On the the States!!!! Go Flyers!!!!

Cooper Sherman ’19 treated the Upper School assembly to his standup routine last week and got a lot of laughs. Check out the video below!

Please join us at a screening of “Just Eat It,” a documentary film about food waste and food rescue.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion featuring local farmers, grocers, and members of the social service and nonprofit communities who will share their perspectives on the issue of food waste.

Wednesday, November 9
7:00 p.m.
Waynflete – Franklin Theater
360 Spring Street, Portland

Watch the trailer

Learn more about the film

FMI:

There is no fee to attend this event. The film runs for 75 minutes.

Portland Ovations Offstage connected with us hoping to reach out into community educational and artistic programs and made a special dance connection. BalletX recently visited Portland, Maine and with an arrangement from Ovations they offered a Master Class on October 20th, 2016, conducted by their NYT celebrated company Ballet X Associate Artistic Director, Tara Keating.

BalletX is a unique Classical Ballet Company in that they also integrate Modern and Contemporary Dance styles with the use of everyday movement, drawing from Martha Graham, Paul Taylor, and Twyla Tharp, to name a few Post Modern influences.

The Master Class was attended by seventeen dancers from the Middle School and Upper School classes, including the Choreography Class in the Enrichment Program, as well as IAP dance students who also study and perform in the greater Portland community. Students had the opportunity to attend an incredible hour and half workshop on Waynflete’s campus and then to attend the BalletX concert at Merrill Auditorium in the evening.

The Master Class started with barre work in our Dance Studio and then progressed to the Drama Room to practice center work and learn expansive and impressive across the floor dance combinations. Some instructions were given using  traditional french terminology such as Plies, Releves, Arabesque, Battement, and Port de Bras. The center work and across the floor combinations included Pirouettes, Balances, Grand Jetes, Chaines, and in conclusion, the Grand Reverence. Recorded musical accompaniment was lyrical, lively, and familiar. Selections were from popular musicals like The Sound Of Music, The Wiz, and Oliver. Ms. Keating offered a “Q and A” opportunity for students to ask questions and share comments at the completion of the Master Class.

We have many Lower School, Middle School, and Upper School dancers, some training in our programs and others learning privately, who can benefit from visiting programs such as this. We will hope to continue to offer these valuable opportunities for our students in order to ensure that as many as possible may experience up close what wonders in dance are available and reachable.

Susan Nelson

Coming up, “STORYBYRD”

Storybyrd
Dance Concert

Take a moment to visualize a dancer leaping into the air as a starling taking flight, or a crane conveying an urgent message, or portraying a story, which unfolds through choreography and creative dance. Inspired by natural movement our November dance concerts offer the opportunity to view poignant expressions of real life.

Our dancers will liven up the stage with a demonstration of their progress in technique and by expressing their stories through dance.

Please join our Storybyrd events!

November 16th at 4:00p.m., The Lower School Enrichment Dance Program Performance
November 17th at 7:00p.m., The Middle School and Upper School Performance featuring the Danceflete Ensemble and the Middle School Enrichment Dance Program

Girl’s Soccer:

In the Class C Southern Maine Regional Championship, Girl’s Varsity Soccer came out on top, knocking off #2 seed Madison! They moved on to the Class C State Championship, at Hampden Academy. This was their 5th Regional Title in 9 years! Read the report from the Kennebec Journal.

After a hard fought game at Hampden Academy, Orono bested Waynflete. Read about it here.

It was an amazing season, and the Flyers were proud of their final results: Class C Southern Regional Championship, Class C State Runner-Up, and recipients of The Sportsmanship Award. It’s also very noteworthy that some girls on the team have won the award 3 seasons in a row: last year’s basketball and lacrosse, and this fall’s soccer team.

Boy’s Soccer

Boy’s Soccer lost on the second round of penalty kicks to the #2 seed Lisbon after playing 110 minutes of scoreless soccer. The boys finish the season at 8-6-2.

Field Hockey

Field had another great season, joining forces with Maine Girl’s Academy (formerly Catherine McAuley). It was very competitive field this year, and the team finished 0-13-1. Captains Kiera MacWhinnie, Semhar Yehdego, and Emma Spies (of MGA) were very proud the effort this season.

Cross Country

Both Boy’s and Girls Cross Country placed 2nd in Class C Regionals, both qualifying for the State Meet in Belfast. St. Dom’s won the girls title and Maine Coast Waldorf took the boys. The Girl’s team has taken 1st or 2nd place for the past ten years; this is the first time since 2010 that the Boy’s placed 2nd.

