH: Mine, well, the high school kids can go for a while without realizing it, and then they’ll say, “Oh, you went here?” Sometimes they are interested, and sometimes they are not interested. Or they ask if I had a certain teacher. SS: I was going to say they get more interested in shared teachers. AH, Yes, I think in my 20s it helped me connect with them more, but now I’m just old. Like, you have four kids, you must be really old. SS: For the record, Alyce is not old. AH: I know, but to them I am, right? Think about when you were in high school and think about someone who was forty. That was old. Right? CC: The Lower Schoolers think it’s cool. It’s definitely a connection, but I could see that with the older kids. SS: Yeah, I can connect with the sixth graders because they have Suzanne, and I had her my senior year, and when they find that out they are in disbelief and excited at the same time. They ask, “Did she do this then?” and “Did she whatever then?” Caitlin, do you get to connect with any of the kids like that? CC: Yeah, they think it’s cool or fun. They may want to ask questions. I wasn’t in Lower School, but they will ask what room I was in. CG: We talk a lot about it in PMK because the fact that I do the puzzles. I remember doing those puzzles as a kid. I remember learning chess when I was a kid in PMK. So those specific things that I teach in PMK now, you know it’s fun to share that with the students because they can start to imagine themselves a little bit as a grown up or maybe as a teacher, too. That’s fun. SS: I definitely feel a connection not only with my middle school students, but also with the students who participate in the drama productions. That was my favorite thing in high school, and now I get to do the choreography and work
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AH: Oh yeah, I remember that!
CC: Cute. I came in seventh grade.
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CG: Everyone in the class had a French name. You turned into a French person when you walked into the classroom so you had to choose your own name, and his was Louis Philippe.
AH and CG: Ms. O’Neil!
with them, and I just adore it. We will frequently talk at rehearsals about shared experiences being backstage during a show or at rehearsals. CC: I think for me, it helps with the parents sometimes because they know that I grew up in this environment, this school culture, and you know, that I understand different elements of it. AH: Right. SS: You’re right. I always say at my spiel at Open House, which you’ve attended five years now, Caitlin, that I learned French in this program. It’s like you’re a commercial for the school. Charlotte: You’re your own advertisement. CC: It’s true. Part of what I say when I talk to parents sometimes is that being at Country Day as a student shaped my development as a person. 100%. The relationships that I had here, growing up in this community, my friends, the teachers, all of it really shaped my development. That for me is where I find that connection. SS: What does being a faculty alum mean to you in terms of our role in the community and with our colleagues? CC: For me, I think we have our own history. It adds another layer to our investment in the community and our understanding of the community and our connection.
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SS: I like being a part of a niche group within the community. It’s fun, even if you didn’t go to school with these people, that we have a shared experience.
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AH: There’s something that you get having been a student here that I don’ think you get if you weren’t. There are a lot of things that I take for granted. It’s hard for me to answer when someone asks, “What do I need to know?” or “What is the culture like?” It’s so normal for me, and it’s so natural, that I don’t even know how to articulate it sometimes. CG: In new faculty meetings, there was a new teacher once who told me, “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about how loud it would be in the gym at the opening assembly.” That’s right. It is loud, but we all know it’s going to be loud. But walking into that gym for the first time, on the first day of school, could certainly be overwhelming. CC: Oh yes - the energy! SS: It’s not the volume that takes me aback. It’s when everyone sings Flags Fly For Country Day. You know from the perspective of a new person, it’s probably really weird. CC: Whereas, I love it. It makes me all teary. CG: I get emotional. CC: I do. I get emotional. And every year, the bell ringing makes me emotional. AH: The bell ringing really means it’s the end of the school year. SS: The bell ringing is my favorite tradition. CC: It’s great. It’s a great tradition, but I think we have that history within ourselves. It’s part of your experience here.
