Putney Post, Fall 2017 by aldeia

# ISSUE

135

Fall 2017

Putney Post

threads

POEM

JULIA ELSAS, “UNTITLED 2009,” FABRIC, THREAD Seen close, it’s a forest of vertical strings, darker or lighter. Stepping back, it becomes a swooping lower lip, shadowed below, then a hollow with a glimpse of tongue and teeth, dark upper lip nipped in at the middle, fabric stitched into breath and words. From Until the Full Moon Has Its Say, 2014, by Conrad Hilberry

Conrad Hilberry shared his love of poetry with legions of students, including our editor, Alison Frye, during his 36 years of teaching at Kalamazoo College in Michigan. He published 11 volumes of poetry. Con died in 2017 at age 88.

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FEATURE

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Letter from the Publisher and Editor

Throughlines

Progressive Threads

Growing a Scarf

Looms & Livelihood

Art that Sticks

Nice Threads

Hanging by a Thread

Letter from Head of School + Campus Updates

ALUMNI CONNECTIONS

30 Reunion + Alumni Books 32 Class Notes

In Memoriam

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ON THE HILL

On the Cover: Detail of “The Woman Tree,” 2017 by The Tape Art Crew at The Brooks Museum of Art Picture Above: The pants of Kyra De La Cruz ’21 Photo by Jeff Woodward

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DEAR READER,

When the Putney Post crew sits down to begin a new issue, we review campus news and sift through wide-ranging stories of alumni at work in the world. We discuss issues on the collective minds of our school, community, and country. Most importantly, we ask ourselves, “How can we connect these ideas and actions, and what theme might offer a lens for seeing them in a shared light?” We seek a common thread. In this issue, we let threads stand alone as a theme. We first thought of this theme in the context of our curricular Throughlines, which are part of The Putney Core, the newlyimplemented replacement to the graduation requirements (p. 4). The Throughlines describe the skills and habits of mind that we seek to develop in students through multiple facets of our program. They challenge both faculty and students to discover how essential skills can be reinforced across various disciplines, thereby deconstructing educational silos and creating connective threads across our curriculum. Ideological threads also connect schools across the country, and Putney sits at the nexus. In “Progressive Threads,” Brian Cohen traces Putney’s influence on five progressive schools that were inspired by the Putney vision and founded by Putney teachers (p. 14). Threads can also connote connections among people. Such connections are central to the participatory art work of Michael Townsend ’89 and his partners, in which people collaborate to transform public spaces with mere masking tape (p. 8). There is strength and beauty when threads are wound together, such as those woven or worn by Putney students (p. 7 & p. 20). This sense of security gains vital importance when we consider the weavings of the women in Rwanda’s Isano Collective, whose cooperative business is essential to their livelihood (p. 19). Yet threads can also suggest danger—think of the final thread. In “Hanging by a Thread” we hear from two climbers on the risk of falling, the slight security of the rope, and the reliance on the self (p. 12). We hope this issue helps shine a light on the threads running through your lives, connecting actions, beliefs, and people. We welcome your thoughts and ideas. Yours, MICHAEL BODEL

ALISON FRYE

Director of Communications and Publisher of The Putney Post

Alumni Relations Manager and Editor of The Putney Post

FALL 2017

through threads

BY KEVIN FEAL-STAUB P’15,’18, ACADEMIC DEAN, MATH FACULTY MEMBER

In a single day, a Putney student might work in a barn crew, collaborate on a chemistry lab, prepare for a debate in economics class, organize a Feminism Club meeting, forge a sword in blacksmithing, and reflect on the week with peers during dorm meeting. In every one of these activities the student gains knowledge and skills, develops habits, and builds understandings. A central tenet of our educational program is that the curriculum is everything we do. This idea guided us as we reimagined what it means to graduate from Putney. Over the last year, we have implemented The Putney Core—a new way of thinking about a student’s educational trajectory and how learning is accomplished and assessed. The Putney Core shifts us from a set of graduation requirements with a checklist of courses a student must pass, to a clear system that describes the skills, knowledge, habits, and understandings that one must demonstrate in order to graduate. Teachers from all departments and representing all the programs at Putney worked together over the past three years to craft The Putney Core. We began by having teachers describe the skills, knowledge, habits, and understandings they wished all graduates to possess. After we made our initial lists, we looked them over and it was quickly apparent that there was a group of goals shared among

THROUGHLINES • Ethical, Cultural and Social Justice Perspectives • Inquiry and Research • Argumentation • Design and Build • Collaboration • Literacy and Communication • Self Knowledge and Self-Regulation

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nearly all the teachers. We discussed, debated, and refined these common goals, which we have come to called the “Throughlines” of the Putney School Core. The Throughlines are at the heart of everything we do. They create the warp through which all parts of Putney are deftly woven. Writing the Putney Core caused the faculty to stop and think deeply about what we really mean when we talk about these goals. For example, we realized that in order to know if a student was becoming a skilled collaborator, we had to clearly articulate what differentiates a good collaborator from a clumsy one. Working with the Educational Programs Committee and in schoolwide faculty sessions, we arrived at a list of observable evidence one would expect to see in a skilled collaborator. This list became the heart of the rubric used to evaluate students’ growth. Students must collect evidence that clearly documents their progress towards, and eventual achievement of, the goals articulated in the Putney Core. Students gather and organize this evidence in an electronic portfolio. To document achievement in the area of collaboration, a student might choose to include a written description of her work as a student dorm head, focusing on how she helped other residents solve a problem in the dorm through discussion and group decision making. She may include a written evaluation of her work in the recycling afternoon activity—a report in which the adult activity leader details her growth from reluctant participant to active leader in an efficient group. The student may even include video documentation of her work planning a project with one or more classmates, in which she balances listening to others with putting forth her own ideas.

There are many benefits of moving to a proficiency-based system. Educational outcomes are clearly described and students are managers of their learning portfolios. Students quickly know what they have and haven’t achieved and can focus on what they need to improve. This structure changes the question from “How can I improve my grade in your class?” (which we still hear from time to time) to “I need to learn how to use the quadratic formula. Can you give me some advice about how I can do that?” As students build their portfolios, they regularly examine the body of work and reflect carefully on how it relates to the objectives outlined in the Putney Core. They do this work both independently, and during class guidance from their teachers and peers.

Whether working on a barn crew, doing a chemistry lab… or forging a sword… a student has the opportunity to gain in skills and knowledge in several of the Throughlines.

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THE PUTNEY CORE outlines the skills, knowledge, and understanding essential to a Putney education and necessary for graduation. It is a proficiency-based system that requires students to show progress and proof of their learning in an electronic portfolio. In addition to completing the baseline requirements outlined by the Putney Core, students discover, define, and pursue other areas of individual interest. The Putney Core comprises three areas: Throughlines, Subject-Centered Objectives, and Essential Experiences. Throughlines The seven Throughlines are overarching skills and habits of mind, supported throughout our curriculum through coursework, projects, activities, jobs, group experiences, and independent studies. Each Throughline is assessed using a rubric that describes each goal in detail and delineates the following levels: novice, emerging, proficient, and beyond. Subject-Centered Objectives These specific learning objectives are determined by each department and are also assessed using rubrics with granular descriptions of what knowledge or skills qualify a student as novice, emerging, proficient, or beyond. As with the Throughlines, each student is responsible for demonstrating evidence of this work, which is evaluated by teachers and advisors. Essential Experiences There is a set of qualities we wish all Putney graduates to have—traits towards which people should make progress throughout their lives. These qualities include cultural fluency, self-reliance, the recognition of the value of manual labor, an appreciation of arts, and a capacity for “the hard stretching of oneself.” We believe the Essential Experiences present invaluable and immeasurable opportunities to develop these qualities. We require that Putney students fulfill all of them in order to graduate.

FALL 2017

THROUGHLINES

with examples of work satisfying the collaboration throughline

collaboration

inquiry & research

WORK PROGRAM

COURSES

AFTERNOONS

EVENING ARTS

Represented natural resource extraction issues with a group at the Humans in the Natural World Climate Summit

Led class discussion on Simone de Beauvoir in Feminist Perspectives

argumentation design & build

Served as squad leader for the dinner work crew

Played in Putney Community Orchestra

Rowed a four-person scull on the Crew team.

