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Dear Friends,

This edition of Soundings might easily have been titled “Making Connections.” Each article speaks to that defining aspect of a Friends Academy education. The essence of the FA experience is found in the student-teacher relationship, something we foster at every turn be-cause it leads to genuine learning that is reflective of each child’s interests and needs. So much can happen in a classroom where there is trust and understanding between teacher and student, where factual knowledge is connected to a larger context that provides meaning and purpose.

An article about tapping campus maple trees and producing maple syrup pairs with a description of the work of our resident honey bees to provide a direct connection with the natural world and our beautiful campus. That link leads to curiosity about pesticides, the definition of “organic,” the need for careful stewardship of the land, and so much more. The Bookworm article describes the connection between older and younger students in a cherished Friends Academy tradition. Such a bond inspires the love of reading in our first graders and speaks to the power and responsibility of being a role model within our community. One look at the faces of those involved tells the tale.

The Wax Museum article has our fifth graders connecting with history in a tangible way they will long remember. At the same time they are connecting with the greater community and the vibrancy of New Bedford. Middle School study of Malala has students connecting with world cultures and religions, geography, current events, issues of equity and justice, and the trans-forming power of education. Students are grappling with real and challenging issues while experiencing the world of ideas. When you read the article about the retiring Mrs. Pierce, you will be moved by her involvement with her students and her love of science, a subject that she has brought to life for a generation of FA students, connecting them with the world around them and a desire to explain how interconnectedness and interdependence define it all.

Enjoy this edition of Soundings. You’ll surely find yourself connected to Friends Academy.

Stephen K. BarkerHead of School

spring 2016

S o u n d i n g S f r i e n d s a c a d e m y

Students in Mr. garfield’s

sixth grade science classes

learned how to tap maple

trees on campus and make

syrup. Story on page 6.

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Though no one is quite sure when it began, the tradition commonly known as Bookworm, which snakes through the halls of Friends Academy from March to May, is alive and well at Friends Academy. Retired teacher Nancy Fletcher is credited by some with instituting the practice of assigning each first grader a colored shape (red circle, purple triangle, green square) to track the books they have read over a prescribed period of time. As books are completed, the children proudly label their shapes and hang them on the hallway walls to form a giant bookworm that leads from the library to the Commons.

“When the Bookworm reaches the Com-mons, we stop and celebrate with a party,” say first grade teachers, Alyson Gangi and Katie Nelson, who decided it might be fun to shake things up and do it differently this year. “We wanted to revitalize a tradi-tion by involving more older students in the process.”

The teachers sent an email to the entire community and asked everyone to keep their request a secret. Any student who had been here in first grade was invited to sign up via a Google document broken down by color and shape. “Participation

was optional,” says Katie Nelson, “we sim-ply asked students to identify themselves by shape and color and note whether they would be willing to share a piece of advice or a memory from their time as a book wormer in first grade.”

The teachers were overwhelmed with the level of response. “We were hoping to build connections between the older kids and the first grade community,” says Alyson Gangi, “but we did not anticipate the enthusiasm and high level of interest exhibited by the student body. In some cases we had a three-to-one ratio.”

The teachers gave priority to eighth grad-ers who would not have another chance to participate since they are graduating this spring. They spoke with each volunteer, helping them make a plan for what they would share with their first grader as they symbolically passed on their shape in a special All-School Meeting ceremony.

“I remembered that the Magic Treehouse was my favorite book series when I was in first grade, so I recommended it to my red circle book worm,” says eighth grader Peter Veale. Michael Shih who is in third grade also recommended the series to his

first grade reader, Taylor LaBrode. For Molly Kracke (purple circle), the Eloise books were a favorite that she shared with Max Ramos.

As of this writing, the Bookworm has al-ready slithered past the fourth grade class-rooms and is headed into the final stretch. “If it gets too long we may have to make a giant spiral or zigzag pattern before we find our way through the back hallway and into the Commons,” say the teachers.