Boy’s and Girl’s Cross Country both had excellent showings at the State Meet in Belfast, placing third and fourth respectively. It was a very competitive field, with Henry Spritz and Ellie Chidsey leading the field for Waynflete.

Below are links to articles from the Forecaster featuring highlights of the last few weeks:

Strong Showing at Cross Country Regionals

Breathtaking Drama Highlights Soccer Playoffs

Congratulations to the following singers for their acceptance into the District II Vocal Festival this year, in the following ensembles:

Eva Abbott – Treble Choir
Dorrie Pinchbeck – Treble Choir
Eidann Thompson-Brown – Mixed Choir

Congratulations also goes to Matt Beard, Justin Gross, and Phebe Tice for putting forth a great effort in the preparation and execution of their auditions!

The amazing set for the Upper School fall play: November 3-5; Thursday, Friday, and Saturday; 7:00; Franklin Theater.

Josh Lodish as Lowell Libby and Yai Deng as Jimmy Manyuru

As the next step in the Waynflete Dialogue Project, the Portland Chief of Police Michael Sauschuck will speak  at an Upper School assembly on Tuesday, November 15. Two students, Najma Abdullahi ‘18 and Josh Lodish ‘17, will interview him on stage about the relationship between law enforcement and communities of color across the nation and in Portland. The assembly will be followed by an advising lunch dedicated to a dialogue about the issues raised in the assembly and what Chief Sauschuck had to say about them.

The assembly will take place one week after the highly contentious presidential election, a date that many are hoping will mark a return to normalcy. Unfortunately, while the election has highlighted painful divisions in our country and likely exacerbated them, it did not create them. Instead, it revealed multiple rifts that will exist long after the election until we find the means and muster the will to heal them.

One off the many divisions that has emerged is the racial divide in our country exemplified by the tensions nationwide between the police and the communities of color. At the funeral this past summer in Dallas for the five fallen officers, President Obama characterized the divide and challenge the nation faces as a result in this way:

Faced with this violence, we wonder if the divides of race in America can ever be bridged. We wonder if an African-American community that feels unfairly targeted by police, and police departments that feel unfairly maligned for doing their jobs, can ever understand each other’s experience. We turn on the TV or surf the Internet, and we can watch positions harden and lines drawn, and people retreat to their respective corners, and politicians calculate how to grab attention or avoid the fallout. We see all this, and it’s hard not to think sometimes that the center won’t hold and that things might get worse.

As a citizen, I take note of the fact that the President of the United States is concerned “that the center won’t hold and that things might get worse.” As an educator, I worry about the effect of such divisions on the mindset of our young people. I wonder, with so much animosity and the threat of violence being expressed on this and too many other issues right now, how can we as adults guide the young people in our charge so that they can experience a legitimate sense of optimism that the center will indeed hold and that their futures will be bright?

The answer, it seems to me, is to engage youth as directly as possible in the real work of holding the center and creating a better future. We can do this by teaching them how, in the words of President Obama, to open our hearts to each other so that:

we see in each other a common humanity and a shared dignity, and recognize how our different experiences have shaped us…. With an open heart we can learn to stand in each other’s shoes and look at the world through each other’s eyes… With an open heart, we can abandon the overheated rhetoric and the oversimplification that reduces whole categories of our fellow Americans not just to opponents, but to enemies.

Seeing the world through the eyes of others, recognizing the richness inherent in our different experiences, steadfastly avoiding the overheated rhetoric that turns fellow citizens into enemies – those are the goals of dialogue and describe the intent of the Waynflete Dialogue Project on which the school has embarked.

In Michael Sauschuck, we in Portland are fortunate to have a Chief of Police who wants to build bridges between law enforcement and all of the communities that his department serves. He told me that he wants to acknowledge problems, address concerns, and work collaboratively and transparently with community members towards solutions. He is especially interested in talking with young people and addressing whatever questions and concerns are on their minds. In short, in his visit to Waynflete, Chief Sauschuck is inviting our students into dialogue with him on one of the most difficult challenges of our time. In so doing, the Chief is sowing the seeds of a legitimate optimism that we can create a better future together not only in our youth but also in those of us who bear witness to the conversation.

Kiera MacWhinnie ’17,  USNOW Staffer

On Thursday, October 6, Eric Axelman and Oliver “Sydsho” Arias came to Waynflete to present at an assembly about racial awareness. This wasn’t an ordinary presentation though; they educated the Upper School through rapping and break dancing followed by a discussion about race, privilege, and cultural appropriation. The Upper School danced and clapped to the beat while they performed their six songs. The highlight of the show was when Oliver, with Eric rapping, put on an awesome break dancing display.

