The Packer Magazine — Winter 2016

PACKER The

WI N T ER 2016

Magazine

Meeting Kids Where They Are: Life in the Middle School Joshua Keating ’03, Foreign Affairs Writer Innovations in Health Education Will Facebook Kill Class Notes?

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THE PACKER MAGAZINE

THE PACKER COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE

Editor Karin Storm Wood

Head of School Bruce L. Dennis

Writing Karin Storm Wood Tori Gibbs Contributors as noted

Director of Communications Karin Storm Wood

Photography Karin Storm Wood Tori Gibbs Contributors as noted Design Karin Storm Wood Class Notes Dona Metcalf Laughlin

The Packer Magazine is published twice a year

by The Packer Collegiate Institute, 170 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201. Nothing herein may be reprinted wholly or in part without the written permission of Packer’s Development Office.

Director of Development Sara Shulman Director of Alumni Dona Metcalf Laughlin Director of Annual Giving Susan Moore

Chair Ronan Harty P’15, P’17, P’20 Vice Chair Anne Giddings Kimball ’55 IVAc Treasurer LisaMarie Casey P’16, P’17 Secretary Karen Tayeh P’09, P’17

Manager of Development Services Aaron Heflich Shapiro Development Associate Shriya Bhargava-Sears Communications Associate Tori Gibbs

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Board of Trustees Leadership

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Alumni Association Leadership President Geoffrey Brewer ’82, P’26 Vice President Sasha Baumrind ’00 Secretary Laura Elizabeth DeMarco ’63 IVAc Director Emeritus Ellin Rosenzweig ’52

PACKER

The

Magazine

WINTER 2016 3 From the Head of School 4 On Campus 10 Performing Arts 12 Athletics

Elizabeth Eagle teaches printmaking to 8th grade students. “I try to create an environment where there’s a real sense of community as well as of risk-taking,” she says. “I want my students to have the confidence to say what they think and not to be afraid of saying the ‘wrong’ thing.” Read about the Middle School program in this issue’s cover story.

14 Meeting Kids Where They Are Packer’s Middle School program offers students a rich and exciting intellectual experience while supporting young adolescents’ need for independence, self-discovery, and fun.

Faculty members who genuinely love teaching children in this age group are central to the division’s success.

26

Embracing the Virtues of Doubt

At Packer’s 104th Founder’s Day, Slate foreign affairs writer Joshua Keating ’03 spoke about Russian billionaires, the “Google race for eyeballs,” and “the truth about adulthood.”

28 In Good Health (Education) Self-awareness is at the forefront of an innovative health education program that emphasizes students’ personal goals, values, and decision-making.

32 Parent Association News 34 Alumni News For the Hoy-Rosas Family, It’s Home Sweet Packer Will Facebook Kill Class Notes?

37 Class Notes 51 In Memoriam On the cover: Students enjoy the just-opened Middle School mezzanine, which was created in the recent renovation of the fourth floor of the Middle School.

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From the Head of School

RAOUL BROWN

T

here is nothing quite like a 10 a.m. walk through Packer’s Commons, when Middle School students flock there for a midmorning snack. Their youthful exuberance fills the space.

Adults’ memories of early adolescence often paint a broad-strokes picture of discombobulation and awkwardness. But our Middle School teachers observe a more kaleidoscopic experience, filled with countless bright and variegated fragments.

Some of those fragments may be tinted with teenaged angst, but many more reflect the intense joy, passion, commitment, goofiness, and hunger for life that is on display in abundance every morning in the Commons.

When our Middle School faculty reflect on why they love their work, they regularly cite the openness and sincerity typical of children in this phase of life. Middle School students’ expressiveness and lack of inhibition as learners make them what several faculty call one of education’s “best kept secrets.”

This issue of The Packer Magazine focuses on our exciting Middle School program, which meets students where they are — academically, emotionally, and socially. I am exceedingly proud of the division’s evolution under the inspired leadership of Noah Reinhardt, who sucessfully connects with students, supports families, and engages his faculty every day. I am equally grateful to the dozens of dedicated teachers who make the learning of our 5th through 8th grade students — in and out of the classroom — their life’s work. As you will read, one of the ways in which they particularly excel as teachers of young adolescents is in

understanding that emotional kaleidoscope — and in helping their students navigate and shape it constructively.

Of course it is our faculty’s dedication that underpins the entire Packer experience, from the Preschool to the Upper School.

We have long prided ourselves on the reliance and trust that our students place in the adults who guide them.

The value of this dedication cannot be overstated. In a major survey of the Packer community this past year, students who have the highest levels of satisfaction with their experience here reported feeling seen and heard by the adults in the community.

These results confirm what we at Packer have long known to be true: that a demanding academic experience is more lasting and effective when students feel that they can be their full selves at school.

Please join me in appreciating the thoughtful and holistic approach that Packer’s teachers take to educating our students — from the youngest to the oldest, as well as the ones in the middle.

bruce l. dennis

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RENDERING BY HUDSON STUDIOS

On Campus

Future Preschool and Kindergarten Building Offers Hands-On Learning Now

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n the fall of 2014, the Board of Trustees purchased 100 Clinton Street to create a state-of-the-art space for Packer’s youngest students.

The two-story building will open as Packer’s Early Learning Center in the fall of 2018 and will include a rooftop playground. Over the past year, Packer’s own early learning experts — the Preschool and Kindergarten faculty and adminstrative team — have been working closely with the project’s architects to design spaces specifically for the developmental needs of early learners.

But thanks to the nimble collaboration of several Lower School teachers, Packer’s historic expansion also presented an exciting opportunity that no one had anticipated when the building was purchased. In a unit tightly integrating math and science, the entire 4th Grade was given the opportunity to create their own playground designs.

Originally, science teacher Maria Davis and K-6 Math Coach Chris

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Natale planned to synchronize a mathbased playground-design unit with the 4th Grade’s study of simple machines in science class.

“Coordinating a new interdisciplinary unit was already an ambitious undertaking,” said Mr. Natale. “But when we realized there was a small but serendipitous window of time before construction at 100 Clinton when we could actually bring every 4th grade class to do a site visit on the roof, we mobilized quickly.”

After the site visit [above right], the fourth graders began to study the characteristics and requirements of slides, swings, and other playground “machines” in both math and science.

To ensure that the designs they were developing reflected the actual preferences of the age group that will use the rooftop playground, the fourth graders also conducted field research here at Packer. Clipboards and pencils in hand and interview questions at

the ready, they interviewed Pre-K and Kindergarten students on their preferred playground activities.

For their final projects, the students built scaled 3-D models of their proposed playground designs, which they presented to the Lower School Administrative team and to Hudson Studios, the official architects on the project.

The Pre-K and Kindergarten students also toured the models to see the results of their input.

According to Mr. Natale, one of the tenets of the STEM movement to enhance science, technology, engineering, and math learning in K-12 education is that real-world and hands-on projects such as this one engage students’ imagination and creativity and deepen the relevance of their studies.

From that perspective, the project was a resounding success. Ask a fourth grader, of course, and she’ll simply tell you that it was “so much fun!”

Justice Kennedy Talks Civics There’s no DNA test for one’s belief in freedom, said the nation’s most influential justice. “It’s taught and learned and discussed.”

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few days before Winter Break, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy visited Packer, where he gave a speech to a Chapel filled with unusually hushed Upper School students. The back of the room was packed with staff and faculty from other divisions eager to hear what he would say.

Rather than lecture, Justice Kennedy offered an interactive civics lesson on the significance of the Constitution. He posed questions directly to the students: “What are the structural features of government that the Constitution lays out?” “What was the system of government it devised that the world had never seen before?”

The Justice praised the framers’ singular achievements while making several unexpectedly funny digressions.

In one, he claimed to have consulted intellectual property attorneys on whether the separation of powers could be patented. (“Probably not,” because the English had a split Parliament long before 1789.)

He told a story of a diplomatic visit to Poland where he visited with young law students. Their questions about the U.S. justice system were so sophisticated, he thought it was “a trick.”

“They said, ‘No, no — you don’t understand. You had freedom, we didn’t. We had the Communists for 50 years, and when they left we wanted our own constitution. We’ve been studying your Constitution since the 4th Grade.’”

These young Europeans “understood the importance of civics, of freedom, of keeping the Constitution,” expounded Justice Kennedy. “You have to remember: there’s no DNA test to see if you believe in freedom. It’s taught and learned and discussed.”

A Reagan appointee, Justice Kennedy has served on the Court for 28 years and is widely regarded as having been the “swing vote” on a number of historic decisions. Greeted with hushed respect verging on reverence by the student body, this visit by a Supreme Court Justice was believed to be unprecedented in Packer’s history.

Justice Kennedy is the grandfather of Reese Kennedy ’18.

“In over fifty percent of the world, the verdict on freedom is still out. They are watching you to see what kind of society you have. What have you done with this Constitution you’re so proud of ? With the freedom you’re so proud of ? What’s your civic discourse like? Are you respectful? Progressive?

Thoughtful? Rational? Productive? Do you have art and music and literature of high quality? Do you have good neighborhoods? Do you treat each other nicely? This is what’s most important.

This is what we must defend.”

The Justice then referenced Periclean Athens, where citizens swore “to engage in civic affairs with our fellow citizens to the end that Athens will be more beautiful, more safe, and more free for our successors than it is for us.

“The Athenians thought freedom was the capacity, the duty, and the responsibility to shape the destiny of your times.

Freedom as responsibility.

“But the Greeks weren’t faithful to that oath,” he continued, framing a cautionary tale for the students assembled in the Chapel. He pointed out that “when the Greeks wanted comfort more than freedom, when the freedom they wanted most was the freedom from responsibility,” Athens was lost.

“So we must use this precious gift of freedom. We must understand this Constitution we have. And we must work so that the rest of the world admires us and seeks from us what we have.”

The Justice closed on an inspiring note. “In a few years, you’re going to be the trustees of freedom. And it’s yours. One of the things I really like about the musical Hamilton — which I understand many of you have seen [see page 7]— is that it reminds us that the Constitution wasn’t made by a bunch of old guys. It was made by a bunch of young people with energy! That’s what it means to have freedom. And I’m sure you’ll give it to us.”

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Creating the Space for Real Connection

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n early December, twelve members of the Packer community traveled to Tampa for the National Association of Independent Schools’ People of Color and Student Diversity Leadership Conferences. The annual gatherings provide a safe space for professional development and networking for People of Color and their allies in independent schools.

Middle School Dean of Student Life Coy Dailey, 7th and 8th Grade Dean and English teacher Nitya York, and Director of Diversity and Equity Ramón Javier presented the Equity Simulations they have designed and implemented annually in the Middle

f a c u l t y new s Kindergarten head teacher Semeka Smith-Williams co-facilitated a workshop at the NYSAIS Division Head/Assistant Heads conference in Mohonk, NY. “Opening Doors: Actions for Diversified Leadership” addressed power structures in schools, the need to include various perspectives and voices in decision-making, and ways to make school leadership more inclusive.

Jansen Po, Noah Reinhardt, José De Jesús, and Andrea Kelly participated in the workshop.

Art teacher Eric Baylin gave a presentation at the “On Thinking” conference on teaching innovation at the Blue School in Manhattan. He focused on the mental processes that

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School. Head of Upper School José M. De Jesús reported that “not a soul left the room without wanting to speak to them more about the great work we are doing at Packer.”

