the index · features
Page 8
June 2021
Ms. Waring departs to pursue life-long goal Tyler Zimmer ’21
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ining the Lower School halls are sculptures you could find nowhere else. Every year, Ms. Jenny Waring’s first project for her students is a collaborative monster. Made out of PVC pipes, cardboard, and papier-mâché, students from each grade create the annual sculpture. This year’s monster is called “JW Fang,” named by her protégés to commemorate Ms. Waring’s final year at Haverford. “In 1999, some of the kids were finishing up early, and I had a bunch of junk in the corner that I hadn’t decided what to do with,” Ms. Waring said. “My third graders wanted to do something with it.” Twenty-two monsters later, Waring’s project has become a hallmark of lower school art. Students love this project, but they really love Ms. Waring. “All of the art teachers here are actually artists on their own, so the school trusts us to teach in the way that we like to teach and whatever fires our inspiration,” Ms. Waring said. One of Waring’s teaching strategies is
COURTESEY OF MS. WARING
Ms. Waring in front of one of her drawings
incentive-based. Each time students have a productive and transformative class period, she rewards them with a jump up the “free drawing day” ladder. Former lower school students remember the excitement of reaching the tenth rung of the ladder, when Ms. Waring would announce their prize.
“Mr. Fink and I, we spend a lot of time together between classes. We’ll just visit and bounce ideas off of each other.” MS. JENNY WARING Complementing her own creativity, Ms. Waring learned new teaching methods from two fellow artists: lower-school colleague Mr. Antonio Fink and her husband Mr. Jeff Waring. “Mr. Fink and I, we spend a lot of time together between classes. We’ll just visit and bounce ideas off of each other,” Ms. Waring said. “My husband has been teaching lower school art at Westtown as long as I’ve been teaching here. We’re very different artists, so I see what he teaches and thinks. That’s so amazing.” Ms. Waring’s students appreciate her energy, creativity, and willingness to expand her curriculum; the warm feelings are mutual. “This is an amazing place to teach,” she said. While Ms. Waring helped her students mature both personally and artistically, she noticed similar development in herself. “I’ve kind of grown up a little bit. In my relationships with people and my un-
Ms. Waring, with one of her papier-maché sculptures derstanding of myself, sometimes you don’t really understand yourself until you’ve got to be there for someone,” Ms. Waring said. She also made an impact amongst her colleagues, who reciprocated the love she filled the hallways with every day. “I had a crisis myself a few years back where I had breast cancer. Both the kids and the teachers really rallied around me. Some people that I had not gotten to know yet were some of the biggest supporters that I had.” Her 1996 through 2021 tenure at Haverford has come to an end, but the encouraging, creative energy she brought will remain a staple for the art room. Now, she will pursue a goal that sparked her love for art, bringing her professional career full circle. In 1985, Ms. Waring graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a bachelor of fine arts in illustration. She worked as a freelance illustrator, a skill she’s still working to perfection.
COURTESEY OF MS. WARING
“I’m a little wary of having a specific goal, but writing and illustrating a children’s book has definitely been in the back of my mind for a long time,” Ms. Waring said. “I’ve done clay and multimedia, but my big love is drawing. I really connect to my creativity the strongest is when I’m drawing with a simple pencil.” She has created several rough sketches on the side during her time as a teacher, but the time has come for her to pursue this lifelong goal full time. “I would tell my younger self to just be open and really try to break out of those traditional ways that you’ve always gotten a pat on the back about,” Ms. Waring said. “Don’t be afraid to try new things.” Ms. Waring is tackling this new chapter with determination, but only after a relaxing outdoor summer in the Adirondacks with family and friends. “Keep your focus,” Ms. Waring said. “Think towards the future, and remember to enjoy yourself along the way.”
Mr. Akkari returns to learning, now for a Ph.D. Jeffrey Yang ’22
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Tucked in a mini-wing, just beyond the stairwells on the first floor, is math teacher Mr. Anwar Akkari’s learning sphere. After joining the Haverford community in Fall 2020, Mr. Akkari has decided to pursue a doctorate in philosophy next year at the University of Virginia. Despite his short time at the school, Mr. Akkari has learned much about teaching, as he joined after recently obtaining a bachelor’s degree at Yale University. But he also added how the pandemic made it difficult for him to engage with the community as much as he wanted.
“I really felt that my students were identifying with me as the youngest teacher at the school.” MR. ANWAR AKKARI “When I was hired, I wasn’t able to meet people and visit the campus because of COVID. It was weird, and at first, it was hard. But I adapted and got much support from the math department, which is such a close group of people. It was also super complicated with getting involved around this year. I wanted to coach,” Mr. Akkari said.
Regardless, Mr. Akkari is grateful to have had the opportunity to work at Haverford and teach his students. “I enjoy teaching and have loved every bit of it. This community is special. I saw the smiles through the masks and warm faces every day,” he said. His experience has taught him, among other things, how to handle some of the difficulties of teaching and how the pandemic has complicated pedagogy. Mr. Akkari said, “I’ve learned about dealing with the amount of stress that you have as a teacher. It’s just been hard to teach in person and teach virtually, and I’ve been trying to keep the [classroom] community together.” In his math classes, he has made the effort to create an exciting spirit every day. “Sometimes you have to provide the energy to get it back,” Mr. Akkari said. As things returned to some sense of normalcy nearing the end of the year, and as classes rounded to an end twice in the third and fourth quarter, he was able to engage with his students as a friend. “I will remember the ‘two last days of school,’ when I brought the boys outside to play dodgeball and kickball. I really felt that my students were identifying with me as the youngest teacher at school. It was all more friendly and more relaxed, and it just warms your heart,” Mr. Akkari said. At the beginning of the year, Mr. Ak-
kari certainly did not expect to stay for just one year. In fact, after the first day, he saw himself staying at Haverford for a long time. But, with the difficulties of hiring in the pandemic, the school was searching for a teacher who could teach both biology and math. “I could teach other sciences—physics, chemistry, or whatever—but not biology. I wanted to be competent with teaching my classes, so I declined,” he said. At the University of Virginia, Mr. Akkari will also conduct research in aerospace engineering and continue to help students in the classroom as a teaching assistant. In a message to the students, he encouraged them to look at this past year with a bright mindset.
“Take this year and don’t think bad about it. Think about all the things you’ve learned.” MR. ANWAR AKKARI “Take this year and don’t think bad about it,” Mr. Akkari said. “Think about all the things you’ve learned. It feels like it’s been a tough year for students, but I know they will grow to be one of the most resilient generations.”
COURTESY OF MR. ANWAR AKKARI
Mr. Anwar Akkari in front of Yale University’s Sterling Memorial Library
