WINTER 2021
@ @ FCDS UPDATES FROM FORSYTH COUNTRY DAY
A Note From Gardner
In this Issue:
HEAD OF SCHOOL Dear Furies,
Happy New Year! With 2020 finally behind us, I am excited and optimistic for the year ahead. That said, I am so proud of our school community for what we were able to achieve during a global pandemic: excellent online learning in the spring and 14 weeks of learning on campus together in the fall—complete with athletics, the arts, and the sense of community that is such a critical part of our school. We actually saw a rise in enrollment for the fifth year in a row, and I’m so thankful for the faith that our families have placed in us.
Catching Up with the Kurtzes The Now Normal The Art of Civil Discourse
As happy as we are to say goodbye to 2020, we want to take a moment to celebrate what we achieved during an unprecedented year. Learn about how we adapted to make learning together on campus safe during the time of COVID in The Now Normal . As you’ll read in that article, we created a number of new classes simply because we needed to divide students into smaller groups, giving a great deal of freedom to many teachers to innovate. I was fortunate enough to team up with Lily Cochrane, executive director of Wake Forest University’s Center for Private Business, to teach a class on civil discourse to Upper School students. What an incredible experience! I am so grateful to those students for the way they embraced a topic that evades many adults, for having difficult conversations with respect, and for being such a source of inspiration. You can read more about it in The Art of Civil Discourse . During the spring months when we were under stay-at-home orders, how did you cope? Bingewatching Netflix? Perfecting your WFH (work from home) look? The ubiquitous sourdough? If you’re like one Fury family, the Kurtzes, you embraced the opportunity to pursue your passions. Read all about their commitment to life-long learning in Catching Up with the Kurtzes . You’ll be both impressed and inspired! I wish you all a happy and healthy 2021, and look forward (as we all do) to a life beyond COVID-19 restrictions and a time when we can all come together again as a Fury community! Be well and GO FURIES! Take care and be well,
Gardner Barrier ’97
Catching Up With the Kurtzes FCDS hopes to instill a love of learning—and the gift of making it a life-long process—in every student. In the Kurtz family—alumnus Jon ’87, Dara, and their daughters Zoe ’18 and Avi ’21—that idea is deep rooted and always growing. We talked with Dara and Jon (over the phone) to discuss what they, Zoe, and Avi have been doing.
?The Kurtz familyt
?Dara's latest book, I Am My Mother's Daughtert
?A collection of Jon's artistry
?Avi '21 and Zoe '18t
Dara had already found her author’s voice through her blog Crazy Perfect Life, which she started after being diagnosed with breast cancer, and recently published her third book, I Am My Mother’s Daughter. “It wasn’t a book I was planning on writing,” Dara said. “My mom passed away 20 years ago—a week after I had Zoe, and I really focused on Zoe. I didn’t deal with the pain of losing [my Mom].” When Zoe was older, Dara began the tradition of a mother/daughter journal, which she continued with Avi. “I would write in the journal and put it on her pillow, and she would write in the journal and put it on my pillow. It was a beautiful way to connect with each other.” After finding those journals recently, Dara wished she had something like them from her mother—and realized that she did. “I had a Ziploc bag of letters from the time I went to sleepaway camp when I was 9 until I went to college,” Dara said. “I was blown away by how much wisdom the letters contain. I got to have a conversation with my mother. It was an unbelievable experience. And I knew, ‘There’s a book here'.” Dara stopped what she was doing and began working on I Am My Mother’s Daughter: Wisdom on Life, Love, and Loss. It speaks of the connection between mothers and daughters, the importance of traditions, and family from one generation to the next. Jon Kurtz ’87 is a perfect match for Dara—he is just as committed to following his interests and pursuing his passions—and has been since he was at FCDS. Back then, it was short-wave radio. Over the years, his interests have evolved and changed, and his two current passions are woodworking and playing guitar. “I just like learning about different things,” Jon said. “I go headfirst into it and try to learn everything I can. I find it interesting to understand how things work and it’s fun for me.” Jon started taking woodworking courses at the Sawtooth Center and began to fill up his garage with equipment. “It’s fun to be able to create something that is special,” he said. “I never thought I had any artistic ability, but the types of pieces I make I tend to equate with art.” His favorite piece is a red flame box elder bowl (third bowl in the photo) that he made on commission for a fellow FCDS family. “It was a really special piece of wood which had some curl in it. To me, the wood itself is like art.” Jon also got serious about playing guitar. “I’ve been playing on and off for 20 years but never with any great skill,” he said. “During the pandemic, I started taking online lessons. I pick it up and play every day. I like to watch myself get better at something.” By day, Jon is a board-certified specialist in family law. “I enjoy my work, but it’s not a lighthearted job. It’s a very serious line of work dealing with a lot of things in people’s lives that are particularly difficult,” he said. “I come home and I look forward to doing these other things as outlets.” Like their parents, Zoe and Avi are self-motivated and involved in many activities. Both were national interns with Stand With Us, a Jewish Advocacy Group, and both had regional positions with BBYO, a Jewish youth organization. Zoe, who attends Elon University, became a leadership fellow at Elon University, while Avi, who will join her sister at Elon, has been involved in student government at FCDS and in community service. “They both have impressed us with maintaining a desire to reach out and try to make difference and find activities that have some meaning,” Jon said. “I think Forsyth does a good job of trying to instill those qualities in students.” As does their family. “Being happy is a choice,” Dara said. “Hobbies bring us a lot of joy. Just try to find what you’re passionate about.”
