Last week was the final week of the fall term, which meant that we had many wonderful projects completed and presented. It also means that we are 1/3 of the way through the school year (Yikes!) and our Fall
MUSIC Symposium will be held on Monday. (Here is your POTLUCK reminder! If you are sending food in for the potluck lunch, please be sure to label your plates, bowls, pans, and utensils, so we can return them to you. Thank you!)
Our Director of Cultural Mindfulness, Philip Gary and some of his senior students led a great discussion on Inclusivity at the PSA meeting last Wednesday. We had a wonderful turn-out that included staff members from all units, board members, parents, students, and alums. Some questions raised by Philip: How do we get to be more inclusive? What is it we don't see? What are our blind spots? Are we teaching inclusively? Many folks who attended this meeting have expressed the hope that this meeting be the first of many more honest and open community discussions. Thank you, Philip!
I had the pleasure of being a part of a panel to see and hear about Amelia's Design students' final socially responsible projects. Here, you can see Aaron's design for a Beatles album cover, Xela's video game concepts, and Josh's Olympic mascots. Fascinating!
Our all-school meeting for worship was held this past week. We celebrated 10 years of our Afghan sister school project. The school in Topchi will have its first graduation ceremony this month--12 boys and
4 girls!!
I visited Jamie's Poverty class to observe group presentations of their final projects. Allegra, Frances, Michelle, Jennifer, and Elisabeth talked about HIV/AIDS in Rwanda. Other groups covered Water Scarcity in Yemen and Healthcare in South Africa. I was impressed with the depth of understanding that was demonstrated by each of these sophomore groups.
My last photo shows Zoe signing her letter of intent for Winthrop University where she will play Division 1 basketball. Folks talked about Zoe's amazing work ethic and willingness to do whatever it takes in order to improve her game. Her father David was offering free Winthrop t-shirts to anyone who goes to the UNC-Winthrop game to cheer Zoe on! ;) Congratulations, Zoe!
US STAFF MEMBERS SHARE THEIR KNOWLEDGE Guillermo presented a talk at a conference this past weekend at Duke where he shared his translations of the Venezuelan poet José Antonio Ramos Sucre (1890-1930). The title of the conference was "One Makes Many: A Conference on Poetic Interactions."Guillermo's talk was called "Under the Enamel Sky: On Translating José Antonio Ramos Sucre," and is part of the "Latin America (in Translation)" panel: http://onemakesmany.siteslab.org/latin-america .
Meanwhile, Jon was in Washington, DC presenting at the Annual Meeting of the International Neuroethics Society . He was invited to participate on a panel session entitled "Teaching Neuroethics." The other participants included a philosopher from Oxford, a theologian who teaches at Georgetown, and a neuroscientist who teaches at McGill. The conference was timed to precede the Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in DC--the primary academic neuroscience conference--so that more neuroscientists would be able to participate, along with the philosophers, legal scholars, and teachers. Jon will begin teaching his second Neuroethics class in the Upper School on Tuesday.
Needless to say, we are very proud of Guillermo, Jon...and all our wonderful staff members!
FINAL REMINDER: BAGEL TUESDAY/PIZZA WEDNESDAY ORDERS ARE DUE MONDAY.
Best wishes for a wonderful Thanksgiving vacation with your families. Our Thankful Turkey was put up by a group of friendly seniors. I was able to include a few more service pictures below...our group at the Lemur Center and shots of our students helping Early School children with art projects.