The Student Diversity Leadership Conference (SDLC), a multiracial, multicultural gathering of high school students from across the US, provided an important forum for the Packer students who attended.

In small groups, they focused on reflection, communication and networking, forming allies, and building community.

Sara Van Horn ’16 reflected: “One of the most valuable things about the

conference is the atmosphere and the safe and brave space it creates for sharing. I have honestly never been in an atmosphere so conducive to such profound connection.”

Rosa Carter ’16 came away from the conference feeling empowered as a student leader at Packer. “SDLC gives us the platform to be leaders in creating change in our schools. I want to bring back the [SDLC’s] personalization of experiences to create a better Packer.”

Ramón Javier praised the group’s experience as an opportunity for “an honest conversation that highlighted some of the great work we have done and how much more there is to do.”

a student engages in while making art Asperger’s and Adulthood provides strateand addressed how they do and don’t gies for balancing Asperger’s Syndrome resemble the kinds of thinking associwith career and relationships. ated with other disciplines.

In November, elevator watchman In November, Lower School learning Ramón Perez, Associate Director of Pre specialist Angela DiVincenzo led a and Lower School Admissions Anna workshop on how ‘block play’ supports Curtis, Spanish teacher Dallas Rico, language development, math, science, and Middle School Psychologist Josh and socialization. She and her husband, Srebnick enjoyed a 26.2-mile victory lap a designer, run a children’s summer around the five boroughs (yes, the New program in block play out of a converted York City Marathon).

18-wheeler.

Middle School Choral Director Pamela Upper School Learning Specialist Cibrano (formerly Agius) married Chris Blythe Grossberg published two books Cibrano in New York City on June 19. with Althea Press. Focused: ADHD & ADD “And again in Malta on August 14!”

Parenting Strategies for Children with Fifth and 6th Grade Dean and English Attention Deficit Disorder offers strateteacher Marisa Mendez gave birth to gies for improving children’s executive Riley Alys Mendez, her second daughter functioning and emotional development. [far left], on November 29.

Sophomores at a Hamilton sing-a-long at Winter Carnival on the last day of school before Winter Break.

Sophomores give Hamilton a “10”

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he sophomore class was the envy of many New Yorkers this October. All 103 members of the Class of 2018 held tickets to the hottest show in town: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton. Based on Ron Chernow’s biography of the youngest founding father, the hip-hop musical is one of today’s hottest Broadway shows.

“Almost everyone who saw it offBroadway felt the pulse of something extraordinary happening,” said Debbie Pressman, Chair of the Arts Department. She and fellow theater aficionado Celeste Tramontin, Upper School English teacher, noted that

the show might resonate with the 10th Grade’s U.S. history and English courses, particularly the immigrant theme of E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime.

“The innovative articulation of history and the depiction of the rebelliousness of the founding fathers appeals to both history lovers and teenagers in general,” said Ms. Tramontin.

She and Ms. Pressman hatched a plan. With the support of colleagues, Dr. Bruce L. Dennis, and Head of Upper School José M. De Jesús, they purchased 120 tickets to a show that would soon be sold out months in advance.

Almost unanimously, the sophomores loved the show. Calling it “great,” Alex Borinstein ’18 noted the multiethnic and multiracial cast and the exceptionally talented star and creator.

Students responded enthusiastically to the combination of early U.S. history and the decidedly younger hip-hop culture.

“To witness the reenactment of a historic event through actors is frankly, weird — which only makes students, like myself, think about it more!” said Liney Kindler ’18. “The following day in school, we didn’t just reflect upon our reactions to the play itself, but rather we strove to fully understand the content, the meaning, and the purpose.”

“The musical helps you understand the American Revolution in a way that would be impossible to learn in a classroom,” said Skye Brodsky ’18. “It opens your eyes to the world that the reveolutionaries were living in, and it offers relatable characters that make you feel connected to the plot as well as the time period.”

ann billingsley

en d o w m ent s u c c e s s

On October 23, Packer held a garden party for the community to celebrate the success of Ensuring Continued Excellence, an initiative to double the School’s endowment to $30 million, led

by Trustee LisaMarie Casey P’16, P’17.

Thanks to hundreds of generous donors — including parents, grandparents, alumni, friends, and the Packer Parent Association — this ambitious goal for Packer was realized in just a few years!

WINTER 2016 | 7

a p u b l i c s er v i c e a nn o u n c e m ent from the p re - k f o u r s “Anyone Can Be Who or What They Want to Be” read fliers posted around Packer this fall. Their backstory reminds us that even our youngest students are living Packer’s mission of thinking deeply,

speaking confidently, and acting with purpose and heart:

They agreed on several points: Imagination Station in the “Of course girls can be white Garden so that all the kids ninjas.” “Boys can like any could see it and know that Last week we had many color they want, including pink they could just be what they conversations about fairness, and purple.” want to be.” equality and self-expression.

We talked about how Everyone loved this idea.

[One student] came to meetpeople sometimes treat others The students decorated our ing perturbed by something unfairly and that it is impor“Anyone Can Be Who or What she had overheard in our tant to stand up for what you They Want to Be” fliers. Some locker room: “Some friends think is right. We asked if they depicted children “working out were telling [a third student] had any ideas about how we problems” and “being kind to that she couldn’t be a white as a class could stand up for one another.” ninja because she was a girl. I our beliefs.

The Beavers discovered the don’t think that’s fair.”

One student suggested: power of activism, and we A discussion about equality “I think we should just make couldn’t be prouder. ensued among the Beavers. a sign and put it on the — Adapted from the Pre-K Fours’ blog

Andrea Kelly leaving Packer to lead Friends Academy

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n a joint announcement with Dr. Bruce L. Dennis in October, Andrea Kelly announced to the Packer community that in July 2016 she will become the new Head of School at Friends Academy, a well respected Pre-K through 12th Grade Quaker school on Long Island.

She cited Dr. Dennis’s influence on the twelve years they have worked together at Packer. “He’s been incredibly generous in his leadership, and I have learned an enormous amount from him.”

Ms. Kelly’s tenure at Packer began 20 years ago when she first set foot in the School when accompanying her sister on an admissions tour. Ms. Kelly remembers looking down at her infant daughter — Julia Kelly ’10 — and whispering, “We’re going here!”

Ms. Kelly spent six years as a teacher in the Lower School before becoming the Assistant Head of the Pre and Lower School in 2002, followed by head of that division in 2006. Four years ago, she assumed Packer’s number two position.

Ms. Kelly praised her experiences as a 4th Grade teacher, remembering “the incredibly open, earnest, and loving children that I was privileged to teach those six years. I knew that I was in the company of some very amazing kids.”

PA President Melissa Glass first met Ms. Kelly thirteen years ago when Melissa’s son, now senior Mitchell Black ’16, entered Kindergarten and Ms. Kelly was the Assistant Head of Lower School. “As the School’s liaison to the Parent Association, she has guided us through the labyrinth of the school as a thoughtful soul, a calming influence, and a broad thinker. My respect for her is immense.”

At Packer, Ms. Kelly co-led the re-design of the professional development program, led the design of the Middle

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and Upper Schools’ new seven-day schedule, assisted in the early planning for the new Preschool and Kindergarten building at 100 Clinton Street, and implemented procedures that have made Packer a safer, more secure school.

Noah Reinhardt, Head of Middle School, who has worked with Ms. Kelly for 18 years, called her “dedicated, consummately professional, thoroughly engaged in her work, and deeply effective.” As Assistant Head of School, he said, “her work has been transformative in so many ways to the school at large.”

Though her impact on the daily life of the school is felt throughout the community, the effect goes both ways. In addition to the strong relationships Ms. Kelly formed with students and parents during her time at Packer, she also noted the gifts of the school’s faculty and staff, saying “my colleagues at Packer inspire me on a daily basis.”

She acknowledged how profoundly Packer has influenced her. “Our work around inclusion and equity, for instance, has had a deep effect on me. It has changed who I am and will always be with me. I have grown exponentially here.”

At Friends Academy, she looks forward to the “the incredible relationships, connections, and love in their community.

I’m excited to go to a place where I will receive the same kind of welcome that I had at Packer.”

Dr. Dennis captured the sentiment of the Packer community: “We are going to miss her a great deal, but I know she is ready for this exciting challenge. She will succeed in this as she has in all of the prior roles she has assumed.”

Dr. Dennis anticipates that Packer’s new Assistant Head of School, whose responsibilities will be expanded to include the role of Academic Dean, will be announced by early spring.

Mark Friedberg’s Film Design Delights

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mmy-award winning film production designer Mark Friedberg P’13, P ’18 spoke to Upper School students in early December about his experiences as a young artist and the bridge between technical skill and creativity.

Friedberg said that after graduating from college, he pursued various odd jobs until “by fate or by chance” he found himself working as a driver for a Woody Allen movie. “A film set, I realized, was a place that all of these different interests of mine could come together.” His history degree prepared him to “learn about the culture” of the set locations and his interest in fine arts allowed him to “develop the visual language” of a film.

He encouraged students to develop their passions at Packer and in college, and to be open to any opportunity in their futures. “You don’t always know what part of your childhood is going to be the meaningful one. You don’t know what part is going to lead you to your future.”

Friedberg also spoke of the importance of personal development in finding a rewarding career: “Rather than thinking about what you’re going to do, what’s going to be the thing you do, I would hope that you figure out what kind of person you want to be.”

In addition to developing the essential studio skills, Friedberg said, it is vital that young artists use handson experience to become familiar with the creative process. “Creative thought is needed in all facets of life.”

Art is not merely an intellectual or professional pursuit. He pointed out that his son, Oakley Friedberg ’13, is studying the intersection of science and art at Brown University.

His daughter, Lucy Friedberg ’18, curated a vibrant show of his work in the Carol Shen Gallery with assistance from digital video teacher Mike Miller. “I remember sitting in the jail-cell set of ‘The Producers,’” she said in remarks at the opening reception. Only five years old at the

family portraits

time, she “realized that [her] dad had created this whole other world.”

The show featured clips and stills from each film included in the show, plus props from “Selma” and “The Ice Storm,” and scale models from “Noah,” and “The Darjeeling Limited.”

During a day-long residency in the gallery [above right], Friedberg visited with students in Advanced Topics in Photo, Video Journalism, and digital video classes in the 9th Grade’s Fresh Arts program.

“I was impressed with the students’ knowledge of film, both culturally and technically,” Friedberg said. “I came to Packer as an elder looking to share my experience and wisdom, and I came away inspired myself.”

Illisa Katz Rissman P’15, P’27 exhibited her photographs in “Suspended: Images of Identity, Memory, and Home” in the Carol Shen Gallery in October. Rissman’s work focused on “capturing the small moments and personal encounters in various stages of life that bond us together.”

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{ PERFORMING ARTS }

Middle School Play: “Our Town”

3rd and 4th Grade Winter Sing >

Wind Symphony

Middle School Choral Concert

1st and 2nd Grade Winter Sing

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Upper School Play: “Once in a Lifetime”

PreK-4 Fall Sing

Middle and Upper School Strings Concert (with Harriet Packer looking on)

Kindergarten Fall Sing

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{ ATHLETICS }

ACIS Champions Again!

