23 minute read
Feature: Compassion
Compassion A Concern for Others A Call to Action A Force That Fuels the Good On Our Campus In Our Communities and Around the World
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Downtown Campus Middle School Service Day
By Jill Beil
From preparing food for soup kitchens to making toys for shelter dogs, students spent the morning giving back to our community in countless creative ways.
Some of the service projects include: • Wrapping and assembling gift boxes for the Holiday Hope Chest • Creating holiday decorations for
Meals on Wheels • Making dog toys for local animal shelters • Preparing canned goods for a food bank delivery • Reading and recording stories for
PreK friends • Designing games and a newscast for a senior center • Writing letters to members of the military • Bagging lunches for Trinity
Soup Kitchen
WATCH A VIDEO FEATURING STUDENT INTERVIEWS ONLINE AT www.moravianacademy.org/msserviceday.
Swain Campus Parent Association Season of Giving
By Swain Campus Parent Association
Starting in late fall until Martin Luther King Jr. day on January 17, 2022, the Swain Campus Parent Association coordinates the Season of Giving. An outward focus resonates strongly with the Swain community and the Season of Giving elicits support from the Swain Family toward outreach opportunities during this multiple week effort.
During the holiday season, partnerships with the Camelot House, The Boys and Girls Club of Allentown, and Fellowship Manor help grant wishes for deserving children with special needs, spread extra holiday cheer to the elderly, and raise over one thousand dollars for the programing at the Boys and Girls Club of Allentown. The Season of Giving ends with a Kindness Campaign. The Kindness campaign encourages our school community to perform random acts of kindness. Different grade levels work together to fill a kindness lantern with red and white pom poms, make a kindness chain, or deliver kindness messages. The goal is to fill our community with over three thousand acts of kindness!
This coordinated outreach effort is not only an opportunity to support the less fortunate members of our community, but also an opportunity to teach compassion and caring for one another to our students.
Second Grade Takes on the UNICEF Kid Power Challenge
By Yuli Vanegas
As our second grade class was preparing to do their daily reading routine, one of our students, Narayan ’32, noticed a special announcement.
Immediately, Narayan’s eyes opened wide, and he enthusiastically said, “We can donate our stars for meals to the needy!” Learning A-Z had teamed up with UNICEF Kid Power to launch the Learning A-Z and UNICEF Kid Power Classroom Challenge, which empowers students to donate meals to the needy in exchange for stars (rewards).
Before I could comprehend what he was talking about, he had donated most of his stars in exchange for three meals. Within a few minutes, he had sold the idea to the rest of the class, and we were embarking on our campaign to get not only our classroom into this beautiful journey but the entire Lower School on the Downtown Campus.
So, let me backtrack a little bit so you can better understand how beautiful this story is. When children read and answer questions, the program gives them stars as an incentive, which they can use to play a game and purchase clothing for their robot or furniture for their house. My class decided, unanimously, to give up their playing rewards and donate their stars for meals to the needy. What a glowing moment this was. Everyone was cheering and enthusiastically rejoicing at the idea that they could make a difference! Immediately, we started doing our additions and subtractions to calculate how many books we needed to read in order to accomplish our goal as a classroom. We are going for 30 meals or 24,000 stars! Students practiced their presentation skills and their Spanish by going to MABC and introducing their idea to our community, and the rest of the class visited each SIP classroom in the Lower School to present the idea in a more personal way.
As another student, Iris ’32, said, “...not only do we work and learn but we also help our community.” I am very proud of every single one of them. ¡Segundo grado es una estrella!
Shining the Spotlight on Compassionate Counselors
Get to Know Kristi Johnson ‘97, Helene Perucci-Kinsman ‘99, and Lindsay Lee
When we think of compassion at Moravian Academy, many of the stories covered in this issue jump to mind: campus-wide community service projects, empathetic approaches to academic subjects, and general generosity. Sometimes, compassion matters most in situations that happen behind the scenes, when a student needs a gentle encouragement or extra support to reach their full potential. This is where our campus superheroes come in: our school counselors.
