PHANTOM THREAD Sonya Clark ’85 Unravels the Power of the Mundane and the Sacred
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SIDWELL Contents FRIENDS MAGAZINE Summer 2021 Volume 92 Number 3 LEADERSHIP Head of School DEPARTMENTS Will your Bryan K. Garman 2 REFLECTIONS FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL Chief Communications Officer Annual Fund Hellen Hom-Diamond Remembering Peace Speaker Michiko Yamaoka and the responsibility of survivorship. gift really EDITORIAL 4 ON CAMPUS Editor-in-Chief A spirited return to in-person learning, micromester Sacha Zimmerman make a lets students get their feet wet, the BSU production Art Director goes virtual, fond farewells to long-serving faculty, difference? Meghan Leavitt and more. Contributing Designer 04 24 THE ARCHIVIST Alice Ashe The long history of the paper crane at Sidwell Friends. Senior Writers YES. Natalie Champ 44 ALUMNI ACTION Kristen Page Bob Woodward (P ’94, ’15); Mei Xu (P ’19, ’21); Alumni Editors Adama Konteh Hamadi ’04. Emma O’Leary 51 CLASS NOTES Anna Wyeth Virtual Reunions ping alumni around the globe. Contributing Writers Every gift—your Loren Hardenbergh 83 WORDS WITH FRIENDS Caleb Morris “A Heart to Heart” Contributing Photographers 26 84 LAST LOOK gift—matters. Freed Photography Susie Shaffer “The Message, Not the Medium” As a donor, you make an immediate and Digital Producers Anthony La Fleur meaningful impact on everyday experiences Sarah Randall FEATURES for Sidwell Friends students. 26 INTO THE FOLD CONNECT WITH SIDWELL FRIENDS Paper cranes return to campus in a pan-Asian And when you become an Annual Fund donor, @sidwellfriends celebration of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage @sidwellfriends Month—and why this year it was more important than you join a community of donors who are committed @sidwellfriends ever. to the success of every student, every day. Sidwell Friends Magazine 3825 Wisconsin Avenue NW 34 LIVES THAT SPEAK Empower students, today and throughout the year. Washington, DC 20016 202-537-8444 34 PHANTOM THREAD Make your Annual Fund gift at www.sidwell.edu/give. sidwell.edu/magazine Sonya Clark ’85 unravels the power of the mundane [email protected] and the sacred. 40 POWER TO THE STUDENTS On the Cover Liz Kleinrock ’05 on creating an anti-racist classroom, NON-DISCRIMINATION AND TITLE IX Illustration by tossing out standardized curricula, empowering kids, Nondiscrimination Statement: Sidwell Friends School prohibits discrimination and harassment against any member of the School community on the basis of race, color, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, sex, Dongyun Lee dismantling the model-minority myth, and purging personal appearance, genetic information, economic background, political affiliation, marital status, amnesty, or status as a covered capitalism-fueled grind culture. veteran in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws. Director of Equity, Justice, and Community Natalie Randolph ’98 has been designated to handle inquiries regarding discrimination and Title IX concerns, policies, and procedures. Her contact information is: Office Mail: 3825 Wisconsin Avenue NW, Washington DC 20016 40 Email: [email protected] | Phone: (202) 537-8182 For assistance related to Title IX or other civil rights laws, please contact the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at [email protected] or 800-421-3481; TDD 800-877-8339. SUMMER 2021 | SIDWELL FRIENDS MAGAZINE 1 REFLECTIONS FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL Surgeons at Mt. Sinai Hospital performed 27 procedures to restore As we begin to make sense of the losses we have experienced, we functioning to her hands and reshape her face, which, due to the too must welcome the possibility to think beyond ourselves and explosion, had been fused to her neck. During her visit to the build a better community. Yamaoka-san encourages us to chan- country that had warred with her own, Yamaoka-san visited nel loss so that we might achieve the greater gain of peace; she Pendle Hill, the Quaker retreat center outside of Philadelphia, calls us to abandon our typical privileges and entitlements to work and lived with a family of Friends while undergoing her surger- for the betterment of humanity. Our suffering neither compares ies. She eventually joined the Japan Yearly Meeting and made her to hers nor to that of the countries where the pandemic contin- way to Sidwell Friends School as the 1995 Peace Speaker. Thanks ues to rage. Still, we are enduring a significant historic challenge. largely to our former colleague, Ellen Pierson, the former advisor How will we teach our students to honor the preciousness of life? to the Upper School Japanese summer exchange program, Yama- oka-san returned to campus on five other occasions and offered Yamaoka-san fully understood that preciousness. She recog- students poignant opportunities for deep learning and under- nized that we cannot