CG: It feels stronger. SS: Can we talk about the weird phenomenon that no one ages or changes? AH: Madame is going to look just the same for forever. CC: Mimi Landry is like that. CG: Betsy Petersen looks exactly the same. SS: She does look exactly the same! CG: So does Marsha. CC: I said that when I first started working here to Madame and to Diana Powell, who looked exactly the same. I told them, “I want this to rub off on me!” SS: That’s why I applied for the job! CC: The CD fountain of youth. I think if you love what you do everyday, it helps you. And being around the kids, all that energy keeps you young. CG: I remember there were some friends from college when I decided to come back and teach who said, “Why would you want to go back to the school where you attended as a student?” They had their own visions of what their lives were like in school, and it was negative for them, and I just kept saying, “No, it feels just like home. It actually is a wonderful job opportunity.” CC: It’s that full circle. I used to say, when I was living in Oregon, that working here would be my dream job that I’d love to work at CD. I’d love to be the counselor. That was part of the reason I went in to social work and in to mental health was because of my experience here. People would say, “Well, you kinda have to move back to New Orleans. You live in Oregon.” And it all worked out, and I had that full circle moment, too. SS: Is there something that happened as a student that changed or is there a tradition that you still appreciate? CC: Well I did not appreciate this, but when I started in 7th grade, they still told the students that they would have to ride a goat. I was completely, beyond terrified until a very sweet boy (who shall rename nameless) leaned over and told me it was joke and no one was really going to make me ride a goat. Thank goodness. He’s still a very good friend of mine! CG: Do they still do Daisy Day? AH: It’s different. Instead of girls vs. boys it’s now red vs. blue. SS: That changed recently. AH: Yeah, just in the last few years. So there’s now a red daisy day and a blue daisy day. CG: So is there a daisy queen and king? AH: I don’t even know. SS: I don’t think they do that anymore. AH: Yeah, I don’t think so, but there is someone who wins. SS: Right, someone wins but there’s no king or queen.
AH: Maybe they do it at a game. Maybe.
AH, CG, CC: ...and applesauce!
CC: Maybe so.
AH: I loved that. I loved some of the desserts we used to have.
AH: There were things in Homecoming Week. Didn’t there used to be a faculty skit or something?
SS: Those were so good.
SS: Yes, skit night.
CG: Really?
AH: I’m not saying I feel the need to bring that back, but as a student I remember that. CC: Someone, maybe the principal, used to be Santa. Who was that? Was that the Head of School? SS: Ronnie dressed up as Santa. CG: Aw, Ronnie. CC: Well someone did for us, and it was the goofiest. I remember laughing until I cried. The teachers were dressed as elves. SS: Wait, we didn’t talk about the dining and maintenance staff. There are current maintenance staff members who know me from being a student. AH: Oh, yes. CC: Carol! She’s gone now, but Carol was my person who I really remember.
AH: The upper schoolers don’t do the crouton thing as much. CC: Any excuse to eat a crouton in Lower School. Oooh, more croutons please! CG: Croutons and rice! CC: Yeah, I started the vinegar on my red beans here. No one in my family does that. That was definitely a Country Day thing. AH: Yeah, for sure. CC: ...but I love it. SS: Cheese buns? CG: Yes. AH: Yeah, I do love a cheese bun. CC: I love a cheese bun. No tuna, just the cheese bun. SS: Oh, no, no, no. You gotta have the tuna. AH: I sometimes do the tuna.
CG: Kenny was my bus driver.
SS: You gotta have the tuna and the fritos to dip.
SS: Well, Kenny and Wayne and Ronnie gave me such a hard time, teasing me for fun.
SS: Yes!
SS: Last topic. Lunch. Do y’all have any opinions on lunch? I just know that Alyce and I have talked about how we’re sick of red beans and rice. AH: I eat them now sometimes, but for the first ten years I worked here I could not eat them. CC: I don’t cook them at home.
CC: Really? I love them. CG: I think it’s my favorite lunch. SS: What’s your favorite lunch? AH: Now my favorite lunch, that we did not have when I attended Country Day...Thai chicken curry. CC: I have to say I love that, too. CG: The other day there were parents here for Louisiana Day, and we were serving red beans and rice and the parents asked why there were croutons on the table. SS, CC, and AH: And vinegar! CG: The vinegar made more sense, but they were very stumped by the croutons. I tried to explain to them why and what they used to look like when they were teeny tiny. SS: You know what else we don’t have anymore? Ginger snaps and...