Following their exceptional performance, Eric explained how he grew up in rural Maine, a place characterized by lots of trees and mostly white people. He found his love for rap and hip hop music before attending Brown University and eventually meeting his dance partner Oliver. Oliver, who is Dominican, grew up in Providence in a Latino, Black, and Southeast Asian neighborhood. He listened to rap and hip hop growing up, as did most of his community. When they finally came together to be performers, they created great songs that could also the educate the community and started going to schools to teach about cultural appropriation. In addition to performing together, they are diversity educators as the Wheeler School in Providence, Rhode Island.

From this assembly, students learned the difference between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation. Eric adopted the break dancing and rapping culture, but he made sure to acknowledge and learn from the culture from which it came. In short, Upper School students race and culture while enjoying the show.

After the assembly, homerooms met together for an Advising Lunch to discuss topics that were brought up during their presentation. Discussions were based around cultural appropriation, privilege, mass incarceration, and racial awareness around the world and in our own community. Through these discussions that happen a few times a year, our community learns how to be respectful while talking about topics that aren’t always easy to discuss.

After lunch, classes were cancelled so Eric and Oliver could hold an all school break dancing lesson in the gym followed by a competition. The Upper School students formed a circle around a stage in the middle of the gym while Syde-Sho taught some easier break dancing moves. For the more advanced break dancers, or people who wanted more of a challenge, one person from each homeroom represented their advising grouip by participating in the break dancing competition. Eric and Oliver had to decided the winner: Matty Sullivan, who earned a pizza lunch for his homeroom.

Jimmy Manyuru, Associate Director of Student Affairs, History Teacher

Jimmy is new to Waynflete, coming from the Brunswick School in Greenwich, Connecticut. Jimmy was born and raised in Kenya and attended Middlebury College in Vermont.

As a new member to Waynflete, I have been struck by this community’s ability to empathize, assume best intentions, and willingness to lean into discomfort. Eric and Oliver’s recent presentation embodied this willingness to bridge differences and find common ground. Oliver Arias, who goes by his stage name “Sydesho” is a nationally awarded break dancer, and a first generation Dominican, who grew up in Providence, Rhode Island. Eric Axelman is a white man who grew up in rural Maine, attended Brown University and is now a filmmaker. The two of them are also part of the hip hop musical group: The Funk Underground. When Eric and Oliver first met, they did shows together in separate sets, later moved on to doing sets together – each with their individual songs, and eventually started making music together.

They shared some of their work and engaged us in discussion on the ethics of cultural border crossing and cultural appropriation. In addition to their upper school presentation, the duo had several follow up meetings with students and faculty throughout the day. A definite highlight was the school wide break dancing lesson and competition they orchestrated – talk about leaning into discomfort. In the evening, they were back in the theater to present to the wider Portland community.

As we make dialogue a keystone habit in the Upper School, it will be important to remember this duo work on the importance of speaking from the I perspective even in creative writing, their willingness to engage in discussions about racial and gender inequality, and the responsibilities and learning opportunities that come with consuming and appropriating the cultures of others.

Here are edited videos of the hip hop assembly and the all school break dancing lesson. Footage by Shuhao Liu ’18 and Jesse Brooks ’17. Editing by Shuhao Liu.

Following is the text of an email sent from Izzy Davis ’16 to her Advanced Biology science teacher Carol Titterton. The email is included here with Izzy’s permission.

Carol…
Just sat through a lecture about photosystems and NADPH and ATP and it was the first time the professor had talked about them at all, and everyone was on the verge of tears but I was sitting there with my beautiful advanced bio notes smirking. He drew the scariest diagram I’ve ever seen. I’ll attach pictures because his drawing was actually an abomination. Just thought you should know that you set me up to get the highest grade (102.5!!) in my whole lecture of 80+ people on my exam. I am the master of photosynthesis.
Thank you, Carol
Isabella Davis

The Waynflete Dialogue Project (WDP) is a focused initiative to make dialogue a keystone habit in the Upper School. It is not a single program but instead touches on many facets of the Upper School experience, in and outside of the classroom. Dialogue, at its best, is an approach to bridging differences among individuals to find common ground and extract the wisdom inherent in a diversity of viewpoints and backgrounds. As such, the primary goal of dialogue is to learn and understand, not to persuade.

Developing dialogue as a keystone habit at Waynflete will enrich the education of all students by helping them to learn from differences rather than be divided by them and thus help Waynflete avoid the fate of many colleges, which are too often diverse but divided. Inclusive communities are also healthy communities in which no student should feel alone. In addition, because of its power to tap wisdom from diversity, dialogue promotes innovation, creativity, entrepreneurial thinking, and problem solving.  