Wrote and recorded three original songs with musical collaborator

PROJECT WEEKS

Worked with International Ambassadors to produce Lunar New Year celebration

ETC

Teamed up with local organization to build walls for new school house while on trimester abroad in Nicaragua.

ethical, cultural & social justice perspectives literacy & communication self knowledge & self-regulation

CO L L ABORATION THROUG HL INE Collaborates with others in building an active, creative, and intellectual community. Actively engages in dialogue, inquiry, and activities. Shows respect to a group and its process, and works toward common goals. Engages in dialogue • Participates actively: listens to others, inquires to pull out others’ ideas, puts forth own ideas and advocates for the group to incorporate these ideas. Works willingly and effectively with others • Works with a wide variety of partners on a variety of tasks. Engages authentically and willingly in the spirit of the exercise regardless of the partnering. Sometimes helps others with their work and accepts help from others when needed. • Understands the spirit of cooperation and prioritizes the group’s goal over their own preferences. • Remains positive and engaged when faced with adversity. Student understands group processes and shows respect to the group • Works with group to create and implement structures for decision making, allocating time, and assigning tasks. Works to ensure that all members of the group have a chance to participate. • Understands what strengths and weaknesses a particular group member offers, works toward capitalizing/mitigating those. Does their share of the work and works on integrating it into the group’s vision. • Understands that group’s results are more durable and legitimate when generated with broad participation.

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This process of organization, reflection, and curation gives students opportunities to grow in the Throughline area of Self Knowledge and Self-regulation. The very act of managing and building a learning portfolio results in something that can be added to the portfolio! The Throughlines ensure that highlyvalued skills like literacy, collaboration, inquiry, and design show up not in narrowly defined lesson plans, but throughout a student’s day. The Putney Core also makes clear that SubjectCentered Objectives, like learning to speak another language or understanding a concept in genetics, do not have to be limited to a class with the subject’s title in it. We understand that a topic like “exponential growth” shows up not only

in a math class, but also in science, history, music, and art. These ideas are beginning to catch on elsewhere, and Putney is not alone in this movement toward focusing on outcomes rather than courses. The Mastery Transcript Consortium is a recently formed group of over a hundred independent schools that is beginning to plan a mechanism to represent a student’s learning portfolio in the college admissions process. The Departments of Education in Vermont and Maine have also mandated that their public schools transition to a proficiency-based system, and many other states have emerging policies of a similar nature. Putney is ahead of the game in articulating and assessing overarching learning objectives, and our Throughlines are, uniquely rooted in our fundamental beliefs and mission. As a progressive school, we are dedicated to creating a culture and system in which students are the ones responsible for fulfilling our objectives. We look forward to seeing how they creatively and individually rise to these challenges raised in the Putney Core.

O For more context on the proficiency-based assessment, visit putneyschool.org/readings

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The Dye Garden is a cornerstone of the weaving program at Putney. Started by Trina Powers â&#x20AC;&#x2122;10 as her senior exhibition project, it has grown with the passion of countless other Putney weavers. In late winter, students start the plants in the greenhouse, and when spring comes around, they transplant them to the garden. They maintain and harvest the garden during their afternoon activity in the fall. In the last couple years, the palette of colors produced by the garden has expanded to include Japanese indigo (azure), madder root (burnt sienna), mint (veridian, a studio favorite), marigolds (ocher), and dyerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s coreopsis (shades of sunset).

growing

a scarf

FALL 2017

ARTSTICKS threads

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“The Woman Tree,” The Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, Tennessee

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M MICHAEL TOWNSEND ’89 ON CO-CREATING TAPE ART , HELPING COMMUNITIES HEAL, AND DRAWING WITH TAPE ON THOUSANDS OF WALLS

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Michael Townsend speaking at TEDxProvidence in 2016

BY BECKY KARUSH ‘94

Michael Townsend and his artistic collaborators didn’t think of their work as “public art” back in 1989. Now, more than 500 murals later, Townsend and Tape Art creative director Leah Smith can talk about the philosophy and context of Tape Art with ease and flair. They stand confidently under the mantle of public art—art that exists outside galleries and performance halls, art that interacts with communities and helps generate solutions to real problems, art that helps create a sense of belonging in public spaces for everyday people. But back then? “We were mostly making it up,” says Townsend on a humid September morning. He and Smith, who joined Tape Art in 2011, are just back from Memphis, TN, where they organized five small-scale Tape Art murals in several city neighborhoods. In the early days, the nascent Tape Art crew of young artists just went into the streets of Providence, RI, after dark and drew with low-adhesive tape on sidewalks, abandoned buildings, courtyards, and other public spaces. They ran as a kind of underground, superhero flash mob of the night. They taped out sprawling scenes in the style of police chalk-outlines—often frenzied crashes. Chariots tumbled. Roller coasters flew apart. Firemen staged rescues (with a cow, somehow, on the scene).

Each drawing lasted one day. By the next sunrise, the artist had cleaned up the last one and somewhere in the city, anyone’s guess where, created a new one. That was the beginning of Tape Art. “We were running on a lot of starryeyed stupidity,” Townsend says. The two are in their long, narrow studio on the third floor of an old brick mill building in Providence. A huge map of the United States covers one wall, with dots marking all the stops on a 29,000-mile Tape Art road trip. Massive, unidentifiable shapes drape over an adjacent half-wall, like humongous deflated jellyfish. Behind that half-wall live Tape Art supplies: boxes and boxes and boxes of painter’s tape in blue and green, the only colors available in the right thickness for Tape Art.

Townsend sits in front of three large computer screens. Smith works on a laptop. A quiet, entitled cat stretches across Townsend’s keyboard. There’s not much else in the studio, except for nearly 30 years’ experience of drawing with tape to widen, shake up, delight, ennoble, and thread together people and the places they pass through. Townsend is often asked what inspired the founding of Tape Art—temporary, public, large-scale drawings and installations made with drawing tape by a crew of artists. While Townsend is the longest-running Tape Art crew member, other artists have cycled in and out as projects or interests change. Tape Art mural-making also always includes ad-hoc community participants who pitch in with the drawing, serve as models, or help remove the tape. He can now see Tape Art as a form of modern-day hieroglyphics, or acknowledge it as part of such traditions as guerilla art, but initially he and his collaborators were “driven by newness and curiosity, and we developed this stylized way of depicting images not rooted in a love affair with anything else.”

FALL 2017

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Georgia O’Keefe 2003

Their participation is the completion of the project. It’s not like a billboard going up and coming down. They were activated in the transformation of this building. And their part was celebrated.

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It wasn’t until 1995 that Tape Art makers even thought of their work as public art, and then only because the editor of Forecast, the nation’s leading publication dedicated to the form, pointed it out to them. For the Tape Art crew, the love affair was with the process of making of the art—being in the spaces, drawing the forms, collaborating with the people who made it together, and connecting with the people who moved through it. The skillful and audacious weaving together of all four was what made really good Tape Art. Tape Art in Action: Memphis In 2016, the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art commissioned a Tape Art mural as the third event in an outdoor art series. Neither Townsend nor Smith had ever been to the museum before. The connection was happenstance, as most of their works tend to be, like following a string to see where it leads: someone sees a Tape Art work here, talks about it there, calls up Tape Art in Providence, and off they go. “We got super inspired by this one exhibit of a southern artist named Carroll Cloar,” Townsend says. He’s been leaning

back in his chair, balanced on the two back legs, feet on the table. He drops down quickly, slides the keyboard closer, and pulls up an image of the painting called “Story Told by My Mother.” Smith leans in. They are both rapt and focused in a second, curious what they’ll see this time. The painting has the quality of folk art, with a stern-looking woman running from, or coldly confronting, a dachshundshaped panther walking out of a gauzy stand of trees. Smith points at the bottom third of the image. “The pointillistic patterning here echoed what we do as artists with Tape Art, drawing every blade of grass and every leaf.” Townsend laughs. “We loved that the title made the painting his interpretation of the story, turning it into a kind of word-of-mouth folklore. There are stories in all Tape Art work, made from the conversations we have with people in the neighborhoods or organizations, or from the environment and the history.” Along with the visual inspiration of Cloar’s painting, the Tape Art crew responded to the inset rectangles and hard angles of the museum’s exterior.

