Noah Stone ’12 Writes Home from India and Nepal
I have spent about a month in and around the Kathmandu, studying Tibetan Buddhism, the Tibetan language, and other aspects of various Himalayan peoples through SIT, my study abroad program. A month ago we spent a week in India, and I have just returned (a little early) from two weeks in Upper Mustang, an especially remote Tibetanoid region of the Himalaya. In three weeks, I am planning on spending a month in Dolpo, another Himalayan region. In May and June, I will return to India to travel to other parts of Nepal as well.
You don’t have to study geology to appreciate this one. The sequence to the left represent a period when this entire region was glaciated, resulting in rivers and lakes that deposited the sediment. Since that time, the powers of water and erosion have carved out a valley.
Like many students, when I graduated Waynflete in 2012, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to study in college. Instead of attending school immediately, I took a semester to travel the world, work, and perhaps learn something of myself. At Middlebury, I decided to major in geology after taking a few classes in the department. I love geology for its focus on time spent outside, in the field, among the rocks, trees, and snow. It is a science that is expansive and encompassing, as it includes aspects of chemistry, physics, and biology.
When my sophomore year at Middlebury came around, I was ambivalent about studying abroad. I didn’t feel a call away from the dark snow-filled winters of Vermont, as many do, yet I longed for adventure, open space, and growth. SIT, a popular study abroad organization, has programs in more than thirty countries around the world. They place an emphasis on experiential, field-based learning that revolves around homestays, interviews, and the sensory experience. After reading some of their material I decided this was the perfect program for me. Though it doesn’t deal with geology, I felt that SIT added to my education as student of the world.
My particular program – Nepal: Tibetan and Himalayan Peoples – concentrates on Tibetan refugees living in Nepal and the lives of their counterparts in mainland Tibet. Students live with Tibetan families in Kathmandu, and learn about their language, culture, history, way of life, religion, border politics, and struggles as a people. The program also deals with various Tibetanoid and Himalayan peoples, including Dolpo, Sherpa, and Mustangi people.
Tsarang, Upper Mustang
Recently, we just returned from two weeks in Upper Mustang, a high alpine dessert region tucked away in the mountains. Hidden in a sandstone valley carved deep through the millennia, Mustang is one of the more remote regions of the Trans Himalaya, and has struggled in the face of rapid modernization in the last five years. I had to leave the trip a bit early, but nonetheless I managed to capture some good pictures of this beautiful and harsh landscape. I have taken over five thousand digital photos since coming to Nepal this past February, a hundred or so of which I have put on a blog (link below).
Every SIT program culminates in month long independent study, where each student travels and researches a topic of choice by themselves. In two weeks, I will be headed to Dolpo, another remote Himalayan district. It will take two flights and three days of walking to reach the valley where I will stay; there are no roads in Dolpo. I will study yartsagunbu, a fungus whose market valley has skyrocketed in the last twenty years. Valued by the Chinese for its properties as an aphrodisiac, yartsagunbu is now the most expensive biological commodity in the world. Its overharvest, mostly by foreigners, has lead to flagrant humans rights and environmental violations that I will be investigating. I will take many pictures during my time in Dolpo, and in my travels in India and Nepal after the conclusion of this program.
I update the blog every few days. Here is the link. Be sure to check in often!
Eleanor Whitney ’00
Eleanor Callott Whitney ’00 is an entrepreneur, writer, rock musician, and educator who is living in Brooklyn, NY. She is the proud recipient of a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Baruch College. For over a decade, Eleanor has worked with world-class museums. As a Program Officer for Fiscal Sponsorship at the New York Foundation for the Arts she managed and expanded a national program that enabled artists to increase their fundraising capabilities. She has also worked at the Brooklyn Museum, the Rubin Museum of Art, and at POV/American Documentary. She is currently the Community Outreach Coordinator at Shapeways, a 3D Printing community and marketplace and is the author of Grow, a practical field guide for starting a creative business. You can watch the video of her February 2015 presentation at Upper School Assembly linked here. You can check out her other activities on her website, linked here.
Science Olympians Repeat as State Champs, Again
In a close competition with historic favorite Waterville Senior High School (16 State Championships to their credit), the Waynflete Flyers Green team brought its A+ game to the tournament and slipped by Waterville to secure its third state championship in a row. And in a display of great depth, the Waynflete White team finished third in the tournament, ahead of an impressive slate of competitors from across the state, hailing from Falmouth to Presque Isle.
