Sara Wasdahl, Morgan Peppe, and Thys Geldenhuys

A sad but joyful memorial service for Debba was held in the sanctuary at St. Luke’s Cathedral, which was packed with Waynflete students, alums, faculty, parents, and her many many friends and overflowing with tears and laughter. The reciprocal love between Debba and the school was a central theme. A video recording of the service can be found on the St. Luke’s website, linked here.

Contributions in Debba’s memory may be made to “The Debba Curtis Fund for Students in Need” at Waynflete School. Memorial contributions may be mailed to:

Waynflete School
c/o Development Office
360 Spring Street
Portland, ME 04102

Geoff’s Letter to the Waynflete Community

Lowell’s Remarks to Upper School Assembly

Class of 2016 Dedicates Yearbook to Debba Curtis

Waynflete mourns loss of inspiring educator Deborah Curtis (PPH)

Students Ellis Dougherty, Avis Akers and Eliza Goodwin (class of 2020) have fun during their free in Sarah Macdonald’s homeroom!

The US Chorus had a wonderful concert last week, and at the end of the scheduled program they surprised Chorus Director Nick MacDonald with a special song they had rehearsed in secret, “Thank You for the Music.” Nick is leaving Waynflete at the end of this year to enroll in culinary school, and we all wish him the best of luck! Check out a few more pictures below.

Waynflete’s Day of Silence will be held on Friday, May 12. This peaceful demonstration is part of a larger event an known as the National Day of Silence. It was started in 1996.

It is a day intended to use the power of silence and community to protest against discrimination,  and to honor and remember the voices and power of Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, and Queer friends, families, and community members here and in our bigger circles.

Recognition of this day is aimed at raising awareness about the impacts of bullying and harassment on the LGBTQ community.

Information revealed in a 2015 nationwide school survey suggests that LGBTQ students report improving conditions and decreasing verbal harassment based on sexual orientation and gender expression. The survey also showed that having supportive teachers and student allies was really important to academic performance and the mental health of LGBTQ students.

How can you help? Please wear red to show solidarity on May 12. We also invite you to use silence as a way of reflecting, empowering, and engaging in conscious compassion and empathy.

Some students will choose to be silent all day. Others will choose to participate in classes but observe silence elsewhere.

PRIDE will host a silent “sit in” followed by open, guided discussion and reflection on May 12 from 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. in Cathie’s office. Faculty and students can participate and show support by joining us individually or attending as a group activity.

We hope that this event can be a meaningful day in support of civil rights and the LGBTQ+ community. Thank you!

This past weekend featured the final theater show of the year: an original production titled “CommUNITY: Together We Speak. ” Check out some shots of the dress rehearsal below, and congrats to the all the actors, crew, and everyone involved; the show was a huge success! You can find the original post with more info here.

After the huge success of The Great Bank Robbery (working title) in the State One-Act Festival, Document Stuff Club member Shuhao Liu, ’18 sat down with writer/director extraordinaire Jesse Brooks, ’17 to find what went into the incredible production. Check out the video below, and read all about the play here.

Senior Projects are only two weeks away! That means it’s time for Senior Exams. Click here to see the full schedule.

The 2017 New England Youth Identity Summit

Poet Richard Blanco sporting Waynflete swag

After an eloquent introduction on a snowy April morning by long-serving Waynflete English teacher Lorry Stillman, Richard Blanco, the 2012 presidential inaugural poet, mused to a packed Franklin Theater, “They say that every poet is in some way writing the same poem all their life. There is some central obsession to which that body of work always refers back. For me that obsession comes down to one word: home.” For the next hour, Mr. Blanco told stories and read poems that spoke to his lifelong search to understand the many dimensions of his identity and to integrate them into a profound sense of home.

A great school, like a great poet, might also be said to be animated by a central obsession, to which all of its work tends to refer back. For Waynflete, that obsession is manifest in our ongoing effort to create a dynamic learning community by inviting diverse and motivated young people and adults to share their life stories, to be in dialogue, and to learn from one another.