“We decided to go whole hog organic and cover the building with massive tree shapes,” Townsend says. “Memphis has really incredible trees with these huge canopies. And we decided to put women in the trees with the longest possible hair, to imply willow trees, all holding cell phones.” “If we had another month with it, we’d have put in three times as many figures with all that willow hair,” Smith says with a familiar rue. They never have enough time to complete a mural to their ambitions. In this case, they started on May 8, 2017, and had 16 days, the use of a rented boom lift to reach to the roof, and the help of occasional passers-by tugged in by curiosity. Such spontaneity is an essential part of Tape Art. Whether the mural is trees in Memphis, or a wall of angelic figures at the first responder headquarters following the Oklahoma City bombing; whether it’s a collaborative drawing workshop at a GE corporate training retreat or a family in a flood of fish on the wall of a makeshift community center for people displaced by the Fukushima tsunami; whether the mural is “things that come out of a hole in the ground” and made by teenagers in the lockdown ward of a children’s psychiatric hospital; or it’s life-size memorials to New York

firefighters who died on 9/11, the murals are meant to start conversations. They are meant to be exceptional, life-size artworks—the line and color and form in singular congruence with the artists’ intentions—that reflect a place back to itself with empathy. They are meant to be made, at least in part, by the hands of the community. And they are meant to be temporary. Once a mural is complete, it is removed within 24 hours, no matter how long it took the Tape Art crew to create it. (The Tape Art crew makes exceptions for murals created for communities healing from crisis; the people decide how long they will stay up.) On May 24, Memphis Brooks hosted a finale party and invited the public to help rip off all the tape. It poured that day. Four hundred people came. “Folks always say they’re sad to see a mural come down, but, man, it comes down fast.” Townsend grins. “They have this experience of standing in front of something they like or even love, and then they get to eat it. We’re the artists, but we’re just two jerks with rolls of tape. Their participation is the completion of the project. It’s not like a billboard going up and coming down. They were activated in the transformation of this building. And their part was celebrated.”

Community members taking apart “Roger Williams Domathon” in 2011

Bonfire 1998

Tape Art as Movement Townsend and Smith will spend the rest of 2017 in residencies, as volunteers, and on conference stages across the Southwest. They are praying that the manufacturer of their preferred brand of tape doesn’t stop making it. They are also writing a book about Tape Art so that arts educators and others can run with the idea. Both are passionate about the potential of quality arts education to transform people and communities. Townsend experienced such teaching firsthand at The Putney School. “Without Putney, I never would have gone to art school. Brian Cohen made me a portfolio with drawings I’d thrown in the trash, and two days before the deadline, he pushed me through the application,” he says. “Brian was the first person to let me draw at my natural scale. He understood I had a propensity to use size. I thought I was just being impulsive but he saw it as artwork. He basically said, ‘You’re doing art, good job.’ That was all I needed to hear.” This is, in fact, what the Tape Art crew says over and over as they make and teach Tape Art. They say it to executives, kindergarteners, community organizers, fishermen, retired jet fighter pilots in Memphis riding the boom lift as high as it will go to tear down the top of a blue tape tree: You’re doing art. Good job.

FALL 2017

Hanging by a Thread

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Two Putney women on adrenaline and ascension BY MICHAEL BODEL

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Vanessa Compton keeping her head clear on "Lucid Dreaming" in Boulder Canyon, Colorado.

What bespeaks “triumph” more than the iconic image of a person perched atop a cliff? Nature conquered. Yet for Vanessa Compton ’99 and Piper Ankner-Edelstein ’20 climbing has nothing to do with conquest. It is about technique, strength, and self-reliance. Climbing at the brink of one’s ability requires presence in the moment, and as Vanessa puts it, “a healthy respect for the environment that you are in. You think about the thread of safety.” Like many climbers, these women crave the challenge of ascending the natural lines of the rock and moving through the fear that accompanies dicey holds, high-exposure, and the ten millimeters of rope keeping them safe.

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Whether in the Northeast Kingdom of VT or the boulder fields of Hueco Tanks, TX, Vanessa makes time for her professional work as a mixed media artist. Her collages portray dislocated figures resituated within surreal landscapes. More at www.krinshawstudios.com

Vanessa has spent the last eighteen years climbing throughout North America, Europe, and South Africa, and now splits her timing between making art in northern Vermont and guiding climbers in Hueco Tanks, Texas’s world-class bouldering* destination. It turns out Piper started climbing at the same gym in Quechee, VT, where Vanessa first cut her teeth. “On one hand, you need to have this confidence in yourself—where you are saying a mental ‘yes’ to everything you do. But you also have to be aware of where you could fall, of where to put the pads, of whether the rock is solid.” Climbers learn to look to the rock for guidance, to “rely on the rock for allowing you to get up in a safe way.” Piper describes her mindset on a climb in Bishop, CA. “The last hundred feet are this perfect crack. It’s a very exposed part of the rock, and the crack is so straight, and all you can think about is just putting in your next hand jam. If you start thinking about all the feet above you, and all the space below you, it feels like more than you can handle.” In recent years, Vanessa has shed the safety of the rope, and focused on bouldering, a lower but more aggressive kind of climbing, where pads and diligent spotters help ensure relatively safe landings. When asked how her relationship with the rope (and risk) has changed over the years, Vanessa reflected, “With each passing year, I don’t get stronger, but I get smarter and more tactical. When I started out, I was more blindly confident. I used to do a lot of highball bouldering.* I feel myself getting less bold, and it’s a welcome relief to leave that kind of climbing to the next generation.”

Piper Ankner-Edelstein following the lines up “The Grack” in Yosemite

“And I think it’s because I have lost friends. Some dear climbing partners. For some people, those accidents motivate them to be more bold. But for me, if I’m going to take a risk, I’m going to be very aware of when I’m doing it, because climbing isn’t everything to me.” Vanessa herself has had some close calls. She recounts once lowering her partner down a climb where the route was longer than the rope. The tail of the rope slipped through her belay device, and her partner was in freefall. Fortunately, she was able to slow her partner’s fall, “but those accidents really humble you. All those things you learn about redundancy and rope safety. Those little habits of checking your knots, tying off the ends of the rope, they are emphasized for a reason.” Piper may be much newer to climbing, but she has enjoyed taking her cues about climbing and safety from an older generation. “I have done some bigger climbs out in Bishop, CA, with my mentor, Doug Robinson. He’s one of those old-timers who helped pioneer climbing. In his era, when you were leading a climb, the leader really couldn’t risk falling. The protection wasn’t trustworthy. So even though Doug is aware that it’s safer now, he still climbs so deliberately. He’s in his seventies; it’s amazing. “When you’ve climbed something that was a little scary, but you’re finally at the chains at the top, that’s a feeling unlike any other. The adrenaline, the satisfaction. Being 1,000 feet up, and being up there with one or two other people. That’s the best thing in the world.” Since her early days climbing with the Colorado Women’s Bouldering Team in Boulder, CO, Vanessa has found

[

Piper was among those tapped to represent a new generation of climbers in a documentary project on Tom Frost, a pioneer of Yosemite’s big wall routes and lifelong advocate for low-impact climbing and conservation. More at www.flatlanderfilms.com

unmatched support from climbing with other women climbers. “There’s camaraderie that comes from doing something dangerous. Climbing is wonderful, because you can do it at any age, with anyone. But the people who really pushed me and got me to stick with the sport—through boyfriends, through school, whatever—were the girls.”

*CLIMBING TERMS Lead Climbing: In traditional lead climbing, a “leader” climbs ahead of the belayer, placing pieces of protection like metal nuts and cams in the cracks of a rock. She clips the rope through these pieces of protection. The second climber follows up the same rope, removing the protection as she climbs. Bouldering: Climbing on boulders and rock formations without the use of ropes or harnesses. Highball Bouldering: Bouldering on rocks high enough that a fall would cause serious injury, usually a route more than 18 feet tall. Crash Pads: The foam pads that boulderers place beneath their climbs to help cushion their fall.