SS: Yes, and a pickle. CC: Do you put your tuna on the cheese bun? AH: Depends on the day. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. Depends on the day. CC: For me, it’s straight up cheese bun. SS: Do you get a pickle? CC: No. I love pickles, but not on cheese bun day. I don’t know. Just straight up cheese buns. SS: This is great: How do you take your cheese bun? The best is when it’s Mississippi Mud for dessert that day. That is the perfect lunch. AH: Ooh, so good. You gotta get the one that has the extra vanilla wafers. CC, CG, SS: Yes! Unfortunately, our time was up here, though I’m positive we could’ve kept talking - especially about our favorite teachers and meals. Faculty alum don’t all get together that often, but when we do, it is like a family reunion. (One where they serve cheese buns.)
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CC: I do love the red beans and rice.
CG: And a pickle.
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SS: They are delicious, but 20 years, every other Wednesday, I just can’t do it.
CG: To dip the fritos in the tuna!
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Celebrating Madame Mary Beth Ellis
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A number of years ago I asked the academic departments to take stock on why we do what we do, under the notion that healthy institutions need to be self-critical in order to justify their existence. The request was hardly met with universal acclaim. After all, what we teach is justified by the fact that we teach it, the unassailable logic of the petitio principii, or what we would now call begging the question. Yet after some reflection the responses were thoughtful and utilitarian – the importance of academics as preparation for navigating the treacherous waters of higher academe as well as the work place were the major concerns of the faculty. That is except for the French department, who saw utility as secondary, and justified their existence primarily on the aesthetics of French language and culture as ends in themselves, a simple, elegant raison d’etre, or we might say a mighty blow for Platonic idealism. And it seemed all the more appropriate since year after year a poetic synchronization is taking place with a beautiful woman teaching the magnificence of French literature, art, film, history, and philosophy, always within the nuances of the language. Aesthetics in this case is no small matter because it is beauty that makes life worth living, especially in a world where the meretricious and vulgar are only a click away. Most of you are familiar with the story of Madame since it has become the stuff of legend. A young teacher fresh out of grad school at La Sorbonne and the Paris riots of 1968, convincing seventy-something Livingston DeLancey to completely retool the French curriculum from the doldrums and ennui of translation to a focus on speaking and intellectual engagement. The result has been a second to none French program that ultimately gained international recognition when Madame was made a chevalier in L’ordre des Palmes Academiques in 2013 by the French government. But I want to conclude with aesthetics. In Madame’s career thousands of her students have graduated fluent in French. Yet there are a number of her students, who have also known the ineffable joy of aesthetic transcendence, the experience of being swept away by the French language and culture for its own sake. This in my estimation is Madame’s greatest gift to both her students and the Country Day community. And if we are to take stock in what has been a brilliant career and vocation, I don’t think it gets better than that. – G. Howard Hunter
At L’Orangerie in Paris in an oval-shaped gallery hangs Monet’s giant canvases of Water Lilies. They run the length of the room completely enveloping the onlooker. This work of art is overwhelming with its mélange of colors evoking peace and serenity. It renders one speechless as it is so mesmerizing in its conveyance of beauty that we are drawn to it and don’t want to look away. So too is this work of art. Mary Beth evokes a peaceful serenity, and we are overwhelmed to be in her presence. She has not only taught the nuances of French grammar to her students, but we learned about philosophy, literature, art, meditation, compassion, and love. Her strong sense of spirituality is at the heart of all of her lessons, and so is her sense of fun. Funny story, Mary Beth and I stood in line to go into L’Orangerie for over an hour before we realized that we were in fact in a line for an Easter Egg hunt in the Tuileries. I guess somehow, we didn’t notice that we were the only people in line without small children. Naturally, this did not phase her at all. She chalked it up to the universe giving us an hour to spend together. Being in her presence in and out of the classroom is a transformative experience. There is no false move on her part. Everything she does is with the grace and intent of a humble master of her craft. Whether it is teaching the past conditional or the four noble truths of Buddhism, like Monet’s masterpiece, she bestows upon all of us an overwhelming sense of beauty. “We are all walking each other home,” says Ram Dass. How lucky we are that we get to walk some of the way with you, Mary Beth. – Shay Steckler
Madame Mary Beth Ellis’s 50th Year Celebration
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