Meet
Kristi Johnson ’97
Before starting as a counselor on the Downtown Campus three years ago, Kristi worked in the Bucks County public school system for over 16 years. Not only is she our counselor, but she is also an alumna and the proud mom of four current students: Addison ‘29, Aidan ‘27, Amelia ‘36, and Michael ‘27. “I find that helping my children overcome challenging situations has enhanced my overall counseling approach. I also believe it helps me identify with our parents in the community,” she says.
Like Lindsay, community is important to Kristi, and it’s because of the strength of the Moravian community that she moved back to the Lehigh Valley so that her children could have the same experience she did when she attended the school. She says, “When I transfered to Moravian in high school, I developed a true love of learning! MA had such a positive impact on my life, that I wanted my children to benefit from it as well.”
Our community -- one that embraces the unique potential of every learner -- doesn’t exist on its own. It’s shaped by professionals like Kristi, who provides a safe environment where students feel comfortable expressing their experiences and emotions. She wants students to know “that I am there to support them in any way that I can while they are navigating through their time at school.” The key to doing this successfully, Kristi tells us, is compassion. “As counselors, we are here to help guide our students through their educational journey. An effective counselor is one that not only has empathy for their students, but has to have the desire to help. I wake up every morning, ready to come and help our students the best way that I can,” she says.
When she isn’t wearing her counselor hat, Kristi loves being “just another” MA mom. Some of her favorite experiences are attending “magical” events that showcase our students’ musical talent.
Meet
Helene Perucci-Kinsman ’99
Helene’s calling to teaching social-emotional learning and mindfulness led to her finding a “home base” at the Swain Campus after traveling to and from Lehigh Valley schools. While she was thrilled to be able to give students these “life-changing” tools, it was difficult to build relationships based on “trust, understanding and compassion” when her programs only lasted eight weeks. She knew she wanted to find a permanent place where she could support and advocate for students in a culture of understanding and compassion. She found that place at Moravian Academy.
An alumna of Moravian, Helene began her time as an MA student in seventh grade. She shares that experience with her daughter, who is currently an eighth-grader on the
Swain Campus looking forward to learning on the Merle-Smith Campus.
“I loved my Upper School experience,” says Helene. “I had incredible teachers who supported and challenged me and had a tight-knit group of friends. The community at MA always felt accepting of all kiddos, and I feel that at Swain. It is a magical place because all the faculty and administration cares deeply for the well-being of the student body.”
As a counselor, Helene believes in “positive regard always.” “Every child, every person, is trying their very best. It is my job to help advocate for them, listen to them, and support them. Behaviors are just signals to us as educators that kids are having difficulty meeting an expectation, so either we need to give them more resources and support to help them meet those expectations or potentially change our expectation of them and meet them where they are.”
Like Lindsay and Kristi, compassion is the “driving force” of Helene’s work with students. “When we approach students’ struggles with compassion opposed to judgment, they feel more safe to talk, make mistakes, and grow from those opportunities to learn.”
Meet
Lindsay Lee
Lindsay joined the Merle-Smith Campus as counselor in fall 2020, bringing with her a wide range of experience as a restorative justice facilitator and trainer, a victim advocate, a trauma counselor, an educator, a project manager, and a therapist.
“My passion is working with young people and helping them reach their full potential as whole, healthy individuals, thriving in whatever context they choose,” she says.
Since becoming a part of Moravian, Lindsay has been a champion of our school. “It’s been a pleasure to begin to see the true colors of Moravian Academy come through especially in the past few months,” she says. “The moments that stick out are when we are able to come together, whether in celebration or in healing, to support and grow together.”
Community is important to Lindsay, whose background as a social worker trained her to “work towards healthy systems as well as healthy individuals,” which colors everything she does. “I’m always leaning into the bigger picture and how we can support or heal the collective in addition to the individual in front of me. Being a part of those transformations is a perpetual highlight of my career,” she says.
While Lindsay may not have experienced Moravian pre-pandemic, instead of “returning to normal,” she sees an opportunity to “fundamentally redefine what it means to be in community with each other and how we show up for each other as human beings.” She works every day to “intentionally cultivate radical empathy and understanding” critical to a compassionate community.
“Radical compassion is key to seeing and understanding the humanity of the individual in all circumstances, no matter what a person is going through,” she says.
