The Roeper School Viewbook 2019

OPEN WITH

CARE

THINK OF THE GREATEST GIFTS IN YOUR LIFE. Your child.

The intangibles: love and acceptance, knowing that someone believes in you … wisdom, fulfillment, happiness.

Often we don’t see the gifts we’ve received until our eyes are opened to them.

To fully reveal a significant gift, it takes great care.

Everything we do for gifted children at Roeper stems from our belief that

their gifts should never be hidden.

And we see what she can give the world.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE GIFTED?

It means your child has an intensity that is never satisfied with easy answers. It means that even at a young age, they show glimmers of powerful thinking that make people pause.

To nourish their precocity, complexity, and intensity, it takes an educational approach with unparalleled challenge, choice, and understanding.

It takes Roeper.

He wants to find Bigfoot, so his science teacher and his kindergarten classmates embark with him on a journey to measure footprints, take nature samples, and compare the anatomy of humans to other primates.

The adventure story she is writing excites her so much that she works with her Stage III teacher for a year in an independent class until she has published a 100-page book through Amazon.

He is a history aficionado who wants to compare the music of the North and South during the Civil War, so his sixth grade music teacher designs an elective for him and one other student. She is a math scholar ready for calculus, so her advisor helps her work the class into her eighth grade schedule.

HOW CHALLENGING? MIGHT AS WELL ASK HOW HIGH IS THE SKY. When inquiry-based learning is put into the service of what children really want to know, their drive to learn is insatiable.

And when they have remarkable

He wants to study film at Tisch. She plans to complete biomedical research at the University of Michigan. So in the Upper School, teachers and advisors help them design challenging individual courses of study based on the requirements of the specific colleges and fields they wish to pursue.

teachers willing and able to adapt and grow with them, what they can achieve is unbounded.

THE GIFT OF CHOICE

The Upper School has only 2 required courses, and by 10th grade, most students are doing college-level work in their areas of strength.

Lower School students have the opportunity to build their own daily schedule.

Middle School students take up to 12 electives per year, including student-designed courses and advanced options in the Upper School.

INDIVIDUALIZING

A LESSON, A CLASS,

AN ENTIRE CURRICULUM

ISN’T EASY. BUT IT’S WHAT WE DO. Our visionary founders discovered in the 1940s the power of a studentcentric, collaborative education.

Creativity, choice, independence, and free thinking guide an organic exuberance in our curriculum that is thoughtfully and deliberately connected to academic and life goals.

Each path is different—and that’s what we love.

“Gifted doesn’t mean ‘more and faster.’

It means that our faculty must truly know their craft and know their students to balance the multiple—and often very different—levels of development within each child.”

DAVID FELDMAN, HEAD OF SCHOOL

The space inside a circle of respect can be infinite.

“Every one

of my teachers delivered the message: ‘You are unique,

are valued,

you

and you have a

responsibility to use your gifts for the greater good.’”

Jamey Bell,

1975, Executive Director of Greater Hartford Legal Aid “It is our hope that your years at Roeper give you the opportunity to develop and value your unique Self, giving you an inner richness and the ability to see the beauty of this Earth and the uniqueness of others.”

ANNEMARIE ROEPER, FROM HER GRADUATION SPEECH TO THE CLASS OF 1992

GIFTS FROM GEORGE AND ANNEMARIE ARE GIFTS FROM THE HEART.

“When you find the place where you know your child will be nurtured and respected and allowed to flourish and become who they are meant to be, it is a joy (and a relief!).”

George and Annemarie Roeper fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s and established

LEISL MUST, ROEPER PARENT

The Roeper School in 1941 to educate children to seek justice rather than power. They realized their approach was uniquely suited to the needs of gifted students. Roeper continues today as an international leader in gifted education and a living embodiment of our founders’ values.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOUR CHILD? “I AM DRIVEN TO WORK WITH GIFTED CHILDREN BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT LIMITED

BY WHAT THEY SEE.” ANNEMARIE ROEPER

They will become part of a loving community that celebrates diversity and promotes justice and equality. They will connect deeply with their teachers and peers in authentic intellectual partnerships. They will take responsibility for their learning, understand who they are, and discover how to contribute to the world.

“The ability to recognize, choose, and invent options, the ability to decide, to learn how to learn—all this will better equip our youngsters for the future.”

GEORGE ROEPER

lE AD Our youngest students develop

Middle School students work

Upper School students serve on

their classroom rules together,

collaboratively on service

our faculty hiring committees

and each takes responsibility for

learning projects and give back

and on our Board of Trustees.

enforcing their Class Agreements.

to the greater community.

GIFTEDNESS NEVER ENDS.

Charlie Sutton ’18 is at Harvard studying computational neurobiology.

Alum teacher Laura Panek wrote, “When Charlie puts together new ideas and understandings, he lights up and at times becomes so excited that he can hardly keep himself in a chair!”

“SHE IS UNAFRAID TO SPEAK HER HEART AND MIND.”

Maddy Harner ’18 is at the University of Michigan. At Roeper, she was elected a student representative to the Board of Trustees, where a teacher recalls her whipping out her copy of the Roeper Philosophy to read a relevant section to the board.

