Thanksgiving Holiday

Everyone returned to school today after what I hope was a peaceful and restful Thanksgiving Holiday.  During this season of thanks and giving, I wanted to mention a few notable things happening on campus:

1. Jackie, Carly, and Katherine Gross organized a letter-writing drive to provide comfort to wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital.  Over a hundred letters were sent on behalf of the Gunston community to honor their service.

2. G.I.V.E. (Gunston Initiates Volunteer Efforts) is currently conducting a canned food drive to benefit a local food pantry.  Please bring your canned food items to school.

3. One of our Gunston alums, Emily Puddester ('04) is currently working in an underprivileged school in the Bahamas.  With the help of Mike Clemens, we have collected a large amount of school supplies to provide the school with pencils, paper, calculators, etc.

4. It is worth being thankful for grandparents.  On the Tuesday before the holiday, we were blessed to be joined by nearly three dozen grandparents.  After a welcome reception, grandparents visited classes, heard some Thanksgiving remarks, and attended a vocal recital.

Again, Happy Thanksgiving!

National Honor Society

Last Tuesday saw a moving National Honor Society Induction ceremony where seven of our students were welcomed into an organization that prizes the qualities of scholarship, character, service, and leadership.  In my remarks to the students, I shared a favorite poem by Marge Piercy that speaks to the hard work and earnest effort it takes to become a member of this prestigious and selective society:

To Be of Use, by Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real. 

November Community Letter

Dear Gunston Community:

To read the November Community Letter (and don't neglect to scroll down to see the photos from Centennial), please click on this link: November Letter

Regards,

John

Some recent articles on education in the news

Every once in awhile, I will seek to share relevant articles about education, learning, student health, college preparation, etc..  Here are a few items recently in the news:

1. An interesting article on the relationship between exercise and intelligence:  http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/phys-ed-can-exercise-make-kids-smarter/?scp=9&sq=Gretchen%20Reynolds&st=cse 
2. Every quarter, the New York Times publishes a special section called "Education Life."  In the most recent section, the Times has teamed up with the Chronicle of Higher Education to explore issues related to the transition between high school and college.  This article discusses the current landscape of college admissions: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/education/edlife/07HOOVER-t.html?ref=education
3. Speaking of college admissions, perhaps the most well-known blog about college admissions is the Jacques Steinberg-inspired blog called "The Choice."  Steinberg is the NY Times correspondent who wrote the book “The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College."
4. Although this is not an article, a few months ago I came across one of the most extraordinary mathematics websites I've ever seen: http://www.wolframalpha.com/.  Enjoy!

Fall Sports Awards Dinner

A view from the recently repainted boathouse

It was a packed and energetic Field House at the Fall Sports Awards Dinner on Thursday night, and the evening was a powerful testament to the skill, effort, and sacrifice of our student-athletes this season.  Before each team hosted its own awards celebration in various locations around our campus, each coach came to the podium to summarize the highlights of their team's season.  While there were mentions of all-conference, all-star, and ESIAC sportsmanship awards, I was most impressed with the way that our coaches, almost without exception, focused the majority of their remarks on the positive and enduring values of athletics: teamwork, self-sacrifice, focus, and effort.  This ability to "live" to the school's values is what makes our coaching staff so exceptional. 

The exciting fall season concludes this weekend, with our sailing team heading to Toms River, New Jersey for the Mid-Atlantic Scholastic Sailing Association's Atlantic Coast Championships, where they qualified to race against the top twenty sailing teams in our region.  At the same time, our crew team heads to Virginia for the Head of the Occoquan regatta.

In Celebration of Books: 2010

This was my first ICB, and it truly was a unique and extraordinary event.  From the opening keynote speech by David Haward Bain, to the multiple workshops led by our renowned invited authors (twelve of them, including the director of the Breadloaf Writers Conference, as well as the former Poet Laureate of Maryland!), to the engrossing poetry reading at the end of the day, ICB celebrated the magic of reading and writing, and it is a reflection of Gunston's commitment to ensuring that all of our students develop both sophisticated writing skills and their own personal writing "voice."  Here is a copy of my opening remarks at the morning assembly: In Celebration of Books 2010.

Nancy Taylor Robson tells the story of how she secured an interview with Russell Banks.

David Haward Bain speaks about the use of "artifacts" as an impetus for powerful writing.

"What are you going to do," asks Michael Glaser, "with your one wild and only life!?"

Mark Plotkin: A Hero for our Planet

Today was the annual Association of Independent Maryland Schools (AIMS) Conference in Baltimore, and many of our faculty attended this dynamic professional development event while others chaperoned our student body on a school-wide trip to Washington, DC.

This year's keynote speaker was a Time magazine "Hero for the Planet", Dr. Mark Plotkin, the Harvard ethnobotanist who has spent his career working in the Amazon rainforest studying the relationship between indigenious people and medicinal plants.  His work has led to numerous important medical discoveries, and he couples his scholarly interests with an activist's passion for conserving both the indigenous culture and biodiversity of the Amazon region.  He is the founder of the Amazon Conservation Team, whose mission is "to work in partnership with indigenous people to conserve biodiversity, improve human health, and fortify traditional culture in greater Amazonia."  His most famous book, Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice, was turned into an award-winning documentary.

Plotkin challenged all AIMS educators to consider the various human benefits of conservation and biodiversity, and he implored us to teach our students about the powerful relationship between our natural environment and human healing.  At Gunston, this year we are pursuing Green School certification from the state of Maryland, and this will serve as the beginning of an expanded school-wide committment to creating an academic program and a physical campus focused on environmental sustainability.  

Here is a brief video I found that features Plotkin talking about the work of the Amazon Conservation Team: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxBb2FOj9x4