FALL 2017

Progressive Progressive Threads Threads Progressive Threads Putney’s Legacy Through The Schools It Inspired

BY BRIAN D. COHEN

PU T N E Y P O S T

Putney was founded during the period of questioning and experimentation in education aimed to enable social progress and reconstruction that emerged from the high-minded ideals of the Progressive Movement. Recall Carmelita Hinton’s focus on “moral growth, so that one definitely progresses along the long slow road toward achieving a civilization worthy of the name.” In continuing to fulfill those aspirations so fully, so vividly, and in so many varied aspects of its program, Putney has inspired the progressive experiment in education to continue. Many traditional schools in the past fifty years have borrowed aspects of Putney’s program, enriching their arts offerings, planting gardens, encouraging discussion-centered classrooms, becoming coeducational, and starting work programs. Several influential Putney teachers and alumni have transplanted the multifaceted principles of Putney into entirely new schools in new settings.

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ne couple, both of whom taught during Putney’s first decades, envisioned a version of the school taking root in the rugged mountains of Colorado. John Holden came to Putney in the summer of 1935 immediately after graduating from Bowdoin College, so excited by the embryonic Putney project that he was willing to take a job on the farm as a teamster for $5 a month. He was quickly promoted to teaching seventh and eighth grade that fall. His wife, Anne, arrived in 1936 to teach in a grade school created to serve the children of Putney faculty. Together John and Anne remained at Putney until 1952 in various administrative, coaching, and teaching roles, interrupted only by John’s wartime military service. They spent their final two years at Putney planning an independent co-ed boarding school in the model of Putney. The Holdens purchased a used green International Harvester pickup truck and headed west to search for an ideal place for their school. They found the ideal spot in the western Colorado town of Carbondale, a ranching town near 13,000-foot Mt. Sopris. With the help of a donation of 350 acres from Harald Pabst, heir to the brewing fortune, they founded the Colorado Rocky Mountain School (crms.org), envisioned as “an antidote to modern, easy living.” They began that summer by establishing a work camp to build classroom and dormitory space and other rough infrastructure, just as with their help Putney had been developed almost twenty years earlier. The school opened in the fall of 1953 with 16 students; it now enrolls 175. John and Anne believed resolutely in the value of hard physical work. “Work breeds confidence, self-satisfaction, the will to live,” John said. “It is my firm belief that the happiest people in the world are those who serve their fellow man.” Colorado Rocky Mountain School students tend the ranch, farm, cook, and work on the

COLORADO ROCKY MOUNTAIN SCHOOL John and Anne Holden in front of pickup truck

organic garden. The school shares with Putney not only an emphasis on living in community on the land but also one of the nation’s only high school blacksmithing programs. John retired from leading the school in 1967 but continued to teach and was a founding trustee of the Outward Bound School in Colorado. The green pickup still lives (and runs) on campus.

utney’s commitment to land stewardship and the environment seems an inevitable constant among those whose worldview the school has shaped. Mac Conard took an indirect route to education. He served in the Navy and pursued early careers in boat design and the machine tool industry before finding his calling as a teacher and enrolling in the apprentice teacher program at the Shady Hill School in Cambridge, MA, where Carmelita Hinton had taught second grade for nine years. In 1951 Mac

FALL 2017

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THE MOUNTAIN SCHOOL Doris and Mac Conard in 2004. Photo by Nick Kruse, whose parents, Sue and Jack Kruse, were founding teachers and still teach there today.

met and married Doris Emerson, a secondary school teacher from Ohio, and the couple taught (he taught mathematics and shop; she history) at Putney from 1954 to 1959. After only a year at Putney, Mac determined: “There should be more schools like this, and I’m going to start one.” In 1962, inspired by Putney’s emphasis on place-based education, hands-on farming, and focus on environmental sustainability, Mac and Doris founded The Mountain School (mountainschool.org) on a 300-acre hilltop farm in Vershire, VT. They bought the land, hired a faculty, built dorms and classroom buildings, and wrote a curriculum. Doris and Mac felt Putney was a little too big for the education it intended to offer, and decided that their school would enroll only 25 to 35 students. For twenty years it remained active as a four-year boarding school. In the Putney model, students worked the land and maintained the buildings. They studied Chinese cuisine, embroidery, and mechanical drafting in evening activities. Mac introduced students to the environmental writing of Henry David Thoreau and Aldo Leopold, and Doris instilled a love of language, encouraging students to keep a journal and “commonplace

PU T N E Y P O S T

book,” while steering students towards (leftist) political commentary of the day. Whenever he was challenged on the relevance of such an education in the real world, Mac responded that this tough, rural, community life—the forests, fields, gardens, chores, and close proximity to other people—was the real world. Mac and Doris raised their three sons in Vershire, and served as co-directors of The Mountain School until 1982, when they were ready to retire. However, the 1980s were difficult times for small New England boarding schools. In 1984 a group of teachers from Milton Academy, led by David and Nancy Grant, visited the school. David recalls seeing the campus for the first time and standing on the hill in the center of the 300-acre campus. He saw the evidence of a remarkable educational opportunity. David and Nancy were struck both by how closely students lived and worked to the natural world and how educationally transformative that experience was. That night at the Conard’s kitchen table in Vershire the Conards and Grants envisioned reopening The Mountain School as a program for high school students from around the country to attend for one semester of their junior year. Milton Academy took on the administration of the school, with the Grants directing it until 1994 when Anne Stephens came from Seattle’s Lakeside School to serve as director. Interestingly, after leaving The Mountain School, both David Grant and Anne Stephens have served on Putney’s board of trustees. Mac, who served as town moderator for a number of years, and helped start the town’s first planning commission, passed away in 2013, predeceased by Doris in 2008. The school continues to enroll about 45 students each semester.

oven into Putney’s fundamental beliefs is a call to pursue social justice, “To combat prejudices caused by differences in economic, political, racial, and religious backgrounds; to strive for a world outlook, putting oneself in others’ places, no matter how far away or how remote.” Growing up in a privileged family, but one committed to social activism, Gus Trowbridge ’52 loved Putney for its informality, political leanings, and progressive approach to ed-

It is my firm belief that the happiest people in the world are those who serve their fellow man. —JOHN HOLDEN

ucation. Perhaps more than anything he loved Putney because it is where he met his future wife, Marty Dwight ’53, during his sophomore year. After both Gus and Marty attended Brown University, Gus taught at the Dalton School, a leading progressive school. He was disillusioned with de facto segregation in New York’s independent schools (in 1965 black students in New York independent schools averaged under 2% of total enrollment) and became deeply involved with the Civil Rights Movement. In response the couple created the Manhattan Country School (manhattancountryschool.org), a K-8 school bordering East Harlem. It was modeled after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of an integrated society, in Gus’s words to “dismantle the exclusivity of the white establishment and to create a truly integrated school, one that celebrated rather than shied away from people’s differences.” In the school’s inaugural brochure, Trowbridge wrote: “Differences must be immediately experienced, treasured, and understood, because a school that avoids differences places education outside the context of living.” At the time, MCS was one of a very small handful of schools committed to racial (and ethnic and economic) integration, and the only one for whom it was central to its founding mission. By design, MCS has had no racial majority among the student body or faculty. Two further overarching ideas were key to its core mission: creating a financial model that set tuition on an individualized sliding scale at what a family could afford (10% of income); and insisting that students have the opportunity to learn on a farm, “a place where, regardless of background, all students would begin on an equal footing.”

ve Thread put Ragnar Naess ’60, a longtime board member at MCS, remembers Gus as a man of far-reaching, even visionary, ideas, while Marty thought ahead and took care of practical matters. Ragnar observes that MCS is a place of truly open, honest dialog, where students learn to understand multiple viewpoints while defending their own opinions and valuing human rights and environmental justice. Trowbridge, who retired from MCS in 1997, himself described MCS as “a junior version of Putney” and Anne Cheney Zinsser ’46, who worked closely with Gus at MCS for 17 years, reflected that “Gus personified Mrs Hinton’s philosophy … that way of thinking and being was the school as it still is Putney.” Manhattan Country School remains an economically and culturally diverse learning community committed to progressive education, sustainability, and activism. They maintain an urban campus on East 96th Street as well as a 180-acre working farm in the Catskill Mountains. From an initial enrollment of 66 students, MCS is expanding to new larger quarters on West 85th Street to accommodate 400 students. The reach of MCS as a prototype for private schools that embrace a public mission is incalculable; MCS has trained nearly 1,000 teachers, a large majority who have gone on to teach in public

MANHATTAN COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL Gus Trowbridge ’52 at the class of 1980’s graduation

schools. Moreover, as Coretta Scott King remarked, “[MCS has] remained true to that future not yet seen in society . . . the bearers of a vision.” Gus Trowbridge died this past July (obituary on page 57).

rom the start Putney understood that the classroom is far from the only place for students to learn. Christopher Barnes ’85 and Molly Peterson Barnes knew from their experience as wilderness and outdoor experiential educators that students in small groups learn motivation, resourcefulness, self-reliance, shared responsibility, communication, and leadership skills through challenges and adventures in the natural world. They met in 1992 while leading summer backcountry trips for Deer Hill Expeditions and the National Outdoor Leadership School. During the school year each taught in traditional academic classroom settings. Right away they discussed creating a semester school that would merge the two learning environments—the intellectual challenges of the classroom and intentional community of a wilderness setting. “There’s nobody else for whom I could go work and do these two things, so why not create it ourselves,” Molly recalled telling Christopher. They went about starting their new school, to be called The High

THE HIGH MOUNTAIN INSTITUTE Christopher Barnes ’85 and family rounding Cape Horn at the end of 2014.