The GIRLS SOCCER team finished the season with a 12-2-2 record, and came in first place in the AAIS tournament as the regular season champion with a record of 9-0-1. Notable victories against rivals included wins against Marymount (2-1), Saint Ann’s (8-2), Brearley (3-1), and NightingaleBamford (7-2).

Led by seven seniors, plus returning and new players, the team was “a perfect blend of exciting younger players and savvy veterans,” said Coach Domanico. “Winning the regular season title and making it into the NYSAIS tournament was extremely gratifying and rewarding.”

Domanico also praised the senior team leaders, including Bari Sugarman ’16, Cecilia Mastrogiacomo ’16, Sophia Fox ’16, Alexandra Stutt ’16, Nadia Grisaru ’16 and captains Sophia Trigo ’16 and Sara Van Horn ’16, for their “outstanding leadership from our very first practice to our very last game.”

The team’s 2-1 win against Marymount was hard fought: Packer scored the winning goal with under two minutes left in the game. Against Nightingale-Bamford, Abby Wade ’18 scored four goals.

During the playoffs, Packer faced another tough team: Chapin. At the end of regulation time, the game was tied 1-1, and still tied at 1-1 at the end of two 10-minute overtime periods. During penalty kicks, with Packer trailing 4-3, goalie Olivia Chinitz ’19 kept the Pelicans alive by blocking the last Chapin kick. New junior Emma Jaeger ’17 — exhibiting “nerves of steel” — scored the tying goal, sending Packer into the sudden-death round. “Olivia made

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another spectacular save,” said Coach Domanico proudly, “then Sara Van Horn stepped in and coolly deposited the ball inside the left post for the victory.”

This was the second championship season in a row for the veteran coach, who this fall ended his 32-year run leading the squad [see below].

AAIS All-Stars were Nadia Grisaru ’16, Sara Van Horn ’16, Mikayla Katz ’18, and Abby Wade ’18.

After 32 years, Rich Domanico ended his run as Head Coach with over 267 wins, 9 AAIS season championships, 8 AAIS tournament championships, and 1 state title. “My final year was one that I will never forget,” he said.

Co-Captain Sarah Trigo spoke to Domanico’s attention on and off the field. “His care for each member of the team is a huge part of why playing soccer at Packer has been so memorable to me.”

“His maintenance of a positive outlook, through his consistent encouragement, is unparalleled in any coach I have ever had. He is loved so deeply by his teams,” said Co-Captain Sara Van Horn.

Athletic Director Darrin Fallick, who has known Coach Domanico for 23 years, said: “I have looked up to Rich as a mentor, colleague, and friend. I have always admired the way his parents, players, and opponents respect him and look to him for guidance.”

<< Sara Van Horn ’16 leads the defense in a match against Brearley < Caitlin McSween ’16 blocks a spike from Chapin with an assist from teammate Ruby Marzovilla ’16

<<

Cameron Oliver ’18 goes for a steal in a match against Saint Ann’s

<

Cross Country runners enjoy another strong showing

ELIZABETH ROESCH

All in This Together The GIRLS VOLLEYBALL team ended the season in 9th place overall in the league. Head Coach Danny Yin praised the players for being “so closely supportive, loving and challenging of each other. No matter the results of a match, they came out smiling.”

Despite the tough season, Coach Yin pointed out many highlights. When Lilia Tympanick ’18 blocked the league’s top hitter, the team exploded with joy. In another game, Ruby Marzovilla ’16 was a “digging defensive machine.”

Michelle Abramowitz ’17 served an ace to win a match.

Possibly the most memorable moment was off the court, when the younger players threw a surprise recognition ceremony for the seniors on the last home game.

League All-Stars were Logan Blunt ’16 and Ruby Marzovilla ’16.

Setting the Pace The CROSS COUNTRY team had a successful fall season, holding their own at several competitive meets including Briarwood, Six Flags Invitational, NYC Mayor’s Cup, the Reebok Invitational, and the Dwight Invitational. Packer’s new Head Coach, Trevor A. Watson, praised his athletes for setting and reaching their goals, showing respect for each other, and remembering to keep the joy of the sport alive.

“My first priority was to get all the kids at their optimal fitness level to compete without injury,” he said. “Reaching

this goal meant hard work and commitment to practice, with training that included a diverse mixture of strength training, core work, endurance, and speed building.”

The season closed with “a super showing of speed and improvement.” In the fourth ACIS meet of the season, the Packer girls came first, with Audrey Aberg ’18 first overall. Among the Packer boys, Graham Rainsby ’17 came in first overall in all of the ACIS meets. At the Brown Invitational, Graham and Justin Hurley ’17 competed in a field of over 250 young athletes, with Graham placing 10th overall and Justin 82nd overall.

Isobel McCrum ’17, Graham Rainsby ’17, Eleanor Story ’17, and Audrey Aberg ’18 were named ACIS All-Stars.

On the Defense The BOYS SOCCER team finished the season with a 6-2-3 record this fall. According to Coach Shane Pierre, the players focused on “developing their distinct style of play to keep the ball from the opponent and executing the end product — goals scored.” They played a fantastic game against rival Berkeley Carroll. Charles Ogunsuyi ’16 so effectively covered their best player that Packer was able to take the lead. Packer won the “intense” game, 2-0. “The boys showed determination, were aggressive in challenging for the ball, and played with flair and tenacity,” said Coach Pierre. Evan Staffen ’16 and Theo Eagle ’18 were ACIS All-Stars.

WINTER 2016 | 13

Meeting Kids Where They Are

Field Day is unique to the Middle School and brings together mixed-grade teams that regroup many times over the year. Students keep their team affiliations throughout Middle School.

T he Middle School: Packer’s “Best Kept Secret”

The beginning of adolescence sees dramatic shifts in children.

The external shifts are significant enough, and the internal ones — cognitive, emotional, and social — are even more profound.

Packer’s faculty guide students through these changes with expertise, sensitivity, humor, and affection.

Take a look at how the Middle School program offers students a rich and exciting intellectual experience while supporting kids’ need for independence, self-discovery, and fun.

by Karin Storm Wood WINTER 2016 | 15

Todd Johnson teaching 8th Grade English. It is not unusual for Middle School students to leap out of their seats to share an idea or answer a question.

w

alking into a Middle School classroom at Packer, you can’t help be struck by the energy and engagement of the students.

Asked what they’re studying, they jump at the chance to explain what they’re working on. These are happy classrooms, alive with excitement and the joyful, sometimes messy, noise of learning.

It’s hard to miss this noise as you make your way past the music practice rooms, watching students unload instruments from their lockers and clamber into position. Or, as you head down the checkerboard hallway of the science wing, where students huddle around lab equipment measuring, recording, and interpreting what they observe.

Upstairs on the first floor, the Middle School’s soaring neo-Gothic architecture comes into view. The North and South Halls frame the 5th and 6th Grade Core classrooms. There, with the guidance of their teachers, students are often in pairs or small groups, reading, writing, researching, rehearsing presentations, and giving feedback to one another — in short, practicing how to work together as a learning community. Dramatically stacked above are three floors of classrooms for mathematics, history, English, world languages, computer science, learning support, and health. Every space brims with energy.

“Packer’s Middle School hinges on an amazing combination of serious scholarship, authentic curiosity, unbridled enthusiasm, and genuine care for the community,” says Noah Reinhardt, who has led the division since 2007. “All of that is on display — in the classrooms of course, but also in the gyms, the dance studio, the art room, the library, the lunchroom, and the Garden. You can see it in students’ Chapel announcements, at team practices, and during rehearsals.

“Most kids this age are exuberant and expressive by nature. When they’re living Packer’s mission — thinking deeply, speaking confidently, and acting with purpose and heart — you can’t miss it.”

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ATTUNED ADULTS In early adolescence, children grow from dependent to highly independent beings. They move from thinking literally and concretely to thinking abstractly and appreciating complexity. They shift from a myopic view of themselves as the center of the family to a sense of just how big the world is. They begin to see their friends and other adults in their lives as representing new ideas, new interests, and new influences. Most of all, kids in early adolescence begin the work of trying to figure out who they are and who they want to be.

Mr. Reinhardt leads the division in part by articulating a deep understanding of this tricky developmental stage. “Kids are given freedom in Middle School that they’ve never had before, but they haven’t fully developed the skills to manage it. We work to support every student through the many transitions of early adolescence, not just the academic ones. We want the Middle School to be a safe place in a turbulent time.”

in “Not once have I felt l o o h c S Middle lected. ed or neg discourag ir ers do the T he teach el fe u o y make hardest to ghts u o th r u o nd y like you a matter.” ikoff , — Julian Is de ra G 8th

“Middle School is the sweet spot.

The students are so open. And they’re like sponges: If you can nourish Middle Schoolers in a way that makes them feel confident, they’re incredibly good students. They’re so hungry to learn and to define themselves.”

Elizabeth Eagle, Art Teacher

Students’ overall well-being is the focus of many of the division’s basic structures, such as nearly daily meetings of advisor groups (10 to 12 students under the guidance of at least one experienced faculty member) and weekly meetings among the faculty who teach at each grade level, led by the grade’s dean and head teacher. The administrative team, the division’s psychologist, and three learning specialists also hold weekly meetings to discuss the progress of individual students with those students’ teachers.

On their own, however, these structures wouldn’t be successful without the faculty’s deep knowledge and understanding of early adolescence.

“Kids’ growth in Middle School is amazing, but it has to be nurtured and taken care of,” says Josh Srebnick, the Middle School psychologist. “The faculty here really get that. Despite Packer’s being an outwardly traditional school in some ways, our faculty have a progressive view of who children are.”

He compares the Middle School’s style of support to extendable leashes: “Students can go far enough away to feel free and make their own choices, but they’re also close enough that the adults can rein them in if necessary. Our role is to give them independence but also to be a buffer against anything too bad.”

In conversations about the Middle School’s commitment to students’ emotional well-being, many point to the leadership of Mr. Reinhardt and the deans he has hired: Marisa Mendez, Nitya York, and Coy Dailey.

“Noah and the deans regularly ask the faculty to think about the Middle School experience,” says Dr. Srebnick. “The caretaking of kids — from a really holistic perspective — is our mission.”

“We have a faculty who love working with Middle School kids and are passionate about what they do,” says history teacher Monika Johnston. “That makes for a creative and fun experience for our students — and challenging, too, because we do ask them to stretch.”

An Academic Program That Meets Kids Where They Are Students entering Middle School from Packer’s 4th Grade encounter a myriad of changes in their daily school life. Some of them are in a part of campus they have rarely seen. Instead of a pair of teachers overseeing all of their regular classroom activities, students have different teachers for different subjects, one at a time. They have to manage multiple assignments simultaneously. No one escorts them around the school: they are expected to get to class independently and on time.

When you’re 10 or 11, these changes can be daunting. Yet they are introduced intentionally to make students more self-sufficient, a process that begins in Lower School.

“The entire Middle School program is designed to meet kids where they are,” says Mr. Reinhardt. The key, he says, is to balance new experiences and responsibilities with appropriate supports.

Patrick Kieffer, 5th Grade Head Teacher, is among the faculty whose job it is to create an unintimidating ‘on-ramp’ for the Middle School’s youngest students. “We structure the fifth graders’ first weeks pretty intensely [in part because they] are accustomed to instructions coming at them all the time,” he says.

