AMOR COLEMAN

Kindergarten Student Collects Books for BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Sycamore’s Diane Borgmann presents Amor Coleman with a letter of commendation from the CEO of the Indianapolis Public Library and the President of the Indianapolis Public Library Foundation. Amor Coleman had the idea to collect books that depict Black and Brown kids like her to pass out to her classmates and other children in the area in celebration of Black History Month. It became successful beyond her and her family’s expectations. Coleman is a Sycamore Kindergarten student and started a book drive to coincide with her upcoming February birthday. Amor and her mom, Erica Scott, spread the word through school, social media, and through media and TV interviews. They ended up collecting enough children’s books to give a book to each student in Kindergarten class at Sycamore before they even started to spread them throughout the Indianapolis community. “In conversations with classmates the issue of skin tone came up many times,” Scott says. “I wanted Amor to feel represented and confident in who she was even in settings where she was the only one who ‘looked like her’. So I thought a diverse children’s book drive was a great way

to celebrate and encourage literacy and diversity and inclusion.” Amor, who turned six years old on February 18, donated books to places as far away as Bucaramanga, Colombia, in addition to donating to Sycamore’s Preschool, Maria Montessori, Greenbriar Elementary, Cooperative Play Academy, Riley Children’s Hospital, Tiny Explorers, Path Schools, and Special Smiles. “I’m most proud of the impact it made not only in our community but internationally,” Scott says. “I’m also proud that we were able to touch so many lives and hopefully get people to talk about diversity with their kids, family, and community more.”

They have a website at flykidsread.com where you can get more information and donate more books, as they have a waitlist of people that are in need of diverse children’s books.

I wanted Amor to feel represented and confident in who she was even in settings where she was the only one who ‘looked like her’.

ERICA SCOTT AMOR’S MOM

Graduation Speeches

At the 2021 Sycamore School commencement, three 8th Grade graduates, Avi Maun, Rayna Moiz, and Nate Liang were chosen to give speeches to parents, teachers, and friends in the audience. Here are excerpts from each of their speeches.

GRADUATION SPEECH

AVI MAUN

I have a story to tell you. It isn’t called the Tale of Two Cities but rather the Tale of Two Trees. When my family first moved into our current house, the same year I started Kindergarten at Sycamore, we planted a small tree to symbolize a new era. By now, it has grown into a mature, healthy tree. Then, just last month, we planted another tree. It was amazing how much more I know about trees now than when I planted the first one nine years ago, all because of our school. Both trees are a perfect representation of my time at this school. You may think I’m going to say something profound like, “We put our roots down, we grew taller and stronger, and now we have blossomed.” Well, that’s all true. But I am going to take a different approach and show you how much we have learned over the years at Sycamore by just using trees as an example. On my first day in Kindergarten, which was my first day at Sycamore ever, we learned that as a tree aged, you could count the number of rings to determine how old they were. Trees continued to impact me at Sycamore because in that same first week of school, a random classmate walked up to me and said out of the blue, “Trees have leaves!” Phil, thank you for telling me trees have leaves. Throughout the next nine years, our knowledge of trees progressed. We had our infamous leaf scrapbook in Lower School, and we learned more about trees on our Middle School trip to Tremont. The next few years taught us about the science of photosynthesis and that the chemical formula for glucose is C6 H12 O6. Just this year, Mrs. Ditchley taught us that we can even eat trees. As you can see, Sycamore took us on a journey, and they layered us each year with knowledge that built on the previous year. Just like the rings of a tree. Now, back to The Tale of Two Trees. As I mentioned, in April, my family and I planted a second tree next to the first one. It was a memorial tree, in honor of my late grandfather, a new hope for all of us after COVID. Remember that unexpected snowstorm a month ago? A snowstorm in the middle of April! It ravaged our small, tiny tree, and we hoped that it would survive. After all the snow melted, we looked at the wilted tree and saw that the buds were still there. It was ready to keep