The recent gathering for the second annual New England Youth Identity Summit (NEYIS) was the latest iteration of that central obsession. The Summit attracted over 300 young people, their teachers, and their parents from across Maine and New England for an evening of powerful performances, a full day of mostly student-led workshops, and Richard Blanco’s inspiring reading, all focused on a central theme: the power of stories. The Summit was co-sponsored by Waynflete and Maine Seeds of Peace, an organization dedicated to promoting understanding and justice through dialogue.

The Power of Stories

Portland’s Sudo Girls

Franklin Theater was filled to capacity on Friday evening as the audience settled in to enjoy an eclectic range of performances, each of which tapped the power of the expressive arts to create a shared emotional experience and to be an inspiration for dialogue. Eugene Butler, a Seeds of Peace senior counselor and emcee for the evening, began with a medley of original spoken word pieces about his coming-of-age experiences of race in America—a performance met with the first of many standing ovations throughout the evening. The set list included a Shakespeare scene performed by Maine’s own Theater Ensemble of Color, the Sudanese dance group Sudo Girls, Seeds of Peace student vocalists and poets, and a featured finale entitled “Do you See Me?” by Maine Inside Out, a theater group comprised of young people from Long Creek Youth Development Center.

A talk back with Maine Inside Out and other artists

“What an amazing evening of sharing. It showed so many young people at their best,” said Tim Wilson, who directs the Maine Seeds program. Sarah Brajtbord, U.S.-Based Program Manager at Seeds, echoed Tim’s sentiments. “It was a beautiful evening of storytelling, expression, reflection, and sharing from all of Maine’s communities. The vibrancy of the evening performances clearly inspired the deep conversations and learnings that happened the next day.” Tessy Seward, Maine Inside Out’s co-founder, added, “Our participants were so moved by the other performances and were thrilled to be a part of a community of artists and activists. MIO hopes to host some of the other performers for training and future collaboration. It was an honor to be included in this powerful showcase of socially inspired art.”

A workshop exploring the relationship between identity and education with Youth Engagement Partners.

On Saturday morning, as snow fell steadily outside, students were actively drawing one another’s stories to the surface through highly participatory dialogue sessions, each focused on a specific aspect of student experience. Student Summit planners had partnered with local youth groups on session planning , which made for a compelling array of over thirty workshops that also brought adults, educators, and community leaders into the conversations. Collaborations with the Telling Room, Youth Engagement Partners, NAMI’s Youth Advisory Council, King Fellows, Maine Youth Court, MIST (Muslim Interscholastic Tournament), NPR’s Maine Youth Voices, Preble Street Resource, and Skew-ME (a nonprofit supporting learning differences) helped to craft open-ended spaces for ideas to be both presented and challenged in the kinds of conversations that are too often avoided.

In the Waynflete student-led workshop about starting racial awareness groups in schools,student leaders grappled with just how difficult community dialogue can be. Reflecting back on that session, one participant remarked, “I learned how to not be afraid to speak or stand up for something that I am passionate about and how to support others when they are being treated wrongly. These conversations need to occur more often and need to make people conscious and uncomfortable. The Summit should definitely happen again.”

Najma Abdulahi ’18 and Josh Lodish ’17 interview immigrant attorney Merritt Heminway and Portland Police Chief Michael Sauschuck on stage

In addition to Mr. Blanco, keynotes included a student dialogue with Portland’s Chief of Police, activist Nicole Maines (whose story is highlighted in the book Becoming Nicole) speaking about her experience as a transgender student, and a panel facilitated by Maine Law School’s Dean Danielle Conway on the emerging Black Lives Matter movement on high school and university campuses. Workshops addressed a wide variety of topics, from “The Dance of Activism and Self-Care” to “Stamping Out Stigma,” which provided resources for helping students access critical mental health supports in a stressful world. “Talking about it makes it easier to cope,” said one student, while another was clearly “inspired by the honesty of all the participants who shared.”

The gathering closed with a final speak out session facilitated by guest artists Eric Axelman and Oliver Arias, of the bicultural hip hop group Funk Underground. As the day drew to a celebratory close, one student remarked, “I want people to know that, as I have learned, it is okay to struggle. Practicing self-acceptance is a radical act that helps us to connect with others.”   