By involving the whole school in this event, Mrs. Gangi and Mrs. Nelson have uncovered some unpredictable but tangi-ble benefits that stretch across grade lines and promote authentic learning. “Every-one enjoys witnessing students as they share something they love in All-School Meeting,” said the parent of a seventh grader recently, “but how truly delightful it is to see our soon-to-be-graduating mid-dle schoolers sharing their early memories and love of reading with their first grade counterparts. It reminds me how lucky we are to be part of a generous learning community.”

Bookworm

H o w C H a n g e R e v i t a l i z e S t R a d i t i o n by Kyle Riseley

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Upon hearing the news of the attack on her in 2012, the Advocacy group spent many weeks learning about Malala’s life, about her experiences, and working to understand how she became a champion for education as a young girl living in the Swat Valley of Pakistan. We shared her story with the broader Friends Academy community, planned a fundraiser for the Malala Fund—an impressive foundation dedicated to giving girls around the world more opportunities through education and empowerment programs—and followed her journey from spokesperson, to author, to 2014 Nobel recipient.

What has been most striking is how students connect to her story. Four years later, we see young kids recognizing her face and admiring her courage while older students are finding tangible ways to weave her story into numerous conver-sations about current events and civil rights. She has been with us for years, and like many activists before her, her impact is amplified the more we continue to talk about her.

Malala’s memoir was published in 2013 and subsequently a middle school version followed. Committed to teaching topics relating to social justice, we both looked

at each other and thought: “We have to teach this book!”

Malala’s memoir was indeed a powerful way of teaching this genre of writing. But more than anything, it was a way for us to talk about important topics relating to social justice and introduce issues eighth graders wrestle with daily as they grow increasingly more exposed to the media and current events. It opened opportuni-ties for us to debunk misconceptions about her culture, about Pakistan as a whole, and most importantly, about Islam. We discussed her identity as a feminist, why this word is embraced by millions of people around the world, and we tried to clarify another misconception—that feminism is only embraced by women. To showcase this, we convened a panel of male faculty around the definition and significance of feminism to them.

The students also watched documentaries where they heard Malala speak at a variety of rallies and award ceremonies. They learned about Islam, extremism, and Malala’s daily life from Dr. Brian Williams, a UMass Dartmouth Middle Eastern Studies professor who has visited Malala’s hometown, and shed light on her life through his photographs and stories.

Most recently, as a way of becoming involved in the increasingly important worldwide conversation about children and mandatory education, the eighth graders have decided to host a Pakistani Culture Night and ask for donations to the Malala Fund. During this presenta-tion for their families, students will display research projects on topics such as Pakistani food, art, music, film, and fashion, in an effort to promote the reality that Islam, and the majority of Middle Eastern peoples, have a rich culture and strongly advocate for peace.

Serendipitously as this unit was coming to an end, we learned that Malala would be traveling to Providence, RI in July to speak. While we all wish a field trip was possible, we have encouraged students to talk to their families about attending. Several students have in fact purchased tickets and will be able to hear her speak this summer. We are beyond excited and looking forward to using the experience to help shape our collaborative work in the future.

by Morgan Lord (MS Social Studies) and Marlaina Trepanier (MS English)

Malala Yousafzai has been a touchstone in our social justice curriculum in the Middle School. Starting with the Service-

Learning group known as Advocacy, we learned about how Malala has been a powerful and accessible voice on behalf

of education and global human rights.

Connecting with Malala Yousafzai’s Story

After seven years of incorporating a wax museum model into the study of Ameri-can history, current fifth grade teachers, Putnam Murdock, Laura Velazquez, and Sarah Bookstein, have taken the show on the road. This year, in addition to the traditional presentation that happens in the Commons for parents, students were transported by bus to the New Bedford Whaling Museum for an evening performance coinciding with Aha! Night.

“Our students do such an incredible job. I wanted to give them an opportunity to share their performances with a larger audience,” says Putnam Murdock, who went to administrators with the idea. “It was a matter of synchronicity,” he says. Everything came together when he spoke with Lower School Head Melinda Foley-Marsello about an off-site performance while Head of School Steve Barker was in the room. “Mr. Barker knew the edu-cation director of the Whaling Museum and things just took off from there,” he says. A museum staffer suggested the program be conducted on Aha! Night, providing maximum exposure for the group of historical storytellers.