growing and thriving, despite the frigid hardship. Seeing this, I had an epiphany that this tree imitated our lives in Middle School. We had a pandemic that disrupted our lives. Everything stopped, and we didn’t know how we would come out of it. But now we see sunlight peeking through. We are also ready to keep growing and thriving. Just like the new tree, we survived our hardship too. So, I want us to remember the beginning. When we were small saplings, to where we are now. We grew together and made our own forest. However, a tree can’t progress on its own. For all of us, that came from our teachers. Thank you, Mrs. Simpson and Mrs. Corcoran, for teaching me all about metaphors, although I probably overused them in this speech. Thank you, Mrs. Molter, for putting on great Reading Rumble competitions. Thank you, Ms. Mihm, for teaching me about ancient history and how much Mr. Keith loves cats. Thank you, Mr. Keith, for exposing me to robotics and how much Ms. Mihm loves cats. Thank you, Mrs. Miltenberger, for teaching me that there is a right way to organize your math homework. Thank you, Mr. T, for teaching me all about mathematical proofs. I hope that will help me impress all the girls at high school. Thank you, Mrs. Cummins, for truly embracing the spirit of eLearning and helping educate my class while Mr. T was on a screen. Thank you, Mr. Young, for never sending me to the gulag. Thank you, Mr. Lowell, for helping us through the attacks of the No-See-Ums at Seacamp. Thank you, Mr. Schuth, for teaching me exactly what you want as a gift. Maybe next year I’ll finally give you gold. Thank you, Dr. Wendel, for all the demo shows you put on with explosions. Thank you, Ms. Ditchley, for keeping art to whatever it wants to be. Even if it means getting messy. Thank you, Mrs. Berger, for your essay support and using your law skills to teach us about the Supreme Court. Thank you, Ms. Johnson, for teaching me how to use an instrument through a face mask. Thank you, Mr. Buchholz, for teaching me that Ben and Jerry’s Double-Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ice Cream is the “objective” best flavor. Gracias, Profe y Señora Mercado, por tu educación en el idioma de Español. Thank you, Coach Fink, for entertaining my class with your quarrels with Eli. Thank you, Mrs. Baker, for keeping our Middle School running smoothly. Thank you, Mrs. Borgmann, for being a great principal. Thank you for encouraging us to go onward and upward. Thank you to all the talented teachers and staff that made my Sycamore experience as challenging and rewarding as it can be. And finally, thank you, my fellow students, for always making every moment enjoyable. Congratulations, Class of 2021. We made it.

GRADUATION SPEECH

RAYNA MOIZ

I was nine years old when I made the switch to the bright lights and tiled floors of Sycamore School. By that time in my life, I had lived in three separate states and had attended three separate schools only to move away from each one, a hardship impossible to understand unless you’ve endured it. I remember attending my first 8th Grade graduation here and hoping that I, too, would be able to graduate alongside my classmates and receive my very own certificate of achievement. I’m happy to say that I’ve made it. But having to start anew three times before I turned ten? It was upsetting, to say the least. It’s occurred to me over the course of my five years here that some of my classmates have never experienced such a struggle, so I’ll explain the experience to you: You leave everything you’ve grown accustomed to, your friends, teachers, even a favorite restaurant of yours, for the dark, unfamiliar unknown. Your parents have no issue meeting new people, but you’re an entirely different story. You’re only ever comfortable around those you know, a number which hits rock bottom the second you move. You’re then met with immediate dread as it dawns upon you that you know nothing. Everything you’d familiarized yourself with, gone. And I know what you’re thinking: There will always be another Cheesecake Factory, right? But will there ever be another best friend? An understanding teacher? You don’t know for sure until the long awaited day arrives: your first day of school. You meet your teacher and new classmates. You’re assigned a peer to make small talk with, and, by the end of first period, you have three people to sit with at lunch. Weeks turn into months, and you learn to love your new school, attending every day excited to socialize with your exceptional friends. Those months gradually stretch into years, and everything is absolutely perfect. Until your parents sit you down and tell you you’re moving again. And so the cycle continues, until I first walked through the welcoming doors of Sycamore, little did I know, I wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. I would be there to stay. During my 4th Grade year, I expected to be left out of much since I was still new, but I found that wasn’t the case. The friends I made during that first year were always open to talk or work with me, never failing to make me feel as if I belonged. One thing I sensed early on was the genuine camaraderie most of my friends shared with their peers, any arguments they had being forgiven and forgotten with ease. Middle school rolled around. I expanded my horizons and made even more amazing friends. When schoolwork increased in difficulty, I found it was these friends who never hesitated to help if I grew lost or confused. These friends who came to my side whenever I felt down. These friends who congratulated me on an A in math in spite of the fact that they had scored 10 points higher than me. According to psychologists, a friendship that lasts more than seven years is likely to be lifelong. A vast majority of my peers have experienced such friendships, and if I’m lucky enough to carry some of mine into high school, it excites me to know that maybe one day, so will I. To say Middle School was easy would be a grave understatement. Once you’ve exhausted all class notes and Internet sources searching for answers to homework, there are certain people you can turn to. Those are our teachers. Words can’t describe how thankful I am for the teachers who never failed to respond to my constant emails and never hesitated to sit

