CHRONICLES OF
Quaker Education
WINTER 2014
Celebrating
325
of Quaker Education in America
Joint celebration of Quaker education with Friends Select and Penn Charter students at the Arch Street Meeting House
Friends being willing to encourage a school in this town, and in order thereto, they agreed with George Keith to assure him a certain salary of fifty pounds per year, to be paid quarterly, with house rent convenient for his school and family, with the profit of the school . . . the said George Keith also promiseth to teach the poor (which are not of ability to pay) for nothing . . .
2014
Minutes of the Monthly Meeting of Friends Philadelphia, Fifth Month 26, 1689
is a landmark year for Quaker education in America, for it was 325 years ago, in 1689, that William Penn, along with the Pennsylvania’s provisional government and the Philadelphia Friends Meeting, established the Friends’ Public School in Philadelphia. Quakers came to America as early as 1656 and meetings established a few small schools prior to 1689. We celebrate 2014 as the 325th anniversary of Quaker education in America because in 1689 the Provincial Council set up “Friends’ Public School, founded in Philadelphia at the request, cost, and charges of the People called Quakers.� William Penn Charter School and Friends Select School date their beginnings to 1689. The Overseers of the William Penn Charter today can trace their lineage back to the original Overseers named by William Penn. Friends Select School is overseen by a board of trustees appointed by Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting and Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia at Arch Street tracing their roots back to the 1689 Friends of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting. We’ve asked William Penn Charter School and Friends Select School to write about their respective histories and how they are celebrating the 325th anniversary.
William Penn Charter School Penn Charter, established in 1689, from the beginning was different from other schools in the colonies and in the “Old World.� Penn’s school was founded not for some people but for all people. It was one of the first schools open to children of all religions and races, one of the first to educate girls and to offer financial aid. Penn saw the school as central to his ideas for a democratic society. He knew that, for the new colony to thrive, its citizens would need to have a moral education for a participatory democracy. He envisioned a new kind of education that would prepare young people to be teachers, merchants, builders, and farmers, as well as political and professional leaders. Penn’s school began in 1689 with the hiring of a headmaster and school records show that it grew quickly, eventually evolving into a network of schools.
Friends schools established in the 17th and 18th centuries: 1681 1689 1689 1697 1748 1780 1784 1784 1785 1786 1786 1788 1794 1796 1799
Rancocas Friends School, NJ William Penn Charter School, PA Friends Select School, PA Abington Friends School, PA Wilmington Friends School, DE Plymouth Meeting Friends School, PA Friends School of Baltimore, MD Moses Brown School, RI Moorestown Friends School, NJ Friends Seminary, NY Haddonfield Friends School, NJ Westfield Friends School, NJ Buckingham Friends School, PA Oakwood Friends School, NY Westtown School, PA
A Publication of the
Dr. Darryl J. Ford, Penn Charter’s current head of school, kicked off a celebration of the school’s 325th anniversary at an opening assembly for students and staff in September that featured a colloquy between him and “William Penn.� Penn Charter administrator, teacher, and Penn scholar Stephen A. Bonnie played the role of Penn and the two engaged in a lively discussion about Penn’s family, his city, his state — and his school. Penn Charter followed up with a joint celebration of Quaker education with Friends Select at Arch Street Meeting House, where the Monthly Meeting of Friends Philadelphia, established in 1684, has been Meeting for Worship since 1804. Penn Charter has planned further projects to celebrate the 325th anniversary, including: s ! MINUTE lLM ABOUT 7ILLIAM 0ENN 0RODUCED AND directed by Philip Katz, a 2001 graduate of Penn Charter, the film features interviews with prominent historians as well as reenactments. The video will be available on penncharter.com. s $IGITIZING THE SCHOOL S EXTENSIVE AND IMPORTANT ARCHIVES actively integrating the materials into curriculum and instruction; and making the materials available on penncharter.com for all to use. s 0UBLICATION OF A SMALL HISTORY OF 7ILLIAM 0ENN #HARTER 3CHOOL