Brian Kloc ‘01, Lead Look Development artist at Sony Pictures Imageworks, collaborated on the film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, winner of the Best Animated Feature 2019 Academy Award.

RESPECTING THE DIGNITY AND WORTH OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL. A LONG HISTORY OF INSPIRING WRITERS.

Sharon LaFraniere ’73 is a New York Times investigative reporter and a 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.

Guided by English teacher Susannah Nichols, Madison Gladney ’19 is co-editor of Tuna Talk, Roeper’s literary magazine.

Mahvish Rukhsana Khan ’97, as a law student, volunteered to assist defense attorneys representing clients incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay. She speaks Pashto, and eventually published a book, My Guantanamo Diary: The Detainees and the Stories They Told Me.

The Lower School works on projects together, such as understanding the impact of single-use plastic water bottles. Ali Rose VanOverbeke ’08 was moved by the Flint water crisis to found Genusee, which makes eyewear from recycled bottles in Flint, Michigan.

David Lee ’19 models them.

Aaron Appel ’12 was co-captain of the cross country team at Roeper.

On graduating from Oberlin College, he returned to Detroit to help run a community center.

He says, “In service of this new team, I again feel pushed to offer myself in whatever way I can and always give them my best.”

Charlie White ’05 won gold at the 2014 Winter Olympics and silver at the 2010 Winter Olympics in ice dance.

For her senior project, Emma Sznewajs ’19 designed five outfits for five different women to challenge issues with eating disorders and body image perpetuated by the fashion industry.

Just a few ways our faculty and staff have described the students they’ve come to know so well: AMBITIOUS KIND

THOUGHTFUL AND

UNAMBIGUOUSLY BRILLIANT

AND TENACIOUSLY RESOLUTE UNAPOLOGETICALLY FAITHFUL TO HIS BELIEFS

AUTHENTIC AND BALANCED

For her senior project, Sarah Skoropa ’11 compiled a biological profile of a human skeleton.

Her research led her to work with nationally renowned forensic anthropologists as an undergraduate at Michigan State. She became the youngest member of an international forensic resource center for humanitarian and human rights efforts.

WITH AN INEXHAUSTIBLE DRIVE TO UNDERSTAND THE NATURE OF THINGS

ALWAYS SHOWING GRACE

UNDER PRESSURE

As a seventh grader, Ian Carroll ’18 was creating websites professionally and once had to ask his journalism teacher if he could be excused to “take a meeting.” He now works for HelloSign, a digital platform supporting companies such as Samsung, Twitter, and Lyft.

MAKING MEANINGFUL DECISIONS AND SOLVING IMPORTANT PROBLEMS.

Each senior chooses an adult member of the Roeper community to present them at commencement.

HAVING A

BOUNDLESS SENSE OF HUMOR POSSESSING AN AUDACIOUS MOTIVATION TO CHANGE THE WORLD FOR THE BETTER

For his senior project, Cameron Huneke ’19 transcribed by ear some of his favorite composers’ music for the Roeper band to perform.

One student’s gift, along with other senior class contributions, has provided financial support to nearly 20 student musicians, designers, cosmetic creators, filmmakers, artists, and researchers at Roeper. Mara Jaffe ’13 donated all of the proceeds from her senior project—a pop-up restaurant—to Roeper to support future projects.

“My Roeper education informs everything that I do with regard to my children and grandchildren.

While I was at Roeper, I learned the importance of questioning everything, remaining open to possibility, asking for clarification if something was confusing. …

I learned that everyone has different gifts and that we are each obligated to share those gifts with the larger community. …

I learned that it was okay to be passionate about ideas and to have strong opinions, that dialogue and even argument have merit when people are trying to understand each other.”

From the earnest work of young scholars to the award-winning efforts of scientists, writers, and educators, Roeper students and graduates inspire us all.

CAROLYN GRAHAM TSUNETA ’78

“[In our class] we have state champions, professional musicians, renowned artists—the list goes on. But what really stands out to me is how my class has taken their passions and used them to serve others and the greater community.

That is the mark of true Roeperians.”

ALISON ALBRECHT, CO-PRESIDENT, CLASS OF 2018

At Roeper, your child will come to understand and embrace all they are, learn to use their voice,

Entrusting us to reveal their gifts

and gain the confidence to reach out compassionately to others.

is a responsibility and an honor that we cherish.

The Roeper School is an equal opportunity institution.

The Roeper School admits students without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or national and ethnic origin and entitles them to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school.

OUR MISSION Educating and inspiring gifted students to think as individuals and to engage as a community with compassion for each other and this world.

THE ROEPER SCHOOL WHERE GIFTED STUDENTS LOVE TO LEARN BLOOMFIELD CAMPUS

BIRMINGHAM CAMPUS

Lower School & Administrative Offices 41190 Woodward Ave. Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304-5020

Middle & Upper School 1051 Oakland Ave. Birmingham, MI 48009-5762

248-203-7300

248-203-7433

The nation’s oldest independent school for gifted students.

www.roeper.org