Mountain Institute (hminet.org), with deliberation, choosing a mountain setting within driving distance to backpacking in Utah to the southwest and a major urban center, Denver, to the east. They purchased 120 acres west of Leadville in Colorado’s Lake County and donated 40 acres for the campus. In 1995 they made it official, filing for 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, recruiting member schools that would send students to HMI, and getting married (their wedding invitations included a request for donations to their new school in lieu of the usual wedding registry). Christopher and Adam Chater ’86, with the help of two local carpenters, constructed a main building with library, classroom, dining, and study space and five rustic, wood-heated student cabins—on-time, under-budget (“The power of Putney grads all knowing how to do something with their hands,” says Chris). The motto for HMI became “Where Nature and Minds Meet.” Christopher is direct about HMI’s indebtedness to Putney: “From the very beginning we had chores and jobs where students had substantial responsibilities working on campus. The core tenets of progressive education as I experienced them at Putney were important, especially in the area of direct engagement with one’s own learning and striving to meet the students where they are rather than fit them to a mold defined by a set curriculum.” Much of the school’s place-based academic curriculum is carried out in the field: students spend twelve weeks on campus taking place-based courses and five weeks on backpacking and skiing

FALL 2017

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expeditions. “Teenagers are like toddlers when they’re out in the wilderness,” Molly said. “They ask great questions and absorb tons of information.” HMI has thrived with a variety of summer and semester programs, with over 1,500 alumni, and is recognized as a leader in progressive education. Christopher and Molly left HMI after 18 years to sail the world on a 47-foot sailboat with their two sons before Christopher assumed the headship of Midland School in California, a boarding school on a 2860-acre campus with a Spartan self-reliance that itself mirrors Putney’s resourcefulness and simplicity.

hough independent schools are often the incubators of educational reform, for any enduring progress public schools will need to be involved. Only about 1 in 50 students in grades one through twelve attends a non-sectarian independent school and fewer than 1 in 250 high school students attends a private boarding school. After studying physics at Reed College, Cyane Dandridge ’84 started a windsurfing school and a cleaning service, worked for the EPA designing the first U.S. Energy Star programs, and after obtaining a graduate degree in building technology from MIT, consulted on international energy efficiency policies and technology. She came to believe that climate change is the most challenging and important issue facing our world now and for the future, that education is the best way for society to make any headway, and that people learn best by doing. More immediately, Cyane wanted her two children to have a similar experience as her Putney education, but didn’t want them to leave their home quite so soon. Modeled distinctly on Putney, The School of Environmental Leadership (thesel.org), founded by Cyane in 2010, is a “school within a school,” joining the depth and interdisciplinary learning of progressive education with the breadth and diversity of a typical large traditional public high school. The SEL is a project-based, tuition-free, four-year program enrolling 120 students within the 1100-student Terra Linda High School in San Rafael, CA. SEL integrates academics with environmental issues and social

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THE SCHOOL OF ENVIRONMENTAL LEADERSHIP SEL founder Cyane Dandridge ’84

justice. Cyane refers to the “Four Cs”— Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking, and Creativity—as constants in leadership development throughout the curriculum. Students take on real-world problems with quantifiable results. After issuing a sustainability report card to the city of San Rafael, a six-student team of SEL sophomores helped to draft a climate inheritance resolution to create a climate change action plan, gathering community support, which the city adopted. Other projects included designing and fabricating a floating island in a city lagoon polluted by geese to remove excess nutrients and creating an elementary school education program focused on the ecosystem of the redwood forest (and planting hundreds of trees). Students themselves are a resource to the community. Cyane describes Putney as incredibly formative, the school that made the biggest difference in her life. Putney taught her to have the audacity to imagine and propose a plan, to present a convincing argument orally and in writing, to follow through on her own ideas, to find partners to implement the plan, and to have the empathy to understand the timing and the tools to meet the community’s needs and expectations—and, importantly, to create measureable results—Cyane and Jennifer Hoffman ’84 built the cabin near Noyes dormitory during her senior year. Above all she credits Putney with

the ethical focus and self-empowerment, as well as the drive, to bring value to the wider world. Cyane consulted with Emily Jones while planning SEL, with Emily advising her on how to make students truly a part of their own learning, to know their own value, and to have the determination to make things happen. Cyane hopes to replicate the SEL model to other public schools, and ultimately “to transform public education.” The ripples that the Putney experiment in education produce extend well beyond these five schools. The Hickory Ridge School was founded by Helen and Philip Chase, Mrs. H’s little brother, as a feeder school to Putney. Mrs. H herself in 1954 fostered The Little School for the children of Putney faculty in a renovated chicken house, which later, with significant help of alumni parents, became The Grammar School, a pre-K through 8th school that focuses on nature-based education. Many Putney alumni have gone into teaching and academic administration, far too many to mention. Mrs. H initiated The Putney Graduate School of Teacher Education, which ran from 1950 to 1964, based on John Dewey’s principles of learning through reflection on experience and education for social justice. In 1964 that school became Antioch Putney Graduate School, at which Ty Minton, a Putney School biology teacher (1963–77) designed and from 1972 to 2001 directed an environmental studies program, which now thrives as the Department of Environmental Studies at Antioch University New England Graduate School in Keene, NH. Emily Jones, in association with heads from three other schools, spurred the creation of the Progressive Education Laboratory to “prepare new teachers to become powerful educators and agents of change in the profession” by “focusing on critical thinking to empower creative problem solving and realizing the importance of social justice and educating for participation in the democratic process.” Putney remains a catalyst and leader in education and a model for innovation. As Mrs. H told the Putney faculty in 1954: “The independent school’s mission is to forge ahead with more and more valuable experiments.”

ve Thread puts threads

To see a scarf woven by Divine, or to support the collective, visit indegoafrica.org and search “Isano.”

The threads of Isano are as strong as ever. Isano (“unity” in Kinyarwanda), a weaving collective just outside Kigali, Rwanda, provides women with a sustainable source of income by selling scarves, blankets, and other textiles through Indego Africa (indegoafrica.org). The Isano Collective was started in 2013 by Putney School weaving teacher Melissa Johnson ’77 and Putney School alumna Celine Mudahakana ’13. Celine, who was born in Rwanda, had moved to the States in 2007. On a visit back to Rwanda, Celine noticed the extreme poverty in which many of her fellow Rwandans lived, coupled with a lack of opportunity for women and girls. A group of Putney students and adults brought four looms to Rwanda and helped teach a group of twelve Rwandans to weave. They became the Isano Collective. Now that Isano is in its 5th year and has stable footing, they can plan their next steps and tackle problems common to many small businesses: equipment malfunctions, necessary training, and the complexities of a collaborative work environment. The weavers have become quite efficient, with experienced members producing a sixtyinch scarf in less than a day’s work. However, mechanical failure of any of their eight looms often causes production to slow. To increase productivity, each weaver is learning to repair the looms herself. The group also has had problems tracking and organizing orders. Teaching each weaver, some of whom are illiterate, to track her work and systematically organize her business is another short-term goal. There have been tensions between the weavers who are literate and those who are not, so teaching everyone English has also become a goal. In the next year, Melissa and Celine also hope to build solar energy panels to reduce reliance on outside utilities, create a recycling program to cut down on waste, and plant a vegetable garden to help weavers and their families to meet their daily nutritional needs. All these things would help the collective’s members to be autonomous. Divine, one of the original members of Isano, was a refugee in the Congo. She moved to Kigali where she had to beg for food. Now that she has joined the Isano Collective she has become an accomplished weaver, which has brought her, as Melissa describes, a sense of peace.