Friends Select School Friends Select School traces their roots back to being a direct descendent of the Friends’ Public School, established by the Monthly Meeting of Friends Philadelphia (today, the Arch Street Meeting) in 1689. Almost 150 years later, in 1833, a Select School for Boys opened at 820 Cherry Street and a separate Select School for Girls was located on 7th Street near Race. The schools combined in 1890 to become Friends Select School and moved to one building on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The word Select in the school name dates back to 1827, a time when Orthodox Quakers created schools to “select� and educate only Orthodox Quaker children. Friends Select School abandoned this practice in 1877 and today welcomes children from all religions, nationalities, and ethnicities. While the school’s name and location have changed through the years, much has remained constant, including the school’s connection to the founding Meeting, its commitment to Quaker testimonies and philosophy, and its location in Center City Philadelphia. Today FSS is under the care of the Monthly Meeting at Arch Street as well as the Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting at Race Street, and the school is still very much a Center City school. Friends Select shared the 325th anniversary of Quaker education this fall in the joint celebration with William Penn Charter School. The two schools came together in the Arch Street Meetinghouse to hear former FSS teacher and professional storyteller Charlotte Blake Alston tell stories about William Penn and the founding of Quaker education. Middle school students from both schools broke into mixed groups to discuss Quakerism. And so, Friends Council on Education celebrates Quaker education, based on Quaker principles, which began and has continued to spread throughout the world over the past 325 years. Happy anniversary to all Friends schools!
The Essence of Quaker Education What is the essence of Friends education? In 2008, Arcadia Publishing Company contacted Friends Council on Education inviting us to tell the story of Quaker education for their Campus History Series. Arcadia asked that the story be told through images gathered from Friends schools founded before the 20th century in the greater Philadelphia region. This exciting research project was led by Friends Council staff (Sarah Sweeney-Denham and Irene McHenry) and implemented by Janet Chance and Mark Franek. Friends school historians and archivists sent images from the 10 Friends schools founded in or near Philadelphia before the 20th century: Abington Friends School, Frankford Friends School, Friends’ Central School, Friends Select School, George School, Germantown Friends School, Greene Street Friends School, Plymouth Meeting Friends School, William Penn Charter School, and Westtown School. The finished product, Philadelphia Friends Schools, tells the photographic story of an educational philosophy rooted in three centuries of faith and practice. An analysis of the images lifted up five essential themes of Quaker education throughout the ages:
UÊÊ,iyiVÌ Ê> `Ê iiÌ }Êv ÀÊ7 Àà «ÊÊUÊÊ µÕ ÀÞ L>Ãi`Ê i>À }ÊÊÊÊÊ UÊÊ Ý«iÀ i Ì > Ê i>À }ÊÊUÊÊ Êv VÕÃÊ ÊºV Õ ÌÞ»Ê Ê i>À }ÊV Õ Ì ià UÊÊÊ `ÕV>Ì Êv ÀÊà V > Ê ÕÃÌ ViÊ> `Ê>Ê«i>VivÕ ]ÊÃÕÃÌ> >L iÊÜ À ` These themes, elaborated through photographs and text, are evident throughout Friends education across the United States.
Reflection Friends schools encourage young people to be reflective, introspective, and to connect with “that which is larger than ourselves.” Meeting for Worship supports students and faculty to develop positive habits of mind for learning and for life — the essential habits of silence, recollection, and reflection. Eighteenth century British Quaker educator, John Fothergill, said that a special Quaker contribution to the spiritual life of children is to habituate them to silence, recollection, and reflection. The capacity to sit still, wait patiently, pay attention, and recollect oneself are spiritual as well as practical skills in learning and in daily life. Paul Lacey, contemporary Quaker author, posits that the skills of sitting still and paying attention are skills for the scientist, the social worker, teacher, therapist, and healer. Through taking time to listen and observe, students learn to wait for the evidence to take coherent shape before taking action. In Friends schools, we believe in the educational, psychological, and spiritual value of developing the habits connected with Meeting for Worship. Lacey, in Growing Into Goodness, points out, “It is enriching to be habituated to reverence, to encounter the holy with joy and with awe, to cherish others as children of God. Also to place a high value on the beauty and order of the natural world, and on the capacity of the human imagination to empathize with people very different from ourselves.”