The Now Normal When faced with a seemingly insurmountable dilemma —how to get kids together on campus for learning during a global pandemic without compromising their health and safety—FCDS embraced the science, tried new things, and was able to achieve 14 weeks of oncampus learning in the fall of 2020. We may have been wearing masks, staying six feet apart, and washing our hands a lot, but FCDS was still able to live its mission— in person—in an unprecedented year. Here are some examples from the fall.
In preschool, sensory bins—containers filled with carefully selected materials and objects to stimulate the senses of children—allowed preschoolers to explore their world through their senses. Filled with kernels of corn, beans, rice, shredded paper, sand, water, and small toys and tools, these bins helped students develop their social and communication skills. Because of COVID-19, teachers had small individual bins in their classrooms.
Kindergarteners took a bite out of Apple Day! This fall they used their sense of taste to determine if green, red, and yellow apples taste different. Other Apple Day activities included cooking, investigating, building apple wagons, and creating the life cycle of an apple.
First Graders learned engineering! They built paper airplanes, made a perfect square, created tin foil people, and saved a very lucky worm named Fred. Second graders know how to celebrate the end of a reading unit—with a classroom pajama party! They wore their PJs, read with flashlights, and munched on popcorn. Students learned to choose books that were “just right” (not too hard, not too easy), built their stamina, and wrote “stop and jots” (short summaries) after reading.
Third graders developed their writing skills by adding dialogue and dynamic endings to their stories during Writers’ Workshop. Fourth graders created comic strips during science that demonstrated their understanding of magnetism. Once the comics were complete, they practiced their public speaking skills by presenting them to their classmates.
This year, the Middle School introduced exciting new classes called Exploratories. In Public Art & Storytelling, students made self-portraits as they discussed the role of storytelling in art. Students delivered handmade birthday cards they created in Serving the Community class. The Out of the Box class designed Very Tiny Houses while discussing the environmental benefits of such a small footprint. The excitement was palpable as students in Can’t Solve This, a game theory and design class, analyzed classic board games to determine the best strategy to win. Creative Exploration class used flowers to make beautiful insects and arachnids out of natural materials.
Mrs. Harvey's Upper School English III class went into the woods. Students took a nature walk during their study of transcendentalism and made a slideshow to start a discussion about Walden . Ms. Jin’s Chinese IV class solved and illustrated an ancient Chinese science problem! Ms. Jin says, "We challenge you to ask us about the problem and try it yourself!"
Upper School students came up with story ideas, conducted interviews, wrote stories, and brought journalism back to campus with the first-ever issue the Forsyth Forum . Check the Forsyth Forum out at
http://bit.ly/ForsythForum or by visiting the Upper School page on FCDS.org.
Intro to Architecture class shared some forward-thinking design ideas with interested staff. Using challenge statements, observations, case studies, models, and drawings, students presented ways to make the library a better workspace, improve its visibility, and make it more attractive and welcoming.
The Art of Civil Discourse When you think of civility, the year 2020 probably doesn’t stand out as a highlight. To Head of School Gardner Barrier, it was the perfect time to introduce the idea—and subject—of civil discourse to FCDS students. “It was as simple as knowing that the year would be politically divisive and not wanting to leave our students with nothing but polarizing sound bites,” Mr. Barrier said. “It seemed like a good idea to have Upper School students engage in skills to understand one another.” Teaming with Lily Cochrane, executive director of the Wake Forest University Center for Private Business, Mr. Barrier gave his students the tools they needed to truly engage with others—from the idea of listening to understand (not to respond), to the importance of body language, to using “I” statements, to valuing a diversity of opinions. “They can have conversations on topics they previously avoided,” he said. “Name a tough topic; we’ve talked about it. It’s been interesting. I think they’re more mindful of their own communication.”
Patrick McBride ’21 found himself using civil discourse tools frequently. “The skills we learned in Civil Discourse...are useful in every conversation in and out of an academic setting,” he said. “I am able to pick up on elements in conversations (body language, defensiveness, etc.) and adapt to different situations.” Jesse Gargis ’21 agreed. “The thing that surprised me most about the class was the willingness of my classmates to embrace very hard, complicated conversations in a civil manner,” he said. “We had many disagreements in class this year, but no one left the class with their feelings hurt.” Lauren Templeton ’21 agreed. “Being vulnerable became easier with every class as everyone listened to each other and shared personal experiences,” she said. Patrick felt that the class created something that everyone has struggled to find during the coronavirus pandemic: connection. “Through the conversations we shared in Civil Discourse, I made some sort of connection with every person in the class, even if I never talked with them outside the class,” he said. “The class [was] incredibly valuable for that reason, because through shared experience, agreement, and even contrast and disagreement, people can come together.”
Now more than ever, we feel the profound impact of our supporters. Please consider investing in every student and teacher with a gift to the Forsyth Fund. Give at FCDS.org/Giving today!
Thank you!
“The skills we learned in Civil Discourse...are useful in every conversation in and out of an academic setting.” - Patrick McBride ’21
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