down and explain to me a new concept. They’ve helped me achieve a growth over grades mindset, and I thank them for that. Their willingness to assist me whenever I required it is so exceptionally kind, and I’ll never forget it. The education and experiences we’ve all shared during our time at Sycamore School will forever have an impact on our future choices, academic or not, allowing us to fearlessly take on the world one step at a time. You’ve helped me realize that Sycamore isn’t just another school on the timeline of my life, it’s a home. I’m so glad I was able to stay.

GRADUATION SPEECH

NATE LIANG

As I look back at my time here, from five-year-old me running through the Early Childhood doors full of energy in Kindergarten until now, I cannot express how far we have all come and what an incredible journey it has been. For most of us, we started our Sycamore journey as tiny droplets of water in a gathering storm. We were small and new, entering a large and unfamiliar building with other people we had never met. However, after the first few days and classes, we began to meet each other, get to know one another, and form the basis for unbreakable friendships, us water drops forming small clouds. As we grew and matured, our clouds started coming together. I remember vividly learning how to work as a team during our simple machines unit in 1st Grade, or doing Hands-On Equations and singing the repetitive theme song with a small group of people in 3rd Grade during our math class. We were a tiny rainstorm of creativity, knowledge, and, of course, vivacity wherever we went, including Camp Tecumseh where our chaperones could not get us to stop talking past midnight, no matter how hard they tried. Soon, we found ourselves ready to turn the bend into Middle School. Although it seemed that our small storm cloud would run into an insurmountable mountain of homework composed of reading The Red Pyramid with Mrs. Simpson or doing the dreaded Final Notes in Mr. Phillipose’s class, we were able to figure it out. Even a delayed Tremont trip which was then cut short still happened. We had fun along the way too, like using the light-up wand to do Canta Ninja in Spanish, mummifying a chicken in Ms. Mihm’s History class, or playing Quizlet Live in Language Arts. In 6th Grade, we were almost defeated by an army of noseeums and other bugs from SeaCamp in Florida. Finally, who could forget Culver? Even though compared to the tropics of SeaCamp, it seemed like we were hiking across the south pole, my quest to not become a human ice cube allowed me to make new friends there, while strengthening my bonds with others, making it an experience I am now glad I took. Our clouds seemed to be in perfect order, finally mastering the challenges of Middle School, when COVID was the drought which threatened our storm’s very existence. As we continue into high school, it’s time for our storm to release all of us as raindrops down to earth, each to different places. In the fall, as we learned in the water cycle unit in 3rd Grade, we will evaporate and be brought back into the sky for us to make new friends at our new schools, learn more about ourselves, form new storms, and eventually fall back down to earth again. Even though we won’t be in the same place for that to happen, we will always share a special bond: We are Sycamore’s class of 2021. We can all change the world.