Experiential learning
Just as Quaker worship is experiential in nature, the pedagogy that is practiced in Friends schools is designed to actively engage students in learning both inside and outside the classroom, across curricula, and through service learning. The term “experiential learning” originated in the early part of the 20th century during the progressive education movement. Experiential learning is learning through active experience and reflection on that experience, which can be contrasted with rote or didactic learning. Friends schools have emphasized experiential learning since the 17th century when George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, advised Friends to create schools to instruct boys and girls in “whatsoever things were civil and useful.” (The Journal of George Fox, edited by Wilson Armistead.) William Penn, the Quaker founder of the colony of Pennsylvania, in the late 1600s, along with other Quaker founders, started schools to provide children with the opportunity of learning useful trades and skills as a central educational principle. Friends schools today continue to provide direct, experiential learning through the arts, art and design, the practical arts (farming, cooking, carpentry, sewing), service learning, and through the use of experiential methods in all curricular areas. Friends schools in the 21st century teach environmental stewardship through experiential methods, and emphasize skills for the sustainability of the planet.
Creating learning communities
Friends schools create learning communities in which collaboration is key. Through collaboration, as with Meeting for Worship, each person brings her/his own “Light” into the process. “Quakers believe that the insight of the individual is tempered by the collective understanding and wisdom of the group.” (Philadelphia Friends Schools) The Quaker belief in the light of every individual and the value of working together to create and sustain community support provides a pedagogical model for the collaborative nature of the whole learning community. The Friends school classroom and field experience offers the opportunity for all voices to be heard and respected. This fundamental practice of including all voices encourages and celebrates divergent thinking, creativity, critical thinking, and respect for difference. “Community is the matrix in which young people can develop the trust and selfconfidence essential for the risk-taking required in experiential education. In community everyone can learn to take responsibility, to follow or take the lead. In community we can learn to give and receive love.” (Growing Into Goodness) Parker Palmer draws a parallel to the Meeting for Worship experience as he describes the Quaker philosophy of education and the classroom experience in a Friends school as meeting for learning. “Friends made a simple and compelling point: The common element in both worship and business should be the search for truth — and the expectation that, if we give it space and time, truth will come to us.” (From the Friends Council pamphlet Meeting for Learning by Parker Palmer.)
Inquiry-based learning Inquiry-based learning leads to innovations. Growing out of the Quaker form of silent worship, which is a powerful practice of open inquiry, the pedagogy in Friends schools is based on inquiry. Teachers intentionally and frequently use open-ended questions, which are powerful tools to stretch children’s natural curiosity, reasoning ability, creativity, and independence. This kind of inquiry-based learning allows students and adults to benefit from seeing and hearing multiple perspectives, and then to build knowledge through a collaborative exploration. Friends schools invite students and faculty into inquiry learning in Meeting for Worship and in the classroom in a unique expression of ongoing discovery within diverse communities. Learning through inquiry shifts the educational emphasis from the “product” to the process of developing critical thinking skills and broadening students’ engagement with content. The latest brain research shows that open-ended questions engaging students in reflective, creative thinking open up new connections in the brain, which make the brain more receptive to new learning and different points of view. Friends school pedagogy is an inquiry process leading to genuine insights and new ways of seeing and understanding the world and the world’s people. “The child who learns how to sit still, while waiting for a bird to land or a deer to emerge from the thicket is laying the foundation for greeting the sacred, for centering outside the self, for knowing herself as part of a world of beauty and order, as well as for learning how to collect data.” (Growing Into Goodness)
Peace and social justice Friends school mission and philosophy statements include the core Quaker belief that there is “that of God” in every person. This commitment leads to the creation of school communities with an ethos of caring and school communities that reach out to connect and provide care to people in their neighborhoods, the country, and the world. Teaching children to embrace conflict, to develop nonviolent responses to conflict, and to understand the root of sources of conflict is key work in Friends schools. In Quaker education, the learning communities purposefully work with conflict, embrace tension, and develop peace education curricula and practices for nonviolent conflict resolution. Friends school curricula promotes teaching each subject in ways that enhance student understanding of social justice, basic human and civil rights, and right sharing of the world’s resources. An educational goal is for students to gain an awareness of the world beyond their immediate environment, have exposure to broad societal issues, develop compassion for those struggling under difficult circumstances, and recognize their own capacity to actively make a difference in the world. Friends schools teach values for world citizenry including the love of freedom, religious tolerance, democracy, respect of human dignity, respect for diversity, and work to improve the lives of the oppressed. Following Quaker principles, Friends schools seek to incorporate those values in the life and culture of the school.