Looms & Livelihood Five Years Later: Revisiting the Isano Collective

Melissa Johnson has taught weaving at Putney for 23 years. A Putney graduate, she learned to weave in the studio on campus where she now teaches. Weaving was her salvation after she moved to Vermont from Istanbul as a young teenager. Rwanda holds a special place in her heart and she returns every year.

FALL 2017

threads

See more Putney threads www.putneyschool.org James Roberts ’21 I use style as another way to be creative and express myself. There isn’t much reasoning to my outfits, I just liked the layering of the different fabrics and colors. The way I dress defines who I am, and if that is how people see me, I might as well make it interesting.

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Kyra De La Cruz ’21 I like denim on denim, but these pants in particular, I fringed myself. I think that clothing has different value for everyone. I try to put things together that don’t need to ‘match’, but just make me happy and feel good, because that’s what clothes should be.

Broden Walsh ’21 I made this dress for my eighth grade graduation. The pattern, is inspired by 50s style dresses. I love taking vintage clothing and giving it a modern twist. It was a complicated pattern with elements that I wasn’t very familiar with.

Cailin Manson Music Director Here I’m wearing some colors that, to me, suggest both fall and royalty. A deep navy blue merino wool sweater, with plum micro-cords, and a plum and navy jacquard-style frockcoat. Atop my head is a quilted navy blue cap and navy blue boots with a 2” cuban heel. Feeling good and looking good after Sing!

Lilly Horn ’20 I like this outfit because it makes me feel badass. It’s fun to play around with color like this.

nice

PUTNEY STYLE IS ORIGINAL. Relaxed. As eclectic as the members of our community. We asked students and faculty to show us their style. Since there is no dress code (you have to wear shoes in the KDU), some people wear expressive outfits, while for others clothes are simply utilitarian. What you decide to wear is up to you…and your work job.

Sarah Wiles School Librarian I am wearing a hand-knit wool skirt. I was inspired to make it because I like clothes that are fun, functional, and unique. Because the skirt is wool, it’s warm and cozy, perfect for living on the hill.

George Corrin ’19 My romper was originally a full jumpsuit, but I chopped the sleeves off and cut the legs into shorts. The personal touch of having to make the jumpsuit work makes this outfit mean a lot to me.

Matilda Law ’20 I’ve never been able to dress the same as the people around me and over time I’ve become more aware and comfortable with that and better at embracing it. It’s gotten to the point of not wanting to blend in anymore because I wouldn’t be myself. It seems boring.

Meili Ding ’20 I’m trying to make fashion choices that are more for myself rather than others. There’s definitely a fashion norm on campus but no one comments on people who stick out. It’s really helped me feel comfortable experimenting with my style and my hair.

threads

William Xuan ’19

Arlo Pogrebin ’20

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We are able, for the most part, to just be; to be ourselves, and exactly what that means for us individually. Living in an environment where our clothes are not reviewed by the administration makes me feel good and comfortable and more ready to learn in a community that recognizes these ideas and honors me for who I am. —SH YRA ’1 9

Shyra Jainuddin ’19 In this outfit, I can go run across the east lawn, lie in the grass, talk in front of 300 people, or go sit in class for an hour. I feel capable of anything. And I want to be able to say that every day.

Ixca Lopez-Aleshire ’19

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Cory Matlock ’18 I like to pair tight or short pieces like skirts or tights with something oversized. I tend to prioritize comfort over style like most students on campus.

James Cohn ’19 I try to dress architecturally. This outfit, and my aesthetic as a whole, is largely inspired by midcentury and brutalist architecture. To me, style on campus seems pretty honest and individual.

Katie Ross Garden & Farm Assistant This is my standard work uniform. I’m a thrift store junkie and everything in my outfit is used, aside from the Harvest Fest shirt. I used to specifically buy work pants but there are very limited options for women’s work pants, and they don’t tend to be as rugged, so I’ve decided it makes more sense to just buy used jeans. Rooty has worn bandanas since he was a pup; orange because it makes him more visible and matches his eyes.

Quentin Byus ’19 + Cam Hedges ’18 Quentin: Through my style I can show my roots and connection to the city. I use my clothes as a way to feel good, look good, and express myself.

Alex Shields ‘20 I feel a draw to punk music and the socialpolitical movements at the heart of it. I made this by purchasing a denim jacket from a thrift store, cutting off the sleeves, sewing on the front patches and using about 400 safety pins to attach the back patch, and wearing a bleached hoodie underneath.

Shixue Shao ’21 I actually picked this outfit for my father to wear, but it was too small for him, but it fits me. When I wear it my mom says that I look like an electrical worker. This is my favorite outfit, and I won’t wear it unless there is something important to be done.

Phil Ranney Farm Staff I wear overalls for the comfort they provide while working. My great uncle wore them so it’s a family tradition to some extent.

Molly Cameron ’18 I made the jacket using fabric from Rwanda. The colors are incredibly bright and beautiful.

Melissa Johnson ’77 Weaving Teacher I sewed my dress of fabric I bought in Rwanda and knit my earrings from silver wire that a Putney student gave me. One of my bracelets is made of cow horn by Jean-Marie Habiyaremye, who is an artisan in Rwanda. The other bracelet was made by Jeanne Bennett (Putney jewelry teacher) and given to me as a talisman to protect me on my trips to Rwanda and bring me safely back home to Vermont.

FALL 2017

ON THE HILL PAGE’S FIELD Throughout our eighty-year history, the rolling pastures across Houghton Brook Road have provided hay, trails for running, riding, and skiing, and beautiful vistas to the west. We were fortunate to be allowed use the land, but its future was never certain. Over the summer, we were finally able to acquire this 84-acre parcel, ensuring that these fields and forest edges won’t be developed and will remain part of Putney’s natural environment. The purchase preserves access to the extensive network of trails enjoyed by school and local communities, and it includes a homestead, currently home to a faculty member and her family.

24 PUTN E Y P O S T

ON TH E H ILL

LETTER FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL

In the early days, life at Putney was somewhat monastic in that the community on the hill created its own world, its own culture. News and ideas from the outside came through newspapers and guests at Sunday Night Meeting. Mrs. Hinton insisted that students create their own music, design their own fun. Although in the beginning Putney was intellectually connected to the larger progressive education movement, in the school’s middle years, progressive schools became quite isolated as the educational mainstream moved to the right after Sputnik. Putney was also somewhat behind the curve culturally, with the upheavals of the late 1960s hitting hardest here in the late ’70s and early ’80s, which spoke to a stillremote community. Putney today sits in a web of connections, both virtual and real. The Internet provides our communication on campus as well as our research materials, our news, and much of the culture of this generation of students. We are part of a complex network of schools and educators, with formal and informal ties across the world. This fall groups of Putney students have presented at a national progressive education conference, attended a seminar on impact investing in New York, volunteered at the Common Ground Fair in Maine, and participated in a social justice leadership institute in Boston. A Chinese WeChat site is managed and translated by a group of Putney parents, bringing news of Putney and progressive educational theory to a wide audience. Our students can study in China, Mexico, France, England, Nicaragua, and Morocco. We have students here from sister schools in Mexico and England, and in January we will host eight from a public school in the Bronx. We are part of a network of 20 schools in the U.S. and Canada, public and private, exchanging students for short terms at no cost other than transport. Dozens of educators visit us every year to learn about our programs. All of these threads and cables connecting us off the hill bring great benefits. While we have lost some of the benefits of the old monastic community, it is still fair to say that The Putney School stands for a way of life, one that requires the commitment and daily labor of everyone, that demands compromise and collaboration, that is rooted in the land we live on. It is a way of life that gives the arts a role in every life, rather than putting them to the side to be the purview of just the artists. Intellectually we are now at the forefront of the educational conversation, rather than outside or behind, and this is as much a result of what has stayed the same here as what has changed. What makes us different is the way we combine things here—creativity and groundedness, manual labor and intellectual vigor, informality and deep seriousness. As always, I very much appreciate those of you around the world who see yourself as active parts of our web, and send thoughts, articles, referrals, and ideas for new connections. You are our think tank.