The first years of Middle School are designed with the same thoughtfulness. To provide a sense of continuity and to ensure that every child has a core learning relationship, 5th and 6th grade students have one teacher for both English and history. This also helps students make the interdisciplinary connections that are an important part of their intellectual growth. In 5th Grade, report cards are qualitative and comment-based; letter grades aren’t introduced until 6th Grade.

World language study starts in 6th Grade, when most students begin learning Spanish, Mandarin, Latin, or French.

Part of the fun of teaching 10- and 11-year-olds, says Mr. Kieffer, is “teaching them to let go of their reliance on outside structure. Little by little, we ask them to take more responsibility for their daily schedules, WINTER 2016 | 17

ve reat to ha “It is so g d n a e c n e d indepen eing b e v ility. I lo responsib e] m ti e re [f end able to sp v a h ing iends and with my fr eople p with the time to be am.”

I o h w me who make Protos, — Mariele ra 6th G de

their homework, their laptops, their study plans. They learn to make more decisions on their own.”

As students transition to increasingly complicated material, new struggles can emerge, according to Marisa Mendez, Dean of the 5th and 6th Grades. “We have systems in place to detect and address these struggles right away, so we can make sure that every student has the opportunity to find success in our program.”

Students entering Middle School soon discover that there is more daily freedom and choice than in Lower School. At break, they can go to the Commons and buy a snack, mixing with students in other grades. During lunch they can meet with teachers, hold club meetings, go outside, spend time in the library, or just enjoy a little down time with friends — all of which they are free to do without direct supervision.

However, this freedom exists in balance with structure. For instance, a new schedule in the Middle and Upper Schools provides a daily 45-minute “Community Time.” In the middle division, it is variously designated for study halls, individual meetings with teachers, arts and physical education electives, special events, and a weekly opportunity for every fifth through eighth grader to “Drop Everything and Read.”

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DEVELOPING DEEP THINKERS From age 10 to 14, a typical child’s cognitive ability grows rapidly and measurably. Over the course of Middle School, students trade a simplified view of their environment for more complex ideas and a more nuanced view of the world.

“In the younger grades, most kids tend to be pretty literal and concrete in their thinking,” says Nitya York, Dean of the 7th and 8th Grades. They tend to be most comfortable with objective facts and simple binaries: this or that, true or false.

“Kids in the first years of Middle School are answer-oriented,” says Coy Dailey, the division’s Dean of Student Life and a math teacher.

They often look to their teachers for more prescriptive, step-by-step instructions. To help students become more comfortable with challenging processes, the Math Department has adopted a new curriculum in 5th and 6th Grade. “Now we ask them to grapple pretty intensely with mathematical concepts before they learn the ‘right’ way to solve a problem,” explains Ms. Mendez.

The English and history core curriculum in 5th Grade, which begins with prehistory and moves through Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, helps move students out of their answer-oriented comfort zone.

“Prehistory is as uncertain as can be — it’s all informed guesswork and inferences based on limited artifacts,” says Mr. Kieffer. “It forces the students to deal with the fact that we don’t know for sure.”

Even in the arts, younger middle schoolers tend to cling to their vision of how things are supposed to be. “They don’t want to make mistakes. They want to use their erasers all the time,” says art teacher Elizabeth Eagle. To “shake them up,” she often moves her 5th graders through rapid drawing exercises. “They think I’m crazy because sometimes we don’t finish. They’ll say, ‘What do you mean, Stop? We’re not done!’ But I want to get them away from being perfectionists.”

Even beyond 5th and 6th Grade, students may still “look for the right answer,” says Todd Johnson, 8th Grade Head Teacher and member of the English department. “At the beginning of 7th Grade,

On any given day, from the beginning of 7th Grade to the end of 8th, the kids may have one foot in the jaded teenage world. But there’s also that innocence where both feet are firmly planted in childhood.

As a teacher, there’s something wonderful about spending your day in both of those worlds. You never know which one you’ll fall into.

Todd Johnson, English Teacher

many of them want to be told what the interpretation of the reading is. When they realize I’m not going to be doing that”— he pauses — “that’s a big learning curve for them.”

Mr. Reinhardt points out that cognitive growth doesn’t develop along a linear path. “At times it looks and feels like a steady upward curve, but more often the path is punctuated and unpredictable.”

With this in mind, Middle School teachers nurture higher-level thinking by offering opportunities for students to stretch intellectually alongside direct instruction in specific cognitive skills: grappling with ambiguous and subjective concepts, developing and testing hypotheses, analyzing and synthesizing different forms of data. For instance, students receive explicit guidance on how to organize their ideas and plan an argument. They are as likely to use graphic organizers to chart claims versus evidence in science as in English or history.

“In science, we teach kids how to find the qualitative data to back things up,” says Catherine Jennings, 7th Grade Head Teacher. “The kids will make a claim, and I’ll say, ‘Okay, how do you know?’ They’ll say, ‘Well, it got bigger.’ I’ll ask, ‘How much bigger?’ That requirement for specific data can be challenging.”

But by 7th Grade, students begin to make the leap into more sophisticated realms of thought. “Gradually, there’s this increase in capacity for abstract thinking and critical thinking,” says Ms. Jennings.

“They begin to understand problems in a different way.” Toward the end of Middle School, for instance, the students are able to go a step further by adding rebuttals to their arguments. A rebuttal entails more sophisticated cognition “because it requires them to think outside of themselves,” she explains.

The content itself is sophisticated by any definition. “Our curriculum is increasingly international and interdisciplinary,” says Elissa Krebs, Chair of the English Department. “We teach Maus to the eighth graders in conjunction with their World War II study in history. We discuss totalitarianism and fascism, the makings of Hitler’s rise to power. The connections the kids make are really impressive.”

Increasingly as they move through the division, students are asked to use disparate skills simultaneously. To prepare for group projects, Ms. Johnston’s history students locate themselves on compass points around the classroom to represent their preferred work strategies.

“Developing this self-awareness isn’t just about emotional intelligence,” she explains. “It’s about strengthening their work as students and scholars. It helps them know how to approach other people, and how to be responsible and accountable to themselves and one another.”

Mr. Johnson gives his students similar responsibilities in his English classroom. “In 8th Grade, we have completely student-led discussions.

I sit back and orchestrate. The students form most of the ideas. They have to call on each other. They have to keep track of who has spoken.

And [by 8th Grade], most of them are comfortable in the idea that there isn’t that ‘right answer.’”

Ms. York sums it up. “What we are looking to develop is thinkers. If we’re successful, they leave the Middle School as competent abstract and critical thinkers. They can make connections between disparate ideas and disciplines independently.”

Along that path of intellectual growth, says Mr. Reinhardt, students and faculty are enjoying each other. They are having fun. And when

te thing “My favori le School d about Mid to take at we get so far is th get to e W rselves. care of ou sses and lves to cla take ourse a line.” gether in not walk to Houser, — Freddie 5th Grade

WINTER 2016 | 19

What does deep thinking in Middle School look like?

“Fifth Grade is the beginning of the exciting explorations that characterize the Middle School.

When I first taught Ancient Egypt, I avoided the gory details of mummification. But it soon became abundantly clear that the more real the exploration, the more exciting it would be to students. Now we examine each and every step of the embalming process.”

— Lisa Schwartzburg, 5th Grade Core

“In instrumental music, kids are learning to speak in an abstract language. For some this provides a means of expression that they might not find elsewhere. Through improvising and basic composition exercises, they learn what it is like to actually create music. I am fascinated by the fearlessness of my fifth and sixth graders: they are willing to explore the instrument and ‘make noise’ with limited inhibition yet deep reflection.”

— Jeremy Udden, Music

“My sixth graders have been studying Islamic art, particularly how to distinguish earlier Mesopotamian pieces from later, Chinese-influenced Persian images.

When we visited the Metropolitan Museum and saw in person all the artifacts we have been studying, their excitement was priceless.”

— Katharine Hill, 6th Grade Core

“My sixth graders were engaged in a number-theory activity called the Locker Problem. Noticing a pattern, one student hypothesized that squares of squares all have five factors. After some investigation, 20 | THE PACKER MAGAZINE

we found that her hypothesis wasn’t always true but we were able to modify it: If p is a prime number, then p4 (the square of p2) has exactly five factors. Listing the factors — p, p2, p3, and p4 — we noticed we had managed only four. When I asked which factor they forgot to name, the whole class called out, ‘One!’ This is the kind of thing you might prove in introductory number theory at the college level.

And it came from one student’s observation and the class’s interest in figuring out if it was right.”

— Amy Hand, Chair of the Mathematics Department

“My eighth graders do independent projects on linear regressions. One student looked at the relationship between parents’ income and their children’s level of education.

Another looked at a quarterback’s earnings relative to his touchdown record. If the students find that the data are not correlated, they dig deep to consider why things didn’t work out the way they expected.”

— June Alpert, Math

“During a recent lesson on genetics, my seventh graders asked a great question: If two identical twin sisters each had a child with one of a pair of identical twin brothers, would their children be identical?

The answer (No, they would not) wasn’t enough for the kids. But why?! they insisted.

I used an analogy to help them understand the nature of meiosis.

‘Imagine you and I have identical boxes of donuts, each with a dozen different flavors,’ I said. ‘If we each take out six donuts at random, we

now have different boxes of donuts.’

We went a bit further, of course, but before long they were satisfied that the children would be more like siblings or fraternal twins.”

— Catherine Jennings, Science

“We try to instill the idea that history is an interpretation of the recorded past. In our 7th grade text [Joy Hakim’s A History of Us], the author’s voice is very present. I ask the students to consider where she is inserting her opinion and how we know. We discuss how she supports her opinion, and how we might argue with her.

In the 8th grade media literacy unit, we look at political language, advertisements, and propaganda.

The students study various types of text — verbal language, video, campaign posters, commercials — and begin to learn how to examine a text, how to interrogate it. They make inferences and realize that texts can be interpreted differently.”

— Monika Johnston, History

“We had just read the first scene of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and we were discussing whether Hippolyta is happy about her forced marriage to Theseus. Then we watched a video of a Globe Theater production of that scene.

One student couldn’t wait to explain how the Globe version had interpreted the text differently from the way we had in class. So many ideas were firing in his head. Middle School kids are often excited to share their ideas, but his sense of discovery was particularly exuberant.”

— Maggie Levine ’82, English

e I walk “Every tim ss, iggio’s cla into Mr. R h nd appy. is so fun a the room erience m u c h ex p He has so learn I d c, an with musi lass. c ry e v so much e ent of m best mo T hat’s my ” l! o o h Middle Sc in, der Bourt — Alexan e d 6th Gra

students are digging into material that challenges them, joy and humor are still present in the room.

In fact, maintaining a balance between rigor and levity is an important teaching strategy. “Middle School classrooms at Packer embrace the ‘work hard, play hard’ philosophy,” says 6th Grade Core teacher Sadelle Chain, who is in her first year at Packer. “We can be rigorous one moment, and goofy the next.”

Ms. Johnston agrees. “If you can create a safe enough environment, most middle school kids will try just about anything. And if it looks silly, we laugh!”

INSTILLING STRONG HABITS Parallel to the Middle School’s increased cognitive demands come heavier workloads. Homework may be required by three or four teachers in different subjects on any given night. Assignments are more complex and take longer to complete. The level of work requires strategic approaches to studying and completing projects.