Wisdom Through the Ages >ÌV ÊÌ iÊ+Õ ÌiÊÌ ÊÌ iÊ+Õ> iÀ ___ 1. Love children with wisdom, correct them with affection. ___ 2. The pedagogy of Quaker education strives to create students who have the skills to solve problems and are compelled to do so as members of the world community.
___ 3. Key features of Quaker education [include] our understanding of the sacred and our response to it, the power of silence in worship and pedagogy, the relevance of the Quaker social testimonies and the Meetings for Worship and for business for creating an ethos for teaching and learning.
___ 4. Listen, really listen, to the ideas not the personality, especially when someone is complaining. Be present — it will feed you and those around you. When you get stuck, ask yourself whose voice is missing that might enable you to see the whole picture.
___ 5. Be pro-active in every individual relationship — have the daily conversations that gently reveal the negativities students and staff are going through, to prescribe helpful steps for regaining, restoring positivity of being in every one. . . .
___ 6. There is another part of our Quaker practice — listening — that has a pronounced relevance when times are difficult and people are angry or fearful. Listening is a robust part of our Quaker school curriculum.
___ 7. Teach all things Civil and Useful in Creation. ___ 8. Just as Friends join together in Meeting for Worship in the corporate process of perceiving the truth that is revealed to them, so in the classroom students are served most effectively if competition is transmuted into a collaborative and mutually supportive process of constructing knowledge.
___ 9. The goal of Quaker education — “educating and training up of the youth both with relation to time and eternity.”
___ 10. The goal of all true scholarship can, in one way or another, be described as “truth seeking,” but . . . in Quaker tradition, this phrase has a particular meaning . . . the Quaker truth seeking process tends to include a wider range of perspectives. More importantly, it takes moral principles, or testimonies, as a starting point.
___ 11. Through reflection, discover and lift up for awareness the spiritual dimensions of everyday life (presence, gratitude, hospitality, respect, wonder, reverence, inspiration). Help students become spiritually literate.
___ 12. We are a people that follow after those things that make for peace, love, and unity. a. Sarah Sweeney-Denham, Plymouth Meeting Friends (2009)
g. Nancy Starmer, George School (2009)
b. Tom Gibian, Sandy Spring Friends (2010)
h. Paul Lacey, Earlham College (1999)
c. William Penn, Friends’ Public School (1693)
i. Anthony Benezet, Friends’ English School (1758)
d. Ida Trisolini, Carolina Friends (2011)
j. Jane Fremon, Princeton Friends (2001)
e. Harry Hammond, Wilmington Friends (2009)
k. Ken Jacobsen, Olney Friends (2002)
f. Margaret Fell, Swarthmoor Hall (1660)
l. George Fox, Britain (1650s)
Answers can be found on the back calendar panel.
NEWS OF GIVING AND SUPPORT
Why Do You Give?
Resources Growing Into Goodness by Paul Lacey Is there a Quaker philosophy of education? This book of essays is the result of Lacey’s experience and research on this question. Essays cover such topics as the spiritual purposes of our schools, how schools interpret the phrase “that of God in everyone,” the place of Meeting for Worship, and addressing the economics of Quaker education.