By putting dialogue at the center of the student experience, the WDP will deepen learning, strengthen community bonds, and prepare our students to be catalysts of progress in a divided world. As the faculty and administration work at cultivating the capacity for dialogue in our students, we expect that the effort will cultivate that capacity in ourselves as well. We hope it will prove to be a model that other schools want to emulate.

The Genesis of the WDP

From our mission to our daily practices, Waynflete is fertile ground for teaching dialogue. Key elements that are necessary for dialogue to flourish have long been hallmarks of the Waynflete experience, including a climate of mutual respect; discussion as a primary pedagogical strategy in the classroom; a premium value placed on teaching students to think; and, thanks to the school’s ongoing commitment starting in the early 2000s, an increasingly diverse student population in the upper school.  

The latter development – the increase in student diversity – caused us to become more intentional with how we talk with each other. Alums then started telling us how important learning those skills in high school has been for them as they navigate the increasingly polarized climate they find in college. With that in mind, in the fall of 2015, we decided to get more systematic in how we cultivate dialogue. Recent events in the news worldwide as well as the 2016 presidential election have subsequently affirmed the choice to commit ourselves to dialogue.

With planning underway, in March of 2016 in partnership with Maine Seeds of Peace, we sponsored and hosted the first annual New England Youth Identity Summit (NEYIS). The incredible success of that event – in which nearly 300 students from 27 schools across Maine and New England converged on the Waynflete campus for an evening and a day of mostly student led workshops and dialogues on a host of topics – solidified our commitment to promoting dialogue and encouraged us to see ourselves as a catalyst for doing so in the larger community. Thanks to the leadership of Head of School Geoff Wagg and the hard work of Director of Student Affairs Lydia Maier and Development Director Sarah Plimpton, we have subsequently been awarded a grant from the EE Ford Foundation that will allow us adequate resources to support the Summit for the next three years as well as the launch of the WDP.

Early in the summer, Lydia and I started mapping out a launch plan. We defined dialogue by drafting the Waynflete Building Blocks of Dialogue, linked here. We then began to engage the faculty with the project by holding a dialogue training in July. Although that session was originally intended for Upper School faculty, interest from the other two divisions as well as the development office led us to broaden the participation. By the end of the day, the prospect of making the WDP an all-school initiative had been introduced. A month later, the Upper School faculty opening retreat focused on how best to promote dialogue, and the administrative team had discussed making the initiative school-wide.  

What Form will the WDP Take?

The WDP is now being introduced to students in a series of steps. I alluded to the goal of cultivating our capacity for dialogue in my remarks to students at the start of the year. Over the first couple of weeks of school, some of the student leaders involved with the Summit have heard more about the initiative. At a recent assembly, I explained the WDP to the entire student body and asked them to participate in an advising lunch dialogue about the concept of privilege as articulated in the MTV video. My assembly remarks are linked here. The video is linked here.

Next Thursday, October 6, Waynflete will host a hip hop performing and teaching duo, Eric and Oliver. Eric is white and grew up in Skowhegan, Maine, loving hip hop music but having virtually no contact with the people or culture that spawned the music he loved. He subsequently attended Brown University and got involved with the hip hop scene in Providence, where he met Oliver, who is Dominican and from Providence. The two have joined together not only as hip hop performers but also as diversity educators at the Wheeler School. At Waynflete, they will perform for students and then tell their story of how they bridged their differences to become artistic collaborators and close friends. That evening, with support of the Maine Arts Commission, they will host a public event in Franklin Theater entitled Hip Hop, Racial Inequality, and Cultural Appropriation: A Night of Cultural Dialogue and Hip Hop Performance.

As the year progresses, we will practice dialogue in advising lunch sessions, in our various dialogue-based activities, and in our classrooms. In addition, the Upper School team has adopted the Building Blocks as our meeting agreements, which will give us the chance to practice what we teach. In the spring, we will again co-sponsor NEYIS with Maine Seeds of Peace, which will give our students the chance to practice dialogue as facilitators and participants with students from across New England. By year’s end, we hope to well on our way to establishing dialogue as a keystone habit as well as having enjoyed the many benefits of making the effort.