Advice from Our Counselors
Lindsay, Kristi, and Helene shape our culture of love, understanding, and compassion, but they don’t do it alone. It takes all of us, together, to create the community that so many alumni, teachers, and students have said feels like home. Our incredible counselors offer some parting advice for families:
• Give your kids the space to make mistakes, even big ones. They are huge opportunities for learning and growth. • Remind yourself that “It’s okay to not be okay.” You don’t have to be or achieve anything in particular to be valuable.
Your worth as a person is not conditional. • Know that we counselors truly are a team working together to set our students up for success (academically, behaviorally, socially and emotionally).
Current Events
at the Middle School
Middle School teachers give learners the tools to explore the complexities of our world with curiosity, confidence, and compassion.
• Ms. DiMarco’s Social Studies class learned the various governmental systems in ancient civilizations and how to interpret modern governments. • Mr. Lucas offered a question and answer session so students could write questions on note cards to share their immediate concerns regarding the situation. Part of the discussion revolved around compassion in times like these and considering our community members who may have familial connections to either Ukraine or Russia. • Mrs. Turcotte provided background and perspective from her own life experience of how Ukrainians have their own unique identity, culturally with music, food, dance, art, dress, and religious observations. • Mr. Walp facilitated daily discussions on Ukraine while making connections to recurrent curricular themes of human rights and spheres of influence. • Mr. Laubscher incorporated media literacy skills to help students identify and navigate information. • Mrs. Riker used a quick read of Animal Farm to make students aware of Russian history and to illustrate propaganda and a dictatorship action.
Coins for Ukraine
By Nick Lucas & Laura Riker
What began as collecting spare change in the Downtown Campus Middle School turned into a school-wide initiative to raise money for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. Now, every homeroom has a collection jar as students find creative ways to raise funds in support of Ukrainian refugees.
The Swain School Campus Community Mandala
By Angie Lande
On Monday, March 7, 2022 a large mandala was hung in Rogers’ Commons. Started by third, fifth, and seventh-grade students, community members were invited to draw or color the mandala. Mandalas represent life, wholeness, and unity. A sunflower was chosen as the initial design to send healing and prayers to the people in Ukraine. The act of creating a mandala is a calm, quiet, meditative experience. Art supplies were left out next to the mandala so as many community members as possible could add their unique artistic touches while taking a quiet, reflective moment.
Dr. Joshua Sanborn, Lafayette Students Speak on War in Ukraine
By Julia Fox
Lafayette College history professor Dr. Joshua Sanborn and two Lafayette students, Anastasiia (right) and Reni (left), presented on the war in Ukraine.
On Wednesday, March 16, students and faculty on the Merle-Smith Campus gathered in Dyer Auditorium for a special presentation on the crisis. Dr. Sanborn, an expert on the history of Russia and Eastern Europe, provided historical and geopolitical context on the situation.
Then, he turned over the microphone to Anastasiia, a Lafayette senior, and Reni, a first-year Lafayette student. Both grew up in Russia. The pair shared their unique perspective as students living abroad as the war unfolds.
“There are no winners in war,” Anastasiia told the packed auditorium. “The consequences have been devastating even for my Russian friends and people who live there. And that’s not even a fraction of what Ukrainian people have experienced.”
Reni, who traveled to the United States only weeks before the war began, remembers waking up to hundreds of text messages from friends and family on the night of the invasion, including one that read, I heard the bomb. “I thought of my life for several minutes,” she said. “The war just divided my life: What was before that and what was after.”
After graciously sharing their experiences and expertise, all three guests answered thoughtful questions from students and faculty. Everyone was surprised by the bell that signals the end of the school day; they were so immersed in the personal stories and their deeper understanding of the crisis.
Moravian Academy is so thankful to Dr. Sanborn, Anastasiia, and Reni for what was an incredible learning experience for all.
MA Welcomes Guatemalan Exchange Students
By Gonzalo Del Real & Juan Rojo
We were pleased to have Melanie Vazquez Lopez ’22 and Mariana Gil ’26 join us on the Merle-Smith and Downtown Campus, respectively.