Philadelphia Friends Schools This book includes images from the 10 Friends schools founded in or near Philadelphia before the 20th century. Philadelphia Friends Schools uses historic images to tell the story of Friends schools’ mission to develop the human capacity for love and good will, analysis and reflection, respect and responsibility to others — a story that has been experienced by children for more than three centuries.
COMINGON! SO
Leading in The Light: 325 Years of Quaker Education in America
In honor of the 325th anniversary of Quaker education in America, and as a tribute to Irene McHenry upon her retirement, this is an inspiring collection of writings from leaders in Friends education, including essays, poetry, stories, and musings that reflect on the principles of Quaker education and the defining features of leadership within the Friends school environment, as we seek to live into the 21st century of Quaker education while rooted to our foundation from the past.
Grants for Student Projects for 2014 – 2015 Deadline: April 4, 2014 Could your school use funding to help launch a creative student project? Each year the Friends Council awards grants of up to $2,000 to Friends schools to fund creative and collaborative student projects that are grounded in Quaker testimonies. Visit the online Grants Gallery to see past projects and application guidelines: friendscouncil.org>Resources>Grants to Schools
At the Friends Council Board’s fall meeting, members reflected on this query: “Why do you give charitable gifts to nonprofits and why do you make Friends Council on Education a priority in your charitable giving?” Each board member spoke passionately about why they give to Friends Council on Education. Their comments were heartfelt, moving, and inspirational. Here is a sampling of their words. For me, giving is a tithe. Giving is spiritual stewardship. — Darryl Ford, William Penn Charter For me, it is not a question of why do I give, but why would I not? — Ken Aldridge, Germantown Friends School I’ve seen the lives of kids, parents, and adults transformed by Friends education. My giving flows from wanting to keep the momentum going. — John Baird, Westtown School In my first headship, I couldn’t imagine making it through my first year without Friends Council on Education. — Debbie Ziotowitz, Mary McDowell Friends School Giving to FCE is a priority . . . the sphere of influence is amazing. It’s a peace organization, educating kids to be leaders, educating adults to be leaders. Giving to FCE is giving to all of those things. — Nancy Donnelly, United Friends School What we give kids (through Quaker education) is a light that is lit, a light that can’t be taken away. — Sisi Kamal, Friends Seminary Throughout the hour of reflection, several themes emerged. Perhaps you can find an echo of your own reasons for giving to FCE in the following: s 'IVING OUT OF GRATITUDE s 'IVING TO &RIENDS %DUCATION BECAUSE GOING TO A 1UAKER SCHOOL CHANGED YOUR LIFE OR THE LIFE of someone you know s 'IVING AS TITHING s 'IVING BECAUSE YOU VALUE EDUCATION AND VALUE 1UAKER EDUCATION IN PARTICULAR s 'IVING BECAUSE 1UAKER EDUCATION CAN BE TRANSFORMATIONAL s 'IVING AS A WAY TO ALIGN ONE S EXPERIENCE AND ONE S VALUES s 'IVING TO &#% BECAUSE LEADERSHIP MATTERS AND )RENE HAS BEEN AN AMAZING LEADER s 'IVING TO &#% BECAUSE YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW WAS ABLE TO GO TO A 1UAKER SCHOOL DUE to financial aid/FCE grant s 'IVING BECAUSE &#% IS A GREAT RESOURCE FOR EDUCATORS AND HEADS OF SCHOOLS
To find out about giving options, please visit the FCE website at friendscouncil.org/support
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Irene is retiring from the Friends Council on Education in June 2014.