To strengthen students’ work habits, teachers provide explicit instruction in so-called “executive function”: meta-skills such as timemanagement, organization, work habits, and study strategies.

The Middle School faculty tend to share the view that what usually holds a student back is not a lack of intelligence or ability but a lack of habits that make it possible to push through difficult moments. “A huge piece of student success has to do with organizing, prioritizing, and managing procrastination,” says Ms. York. “A student who has a content deficit or an academic-skill deficit but who also has strong executive function will probably do well.”

Helping students manage increasing workloads is a many-year effort that goes beyond study skills. The broader goal is for students “to become proactive learners who are organized, accountable, and independent,” says Colin Levitt, 6th Grade Head Teacher. “We build up their independence incrementally so that they learn to seek out support from their teachers when they need it.”

Throughout the Middle School, says Noah Reinhardt, there’s an essential common thread: The students and faculty are enjoying each other. They are having fun.

Students develop this autonomy at different stages and at varying speeds, however. “We recognize that while some kids are mature enough to ask for help, not all of them are there yet,” says Mr. Levitt.

For that reason, the division holds Formal Academic Support Time, or FAST, a weekly period when teachers sign up their own students for extra help.

“Our new FAST program has changed the way students think about getting help from teachers,” says Ms. Mendez. “Now every student does it at one time or another.” It has also changed the way teachers approach student support, she says. Since FAST is built into everyone’s schedule, each teacher now reviews on a weekly basis which students would benefit most from one-on-one support.

“With younger students,” says Ms. Jennings, “we help them figure out their learning styles. We help them learn when to have grit and persevere versus when to reach out for help. But as kids move through the Middle School, we give them room to develop that autonomy.

We want them to enter the Upper School able to identify their needs themselves.”

KNOWING THE INDIVIDUAL CHILD Because children mature differently and at varying speeds, the ages between 10 and 14 represent a broad spectrum of cognitive and emotional maturity. And because many young adolescents find comfort in some degree of conformity, it is important that they be seen as the complex and evolving individuals they nevertheless are. This awareness fuels the Middle School faculty’s most significant form of academic and personal support: knowing each student well.

Increasingly, says Ms. York, the Middle School is “focused on what progress looks like for each individual student. If a student who is struggling is also motivated, that becomes the basis of our discussion and action plan. At an academically demanding place like Packer, it’s essential that we engage the whole child.”

WINTER 2016 | 21

Children who have an adult at school to whom they feel connected are more successful in every facet of school life — academic, social, and emotional.

idsummer “For the M share, am scene Night’s Dre mer m su be, the I was T his myself d e b b a or. I st camp janit e h whole l noodle. T with a poo ughter. la red with grade roa lated me n congratu .”

Mr. Johnso my peers and so did eorge, — Sarah G de ra G th 7

Moving students away from the viewpoint that grades are in themselves an end goal is an important part of this effort, says Mr. Reinhardt. So is actively engaging with every single student.

Ms. York concurs, citing current research on student success. “If children have one adult at school that they feel connected to, that they feel known and seen by and can go to if they need support, they are much more successful in every facet of their school life — academic, social, and emotional.”

“At this age, you can feel completely invisible at times,” says Dr. Srebnick. Adolescents treasure “adults who let you know that you have an impact on them, who let you know that your happiness and your ideas matter to them.” Packer’s faculty work hard to make sure that every child feels valued “for who they are at that moment, which may or may not be perfect.”

And when students do fall short, faculty and administrators hold them accountable — compassionately.

“If kids are going to make mistakes, I want them to do it on our watch,” says Mr. Reinhardt. “A lot of good comes from kids making both small and significant errors of judgment, and then owning them and dealing with the repercussions, whether social, academic, or within their families.”

“Even though the kids will pretend they know everything, they’re listening at heart,” says Mr. Dailey. “They just want to be good people.

We’ll say to a student, ‘Do you understand why this could be a problem?’ It’s not about shutting them down. Instead, we engage them in a conversation about that behavior. And they genuinely want to know your opinion.”

“We’re never simply punitive,” says Dr. Srebnick. “There’s a willingness among the adults here to look at these 11-year-olds and know that they’re going to be profoundly different as 13-year-olds. We do a good job of remembering that our middle schoolers become great high school students, in part because we didn’t judge them.”

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Guiding Personal Growth “Middle schoolers go through tremendous changes, and we have the opportunity to help shape that change,” says Mr. Reinhardt. “We want to be part of the conversation about the people they’re going to become. Adolescence is about trying on new hats, so we offer students lots of opportunities to figure out pieces of their identities and find their voices: on stage, on the athletic field, in a club, in a particular subject, on student counsel, or in diversity work.”

Having to make choices encourages students to reflect on their interests and personal goals, and commit to them in some way. An exciting example of choice in the Middle School is WinterSession,

racticed We had p we but when for weeks, ance at d le o p ay the M tangled! ll finally did a t bbons go ri e th , s— ay May D ghed at u group lau d n o lem! c b se ro e p Th same ey had the th n e th g. d n a op laughin couldn’t st e w , t a rd e a b Afterw e don’t mess up, w me When we hat makes T . it t up abou r. e k c a P ourselves rtable at feel comfo , uckerman — Daisy Z e d ra G 7th

Pumpkin-decorating contests are one example of division-wide activities that give advisor groups the opportunity to bond.

a three-day event held in January. In mixed-grade groups, students dive deeply into immersive learning, often off campus, in subjects such as woodworking, DJing, meditation, architecture, and the stock market.

Clubs are another important way for students to explore and express both academic and nonacademic interests. Long-standing clubs include Model Congress, Model UN, Student Diversity Council, Mock-Newbery Awards, the Middle School newspaper, the writing club and the service club. More recreational options include a comedy club, a movie club, and a magic club. As with chorus, orchestra, theater, and athletics, clubs also give students opportunities to try on different responsibilities and roles. And clubs are entirely studentdriven: students have to find an advisor, collect members’ emails, find a common meeting time, and set the club’s agenda. Through club activities, students are motivated to collaborate, set goals, rally their peers, and practice speaking in public.

“We try to give the kids as many different experiences as possible,” says Mr. Levitt. “It’s about exposing kids to new things, pushing kids to be uncomfortable. It helps them figure out who they are.”

BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS Parallel to teenagers’ growing internal sense of self is an intensifying outward focus on their relationships with each other.

But the latter development — interacting constructively with others — usually has the steeper learning curve. After all, 10- and 11-yearolds may not fully understand that what they are thinking is different from what people around them are thinking.

Supporting this learning curve is an important way in which the faculty contribute to who the students become. Advisor groups, which meet four times a week, devote a lot of time to activities and discussions that deepen students’ ability to cooperate and compromise. “Advisors convey nuts-and-bolts information to the students,” says Bessie Oster, who leads the advising program with Mr. Reinhardt.

“But they also engage students in conversations about fairness and

social justice, meet one on one to support their advisees academically, and provide a fun and safe space for students to unwind and be themselves.”

Students often have a profound effect on each other, and when that effect is managed thoughtfully, it provides a valuable opportunity for peer-to-peer learning. Field Day, a cherished Middle School tradition for the past 15 years, has this effect in mind. Sixteen mixed-grade teams participate in athletic, academic, and spirit challenges — from capture the flag and ultimate football to Trivial Pursuit and team cheers. Eighth graders are expected to lead their teams and are given explicit leadership training at the beginning of the year.

Eighth grade advisors talk to their students about being role models for the younger students on their teams. “We try to get 8th graders to the point where they feel a sense of responsibility for the day’s success,” says Mr. Dailey. And when younger students see older ones taking on this responsibility, “it’s socially powerful. They know they’re all expected to pay it forward as they get older.”

grade “In my 6th lways roup, we a advisor g kids in e th ll Not a laughed. to be g p are goin your grou ut b s, d fr ien your best n ew e k a m ce to it’s a chan c d conne t.” fr iends an recht, — India B de ra G 7th

WINTER 2016 | 23

I love the vibrancy and energy of the Middle School.

So many activities bring students and teachers together — Field Day, equity simulations, Chapel Stories, birthday announcements, the Geography Bee, the Science Fair. They all contribute to the deep connection I feel to the Middle School community.

Stephanie Rapciak, Science Teacher

At Packer, Field Day is exclusive to the Middle School, and it extends beyond September. “Field Day activities” are scheduled throughout the year. Reuniting the mixed-age teams from time to time for special projects and events helps ensure that every student has opportunities to connect with peers outside his or her own grade level and friendship circle. Students’ team affiliations also carry over from year to year so that those connections have a chance to build throughout Middle School.

These efforts to support relationship-building, says Ms. Mendez, “help create a very strong communal identity in our division.”

NURTURING EMPATHY “With kids’ entrance into the Middle School, there’s a natural progression when they realize the world is so much bigger than they ever imagined,” says Dr. Srebnick. Several activities try to influence this progression by expanding students’ appreciation for difference inside and beyond Packer’s walls.

Chapel Stories is a new weekly event designed by Director of Diversity and Equity Ramón Javier to build community by introducing students to the diversity among them through first-person accounts. Selected faculty and students give short prepared talks sharing how a specific aspect of their identity — such as physical or learning ability, socioeconomic status, or family structure — has helped shape who they are. Gaining insight into the otherwise private experiences of teachers and other students has had a profound impact on the student body, who listen to each story with palpable interest.

Each grade in the Middle School participates in a community service project for the duration of the year, walking in advisor groups to neighborhood organizations. Sixth graders, for instance, volunteer weekly at the First Presbyterian Church’s food pantry, preparing and serving meals to the homeless. They also spearhead a school-wide food drive before Thanksgiving. This year, the entire grade carried 150 bags of donated food to the pantry.

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Structured service opportunities such as this yield authentic and sincere responses, says Ms. Chain. “After our trip to the food pantry, totally unprompted, my students were sharing their questions and reflections, and brainstorming ‘next steps’ for our service work.”

“I’m continually impressed by our willingness and ability as a community to come to terms with and contribute to the world outside of Packer,” says first-year Latin teacher Jackie Kazarian. “Educating students to be informed and compassionate human beings is, to me, part of what makes Packer’s Middle School such a warm and joyful academic community.”

The division’s commitment to develop empathy and understanding beyond the students’ own life experiences can also be seen in the annual Equity Simulation. The day-long event gives students roles to play that spark discussions about fairness and justice. Typically, in advisor groups and Field Day teams, the faculty facilitate student discussions and provide additional information to help put the gamelike activities into a real-world context. As students experience several of these simulation exercises over their Middle School years, “the goal is for them to acquire a deeper understanding of identity, privilege, and equity as they approach the Upper School,” says Mr. Javier.

In this year’s “Hunger Banquet” simulation, each student was randomly assigned to one of three global income groups. As the world’s top earners, a lucky fifteen percent of the students enjoyed a breakfast buffet. At the other end of the spectrum, representing the world’s lowest income earners, half of the students were given four crackers for breakfast. During what Ms. Oster considers “the single most powerful day in the Middle School,” the students experienced the abstract realities of global hunger in a way they could relate to more easily.

Afterward, many of them expressed a new awareness of food insecurity and of the role of education in reversing poverty. [Read more at www. packer.edu/2015hungerbanquet.]