Putney School stands for a way of life Mission Statement

Art/ Activism/ ImPAct Art/Activism/Impact is a laboratory for young people hungry to engage the challenging issues of the day, open to learning from peers and professional activists, and ready to work collaboratively on artistic projects that provoke, educate, and force us to act. This summer we will be piloting this new program, which will take place alongside Summer Arts. While it is not open to current Putney students, we hope you will help spread the word about it to the many creative, politically engaged teenagers connected to the Putney community.

EMILY JONES

Head of School FALL 2017

ON THE HIL L

EMAIL EAVESDROP Excerpts from Community Comments, the email listserv for Putney students and faculty to share (arguably) non-essential information.

Are there supposed to be cows on the soccer field??

Long Fall Find more Long Fall photos at www.flickr.com/ putneyschool

In September, 22 trips sprawled across New England for Long Fall. There were rugged treks, river floats, summit hikes, an ecological excursion to Acadia National Park, and a few “glamping” trips featuring campfire cuisine straight out of Bon Appétit. What unifies these diverse experiences is that each provides an intimate context for students to connect with one another and spend rich time in the natural world. We aim to model the teamwork, communication skills, and reflective practices we hope will permeate the academic year.

LOOKING IN

Sunrise hike tomorrow is at 4:30 am not 3:30 am!

Found in the library: a pencil case, a turkey feather, and a quartz crystal. See Sarah to claim.

My flannel vanished during day time. It’s probably around New Wing or Wender. If you see it, catch it! Don’t let it run away! Slow, dumbfounded finger snap so enormous it achieves sentience and flies like a phoenix into the heavens, forcing the seven archangels to their knees in sheer amazement of its majesty

I am currently in a mild predicament caused by good growing conditions. This year we seem to be having an extreme abundance of peaches.

Our hilltop campus, farm, and forests provide rich scenery for Putney students to test out their landscape photography skills. But as Eva Gondelman ‘19 puts it, “so many students take pictures of campus, sometimes it’s hard to find inspiration or feel like you’re doing something new.” That’s what led Eva to capture the campus by night through a Project Week, in which she contrasted nocturnal shots of rural and urban architectural spaces. Mostly, the project was intended as a technical challenge—shooting in low-light is tricky, especially with 35mm. She even shared that her camera kept jamming, leaving the shutter open for longer than intended. But Eva’s diligence and meticulous work in the dark room paid off, and her photograph of the blacksmithing studio in the Wender Arts building turned out compositionally exquisite. “Looking In” was awarded a Gold Key in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, before going on to win an American Visions Medal, Scholastic’s “best in show” award for each region and one of only 60 works of art selected nationally. Her photograph was included in Art.Write.Now, an exhibition at Parson’s School of Design at The New School and Pratt Manhattan Gallery, which is now on a two-year national tour of museums and schools. Last spring, 31 Putney students were recognized alongside Eva in the regional Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, with Gold Keys also going to Luke Cuerdon ‘18, Sydney Miller ‘18, Olaf Saaf ‘17, and Eliza StraussJenkins ‘18. After traveling on a photo-focused student trip to Bali and studying alternative processes at Maine Media last summer, Eva is honing her skills in Lynne Weinstein’s Photography III class. She’s been loving the manual challenge of 19th-century techniques like cyanotypes, kallitypes, and salted paper processing.

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ONONTHTHE E HHILL ILL

Meet…

A FEW NEWBIES TTTTTTTTTTTT M IC H A E L V ERCI LLO

Farm and Math Teacher Teaching Algebra 1 Afternoons: Woods crew, garden, farm Evening Arts: None at the moment, but I sing in madrigals

CHR IS COL EM AN Admission Counselor

Why do you love working at Putney? As the parent of a graduate, I am well aware of the excellent educational pursuits Putney provides. However, now as a much more active member of this community, my joy comes from furthering Putney’s mission. As an agent of empowerment, I encourage students to take full advantage of the numerous growth opportunities Putney offers. How do you continue to be a lifelong learner? I listen to stories. Everyone has them. Whether I am reading a biography or cruising the Internet, watching a documentary on television, attending a lecture or being told a

first-hand account, I listen. So much more is gained with a closed mouth and open ears. What’s your favorite place on campus?The KDU. Sharing meals with others is a huge part of the human condition. We invite people into our homes. We dine with our friends and family in restaurants. At Putney, most of us convene at the KDU three times each day. It is no wonder that The Putney School is such a well-connected community.

What led you to Putney? A desire to be part of educating young people holistically, especially through work, farming, and the outdoors. I visited with my family when I was in college and could sense that Putney was a special community. Describe your favorite time/activity/place at Putney? Sing is pretty special to me. I remember being deeply moved the first time I saw Sing at a Harvest Fest—alums and students coming together singing the same songs and expressing joy and love for their community together. Describe your dream Long Fall trip? “VT Farm to Table,” which would involve base camping at a farm, visiting other farms in the area, and using the products from those farms to prepare delicious local meals that students would be responsible for putting together.

E L E NA RAMO N ’10

Modern Languages Teaching Spanish 1 and 2 Dorm Parent: Huseby Afternoons: Community service Evening Arts: I try to participate with the orchestra when I have the time What led you to Putney? I was a student once upon a time (yay class of 2010!) and that was such an amazing experience that taught me the beauty of learning, teaching, and also of my own heritage. The way Putney embraces education through experiential and project-based learning is something that stayed with me throughout my teaching program and practicum, so it was only natural that I would want to come back to the place that opened my eyes to it. What do you do when you’re not teaching? Walk my dogs, mostly, but I love reading and films. I just went through a binge session of Almodóvar (Spanish director and screenwriter), which has led me back to Guillermo del Toro’s work since he has a new film coming out soon. Favorite place outside of Putney? Everywhere. Literally, all over the world. I love traveling! Chicago because my family is all there or Orlando, because I love going to Disney World and Universal Studios.

CAL EB TEACHE Y

Science Teacher Teaching Chemistry and Microbiology Dorm Parent: Noyes Afternoons: Rock climbing and recycling Evening Arts: Book Arts Describe your favorite time/activity/place at Putney? When I’m on duty in the dorms and I’m handing out baked goods. What do you do when you’re not teaching? I rock climb, ride horses, and crochet stuffed animals. Describe your dream Long Fall trip? A climbing trip in the Adirondacks FALL 2017

ON THE HIL L

TEACHERS TALK

farm

Space

WITH KATE KNOPP, DEAN OF FACULTY I watched the discussion clunk along in Zoe Parker’s tenth grade English class. A student stood at the board drawing a diagram of the conversation as it unfolded, charting a web of student participation and connections between ideas. The students were asking questions of the text, Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried—questions like “what did you think about this scene?” They checked their understanding with questions like “wait … what happened when?” The energy was anemic until one student offered an observation: all the descriptions of the guys dying were “kinda beautiful … poetic.” Long silence followed. It seemed odd. Then another student confirmed that all three deaths were described in colors and sounds, conjuring ethereal beauty. More silence. A third student asked, “Why would he do that?” and the next twenty minutes of class hummed without a single question from Zoe. A good teacher comes to class with a toolbox of questions that can be drawn on to crank up the engine of investigation. The teacher may hear a simple clarifying question from a tentative thinker and ask a leading question to help her gain confidence. The teacher may follow with a guiding question that helps students make connections and ultimately arrive at an essential question. All that questioning is magical because the students feel the thrill of having found their own way to the idea. It takes a teacher steeped in content and astute with teenagers to tune classroom discourse—to know when and how to ask questions that propel discussion to a point of revelation. Zoe Parker recently asked her fellow English teachers to reflect on their use of questions in their teaching practice. How do we use questions to read, to frame discussion, to investigate an idea? What is the distinction between a question that promotes critique and one that inspires creativity? A question that connects material, or juxtaposes ideas, or isolates a literary choice, so that the class can examine minutia? What types of questions help students formulate their essay responses, and which types launch further inquiry? Maybe most critically, how can we help students grow adept at using questions to develop their own curiosities into productive lines of inquiry? Wouldn’t it be powerful to see students reaching into their own toolbox of questions, and pulling out questions that kick the engine of discussion in gear and send it rumbling off over new ground?