This year’s competition was held at the University of Southern Maine on Saturday, March 21. Teams spent a full day competing in 23 different science and engineering events. For some events, students spent the past few weeks prior to the competition building very specific devices to accomplish difficult engineering tasks. Students built a balsa wood bridge that supported over twenty pounds of sand, even though the bridge itself weighed only twenty grams. The bridge was so light, if it were a letter, you could put a single stamp on it and send in the mail! Other students built an air-powered cannon to shoot ping balls a specified distance. Still others built a rubber band powered plane that stayed aloft for over minute as it circled overhead.
In addition to hours and hours of designing, building, and trouble shooting for the engineering challenges, students also studied for events that would test their knowledge in a variety of subjects, some not typically covered in high school curricula. There were competitions on anatomy and physiology, cell biology, forensics, entomology, and fossils, to name just a few. A complete list of events can be found in the 2015 Science Olympiad Tournament Brochure.
With two or three members of each team competing in each event, Waynflete students placed in the top three in an incredible eighteen out of the twenty-three events, taking home a grand total of 43 medals! Overall, our Green Team placed first in the state and our White Team placed third. In the Middle School division, Waynflete’s team finished second. The Green team was lead by seniors Al Ghorashi, Jacob Hagler, and Dana Peirce. The Upper School teams were coached by Wendy Curtis and Carol Titterton. The Middle School team was coached by Wendy and Stephanie Dolan.
The team is now eligible to attend the National Science Olympiad and compete against the best schools from each state in the country. The national competition takes place in May at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska. More information about Science Olympiad and the national tournament can be found on the Science Olympiad website.
Congratulations to all on this hard earned victory!
Green Team (1st Place)
- Stephen Epstein ’15
- Ali Ghorashi ‘15
- Jacob Hagler ‘15
- Julianna Harwood ‘15
- Dana Peirce ‘15
- Chloe Williams ‘15
- Brandon Woo ‘15
- Esme Benson ‘16
- Arianna Giguerre ‘16
- Henry Johannen ‘16
- Peter Michalakes ‘16
- Christian Rowe ‘16
- Tim Clifford ‘17
- Willson Moore ‘17
- Emily Tabb ‘17
White Team (3rd Place)
- Harriet Edwardsen ‘15
- Scott Ralston ‘15
- Laura Vary ‘15
- Victor Anghel ‘16
- James Bigbee ‘16
- Isabella Davis ‘16
- Ben Mallon ‘16
- Liam McNiff ‘16
- Nina Moore ‘16
- Meddy Smith ‘16
- Elisabeth Lualdi ‘17
- Sophia Mayone ‘17
- Jack Meahl ‘17
- Althea Sellers ‘17
- Luna Soley ‘18
‘NAS: Time is Illmatic’ Screening at Waynflete
Photo taken from Wikipedia
RAaW (Racial Awareness at Waynflete) Presents NAS: Time is Illmatic, the controversial documentary that explores the making of the 1994 debut album of the rapper Nas. This important film, which came out in 2014, follows the artist as he returns to his childhood home and portrays the story of his upbringing and other influences that contributed to his important evolution from young street poet to recording artist. Illmatic is a look back at a life spent in the culture of the projects, acknowledging joy as much as pain, taking note of violence as a fact of environment rather than a focus of life.
There will be a brief presentation before the film and a discussion following led by Dr. Don Sawyer, a faculty member in the Department of Sociology at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, CT. Dr. Sawyer teaches Sociology of Hip-Hop Culture, based on his research of urban education, visual sociology, youth culture, hip-hop culture, and youth critical media literacy. His studies are founded on his belief in the importance of community based education.
Please join us for a pot-luck dinner followed by the film and discussion. Waynflete Middle School parents may bring children to the dinner. The film is intended for students 14 and older.
Waynflete School Drama Room and Franklin Theater
April 10, 2015
6:00 – 6:45 Dinner
7:00 – 10:00 Presentation, Viewing, and Discussion
Spirit Week Tournament Results
Upper school students and faculty took part in the 11th annual Spirit Week tournaments. Pictured are tournament champions. The Dodgeball tournament was won by the Junjizzles: Tom Silk, Aaron Lee, Harry Baker-Connick, Isaac Salas, Willy burdick, Milo Belleau and Hannah Thompson-Greaves. The 3 on 3 basketball tournament was won by the “Money Team” of Milo Belleau, Will Nelligan, Pieter Stockmayer and Ava Farrar. The indoor soccer tournament was won by Harry Baker-Connick, Willy Burdick, Meddy Smith, Abel Alemayo and Tom Silk.
Alexa Carrington ’15 to Compete at the Chinese Bridge Speech Contest
Later this spring on April 12, Alexa Carrington will head to Boston to compete in the “Chinese Bridge” Speech Competition at the University of Massachusetts Boston. This annual competition is a national, by invitation event for Chinese students at the high school level. Competitors in April’s event had to submit applications earlier in March that included both a transcript of a 3-4 minute speech, written on a topic of the applicant’s choice, as well as a recording of the student reading that speech. Alexa worked closely with her teacher, Whitney, for several weeks in February to find a suitable topic and to write and perfect her speech.