A Final Thought

As noted earlier, Waynflete is fertile ground for dialogue. In fact, dialogue is so closely aligned with the school’s identity that the basic elements of dialogue as we have defined them in The Building Blocks – curiosity, caring, and courage – are also descriptors of the school’s core values. We are currently running ads extolling the importance of questions; when asked to describe Waynflete in one word, “kindness” was always former Head of School Mark Segar’s answer; current Head Geoff Wagg gave the same response when asked to summarize his philosophy in a word; and we ask students to take positive risks daily as a prerequisite to growth. As such, when we work at getting better at dialogue, we strengthen our core identity, which in turn makes us better able to learn from each other in dialogue.

It is exciting to think of where this initiative might take us.

Life maps are a great way to connect with some of your classmates that you may not know as well. Seminar groups are a continuation of our Outdoor Experience groups, and each week we learn more about each other. OE is an awesome way to quickly know your group, but in seminar the relationships get deeper every session. We’ve had two weeks of sharing our Life Maps so far, and a few more people are left to present. It’s amazing to see what people have been through, good and bad. Our seminar, and the whole freshman class, is an amazing, strong group of people.

This escapist comedy takes a peek inside a few nights in the lives of two rather different families. At first, the Sycamores seem absurd, but it is not long before we realize that if they are ridiculous, the rest of the world is more so. In contrast to these delightful people are the unhappy Kirbys. The story unfolds as Tony, attractive young son of the Kirbys, falls in love with Alice Sycamore and brings his parents to dine at the Sycamore home on the wrong evening. The shock sustained by the Kirbys shows Alice that marriage with Tony is out of the question. The Sycamores, however, though sympathetic to Alice, find it hard to realize her point of view. Meantime, Tony, who knows the Sycamores are good people and his parents’ biases are misplaced, will not give her up, and in the end Mr. Kirby is converted to the happy madness of the Sycamores, particularly since he returns during a visit by an ex-Grand Duchess, now earning her living as a waitress. No mention has as yet been made of the strange activities of certain members of the household engaged in the manufacture of fireworks; nor of the printing press set up in the parlor; nor of Rheba the maid and her friend Donald; nor of Grandpa’s interview with the tax collector when he tells him he doesn’t believe in income tax.

All this and more in Franklin Theater on November 3-5 at 7:00 p.m.

Join Director of Student Affairs Lydia Maier, Associate Director of Student Affairs Jimmy Manyuru, and a panel of students who participated in last summer’s Students Shoulder to Shoulder global citizenship program. Students will talk about their direct experiences working with NGOs and follow-up advocacy work. Learn more about Waynflete’s membership in the Global Schools Coalition.

Congratulations to Waynflete saxophonist Julian Abbott ’18 for his outstanding performance at the Jazz All-State auditions. His extremely high score landed him in the 2016-2017 Maine Music Educators Association All-State Jazz Combo! He will rehearse and perform at the festival January 5, 6, and 7 at Hampden Academy (89 Western Ave, Hampden, ME 04444). The event culminates in a public concert featuring two big bands, a small jazz combo and two vocal jazz ensembles. Other musicians who represented Waynflete at the auditions were saxophonists Eliza Cox ’18 and Alan Wen ’18.

Debba is holding the card of well wishes sent from Upper School students. She and Frannie send their love in return.

I had been on many rafting trips before, but this trip was by far my favorite! The night before the trip was filled with an active scavenger hunt created by the teachers and sitting by the big campfire with lots of yummy treats. Soon enough, the big day came, and we were ready to hit the rapids. We clipped our helmets, zipped up our life jackets, and headed on the bus for a 30 minute ride to the river. We assembled in our raft groups and then hit the white water. As we approached our first rapid, people were very excited and some scared, but we all made it through! After a long and exciting day on the river with our AWESOME river guides, we hauled the long trip home.

Change in Schedule for Waynflete 9th Grade Parent Evening and Potluck on October 24th

5:30 p.m. Brief Overview and Q&A about 9th Grade Seminar and Student Support in Student Center
6:00 p.m. Parent Potluck at Boulos House

Dear Parents of 9th Graders,

Prior to the parent potluck on October 24th, we would like to invite you to join Cathie Connors, Stacey Sevelowitz and Lydia Maier for a brief Overview and Q&A about the support system for 9th graders. It will be a chance to meet Stacey Sevelowitz, Academic Support Director, who will share strategies we use with the students to help them develop their executive functioning, time management and long term project planning ability. We will share suggestions for ways parents can help with stress-management and resilience building.

The Seminar groups are all off to a strong start and we feel privileged to be witnessing the Life Map presentations for the next couple of weeks. Students are exploring the values and experiences that have shaped their identity, their accomplishments and aspirations, and the resources they need to navigate life in Upper School. We look forward to seeing you there and joining you afterward for the potluck.