They visited us from Guatemala through an exchange program organized by Faces & Our Cultures, a Guatemala-based group that believes “a cultural exchange is an experience of integral growth.” Melanie and Mariana stayed with families within our community while attending school. Diana Lopez ’22 and family are hosting Melanie, while Profe Gonzalo del Real, his daughter Arwen del Real Sobiech ’26, and family are hosting Mariana. The students returned home on December 9, 2021.
“I was happy to be here and excited to meet new people,” said Melanie.
In the summer, there is an opportunity for American host students to spend several weeks in Guatemala as part of the exchange. It has not yet been determined whether this year’s students will travel abroad.
The partnership between Moravian Academy and the Faces & Our Cultures program has been on hiatus for the past several years due to the pandemic. We are pleased to bring the program back with the goal of growing it while creating additional opportunities for cross-cultural immersion and travel experiences in the future.
A Winter Wonderland for Recess
Ted Rosenberger ’84 MA Continues a Joyful Tradition
By Amanda Kulakowski
Thanks to Moravian Academy alumnus and current Swain School parent, Ted Rosenberger ’84 MA, our Swain School friends had a snowy treat all week to enjoy during recess.
For the past couple of years, when the weather was cold enough for snow but Mother Nature didn’t cooperate, Rosenberger would lug his snow machine to the Swain School Campus and create a snow hill for our students to enjoy during recess. This year was no exception.
Once again, he created a winter wonderland. All week, giggles, screams, and laughter could be heard throughout the day as the students bundled up and went sledding. It is never an easy setup for Rosenburger, (he was on campus checking on the snow at 3 AM), but as he told us this year, “The smiles and screams of joy from the kids motivate me to solve the problems each year and get it working!”
READ MORE ON THE COMENIUS CORNER AT www.moravianacademy.org/winterwonderland.
The Balance of Burden
A Novella About the Struggles with Mental Health
Ava Noel ’24 takes a creative and compassionate approach to her Comenius Project.
A signature experience at Moravian and a transformative one for students, the Comenius Project pays tribute to the Moravian scholar who inspired the school’s founders in 1742. Upper Schoolers design an independent honors project and bring it to fruition under faculty mentorship. Come spring, the results are presented to—and celebrated with—the school community.
When it came time for Ava Noel ’24 to start her Comenius Project, she knew that the research would only be one part of a comprehensive project about mental health issues in teenage girls, like anxiety, depression, and struggles with body image. A more compelling approach, she thought, would be to examine the topic through fiction. That’s why she’s writing a novella. She says:
I just wanted to show the different things that girls deal with, whether that’s going shopping and the sizing not being the same in every store, and being so caught up with the numbers. That’s the first chapter, [...] the girl shopping with her mom and not feeling comfortable asking her mom for a bigger size, even though she fit into a smaller one at a different store. I thought this was something that was really important that a lot of people need to see. When asked by her advisor, Dr. Crowe, why she channeled her research into a novella as opposed to a traditional research paper, Ava shared the following:
To me, it can’t be a research project because it would just be more numbers. Seeing a number or statistic of how many people have depression, I don’t really think that does enough. I really wanted to highlight and dive into the everyday struggles of teenage girls.
The discoveries that students make through independent research drive many of their passion projects and inspire students’ best creative work.
Inspiration Speeches
By Erin Coffey
The Swain Campus inspiration speeches are a long standing tradition for eighth grade students, completed during their final year as a Swain Cougar. For over the past ten years, Swain students spend the first couple of months of their eighth grade year choosing, researching, and learning more about an inspirational figure.
This year, students were inspired by grandparents who are scientists, entrepreneurial parents, older siblings, fictional book characters, olympians, social activist actors, selfless caretakers, supporting coaches, and even birds.
As a capstone for Swain’s extensive public speaking curriculum, these eighth-grade students prepare and deliver a speech to an audience of fellow eighth graders, teachers and school administrators, and sixth and seventh-grade classmates, with an accompanying slide show presentation, to an audience of school community members. The speeches include biographical information highlighting inspiring moments, personal anecdotes, and supporting reasons why their chosen inspiration figure is inspiring to them.
Each speech, lasting between five to ten minutes, is both a nerve-racking and monumental moment for each student and one that Swain students look forward to as they head into their eighth-grade year. It is their special time to shine as they honor a remarkable and inspiring individual.