We learned just last week that Alexa was selected to participate in the event next month, and she is the first Waynflete student ever to do so. When she competes in April, she will have to recite her speech from memory and answer questions about the content of her speech from a panel of judges immediately after her presentation. Here is a recording of Alexa reading her speech:
Three winners will be chosen to go on and participate in the International Chinese Bridge Speech Contest for high school students in China. We want to congratulate Alexa on the honor of being asked to compete next month, and we wish her all the best as she represents Waynflete on April 12th. 加油，Alexa!
Art History Goes to Boston
Nine students in this semester’s Masterworks of Art History class headed down for two days of field work with me in three major Boston Art Museums: The Isabella Stewart Gardner, the Museum of Fine Art, and the newly-opened Fogg Museum at Harvard University.
At the Isabella Stewart Gardner, students had two tasks to complete. First, and in groups, they were to find and record close commentary on eleven specific works, applying the analytical and viewing skills they have been honing all semester. Their second task was to spend 40 minutes alone with two pieces of art of their choice, responding to prompts designed to elicit very personal reactions to the art. For example: a. Find a work of art that, for you, embodies pure joy, or b. Find a work of art that speaks to Struggle.
The students headed off, excited to find art that they had only seen online; they needed no encouragement or guidance from me. I moved through the museum to see how they were progressing and was delighted to watch them, oblivious to the fact that I was acting as benevolent voyeuse, utterly engrossed in their work, batting ideas and insights back and forth as they discussed the art. After three-plus hours, all the students seemed to find themselves sitting around the Gardner’s exquisite central courtyard, breathing in the sweet smell of the seasonal flowers propagated in the Museum’s new greenhouses expressly for this space, and in accordance with Mrs. Gardner’s directive from ninety years ago.
On Friday evening, and after delicious Japanese food, the group gathered to watch Rebecca Dreyfus’s documentary, “Stolen,” re the theft of and now 25-year hunt to find fourteen priceless works of art stolen from the Gardner on March 18th, 1990. It was a wonderfully nerdy capstone to a spectacular day.
During their visits to the MFA and the Fogg, students were let lose to explore art on their own terms. Two hours in each site simply vanished as we all became totally absorbed by what we saw, making connections, finding new insights, and delighting in Renzo Piano’s spectacular architectural achievement at the Fogg Museum.
One of the defining qualities of this trip for the students and for me was having the luxury of dedicated time to spend with the art. A gracious benefactor provided us free overnight accommodation in Boston so that we did not have to cramp our visits into one day. We all deeply appreciated and relished such an opportunity for truly mindful learning.
Students reflected on their experience art in situ. Here are three reflections: from seniors Haley Johnson and Ellen Langford, veterans of Waynflete’s Art History electives, and from Ellis Heminway, a sophomore engaged in his first foray into this fascinating field.
Seeing art in the flesh is incredibly different than seeing the same piece behind a computer screen. Through a screen there is no context, only a web browser, nor is there any tangible sense of difference between one piece to another. Getting up close and personal with the art provided a sense of interaction, or story telling in each individual brushstroke.
A Wild Ride on the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt: Places of Hope and Restoration
The global ocean conveyor belt connects the world’s ocean basins into one dynamic system. This planetary process provides an ocean powered tool to visit hotspots and hope spots, dead zones and resurrected regions, high-tech solutions and low-tech revolutions as we gain a full planet view of the state of our world ocean.
Join Dr. Tierney Thys, National Geographic Explorer, for
A Wild Ride on the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt: Places of Hope and Restoration
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
7:00 p.m., Franklin Theater, Waynflete
Doors open at 6:00 p.m. for an open house of organizations with programs focused on the health of the Gulf of Maine.
Admission to the evening is free, but donations will be accepted to benefit scholarships for Sustainable Ocean Studies, a 23-day marine biology summer program.
For more information about Dr. Thys and Sustainable Ocean Studies, call 207.774.5721, ext. 1318, or visit waynflete.org/sos.
Major sponsors: Chewonki Foundation, Gulf of Maine Marine Education Association, Maine Coastal Program, and Waynflete and Sustainable Ocean Studies
Additional sponsors: Coastal Studies for Girls, College of the Atlantic, Conservation Law Foundation, Friends of Casco Bay, From the Bow Seat, Gulf of Maine Research Institute, Island Institute, Maine Island Trail Association, and Rippleffect
Spirit Week Musical Chairs
Two time champ Harry Baker-Connick