“The fifth grade unit on the American Revolution is research-based,” says teacher Laura Velazquez. “We don’t use text-books to teach this period in American history. We encourage students to select an individual, conduct research, write a

paper, and perform a two-minute monologue inhabiting the voice of both well-known and lesser-known characters from the period.”

Students really do grasp the importance of telling the whole story.

Jacob Hebbel, who chose Benedict Arnold, said in his monologue: “Most of you know that I’m a traitor, but do you know the reason? I was an orphan... and I fought for a country that never accepted me.”

Liam Hempstead, dressed as King George III, the tyrant that colonial Americans rebelled against, greeted onlookers with the question: “Are you here to greet your king?” he asked. “Then bow!” he bellowed with a stage-worthy English accent, before gesturing to his “best friend” an imaginary tree, to illustrate the king’s battle with porphyria, a disease that caused him to go progressively insane in the years preceding his death.

Aryana Abu-Raya, portraying Sybil Ludington, a Revolutionary war heroine who rode her horse to alert rebels to the approach of British forces, described her character as “the female Paul Revere.” Ludington, who rode more than twice the distance that Revere rode and was only 16 at the time, is hardly a household name. “Heroic praises aren’t just reserved

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by Kyle Riseley

t a k i n g i t o n t h e R o a d w a x M u S e u M

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for men,” Aryana was quoted as saying. “We tell her story to show that women played an equally important role in the American Revolution.”

For those who have not witnessed this fifth grade event, it is called a Wax Museum because students also paint backdrops to set the scene for their performances and those backdrops include an on/off button. As you enter the performance space, you see students scattered around the room dressed in period costumes. They stand frozen, unflinchingly posed in front of their backdrops. As you approach, you press the button, which snaps the performer to life. After a two-minute monologue com-plete with gestures, eye contact, acting and occasionally a British accent, students return to a wax-like pose and wait, silently and patiently for the next viewer.

“The Wax Museum is always a highly anticipated event—one of those projects that showcases the unique talents and interests of our fifth graders,” says Ms. Foley-Marsello. “Having our students take their performances into the halls and galleries of the New Bedford Whaling Museum on Aha! Night was the icing on the cake.”

After weeks of preparation, students had an additional opportunity to present their monologues and receive recognition from

the wider New Bedford community. By all accounts they were a smashing success, receiving front-page coverage in the local and New Bedford newspapers.

With the emphasis that the school puts on public speaking—holding weekly All-School meetings that encourage students to share book reports, projects, and musical performances—the proof lies in the pudding. “The Wax Museum is one strong indicator that our children are learning to get comfortable with public speaking and performance,” says Head of School Stephen Barker.

The characters depicted include everyone from well-known characters like Thomas Paine and Nathan Hale, to lesser-known figures like Nancy Morgan Hart (noted for her efforts against Loyalists in Geor-gia), James Armistead Lafayette (a slave who served in the Continental Army as a double agent), and Nancy Ward, (a Cherokee woman who negotiated a treaty with the Colonists and promoted peace). Together, these names illustrate a major goal of the program—to find and focus on authentic learning experiences that bring native voices to light so that no historical stone is left unturned.

Aha! Night is a monthly celebration of arts

and culture taking place on the second

Thursday evening of every month in down-

town New Bedford.

w o w S o n a H a ! n i g h t

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Warm weather is finally here and that means Charley Pelissier and his after-school beekeeping students are spending more and more time out of doors in a clearing behind the upper lacrosse field.

When the beekeeping program began in 2010, Friends used a grant from the Baldwin Foundation to purchase protec-tive clothing, wooden brooding chamber frames, a stainless steel honey extractor, and other necessary equipment. Each year since, the program has managed to sus-tain itself by selling jars of “School Bell Honey” in order to finance another year’s purchase of honeybees, sugar, and new pressed wax foundations for the bees to build honey and brood cells on. The program also purchases jars and labels for the honey.

Keeping bees organically is nearly impos-sible given the fertilizers and pesticides used on many of the area’s private lawns and gardens. Organic farmers have to compete with pesticides that can be dangerous to bee colonies. As the world’s greatest pollinators, honeybees play an important role in the natural order— they pollinate our fruits and vegetables.