No Higher Calling

Given the alarming fraying of today’s social fabric, it is hard to imagine a more important undertaking for a school than teaching not only tolerance of those with different backgrounds and viewpoints but also how to tap the life-affirming wisdom and power inherent in such diversity. In thanking faculty and staff whose hard work throughout the year was key to the Summit’s success, Head of School Geoff Wagg said, “The Summit provided a meaningful outlet for all the angst that is bottled up inside. You provided a safe space that made dialogue possible on a whole range of difficult social topics. You empowered our students to do something productive. There is no higher calling than to give our students—and many beyond the walls of Waynflete—a voice and the power to make a difference in our world.”

Jimmy Manyuru and Lydia Maier kick off the Summit

The lead organizers of the Summit were Lydia Maier, Waynflete’s Director of Student Affairs, and Jimmy Manyuru, the Associate Director. In her welcoming remarks, Lydia conjured a central image from Richard Blanco’s inaugural poem One Today: “One light, waking up rooftops, under each one a story.” Building on that image, Lydia invited the audience “to share what we believe, what we fear, what we wish for” and warned them that doing so is “no easy undertaking.” She thanked Summit attendees “for showing up to share your piece of our collective story.”

Our hope is that participants left the Summit inspired to keep showing up and sharing their pieces of our collective story, with the curiosity to listen deeply to others and the courage to be changed by the conversation. In so doing, we can all contribute to mending the social fabric—a healing upon which so much else depends.   

The next New England Youth Identity Summit will be held at Waynflete on April 6-7, 2018.

Waynflete Organizing Committee:

Lydia Maier, Director of Student Affairs

Jimmy Manyuru, Associate Director of Student Affairs

Juanita Nichols, Director of Community Relations and Diversity

Rand Ardell, Director of Marketing and Communications

Sue Stein, EAL Coordinator

Ben Lewis, Upper School Assistant

Summit links:

The Waynflete Building Blocks of Dialogue

Picture gallery

Video of Richard Blanco pondering his place in the American narrative and reading his inaugural poem, One Today.

Summit workshops

Post It Note Workshop Feedback

Video of Speak Out

Interview of Eugene Butler, Seeds of Peace Counselor and Summit Performer and Emcee

Eugene Butler’s Poems Performed at NEYIS ’17

A Wordcloud created by participants in the Stamp Out Stigma workshop about how to increase student awareness of and access to mental health resources.

Summit Sponsors, Organizing Committee, and Participating Groups and Organizations

Eugene Butler is a senior counselor for Seeds of Peace. He was the emcee and a workshop presenter at the second annual New England Youth Identity Summit, held on March 31 and April 1, 2017. He opened the Summit on Friday evening performing three of his own spoken word pieces linked here. 

Prior to the Summit, Eugene was the guest speaker at an Upper School Assembly, in which he delivered a shortened version of his Summit workshop entitled: Bey-ism: A Dialogue on Social and Gender Equality through Beyoncé Lyrics. Recently Kiera Macwhinnie ‘17, USNOW staff writer, conducted the following interview with Eugene.

Where are you from?

I am from the inner city of Syracuse, New York. Syracuse is located in Upstate New York; it’s this small city sort of in the middle of nowhere.

Most of it is low middle class and low income citizens. The city is largely segregated by race and income, but I don’t think most people notice or care. The major focus on the minds of most people I know is more on economic stability and the violence that goes on in Syracuse. There is a heavy amount of gang violence in the city like many of America’s inner cities but there’s many reasons why these issues are so persistent. I would describe Syracuse as being a systematic plantation that reduces people of color and poor whites into cheap labor for large corporations like Walmart and fast food franchises like McDonalds, Carls Jr, etc. There are almost no feasible resources in the city to help correct the overwhelming dysfunction that has been systematically imposed onto the city by the government, big business, and the wear and tear of time. These sort of despairing conditions that many Americans are faced with, combined with a larger host of other issues pushes people into crime to live “sustainable”.  

Where did you go to high school and college?

I went to Franklin Magnet school for elementary, which from what I can tell was or is one of the better schools in the city. I say that because the middle school and high school I went had the structure and dis-functionality of the prison system.

I went to Grant Middle school, an experience I reflected on in The Miseducation Of a Black Kid, the first poem I performed the night of the summit. We entered school through metal detectors, were taught in over packed and underfunded classrooms, and the school lunch was full of processed sugar and fat as I recall. It wasn’t all bad, just not what I or anyone else deserved.