Justin Jankowski ’26
about his father
Henry Zohn ’26
about Oprah
The Class of 2026 shines at the podium for this special Swain School Campus tradition.
Murathimeningai Daisley ’26
about her older brother
Abbie Criscuola ’26
about her grandmother
Kyra Snow ’26
about her guinea fowl, Kitty
“He is my inspiration because of his relentless caring spirit, his exceptional abilities, and his wisdom beyond his years. He radiates confidence, kindness, and humility.” “My Grandma’s passion, interest, and thirst for knowledge was clear. She didn’t just learn how to be a scientist—she learned how to be the best scientist she could be.” “She made new friends, she moved on with her life. She didn’t let grief consume her. She persevered and lived her life, instead of just existing in it.”
An Update from Karen Washington, the Director of Community & Inclusion
At the start of the school year, I reflected on our collective goals for the year to nurture the minds and spirit of students across campuses. The work had been set before us, as a school, to see value in broadening perspectives and creating a balance of learning through the lenses of window and mirror; that is to say, recognizing that both views are valuable. Furthermore, helping students grow in that process is valued as an integral part of achieving our mission as they “actively learn from and support the different identities [they] embody, [they] respect each others’ views, and [they] lead with head and heart.”
Though I do travel to other campuses, I maintain an office and spend much of my time on the Merle-Smith Campus, where I work with students in both the Black Student Union and the Student Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) committee. Both groups have worked tirelessly this year to build community by organizing events and facilitating discussions on compelling topics of their choosing. In February, the DEI committee engaged the entire campus community (students and adults) in an all-school activity in the AWC. We stood in one huge circle, into which we stepped according to experiences we have had. A wide range of prompts from the benign “step into the circle if you like pineapple on pizza” to the more painful “step into the circle if you have heard religious slurs on campus.” The objective of this activity is to help us all be aware of the ways we might celebrate each other or have things in common, but to also be aware of hurtful experiences that community members face so that we recognize areas for improvement and growth. In terms of “windows and mirrors,” the BSU is a prime example of a space on campus where not only students who identify as Black come together to celebrate their culture and shared experiences, but it is also open to students from other backgrounds as a space for opportunities to learn more about those experiences.
CONTACT KAREN WASHINGTON, DIRECTOR FOR COMMUNITY AND INCLUSION, AT KWASHINGTON@MAMAIL.NET
Gender Education and Sexuality Expert, Deborah Roffman, Holds Workshop with Faculty
For our all-school professional learning day on February 22, master teacher and nationally recognized consultant Deborah Roffman spent the day on campus to engage adults in conversations regarding sexuality and gender education.
We recognized that this is an area where many of us (parents/guardians and faculty/staff) have many questions, and we are proud to have the support not only of our administration, but also of our alumni. In conversations with William “Bill” Humphries ’69 and his sister Marilyn ’71, benefactors of The Bill and Congetta Humphries Memorial Fund for LGBTQ Studies, we were encouraged to begin this work in earnest. While the day with Ms. Roffman included information on a plethora of topics, more importantly, her presentations led to valuable feedback from faculty. Having reviewed this data, Deborah and I are assembling an action plan to help move the school forward to a place where centering the child and creating a safe space for them is the first priority. Our ongoing partnership in the coming months will include examining practices in school as well as having Deborah meet with parents in the future. This is an important commitment of which we, as a school, are immensely proud.
Partnering with parents is a critical part of growing in a community together. In January I had an opportunity to engage with the Parent Association, facilitating a discussion on the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion in our school, and ways we can build a community of belonging at Moravian Academy. It was a well received, lively discussion where participants shared openly their desires for that sense of belonging for their children, especially. We talked about the importance of getting to know each other better, the dangers of making assumptions first, and ways to avoid that practice. In March, we offered another workshop, this time focusing on having courageous conversations with children. The focus is to help adults feel confident in helping children as they grapple with questions, and (where age appropriate) to advocate for themselves when confronted with tough situations.
Continuing to have conversations with campus leaders, faculty, staff and parents keeps me confident that Moravian Academy is a place where the commitment to create a community of belonging remains at the forefront. I remain proud to work with other professionals on campus who see this work as integral to Moravian Academy’s mission. Feel free to reach out for additional information about our programs.