In order to keep the honey as pure as possible, “Mr. P” and neighboring bee-keepers employ organic methods and natural processes to ensure the bees will

by Kyle RiseleyR a i S i n g H o n e y B e e S

This year, in sixth grade science classes, Friends Academy students are learning first-hand how to make maple syrup right here on campus. As part of a unit on tree identification and plant growth, students spent time outdoors identify-ing and differentiating many of the trees on campus. In addition, we identified the healthi-est maple trees and set about drilling them and collecting sap to make maple syrup. Together we drilled and attached buckets to three trees located along the stonewall that abuts Tucker Road. The students checked the buckets daily and over the course of a week were able to collect twelve gallons or six buckets of sap to convert to syrup. The processing of maple syrup is slow and arduous, which explains the high cost of the real thing. Like honey, there are plenty of artificial maple syrup brands on supermarket shelves, but at farm stands and farmer’s mar-kets across New England, pure Vermont-made maple syrup can average $9.00 per pint. When the students had collected six buckets totaling 12 gallons of sap, they brought it indoors to refrigerate before processing. Processing of sap to syrup involves a boiling down or reduction process that in our case took two full days and yielded two quarts of syrup.

The final step in the process was a tasty one. Students gathered in the canteen to make pancakes with a mix provided by Reed Turner-Murray ’18, whose family shared a special recipe for the occasion. The pancakes were subjected to rigorous scientific experimentation to determine how much maple syrup was appropriate to the size of the serving. This required a careful testing process whereby students consumed over four dozen pancakes. It was determined that the experiment will have to be repeated in subsequent years to make reliable use of the data.

by Seth Garfield

the art of tapping a Maple tree

be healthy and their honey as close to pure as possible.

Honey is floral nectar cooked down into a thick carbohydrate soup. How many flowers are needed to make honey? A lot. More than most of us can easily compre-hend. To survive a year, a single colony brings in about 250 pounds of nectar—an astounding weight for a small insect. It’s not as though individual flowers are generous with nectar, either. Most yield just the smallest of droplets. A standard jar of honey requires bees to make a million flower visits. A colony might produce 50 to 100 such jars per year. Thus, a colony’s foragers cover a stagger-ing amount of territory and the price of a jar of pure local honey reflects that fact.

The students in this spring’s after-school beekeeping course are tending the bees that will be producing the honey for next year’s fall science classes to extract. Their visits to the hives have them checking to locate the queen, looking for fresh eggs (a sign that the queen is in residence), moving the brood chambers when they get full, and looking for the presence of mites and parasites whose presence can weaken a hive. This year’s students have also studied bee anatomy and the jobs that different members of the hive perform.

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In the year 2000, my letter of recommen-dation for Mary Pierce stated, “Mary will set the highest standard for science at Friends Academy.” As it turns out, Mrs. Pierce did accomplish this. She set the highest standard for science, as well as for the hundreds of students who have been her lucky charges over the past sixteen years.

As we say goodbye to Mrs. Pierce this June, we can only marvel at all she has accomplished as Middle School science teacher. Her instruction is student- centered, based in authentic experiences, dynamic, and fun. As Head of School Steve Barker has said, “Mary Pierce is a leader among the faculty, a trusted mentor, and the personification of community spirit at Friends Academy. In the classroom, holding her students accountable, Mary is a motivator who is both demanding and fair.”

An ever-voracious lifelong learner herself, Mary received her master’s degree in geo-science from Mississippi State University. Over the years, she rarely missed a National Science Teachers Association conference and eagerly brought back new ideas to enrich her students. It was and always has been all about her students.

Compassionate and extraordinary as a teacher, and a passionate advocate for science, Mrs. Pierce always finds a way to bring science alive. Fellow teacher Blinn Dorsey agrees. “Mary is an inspiring colleague. Not only is she an inexhaust-ible source of information for pedagogy, curriculum or content, Mary is a constant source of positive energy. She never hesi-tates to support a new approach or idea.” Never a read-the-book and give-the-test teacher, Mary’s lessons are hands-on and creative. Her goal is to guide students to understand how science works so that

they grasp underlying concepts and un-derstand them within the context of their lives and their awareness of their world.