One of the best parts of working with this age group is their support of one another. They see themselves are part of a bigger picture and they know they can rely on each other to get through some of the challenges of being a middle schooler.

Dorothy Gurreri, Physical Education Teacher

WELCOMING FAMILIES At Packer, educating early adolescents is very much a family affair.

Students and parents are made to feel welcome in the Middle School office. In the early morning, students often lounge in the office’s inviting armchairs to chat with César Ayala, the division’s administrative assistant. They are equally likely to stop in to speak to the deans or Mr. Reinhardt about a game from the day before, a project they are working on, or a problem they’ve encountered.

“When I became the Middle School Head, my hope was that kids and families would feel welcome here and see the office as a resource,” says Mr. Reinhardt. “I wanted to make it a place where you go for support, not just where kids and families go when they’re in trouble.”

Communication is integral to this partnership. “Noah’s regular outreach to parents invites them to partner with him and his colleagues to better raise and educate our children,” says parent Karen Wharton P ’18. “Our family felt that we were an integral and valued part of the community.”

Hunger “After the t of e had a lo Banquet, w for s ting bag fun decora er. v li e D e We God’s Lov c ky I lu w o h e dm It reminde od, and enough fo e v a h to am ealthy h d appy an that I am h hool.” a great sc and go to Michael, — Charlie ra 6th G de

“We knew that the administration and faculty wanted to hear from parents,” says Matt Brogan P’17. “When Noah extended his hand to each student at the 8th Grade Graduation, each of them gave him a huge hug instead. If the parents had been allowed to, we would have done the same thing!”

Clare Huntington P’21 sees the profound influence that these years have had on both of her children. “The Middle School has formed Zoe and Sam into the students and people they are today. The ethos of the Middle School — that it can be a place for kids to take risks and find their own voices — has come to life for them.”

w

hen asked what contributes most to Packer’s achieving its mission for Middle School students, Mr. Reinhardt says, “Everything!

So much comes together to make this place special.”

He continues: “We have extraordinary teachers who understand and appreciate these kids, teachers who are experts in their fields and care so much about their work. Add to that an amazing program of academic classes and extracurricular activities that we are able to offer our students. There’s also this beautiful space — just expanded this year — where we get to spend our days.

“Most of all, there are the students themselves. There’s a shared joy and openness among the adults and children that makes the hard work incredibly rewarding.

“And though the kids wouldn’t say it in these words, I think most of them feel the same way. These are students who love to be together, who have deep and meaningful connections with their teachers, who feel a part of this place, and who feel known and seen and heard.”

“Living our mission isn’t something that happens in the ‘in-between spaces’ here,” he concludes. “It’s in everything we do.”

Find more Middle School voices and photos at www.packer.edu/magazine.

WINTER 2016 | 25

An Expert Embraces the Virtues of Doubt At Packer’s 104th Founder’s Day, Slate reporter Joshua Keating ’03 speaks about a Russian billionaire, the “Google race for eyeballs,” and “the truth about adulthood.”

by Tori Gibbs

26 | THE PACKER MAGAZINE

P

acker welcomed alumnus Joshua Keating ’03 for the 104th Founders Day Chapel on Wednesday, October 28. The annual event held in honor of Harriet Packer gives students opportunities to hear from distinguished alumni.

Keating spoke to the Upper School about his career in foreign affairs journalism, and how a lifelong love of learning led him from the halls of Packer to a reporter’s desk at Slate in Washington, DC. Packer gave him early opportunities to write, as a co-founder of “weeklies” in 7th and 8th grade, founder of Packer’s old Soapbox magazine, and editor of the Prism, the Upper School newspaper. He cited Packer faculty members George Snook, Erland Zygmuntowicz, Eric Weisberg, Paul Riggio, and former teachers Ken Rush and Barbara Seddon as early influences on his career, which requires him to think critically and write authoritatively on a wide range of subjects.

The open mindset he developed at Packer is essential to his work, first as the online editor for Foreign Policy magazine until 2013 and now as an acclaimed analyst at Slate, where his beat never sleeps. In an average day, he might cover four or five different countries — often ones facing serious political upheaval — in opposite corners of the world. His aim is to “summarize facts for readers and provide some added analysis, context, and commentary,” often about “places I’ve never been.”

Keating acknowledged that he doesn’t always have the answers. “It’s a harsh truth that nobody tells you about adulthood: there doesn’t come a point where you suddenly feel like you know what you’re doing.” Each day provides a new opportunity to learn and re-think about the complicated issues he covers as a journalist.

For him, the most important tool is intellectual flexibility. An open mindset allows him to write about “Syria in the morning, Greece around lunch time, and the South China Sea in the afternoon.”

Keating reflected that “getting to some truth about complicated issues in the world requires a constant interrogation of your own assumptions.”

In the continually transforming landscape of online journalism, Keating said, it is impossible to have expertise in all the areas required of journalists today. “It’s not about knowing information, it’s about knowing what questions to ask.” His job as a journalist is to gather information, reflect on his knowledge base, and reach out to experts in the field to elucidate points of information where he feels he may fall short for his readers. Journalism today is a collaborative effort between reporters on the ground gathering facts, and experts and analysts weighing in on the subjects with context and a greater understanding of how the events play out on the global stage.

Doubt, he continued, is “an underappreciated virtue.” Often, new facts about the events he covers will surface over time or further analysis will circulate in hindsight. One of his strengths as a journalist is the ability to go back and revisit topics about which he has already written.

“If you’re never wrong about anything, I think that’s less a sign of infallible knowledge than that you’re not really thinking that hard.”

He told the assembled students about a Russian billionaire who berated him for his lack of expertise and professionalism before Keating had even asked a question. Ultimately it became the best interview of his career because it gave him the opportunity to “continue my education, learning about the world along with my readers.”

Before his Founder’s Day speech in the Chapel, Keating visited Byron Thomas’s 7th Grade history class and Erland Zygmuntowicz’s Advanced Topics in US Government. He and the group of juniors and seniors discussed the role that the media plays in circulating the

“You’re a lot more qualified than you think you are, especially if you know how to ask the right question.” candidates’ platforms and opinions. The difference between the past presidential election and the upcoming one, is that “the news is happening on social media.” Candidates disseminate their views directly to the public, Keating said, rather than go through media gatekeepers.

Students were inspired both by Josh’s political savvy and background, and by his path from Packer to professional journalism. One student praised his discussion of “the process of turning an idea into journalism,” and that his “insight on the political process was eyeopening.” Another found that Josh’s journey was reassuring: “hearing [him] speak about all that [he] has done after Packer made me have more confidence in myself to find the career and environment that are right for me.”

Journalists feel the impact of the saturated 24-7 cycles of social media today, Keating told the students. They now must act as their own advocates, promoting their work by publishing four to five different headlines for each published article, aimed at targeting different readers through a range of social media platforms to compete in the “Google race for eyeballs.”

Upper School English teacher Teresa Genaro praised Keating’s class visit with her nonfiction writing students. “As someone who reads Josh’s work regularly, I was thrilled to have him come back and talk about the craft of writing and the experience of becoming a

professional writer. His interests in both writing and politics are a big part of what I remember about him, and his sharing those interests with my current students was a tremendous opportunity for them and for me.”

Meeting with aspiring journalists in Ms. Genaro’s class, he assured them that even he feels nervous when he pushes the publish button on his pieces, 12 years into his career. “There is value in wading into areas where you don’t feel quite comfortable.”

We all face doubt, Keating said, whether in what we write or what we think. The drive to dig deeper, to be unafraid of the unknown, is the key to learning and must prevail. “You’re a lot more qualified than you think you are, especially if you know how to ask the right question.”

He linked the complex issues we face around the globe today to a similar courage, expressed collectively: the solutions to the “most pressing problems we face as a global society require a lot of people coming up with a lot of ideas, each of which make the world a better place in some small way.”

Not having all the answers should never be seen as an obstacle, either. “Achieving anything worthwhile in society is going to be a long and often infuriating process of incremental victories, frustrating defeats, and slowly changing minds.”

The keys to success, Keating concluded, are three-fold: “acknowledging the limits of what you know, admitting that you’re often going to be wrong, and then having the courage to go find out more.”

Read Josh Keating’s work at Slate.com and look for his forthcoming book, What is a Country?: Borders, Maps, and Our World’s New Geography, from Yale University Press.

WINTER 2016 | 27

In Good Health (Education) Health classes at Packer put self-awareness at the forefront of healthy decision-making.

by Karen Brandt and Bessie Oster

Department Chair Karen Brandt leads a 10th Grade health class, the centerpiece of the Upper School health education program.

28 | THE PACKER MAGAZINE

O

n the wall in the heart of campus hangs a Packer graduate’s painting of a catfish. A new but well worn edition of Our Bodies Ourselves sits on the shelf. A cluster of comfortable chairs invite students into the space. This is the newly renovated Health Education office, nestled in between Founder’s Hall and Alumnae Hall.

The office is not only where we work but also where students come to relax, socialize, meet with teachers, and hold club meetings. They show us the occasional viral video or play a favorite new song. When faculty arrive in the morning, students are often already ensconced on our couches, deep in conversation or finishing up homework from the night before. In other words, the health office has become an oasis for Packer’s students.

This is not the Health Ed department most people envision. When we introduce ourselves socially as middle and high school health teachers, they often tell stories about health classes gone wrong: awkward presentations about sex or drugs, films that were either too vague or too specific, shoeboxes full of anonymous, cringe-worthy questions that a teacher dutifully answered one by one in front of the class. Health education is an indelible school experience for many, and not always a positive one.

Fortunately, when it comes to innovative health education, Packer has always been ahead of the curve. While Packer’s Health Education department today includes three specialists with graduate degrees

AHEAD OF T HE CUR VE

Through a focus on goals, values, and decision-making, our students leave Packer having formally explored who they are and who they want to be.

in public health, the program has long been led by educators who understand its vital role in healthy child and adolescent development [see “Ahead of the Curve”].

Packer’s health curriculum reflects a new movement in education that emphasizes the development of essential skills rather than content mastery. While our health ed classes address many familiar, perennial topics — alcohol and drugs, mental health, nutrition, and sexuality — our primary goal is to empower students to make informed decisions, take responsibility for their choices, set goals and learn from experiences. We provide a forum for young people to clarify their own values and points of view, and to practice making decisions that are aligned. Through this focus, our students leave Packer having formally explored who they are and who they want to be.

From 5th through 12th Grade, our classes put real-world scenarios and real-world skills at the fore. Yes, fifth graders still get the full story on how babies are made. And we won’t lie, there a few anatomy charts that make even most stoic Middle Schooler blush. But 5th grade health is not just about the birds and the bees. Through creative drama-based scenarios, students explore key components of socialemotional health. In one lesson, they enter a classroom where blue painter’s tape on the floor defines a life-size bedroom, a child’s

For 25 years, physical education teachers Dorothy Gurreri and George Boutis were the cornerstones of the health education program.

“When I taught Upper School health ed in the 1980s, the class went from being seen as a secondary subject to a subject that was taken seriously,” said Mr. Boutis. “We were able to turn students on to health in ageappropriate ways. That was when we really started to focus on the main objective: to get kids to really think about their decisions.”