intentionally harm another human being standing (see “Paper Hearts,” on page 24). The School memo- without dehumanizing them. We have seen plenty of dehuman- rialized her contributions by planting a Japanese maple behind ization, hate, and violence over the past year. It seems that every Zartman House, where her category by which we typi- spirit continues to guide us. cally dismiss and debase one another has been exploited. To be in Yamaoka-san’s pres- “As we begin to make ence was at once humbling We must strive to see beyond and inspiring. An unapologetic sense of the losses we have our typical field of vision and humanist, she never leveled imagine the world anew. While blame nor acted with bitterness. experienced, we too must our students’ suffering may Having miraculously survived pale in comparison to that of the a nuclear attack, she accessed welcome the possibility to young Yamaoka-san, they too a level of consciousness that have struggled and need time to few of us will ever know. She think beyond ourselves and heal. “I want people to know the moved mindfully and lovingly word ‘peace,’” Yamaoka-San through the world, conveying a build a better community.” insisted. “I don’t want children wisdom and gravitas that I have to be the victims of war any- experienced neither before nor more.” If we want our students since our meetings. She was a powerful witness to our collective to know peace, we must help them build a bulwark against the ris- shame and possibility as a species, a truly beautiful person whose ing tide of hate; otherwise, we will witness more violence, a threat body was a physical reminder of what we are capable of doing to that deteriorates relationships and edges us toward global conflict. one another at our worst. Weakened by radiation exposure, she The most profound and joyful Friend I have ever met, Yamao- often needed to pause during her campus visits so that she might ka-san understood that peace is not simply the absence of war, but find respite from myriad complications. These moments revealed a state of being in which the dignity and divinity of every human a tender sense of humor, a determination to live joyfully, and an being is affirmed. When we practice this affirmation, we cultivate “I Want People to Know Archives Sidwell Friends indefatigable commitment to peace. peace in ourselves and in one another. This practice is the best hope we have to protect ourselves and the world against violence. the Word ‘Peace’” “I abhor war because it truly destroys humankind, transforming human kindness, sympathy, peace, and love into an unthinking, Yamaoka-san let her life speak to the peace testimony every day. Yamaoka-san and the responsibility of survivorship. devilish power,” she reflected in Friends Journal. “I absolutely How can we bear witness to her efforts? How will we use our cannot accept a ‘peace’ built upon the sacrifice of individual survivorship? How might we embrace this moment to reflect on BY BRYAN GARMAN human beings. … I firmly believe that I must continue, as long as the contributions we have made to our communities and build I live, to raise my single voice to declare to as many people as I upon these contributions in the future? What kind of commu- ver the past weeks, I have been remembering unspeakable horrors, struggling for her own life while casual- can the horror of war and the preciousness of human life.” nity do we want to be? As we reflect on our survivorship, we have Michiko Yamaoka (1930–2013), an extraordi- ties from the history-altering blast approached 100,000. “I suf- a precious opportunity and pressing need to examine these que- nary person affectionately known to the Sidwell fered the pains of burns and of growing up in a world of tears as As we emerge from the pandemic, I am struck by Yamaoka-san’s ries with the earnestness and urgency they require. Friends community as Yamaoka-san. Born in a result of constant confrontation with the dark face of death,” ability to reframe historic suffering—suffering that we all hope Hiroshima, the 15-year-old Yamaoka-san found she reflected. “It was like being in hell while still alive.” will be the sole example of its kind—as strength and possibility. Oherself trapped beneath rubble located 800 meters from the Given what she endured, she could easily have withdrawn into hypocenter of the atomic explosion that decimated her birth- Disfigured and scarred, Yamaoka-san traveled to the United anger and self-pity. She recognized, however, that her survivor- place and reshaped the world. She endured and witnessed States in 1955 with 24 other survivors: the Hiroshima Maidens. ship carried a sacred obligation. 2 SIDWELL FRIENDS MAGAZINE | SUMMER 2021 SUMMER 2021 | SIDWELL FRIENDS MAGAZINE 3 ON CAMPUS 4 SIDWELL FRIENDS MAGAZINE | SUMMER 2021 SUMMER 2021 | SIDWELL FRIENDS MAGAZINE 5 ON CAMPUS ON CAMPUS CONGRATULATIONS A little rain? Sweating under a mask? A few cicadas dive-bombing the class photo? No problem.