Mrs. Pierce is famous for her rock collec-tions and her vials of sand gathered from all over the world. When learning about erosion, her stream tables help students understand the effects and witness erosion first hand. During the spring of eighth grade, students experience a science lab that has come to be known as a “rite of passage.” They receive a vial of “sludge” and are challenged to apply principles of scientific investigation to the specific task of deducing its contents. “Party hats are added fun,” says Casey Pope ’15, who remembers that the leading lab group gets to wear them.

Integrating science with other Middle School subjects has also been a hallmark of Mrs. Pierce’s pedagogy. With Mrs. Pierce, Ms. Lord and Mr. Dorsey, seventh grade students embark on a year-long study of a foreign country, exploring its geography, natural resources, politics, and religion. In science, Mrs. Pierce’s students use their country’s GDP to guide how much money they can use to construct homes to withstand severe weather. Student-created structures, devised to circumvent disaster, are tested and re-tested in the science lab. Seventh grade culmi-nates with a Global Voices Summit where students represent their countries and discuss solutions to problems like climate change, poverty, and food resources.

It was Mrs. Pierce who first encouraged her Service-Learning group in 2009 to design their own projects. When three students suggested investigating solar pan-els, Mary never flinched. “When we first proposed the project in eighth grade I didn’t expect Mrs. Pierce to say yes,” writes Colin Babbitt ’10. “From the beginning, she helped guide us, but never took over the project, she let us push ourselves to develop as students and individuals.”

In addition to teaching the science of solar energy, Mary guided and mentored the students as they pitched their ideas to the Board of Trustees. When the students graduated, she continued their pursuit for three more years until solar panels were finally installed in 2014, ultimately saving us thousands of dollars and, initiating the use of a clean source of energy to power the campus. “What makes Mrs. Pierce an incredible teacher is also what makes her an incredible person,” says Colin. “She wants the best for her students and genu-inely cares about everyone she works with.”

Mary continues her focus on student- centered service with her new Jane Good-all inspired “Roots and Shoots” group in the Middle School.

We will so miss Mrs. Pierce’s calm demeanor and vibrant voice at dismissal, in the lab, Advisory, faculty meetings and get togethers. Mrs. Pierce’s extraordinary spirit and love of science and teaching, however, will live on in our hearts and the hearts of hundreds of her students forever!

Farewell,Mary Pierce by Katherine Roberts-Gaudet

w w w . f r i e n d s a c a d e m y 1 8 1 0 . o r g

S o u n d i n g S f r i e n d s a c a d e m y1088 tucker road, north dartmouth, ma 02747 spring 2016 May we count on you

$20 buys 5000 carrot seeds for the garden

$25 buys an itunes gift card for educational apps

$30 pays for a Singapore Math workbook

$120 pays for a kindergarten field trip

$180 maintains the irrigation system for the garden

$300 buys one new iPad for the lower School

$435 helps underwrite a new wind tunnel for the Farmhouse

$625 pays for one faculty member to attend a Reggio emilia

conference

$1600 pays for the 8th grade to see a Broadway show while

in new york City

Your gift, whatever the amount, will make a real difference in ensuring an enriching learning experience for all Friends Academy students. Please donate today and make an immediate impact on your child’s education. You may donate online at www.friendsacademy1810.organd contributions are tax deductible. Remember that it is not the size of the gift that matters but the fact that you give. Your donation helps keep Friends Academy strong, focused, and on mission, something it has done to the benefit of the SouthCoast community for over two hundred years.

to keep Friends Academy running? annual giving iS tHe Single MoSt iMPoRtant SouRCe oF non-

tuition inCoMe FoR FRiendS aCadeMy. BeCauSe tuition alone doeS

not CoveR tHe CoSt oF a FRiendS eduCation, tHe FRiendS aCadeMy

Fund HelPS uS to BRidge tHiS gaP. Many PeoPle aSk How tHe

Money FRoM tHe Fund iS uSed. HeRe’S a BRieF liSt oF SoMe oF tHe

wayS youR ContRiBution will Be Put to iMMediate uSe.