Despite the emphasis on meditation, mental health, nutrition and other wellness issues, the wideranging benefits of more formalized health education weren’t immediately clear to the community in the early 1980s. Some parents felt health should be taught at home. “Some of them would try to pull their kids out of health class in favor of their taking a second language,” said Mr. Boutis.

But his and Ms. Gurreri’s enthusiasm for teaching health made it enjoyable, he said. “Students came in not expecting much, and it became one of their favorite classes. I think they trusted and respected where the information was coming from.”

In 1996, the Health Education Department was formally established.

Ten years later the department became independent of Physical Education when Dr. Dennis hired Karen Brandt as Department Chair.

Mr. Boutis and Ms. Gurreri recognized that the expertise of specialists would convey that healthy decision-making is an academic field in its own right and deserved an authoritative platform. “We had researchers, MDs, and psychologists come in one night a month” to speak to parents, said Ms. Gurreri.

Bringing in outside authorities in the health and wellness fields helped raise the profile of their work, she added. “When we developed our K-12 health curriculum, and other schools started asking us for it, I knew we had done something important.”

WINTER 2016 | 29

MEN T O R S M AK E A D I F F E R E N C E In the Peer Support program, Health Ed teachers train Upper Schoolers to serve as mentors to 9th graders.

These relationships give students a chance to share questions and struggles with older peers who have experienced many of the same things.

“As a freshman, it can be intimidating not knowing a lot of students in the high school. Peer Support helps reduce the intimidation,” says Dale Saferstein ’16. “The things that we educate them about — drugs, alcohol, social skills, time management — they really listen to and learn from. It’s an essential part of the freshman year curriculum and experience.”

Being a mentor has benefits too, says Cecilia Mastrogiacomo ’16. “I am able to speak confidently to a group of people, create a thorough lesson plan, and work well with my fellow peer supporter. Peer Support helps build confidence and teaches high school students essential leadership skills for life.”

Nick Morton ’12 still keeps in touch with some of the Packer students he mentored during his senior year, even though they are now out of college themselves. “I’m continually their Peer Support leader even though our lives have taken different paths.” He found the fact that they chose to come to him — rather than go to their college RAs — “so rewarding,” and a testament to the meaningful relationships that the Peer Support program made possible.

Bessie Oster leads a 10th Grade discussion.

We believe it is more empowering to ask students to reflect on what makes them happy than to require them to learn the diagnostic criteria for depression. bed, and a desk. The students discover a variety of artifacts: a backpack, journal, and half-written post cards, which tell the story of a young person’s struggle. Through an interpretive process and guided discussion, students explore emotional awareness, self esteem, and friendships.

Sixth grade is a pivotal year in terms of students’ independence. Our holistic curriculum features a unit on food, community, and the importance of developing confidence in preparing meals. Students learn to develop their tastes and prepare dishes to share with their classmates. The resulting Sixth Grade Cookbook is a health class tradition stretching back to the 1980s.

Observing their classmates in the Garden through a 4th-floor window, seventh graders

30 | THE PACKER MAGAZINE

are asked consider the social groups in their grade. In small groups, students visually depict the social configurations using only descriptive characteristics. The goal is to increase social and emotional intelligence and to develop a better understanding of who they are and who they want to be.

Ninth grade students enter a classroom where a brown paper bag sits on each desk.

“Don’t touch the bags!” we tell them. “But if you eat what’s in the bag, you will receive an A in your toughest subject.” We then make a series of statements about the contents. The stakes start low: You may get a stomachache if you eat what’s in the bag, but you will get an A. Then it builds: If you eat the contents of the bag, your teeth will turn black for a year.

Finally: The contents could be fatal. The goal

Above: George Boutis has been teaching Upper School health classes at Packer since the 1980s.

Left: Middle School classes often feature open conversations, as in this 6th Grade class led by Ashley Petillo (seated at right).

is to get students thinking and talking about the factors that impact their decisions, and how to handle short-term temptations and make good long-term choices.

In 10th Grade, students enter the classroom to find a quotation by Henry David Thoreau on the smartboard, whom they also study in English class. “Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.” They learn to distinguish between short-term gratification and longterm happiness. They explore the essential question of what creates lasting happiness.

We do this by having students identify sources of happiness in their own lives, as well as potential roadblocks. They record their thoughts in what we call The Happiness Journal. And happy it is. We share thoughts, read quotations, and evoke the tastes and smells of favorite meals. This unit is often the highlight of the semester. We believe it is more empowering to ask students to reflect on what makes them happy than to require them to learn the diagnostic criteria

for depression. This is just another example of the ways in which we emphasize skill development over mastery of content.

Our commitment to students’ sound decision-making extends beyond their years here. We help the seniors prepare for the transition from life at home and at Packer to life on a college campus, by asking them to list what they are most looking forward to, and what they fear. Year after year, the two lists are remarkably similar: having more independence, taking college-level classes, dealing with roommates, making friends.

Through role play and real-world scenarios, we help them practice the skills they need to manage the freedoms that come with adulthood. In a sense, what we do with the seniors is no different from what we do throughout the health ed curriculum: enable students to build their personal confidence, manage social pressures, and avoid or reduce risky behaviors.

Part of what keeps Packer’s health education program vital is that we are constantly

evolving. New this year, we have developed a parent education curriculum to empower families to reinforce at home the health messages explored in our classrooms. Mirroring our student curriculum, parents are invited to join a year-long series of seminars and working meetings to engage families and prompt honest discussions about the health issues relevant to Packer students.

In concrete ways at each grade level, Packer’s health education curriculum asks our students to live the mission. In a sense, Packer’s goal for students — to think deeply, speak confidently, and act with purpose and heart — is really about their learning to make intelligent, informed decisions about their lives and to manage the increasing freedom of adolescence and adulthood with responsibility and self-awareness. That’s what Health Education is all about.

Karen Brandt is the Chair of the Health Education Department. Bessie Oster is an Upper School health educator and leads the Middle School’s advising program. Both have Masters of Public Health from Hunter College.

WINTER 2016 | 31

Parent Association

Pumpkin Patch

Meeting Bias with Resilience and Dialogue

T

he Packer Parent Association regularly invites speakers to the School to build community and spark conversation among the parent body. In light of the national dialogue about racial injustice, the PA invited Dr. Prabhjot Singh to Packer in January to share his vision for a new framework for conversations about racial, religious, and ethnic bias.

As a practicing Sikh, Dr. Singh wears a turban and an untrimmed beard. Yet in three separate incidents after the

u p c o m in g e v ent s Celebrate Cuba!

The PA Diversity Committee invites families to attend a carnival celebrating the arts, culture, geography, and food of Cuba on Sunday, February 21, from 1 to 4 p.m in the 2nd Floor Gym. Raising Financially Smart Kids Ron Lieber is the New York Times “Your Money” columnist and bestselling author of The Opposite of Spoiled. At 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 25, he will discuss how to talk openly with your children about money, essential financial behaviors for young adults, and how to raise generous and grounded young adults.

This event is co-sponsored by several Brooklyn schools and will take place at Brooklyn Heights Montessori School at 185 Court Street.

32 | THE PACKER MAGAZINE

9/11 attacks, fellow New Yorkers mistook him for a Muslim and accused him of being a terrorist. He said that these experiences inspired him to turn to the Sikh principle of surat, or consciousness raising. Rather than be filled with hate or anger, he used the incidents as opportunities to “think more clearly and equally about who [he is] in relation to who [he’s] speaking or interacting with.” In that process, he came to terms with the unavoidable fact that his faith and appearance made him an outsider in mainstream American society.

In 2013, Dr. Singh, a practicing physician, left his professorship at Columbia University to focus on community health care and access in East Harlem, where he lives. Dr. Singh urged the audience of parents, faculty, and alumni to engage in conversations with colleagues, neighbors, and family members to “shape the narratives that we as a country tell” about minority experiences. We all must ask hard questions of ourselves and society, he said, and find ways to understand and advocate for those who may be considered outsiders today.

Dr. Singh closed his talk with a suggestion for parents. “It is our role to raise [our children] as people of conscience.”

To achieve equality and tolerance, we must “do the work of building new stories and new relationships” with the diverse members of our communities by deciding what qualities we value in Americans.

PA Diversity Chair Jamillah Hoy-Rosas ’94, P’22, P’27 praised Dr. Singh’s “resilience and determination to embrace his culture, to be the face of it despite the increasing difficulty of doing so in this country.” She added: “He raised my consciousness, and I am sure he did the same for everyone there.”

Mardi Gras Masquerade Laissez les bons temps rouler! Let the good times roll at the 2016 Packer Gala on Saturday, March 12, at 7 p.m. Funds raised will benefit the remodeling of Packer’s libraries. Learn more, buy tickets, or underwrite the event at www.packer.edu/gala.

Book Fair Browse the annual Packer PA Book Fair from Wednesday, May 4, through Friday, May 6, in the 2nd Floor Gym. Spring Community Service Day On Sunday, May 15, from 12 to 3 p.m., the PA Service Committee will host families from Little Flowers, a non-profit organization that provides foster care and adoption services for a fun-filled day of games, arts and crafts, food, entertainment, and community in the Packer Garden.

Smiles Reign at Pumpkin Patch

An early morning shower did not deter the hundreds of families who attended the 2015 Pumpkin Patch Festival. From the Halloween-themed treats and the Pumpkin Grill to the indoor and outdoor games and events, Pumpkin Patch 2015 was made possible by dozens of hardworking parent volunteers led by intrepid Pumpkin Patch Chair Vanessa Muskopf Pâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;26.

A sincere thank you to everyone who attended in support of the School!

WINTER 2016 | 33

Alumni News

For the Hoy-Rosas Family, It’s Home Sweet Packer

I

n the summer before high school, Jason Rosas ’94 sat in their graduation, Jason moved back to New York to enroll in a classroom at Columbia University five rows behind his a Master’s program. Jamillah stayed in Philadelphia. future wife. They were attending a program for Oliver Their year apart strained their relationship, however, and Scholars to prepare to enter selective independent schools. after six years, recalled Jason, “we broke up over the phone.”

And though they lived only seven blocks apart from each But the next day, Jason caught the first bus to Philly. “I other in Brooklyn, their paths had never crossed before. showed up at her door at 8 in the morning. I said I was sorry, The girl was Jamillah Hoy-Rosas and we made up.” ’94. Jason’s memory of her is crysThe cause of their rupture? tal clear to this day. “I immediately “Some trivial argument that I now Deciding to send their children knew her to be smart. Although can’t recall,” laughed Jason. to Packer was “like bringing [them] she was quiet, she spoke very From that point on, said eloquently.”

Jamillah, “we reconfirmed our back to our home.”

Jamillah remembered her dedication to one another.” They husband’s beard. “He looked like a haven’t looked back. grown man in 9th Grade!”

“Juggling school and a relationship is never easy,” Jamillah A few days later, Jamillah and Jason realized they would acknowledged, “but we had such a strong foundation to our be attending Packer together. As freshmen, they quickly friendship before we started dating. It’s what helped us to became great friends. At school, they were part of a maintain this relationship for so long.” tight-knit circle and both of them worked on The Prism On June 29, 2002, twelve years after that summer day, and were involved in theater. Jamillah recalled that, at Jamillah and Jason were married. The ceremony was held a rehearsal in the Pratt during junior year, “we had this in the Packer Chapel, and several of their classmates were epiphany that we had deep feelings” for one another. members of the wedding party.