For high school I went to the Institute of Technology at Syracuse Central (ITC), it changed its name almost every year I was there. I decided to go ITC which was supposedly going to be going to be located in this newly renovated building in downtown Syracuse and that the classes would allow students to get an associate’s degree in culinary or another vocational course of their choosing. None of that happened. I am proud I was in the second graduating class of ITC, in a small brick building. Having to walk to the YMCA for gym or play ball in the shop room and all of the little quirks our small community was working with to make the best of things. I think it taught me to be imaginative but there was also a lot of time wasted in that school, and I don’t think it equipped me or anyone for college or higher education in general.

I went to Syracuse University. I was offered a scholarship because of my grades and also as my guidance counselor put it, I knew how to “switch-it-up” or “act white”,which I totally agreed with her. It’s unfortunate but I went into college undecided but quickly went into Information Technology and Management because it seemed like it would apply to many areas. Syracuse taught me a lot and gave me so many opportunities academically and socially. I would say not every professor was great and that 56,000 is way more than what higher education should ever be. I always say 220,000 dollars never taught me how to love myself. SU is a great academic institution but more than that it is a business first. My advice when going into higher education or private schooling is to always think of yourself as a customer first. It’ll make you a stronger and student and want to play a more active role in the quality of your education.   

What made you decide to be a poet and a writer?

I don’t think I ever made the decision to be a poet or writer, I like to think so. I think that when I stare at a beautiful landscape or person, that my words and my feeling will just bleed onto the page but it rarely happens that way. I started to write and perform my freshman year because I thought I was falling in love with a boy(s) and because I wanted to speak truth to power. I remember a moment of watching the news of Trayvon Martin take over the news media, I remember looking out past the ivory tower that I was now in and apart of and past the bridge that separated it from the projects (the plantation) I grew up in. I remember looking out into the hall way and knowing I was one of three people of color in a predominately white/jewish dorm. I remember wanting to scream at the top of my lungs, my life has been a lie. For me that what poetry is and has acted as in the course of my life. a way of digging through my memories and experiences and unpacking it all, bare for everyone to see. I do it because we’re all more alike than what we would like to believe and it helps me remind myself of that.

What attracted you to Seeds of Peace?

I fell into to Seeds of Peace my sophomore year after taking a dialogue class on race and ethnicity. The facilitators because told me I was going and that I would be great for it. But for me, I wanted to make change. I had been been generally mad for about two years after the discovery that I was Black in America and unpacking what that truly meant and I want to create some sort of change in the world. I jumped in, feet first and the rest is history.

How have your experiences with Seeds of Peace and past experiences changed you?

Yes! It shaped so much of my life at this point. It’s become way more than just camp for me, it’s friends, family, being a mentor when I need to be a playful brother or sister when I need to be. The community that Seeds of Peace camp bring together have taught me how to love myself and others, how to be a leader, an artist, a friend, my whole self, really. It’s taught me how to be kind in conflict and that conflict isn’t always negative. That conflict is needed for change and growth. My experiences during my summer at camp have been full of love and challenges within myself and my community of peers. I wouldn’t change a minute of it because everything that we have gone through has made us stronger individually and as a community. There’s no easy answer to the question of how it changed me but I would say again, it let me be all of me.

How did you come up with Bey-ism and why do you think that is important for people, especially youth, to learn about it?

I came up with Bey-ism with my friend Shilpa Reddy at SOP. We had a night to figure out what we were going to do with our special activity and we combined social equality with Beyonce and it has grown from there. It’s nothing specific I think everyone needs to know in terms of the information I present in a session. I lead the session in both the domestic and international sessions of camp, and I hardly know anything about the specific communities and structures that my kids are coming from. So what Bey-ism does is allows for communication to happen and allows for my kids to put on the critical lenses and look at their own lives and deconstruct systems that they live in. Rather that be based on gender, race, or economics. I think that is what young people need to learn if we are to truly progress this world we live in. How can break these structures that are so fixed in our society and grow something new?

What do you plan on doing in the future to continue inspiring and empowering youth?