PU T N E Y P O S T

Colony

CoMmunity

SUMMER ARTS

Experience

Studios

3 weeks to create and connect through art

Session I: June 24 – July 13 Session II: July 15 – August 3 FIND OUT MORE ONLINE AT

summer.putneyschool.org OR CALL 802.387.6297

ALU MNI C ONNECTIONS

ALUMNI CONNECTIOns

Detail from “Good Lucj Country,” by Vanessa Compton ’99. See full image on page 50.

FALL 2017

’52

’57

ALUMNI C ONNEC TIONS

This year’s reunion was the largest we’ve ever seen, with almost 250 alumni attending this year (compared to about 100 alumni in 2016). Thank you to the volunteers who helped spread the word, and to all of the alumni who returned to campus in June. What a time we had!

’67

REU N I O N C L A SSES Class of 1952: Front row: Pat Baker, Nate Chaffin, Elizabeth Kurth-Birks, Dorothy Biddle, Lisa Dodd Nicholson, Paul Sperry Back row: Sam Morley, Kit Lukas, Evan Birks, Justin Biddle, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, Peter Castle ’51 / 1957: Michael Foster, Chris Collins, Bob Gray, Nick Davis, Granville Hurley / 1961–63: Front row: Frank Levin, Kathy Hoffman, Peter Snider, Jay Goodwin Pott, Dorry Schalk Brown, John Pappenheimer, Jane Van Loon, Lucy Shelton, Fred Noyes, Joan Rosenfelt Back row: Tom Roeper, Sally Randel, Barbara Blizzard, Paul Fearer, Steve Heyneman, John George, Chris Leonard, Lincoln Harrice ’60, Marian Hunter, Nick Macdonald, Nick Wolfson, Hunt Riegel, Chris Munger, David Hinkle, Milton Quigless, Gay Sise Grossman / 1967: Bottom Row: Francis Morris, Judy Segal, Amy Shulman Weinberg, Jerry Lanson, Anne Stanford, Ellen Gray Denker, Jonathan Schlefer, Molly Scoville Fitzmaurice, and John Farrar Top row: Dan MacArthur, Mark Stevens, Scott Reed, Phee Brown Rosnick, Bill Quarton, Carol Quigless, Alden Smith, Stuart Lowenstein / 1977–78: Front row: Bridget Cole, Jen Just, Arnold McLeod, Elizabeth Ehrenfeld, Heston Scheffey, Jody Fein, Jethro Pettit, Cora Wen Middle row: Valerie Haimowitz, Margie Serkin, Jack Sherman, Rachel Trumper Debasitis, Alan Tuthill, Peter Heller, Carrie Peacock Colan, Carinthia Grayson Back row: Sandy Craig, Julie Rigby, Melisa Gillis, John Bidwell, Dorian Yates, Evan Ashkin, Katy Goldizen, Nat Scrimshaw, Melissa Johnson, Constance Cunningham, John Wender, Jonathan Herz / 1986: Amelia Lawrence Darrow, Ben Mitchell, Nora Daniel, Barnaby Dorfman, Sheri Wetherell / 1987: Adam Rothberg, James Rice, Celina Ottaway, Judith Kobliska Goetz, Rafe Brown, Laura Hoblitzelle Bak, Liza Pintz Ottani, Alice Luhrmann Laughlin / 1988: Parke Ballantine, Tasha Osborne Byus P’19, Jeff Burt, Sara Kazemi, Jacob van de Sande P’09, Zach Weinberg P’21 / 2006–08: Front row: Jeanz Holt, Molly Cimikoski, Ana Estrada Levenson, Carissa Connelly, Claire DeLiso, Taylor Kimberlain Middle row: Erik Peckar, Rebecca Hodgson, Katie Keating, Genevieve Snow, Nora Woods, Guthrie Andres, Noah Brennan-Sawyer, Aisa Burke Back row: Clara Rowe, Robin Crofut-Brittingham, Anna Noyes, Emelyn Daly, Anna Bralow, Johanna Campbell Case, Hallie Herz, Alex Downer, Olivia Hooper Downer, Will Carlson, David Crook, Kirby Russell, Chris Hescock / 2011–13: Gaia Raimondo, Maeve Jackson-Dufault, Innocent Ndubuisi-Obi, Jordan King, Morgan Whitehead, Paige Heller, Charlotte Dillon, Natalie Silver, Clementine Ford, Rose Waters Burch, Briana Sexton-Stallone, Emma Cowan, Rommie Cardenas, T’keya Davy, Andy Cooper-Ellis, Max Berlow, Sarafina McLeod, Kathryn Roberts, Mirin Brown, Jordan Weiss, Emma Sherefkin, Claire Koerschen, Amy Blazej, Mollie Goldblum, Lyssa Jackson, Perri Meeks, Chava Lansky, Emily Gross, Cameron Ward, Jon Erik Brodhurst, Tygre Wright DeMaria, Ellie Lawrence, Sophie Cooper-Ellis, Nicholas Sandy Engst-Matthews, Eddy Funkhouser, Lilly King, Julia Dwight, Greer Cowan, Anna Snipes, Keegan Crocker, Lily Bell, Varney Glassman, Sylvie Graubard, Nate Treacy, Zoe Novak-Miller, Tommy Friedman, Zack Gruver, Rory Moon, Joey Keogh, Dan Crotty, NiRey Reynolds, Marley Reed, Blythe BeardKitowski, Audrey Batchelder, Alex Rolland, Max Kruger, Alex Theisen, Curtis Sampson, Zoii Barnes Scott, Caleb Cochrane, Corelle Rokicki

’88

PU T N E Y P O S T

’86

’06–’08

ALU MNI C ONNECTIONS

ALUMNI BOOKS ’61–’63

’77+’78

’87 ’11–’13

Secrecy and Disclosure in Victorian Fiction Lila Silvana May ’76 Routledge, 2016

Why were the Victorians more fascinated with secrecy than people of other periods? What is the function of secrets in Victorian fiction and in the society depicted? How does it differ from that of other periods, and how did readers of Victorian fiction respond to the secrecy they encountered? These are some of the questions Leila May poses in her study of the dynamics of secrecy and disclosure in fiction from Queen Victoria’s coronation to the century’s end. May argues that the works of writers such as Charlotte Brontë, William Makepeace Thackeray, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and Arthur Conan Doyle reflect a distinctly Victorian obsession with the veiling and unveiling of information. She argues that there are two opposing vectors in Victorian culture concerning secrecy and subjectivity, one presupposing a form of radical Cartesian selfhood always remaining a secret to other selves, and another showing that nothing can be hidden from the trained eye. May’s theories of secrecy and disclosure are informed by the work of twentieth-century social scientists. Her study offers convincing evidence that secrecy and duplicity, in contrast to the Victorian period’s emphasis on honesty and earnestness, emerged in response to the social pressures of class, gender, monarchy, and empire, and were key factors in producing both the subjectivity and the sociality that we now recognize as Victorian.

Transforming Your Inner Critic Into an Inner Coach Nando Raynolds ’76 CreateSpace, 2017

Ready to stop being mean to yourself? This workbook provides tools and exercises to transform inner-directed negativity, self criticism, and shame into self-compassion. This book teaches how these negative habits developed, and helps the reader gain skills on how to reduce negative emotional charges and systematically replace them with sensible self-compassion. Going through this workbook is life-changing and its process very down-to-earth and methodical.

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Have you written a book? Let us know by contacting alumni@putneyschool.org

FALL 2017

P.S.

Guest teacher Kweku Bransah leads the Jazz 1 dance class on an autumn afternoon. PH OTO BY J E SS I CA BAT T E N

PU T N E Y P O S T

Return to all your favorite places…

Putney Reunion 2018 JUNE 8-10, 2018

(50th reunion for class of 1968 begins on Thursday, June 7)

CLASSES OF 1948, 1953–54, 1958, 1968, 1972–74, 1993, 2002–04

putneyschool.org/reunion REGISTRATION OPENS APRIL 1

Elm Lea Farm, 418 Houghton Brook Road, Putney, Vermont 05346