“Jason was so mature and ahead of his years,” she said.

“One of the great strengths of our relationship is that “That attracted me to him. He was like a wise, old soul. we’ve been able to forecast our lives together. We sit down Everyone went to him for advice.” and have long and elaborate stories, thoughts, and dreams They became the inseparable couple of the Class of 1994. about how we want our relationship to build.”

After Packer, they both attended the University of “I feel like I’ve known Jason in another life,” Jamillah said.

Pennsylvania — and they kept dating. But they did not “Not only as a romantic partner, but as someone who really want to be completely dependent on each other, so after understood me and who could see who I really was.”

34 | THE PACKER MAGAZINE

f ir s t in a new tr a d iti o n Far left: The Hoy-Rosas Family at Packer.

Left: Jamillah and Jason’s 2002 wedding, with Richard Hooper, Daoud Brathwaite ‘94, Steven Daley ‘94, Martha Vasquez ‘94, Shabaki Lambert ‘94 and Tarra Hoy. Right: The couple in the 1994 yearbook.

According to Jason, Jamillah often wore headbands and “glasses that used to fall in her face.” When she got contacts, he said, “you could see how beautiful her eyes were, how bright her face was.”

Today, Jamillah is the Director of Health Coaching and Clinical Partnerships at City Health Works, a neighborhood-based organization that hires community health workers to provide health coaching and support to people living with chronic diseases. She is also Chair of the Packer Parent Association Diversity Committee. Jason is a speechlanguage pathologist and is pursuing his doctorate at the CUNY Graduate Center, specializing in reading disabilities and electrophysiology.

In addition to their shared experiences at Packer, they consider their faith to be a source of strength in their relationship. They are active members of the Greenwood Baptist Church in Park Slope, where Jason is a trustee and Jamillah chairs the missions committee. Her passion for community service — “which I trace back to my years at Packer” — also has her leading a Girl Scout troop for the past six years.

“Packer expanded my horizons,” said Jason. “I never would have had that experience at a New York City public school in the early nineties.”

“When times were tough for us at home, we relied on our relationships at Packer,” added Jamillah. She also recalled how watching the May Day festival as an Upper School student gave her “a strong feeling of safety, community, and inclusiveness.”

That feeling played a key role in their decision to send their children, sixth grader Olivia and first grader Sam, to Packer. “It was like bringing our children back to our home.”

Unsurprisingly, the kids are aware of their family’s special connection to the School. Like her parents, Olivia treasures the relationships that take root here.

Asked recently about her favorite Packer memory, Olivia recalled when she first met her Packer friends in first grade.

“They are still my best friends now,” she said. “I believe that Packer is a community that can create friendships that could quite possibly last forever.”

Indeed it is. — T ­ ori Gibbs Sharing your nest with a fellow Pelican? Please let us know!

Email Dona Laughlin, Director of Alumni, at dlaughlin@packer.edu.

The first-ever Reception for Packer Alumni of Color took place in the Belle Alenick Baier Atrium in December. We look forward to the next one!

Alumni attendees, by class year: Marilyn Nichols ’68 IVAc, Alumni Association President Geoff Brewer ’82, P’26, Angela Martenez ’84, Tati Nguyen ’84, P’25, Jessica Wilkins ’85, Christine Randall ’87, Lisa Aguilera del Puerto ’88, Stacey Toussaint ’92, Ainka Shackleford Turner ’92, Andrea Rosario De Jesus ’93, Francisco Tezen ’93, Jamillah Hoy-Rosas ’94, Jason Rosas ’94, Mikayla Cuyler Marquis ’96, Liane Gibbs-Knight ’97, Director of Global Outreach, Service and Sustainability Tené Howard ’97, Selena Jones ’97, Vanessa Olivier ’97, Brooke Durrah ’99, Sandflower Dyson ’99,

William Durrah ’02, Adrian Purcell ’03, Chris Burton ’04, Katherine Kuntz ’04, Jonathan Marable ’04, Accounts Payable and Purchasing Coordinator Akeem Lane ’05, William Wong ’05, Nneka Mitchell ’06, Gabrielle Too-A-Foo ’06, Taja Cheek ’07, Ronette Hope ’07, Tiffany Ortiz ’07, Aziza Clunie ’08, Alexandra Jones ’08, Tarik MarvilleWatts ’08, Omar Tucker ’08, Anna Robbins ’09, Ali Rosa-Salas ’09, Marcel Rosa-Salas ’09, Kaleem Jones ’10, Damiane Nickles ’11, and Kenya Gordon ’15.

We apologize for any names we may have missed.

y o u n g a l u m ni re c e p ti o n

Members of the Classes of ’12, ’13, ’14, and ’15 visited with Seniors and Faculty in early January. Clockwise from top left: George Snook, Kira Sampson ’13, Karina Caban ’14, and Tiano Lino ’13 Anisha BharathSingh ’13, Eric Baylin, and Mac Schumer ’13 Lily Carruthers ’15, Ella Dyett ’16, and Bari Sugarman ’16 Tiana Lino ’13, George Clark ’15, and Richard Brownstone Cara Jones ’16, Immanuel Farmer ’16, Ben Leitner ’14, and Nick Strong ’14 WINTER 2016 | 35

Will Facebook Kill Class Notes?

Jennifer Berton ’91 reflects on staying connected in the era of social media.

I

have been the correspondent for the Class of 1991 since our graduation.

I took on the job because I thought it would help me stay connected to my 42 classmates.

I was also eager to stay connected to Packer, which has educated

We share the bond of that terrifying and exciting moment when you fly the nest and make your life your own. The older we get and the farther away from that person we once were, the closer I feel to the people who knew me then. generations of women in my family and was where my mother, Barbara Delmhorst ’59 IVAc, P’88, P ’91, had worked for many years.

At first, the job was easy enough.

We had dinners, we met at bars, we went to each other’s weddings. We were connected.

As the years rolled by, those con­ nections changed. Many of us incorporated new family and friends not only through partnerships and marriages, but also through our jobs, hobbies, and children. We visited home less often, or our families moved away.

Some of us grew apart completely.

Others stayed in touch sporadically, often with years in between catchups.

The explosion of Facebook ten years ago dazzled many of us. With a few strokes of your keyboard, you could broadcast important life changes, write witty musings, or pose yearning questions to the masses. It felt like a time saver. It felt like a brilliant web 36 | THE PACKER MAGAZINE

of connections. It felt like a game changer.

I resisted the Facebook craze for years until a fellow alumna suddenly died, and I felt the need to connect — not only with her husband, my old Packer friend, but with the larger Packer community beyond the few friendships I had continued to nurture.

And joining Facebook worked. I enjoyed the posts about my friends’ accomplishments, their kids, the art they were producing, the articles they were writing. It felt like my world was both expanding and narrowing at the same time.

It seemed like this Facebook thing was going to rock my class corresponding. What a great way to stay in touch with people! But I soon realized that I couldn’t be sure if people wanted their Facebook news to be published in the alumni magazine.

My job as correspondent is more writer than sleuth, but it was feeling more like a dentist pulling teeth. It seemed that Facebook hadn’t helped class corresponding at all. In fact, it seemed to hurt it.

When I asked friends in three different Packer classes why they had not reported news in the last two years, they said they did not have time.

“But you write daily Facebook posts,” I countered, “often longer than the few lines of news you could send to your correspondent.”

Each murmured assent. Two admitted that it felt redundant to share news that they had already posted on Facebook. The third said, “I don’t really have news” — this coming from a person who wrote hilarious updates on a daily basis.

Is Facebook going to kill class notes?

I wondered. After some thought, I realized it shouldn’t.

First, not everyone is on Facebook.

Many in the Class of 1991 are not — at least I haven’t been able to find them. Second, culinary achievements and musings on life are entertaining

for sure — and certainly windows into the heart of a person — but not the same as observing someone’s life course. You can feel like you know a lot about a Facebook friend while missing important basic information.

Recently, I started feeling the need to go old school as a class correspondent. I decided to write individual messages to classmates and, lo and behold, people responded! I talked on the phone with several of them. My whole day was lifted after speaking with old friends. Those connections were real and thoroughly enjoyable.

Now I see why class notes have a place amidst social media. Reading about classmates brings back memories of Packer and of adolescence, a time when life seemed long and full of promise. We share the bond of that terrifying and exciting moment when you fly the nest and make your life your own. The older we get and the farther away from that person we once were, the closer I feel to the people who knew me then. The more connected I feel to all of you, the stronger the tether to who I was then.

Whether you speak with a classmate directly or read about them in these pages — and certainly if you hug them in person at Reunion — that connection is more special than what we broadcast on Facebook.

There is still a place for class corresponding in our technologically saturated world. So send in some news to your correspondent even if they don’t ask for it. Seek out your classmates, and be warmed by the strength of that tether between you. Relive old memories and marvel at what your mates are up to now. Cherish each other and the unique bond we share.

You’ll be glad you did.

The Packer Magazine is seeking more Alumni voices. If you would like to share your thoughts or experiences, please contact Karin Storm Wood, Director of Communications, at kwood@packer.edu.

PACKER

The

Magazine

WINTER 2016 2 From the Head of School 3 On Campus 10 Performing Arts 12 Athletics

Elizabeth Eagle teaches printmaking to her 8th grade students. “I try to create an environment where there’s a real sense of community as well as of risk taking,” she says. “I want my students feeling the confidence to say what they think and not being afraid of saying the wrong thing.” Read about the Middle School program in this issue’s cover story.

14 Meeting Kids Where They Are Packer’s Middle School program offers students a rich and exciting intellectual experience while supporting young adolescents’ need for independence, self-discovery, and fun.

26

Embracing the Virtues of Doubt

At Packer’s 104th Founder’s Day, Slate foreign affairs writer Joshua Keating ’03 spoke about Russian billionaires, the “Google race for eyeballs,” and “the truth about adulthood.”

28 In Good Health (Education) Health classes at Packer put self-awareness at the forefront of an innovative program that emphasizes sound decisionmaking and other critical life skills.

32 34 37 52

Parent Association News Alumni News Class Notes In Memoriam

On the cover: Middle School students enjoy the breathtaking new mezzanine that was created — along with three new state-of-the-art classrooms — during the 2015 renovation of the fourth floor of the Middle School, housed in the former St. Ann’s Church.

WINTER 2016 | 37

PACKER

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address service requested If this publication is addressed to an alumna or alumnus who no longer lives at home, please notify the School of her/his new address by visiting www.packer.edu/contact or calling (718) 250-0228.

ALUMNI EVENTS IN 2016 Washington DC Area Alumni Lunch Tuesday, March 1 134th Alumni Reunion Weekend Friday and Saturday, April 15–16 Alumni & Child Ice Cream Social Wednesday, May 4 @ 3 p.m.

Westchester/Connecticut Alumni Lunch Thursday, June 30 www.packer.edu/alumni 38 | THE PACKER MAGAZINE

Friday and Saturday, April 15–16 to join the Reunion Classes of the 1’s and 6’s at Packer this April. On Friday, visit classes and stay for cocktails. On Saturday, take a tour, attend a student panel and performance, go to Chapel, enjoy a terrific lunch, and finish with a basketball game between Alumni/ae and students! For the full schedule and more, please visit www.packer.edu/reunion.

ALL ALUMNI ARE INVITED