I am almost a year out of college. This year has been one of weird and one of tremendous growth in many areas in my life, not so much my pockets but we’re getting there. I hope to get into education, diversity leadership of some sorts. I think in whatever job title I have that I’ll essentially be doing what I’ve always done, which is expressing myself in such a way that opens up the creative space for others to express themselves.

Did you enjoy the New England Youth Identity Summit? What was your favorite part about NEYIS?
Yes I did! Being able to see so many of my kids (Seeds) across my three years at Seeds and see their growth. It reminded me of why I do what I do and why it’s probably a good idea to keep following my heart.

Following is the text of Atia Werah’s winning speech at the Lions Club Speak Out:

When someone is diagnosed with cancer, the doctor will say things like “I’m afraid there is bad news”, or they will tell you that this is not a death sentence and they’re doing everything they can but it is difficult. Cancer is when the abnormal cells grow and spread very quickly. Sometimes, these cells group together forming tumors that cause damage to the body’s healthy tissues. Often, these cells break away causing damage to other parts of the healthy body, and this is the best definition of gentrification that I can give.

I live in a city where they are tearing down neighborhoods quicker than they are building affordable living. For families of color, gentrification is an execution; because you can’t renovate a neighborhood without burying the people already living there. When the new white residents call the police on children of color for “suspicious behavior”, they are trying to stop our heartbeat. When they complain that the athaan in the Masjid rings too loud, they’re trying to strip our community of its religious diversity.

To gentrify is to take the body and gut it. It’s to treat the entire city like a slaughterhouse, and these butchers don’t even have the decency to make use of the entire carcass. The city will not care that our families will not be able to afford the $10 cup of coffee at the local store or shop at the Whole Foods, as the cancer will not care that the body will never be whole again.

In our own city of Portland, the East End is being transformed in front of our own eyes. For those who don’t know, the police department is receiving more calls by white residents who moved into gentrified neighborhoods. As a result, they’re sending more police to patrol these vulnerable environments, despite there being no increase in crime. Families of color who are the majority in these neighborhoods will begin to feel like there is no way to escape being targeted unless they move, and so they do.

There’s a saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So when families of color are told they have 30 days to move out of their homes because the city is tearing their apartment complex down, and beautifying what it was before at a higher price, I wonder… what are these people seeing? Because this concrete won’t forget whose blood built it; and this dirt is nothing but an accumulation of our footprints, something the rain can’t wash out. Our neighborhoods are more than your vacation home. Our neighborhoods are a space where we share beautiful moments. These cracked streets and wired fences are a physical representation of our imperfect world. What they saw was the beauty of integration, but we saw the horror of elimination.

Gentrification is an attempt to beautify our city by removing its own inhabitants. They say gentrification is an attempt to clean up our streets, but they are really trying to clean up our people. People of color are becoming outsiders within their own community. It’s important to keep in mind that gentrification might make a neighborhood beautiful, but only for a select few people. If we truly believe in improving and redeveloping our neighborhoods, we must do so for everyone – regardless of social, racial, or economic status. Essentially, beauty cannot exist in the eyes of one person, when it impacts a whole people. Instead, it must be a collective vision that encapsulates the beauty of all.

The artist and author Barry Lopez says, “If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other’s memories. This is how people care for themselves.”

CommUNITY Together We Speak is a documentary performance of stories from the lives of the Waynflete community. Performed by nine Upper School students in concert format the production seeks to create a space for dialogue, to strengthen and form relationships and connections, and to break down barriers and fears in order to discover what we may have in common.

Performances April 28 & 29 at 7PM in Franklin Theater. Contact James M. Carlisle with questions.

Ethical Leadership and Service students at Furniture Friends delivering donated furniture to people in need.

Students had to do a mini research project on different types of chromosomal disorders to teach each other about them. They could do a song, a google slides presentation, digital poster, Tellegami avatar etc. The information had to include the frequency of the disorder (usually given per 1,000 live births, a karyotype (picture and description), the major symptoms of the disorder and how it was caused (what kind of error occurred during meiosis). Their research was online, but the sources had to be .edu or .gov websites, and they reported their sources in a bibliography crafted in Noodle Tools.

Check out the wonderful video by Morgan Peppe, ’20 on Klinefelter Syndrome!

The MS Health Club and the US GLTR Activity joined up and headed to the Hardy Girls Healthy Women conference in Westbrook.