Irene McHenry Executive Director, Friends Council on Education
In seeking, we engage students and colleagues in growth-focused explorations of self and world. We encourage children in their wondering, their felt sense of awe and wonder. We refrain from quickly giving “because” answers to a child’s question. We support the exploratory instinct by asking even more questions, such as, “How might we find out more about what you want to know?” Adolescents are the great explorers. The teenage brain and body are exploding with new sensations and elevated sensory awareness. We support them by orienting youth to take leadership in exploring essential questions, both personal and curricular-based: Who am I? Who do I want to become? Where do I fit in? Where can I best contribute my energy to serve in the world? We strive to support their awakening. And in doing so, we never stop awakening ourselves as educators, mentors, and leaders. Our hope is to awaken in ourselves and others new ways of perceiving and understanding. Friends education provides a safe container for exploration. I think of this container as an ethos of fierce love. The foundation is the Infinite Love in which we can all be renewed. The “fierceness” is evident through the power of intention, the power of embracing tension, of taking a moral stand, of not giving up. In exercising fierce love, we practice “growing into goodness.” It is the emphasis on “growing into” that comes directly from Quaker faith and practice; a belief that we are all in a process of becoming, while the community provides the crucible for our work of becoming. This commitment to fostering human goodness engages us in expanding individuals’ visions of who they might become, expanding the vision of what our schools can become, and expanding our vision of what the world could become. I’ve had the honor of leading in the light of Friends education for more than 30 years. My understanding of leadership and my growth as a leader have been profoundly shaped during these years by the generosity and good will of many persons and school communities. An enormous treasure in Friends education is that we value relationships and relationship building. Throughout these past thirteen years, as executive director of Friends Council, I have been touched, honed, and re-created through relationships in the Friends school network. A dear friend and mentor recently loaned me a book, Dorothee Soelle: Mystic and Rebel, by Renate Wind. This act of friendship demonstrates what it means to know and be known — gifting students and colleagues with inspiration that touches heart and mind supporting growth. These words leapt out from the pages: “lift us out of the assurance of what we know, confront us with our own clichés, unmask us, change our relation to the world and, hence, our very selves.” This is what we are about in Friends education. This is how we lead and we are led. We feed each other, care for each other, question and prod each other toward deepening truth. We do this in a safe container of fierce love knowing that we are all seekers.
seeking and the faith principle of continuing revelation brought me to Friends education and the Religious Society of Friends.
At the deepest level of our being, we are all seekers. This spirit of
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We Are All Seekers
Quaker Education CHRONICLES OF
of Quaker Education in America
325
Reflections Early Childhood Educators, April 3 – 4, 2014, Germantown Friends School Diversity, January 31, 2014, Friends Center
Development & Public Relations, April 11, 2014, Friends Center Admissions, May 16, 2014, Friends Center
Exploring Right Relationships – Joint Conference: Friends Council and Friends Association for Higher Education
MATCH THE QUOTE ANSWERS (from page 3)
Three online sessions in the winter: January 14, January 28, and February 11, 2014 “Partnership Conversations: Board and Head Goal — Setting and Evaluation”
Friends Environmental Educators Network (FEEN), May 1 – 2, 2014, Washington, DC area
June 12 – June 15, 2014 at Haverford College
11. e. 12. f. 9. i. 10. g. 7. l. 8. j . 5. k. 6. b. 3. h. 4. d. 1. c. 2. a.
REGISTER NOW online at www.friendscouncil.org Trustee U: Governance Programs for Trustees
Secondary Heads Gathering, April 23 – 24, 2014, Friends Select School
Elementary Heads Gathering, April 23 – 25, 2014, Chestnut Hill Friends Meetinghouse
Head Gatherings
Mindfulness in Learning and Life Based on Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction Mondays 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. with Irene McHenry February 3, 10, 24, March 3, 10, 17, 2014 at Chestnut Hill Friends Meetinghouse Philadelphia, PA
Quaker Youth Leadership Conference, February 6 – 8, 2014, Westtown School Educators New to Quakerism, Pendle Hill, Full for 2013 – 14 Registration for 2014 – 2015 opens August 2014
Librarians, February 21, 2014, Westtown School
Workshops
Peer Network Events
Experiential Professional Growth for Faculty, Staff, and Trustees in Friends Schools
WINTER 2014