LabLifethe magazine for alumni, parents, and friends of the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools Fall 2016 FALL 2016 in this issue In the Halls FEATURES DEPARTMENTS 24 Teacher Travelers 03 In the Halls 28 New Parents Fund 04 The Bookshelf A novel experience Founded 10 U-High Awards 30 “Stay Weird. Stay 13 Sports Highlights LabLife Different.” 14 In the World 34 Reviving the Lost 21 Behind the Scenes Art of Letter-Writing 22 Lab in Pictures 38 Throwback Lisa Sukenic’s fourth-grade students 39 Alumni Notes 46 Alumni in Action become published novelists FROM INTERIM DIRECTOR I’ve experienced Lab as a parent, BETH HARRIS a neighbor, as its lawyer, as an A familiar, administrator, and as a board member. Yet this role as Interim Director feels like warm a new beginning and a rare opportunity embrace to contribute to a place that has shaped my own life and that of my family. The Laboratory Schools have > Lab now occupies the entirety In preparing for the coming our curriculum, is the view been intertwined with my life of Judd Hall year, I have been reflecting on of the child as taking an at the University of Chicago for active part in his or her own > Judd has been entirely Lab’s strong sense of its own most of the 30 years that I have learning. We teach children renovated community. Lab’s mission, spent here. I’ve experienced the quality of the education it to be responsible members of Lab as a parent, a neighbor, as > U-High has been substantially affords, and its unique—even their own learning community. its lawyer, as an administrator, renovated quirky—character, make it a We cannot do this effectively and as a board member. Yet > The cafeteria, Café Lab, has very special place. Lab, perhaps without ourselves, as school this role as Interim Director leaders, as teachers, and been wholly transformed more than any other school, is a Imagine 20 fourth-graders Ms. Sukenic sidekicks as part of character edited between October and feels like a new beginning and a place where children learn to be as parents, modeling and clutching hardcover books and development. Ms. Sukenic April, when they sent their With these final projects, along rare opportunity to contribute excited by ideas. This, to me, is articulating how we would spontaneously singing, “We pointed out pointed out that a novel’s novels to Student Treasures with the opening of Earl Shapiro to a place that has shaped my at the heart of what brings all of like people to behave toward are the Champions.” They had villain doesn’t necessarily Publishing, which specializes Hall in 2013 and Gordon Parks own life and that of my family. us to Lab and what unites us as one another. done what many adult writers that a novel’s have to be evil—he or she in children’s writing. The Arts Hall last fall, we have When I walked through the a community. I look forward to meeting never achieve—they had each simply must “thwart your project culminated on June 1 substantially transformed our villain doesn’t doors of Blaine for the first time We are also a community you, to hearing your ideas, written and published a novel. character’s plan.” with an author reading at campus. But I think when as Interim Director, I felt the that shares the values, articulated and guiding this School Their teacher, Lisa necessarily have In addition to the 57th Street Books. you see the changes, you will familiar, warm embrace of a in our mission statement, through another very successful Sukenic, a poet currently mechanics of a novel— feel that the spirit of Lab is to be evil—he or school that is intense, nurturing, of learning experientially, year of outstanding teaching working on a novel in verse, characters, plot, setting— still captured in its gothic and filled with the buzz of exhibiting kindness, and and learning. believes that “children learn she simply must Ms. Sukenic also taught arches (both new and old), its young minds eager to soak in honoring diversity. It is how to write by writing.” So the students more abstract everything. spectacular classrooms, and It will be an honor. “thwart your important to remind ourselves she decided to bring her class concepts. For example, “Children learn how to This fall marks the first time its communal spaces. This is that the learning we all value so along on her own journey character’s plan.” NaNoWriMo sets the goal write by writing,” says in five years that school begins a school campus of which we Warm regards, highly can only take place in an through the writing process. at 50,000 words, but the Ms. Sukenic. can all be incredibly proud! without a major construction environment in which we treat “Everything students’ novels had no word Moreover, I am convinced that project underway. Those of each other with dignity and I did, they did.” count goal. “They should Lab is significantly stronger in one month, but they would you who have visited campus respect. National Novel Writing use as many or as few words and better than it was when we Beth A. Harris follow the same trajectory. in recent weeks have seen the Among the legacies we Month (NaNoWriMo) needed to tell their story.” embarked on the expansion and The students started by exciting changes: carry from founder John Dewey, challenges writers to spend They should also feel free building project a decade ago. and that is still deeply rooted in reflecting on which books November cranking out a they like and dislike, and why. to veer from their plan and novel; the organization also They then thought about follow where the story leads runs a Young Writers Program, their own stories, looking them. And finally: writing is LabLife, published three Editor Carrie Golus, AB’91, AM’93 Photography University of Chicago Volume 10, Number 1 offering novel-writing at “the main characters and never really done, but there is times a year, is written for Catherine Braendel, ’81 Ingrid Gonçalves, AB’08 Chris Kirzeder Laboratory Schools 1362 E. 59th Street © 2016 by the University of resources for K–12 classrooms. a point where you must send the University of Chicago Contributors Heather Preston Anne Ryan Chicago Laboratory Schools their motivations, what’s Laboratory Schools’ John Zich Chicago, IL 60637 Amy Braverman Puma Maureen Searcy Working from an adapted special about a character,” it out into the world. community of alumni, parents, Lab Notes Correspondents www.ucls.uchicago.edu Reproduction in whole or faculty, and staff. Sean Carr, AB’90 Design part, without permission of toolkit, Ms. Sukenic’s students The students Janice Clark Dozens of diligent alumni Please send comments or the publisher, is prohibited. says Ms. Sukenic. The class Interim Director Jeanie Chung agents updated contact information to wouldn’t complete their novels brainstormed, wrote, and Beth A. Harris Megan E. Doherty, AM’05, [email protected], also discussed nemeses and PhD’10 or call 773-702-0578. 02 LabLife Fall 2016 LabLife Fall 2016 03 THE BOOKSHELF InIn thethe HallsHalls Recommended Embeddedxxx reading NK teacher Kiran Younus recommends the Ms. Marvel comic books For an English elective, U-Highers experience the world as they study and create narrative journalistic pieces ’ve been slowly the teenage daughter of struggles she experiences as she homeschooled on Pakistani immigrants living in grows into her own unique, Carrying the comic books and Jersey City. wonderful person. Early on, weighty banners of everything I never A couple of months ago, Kamala uses her power to take wanted to know about on her 11th birthday, my on the blue-eyed, blonde-haired immigrant families, that “universe” over daughter received the first five form of Carol Danvers, who Muslims, and young the past 18 years or so since I’ve Ms. Marvel issues, penned by held the persona of Ms. Marvel known my husband. G. Willow Wilson. I casually in the comic book a generation women in 21st This knowledge (and flipped through the first one. earlier, believing this may help century America all things Star Wars) comes To my surprise, an hour later, her escape an unspoken tension in handy with my students, I’d devoured all five issues and she feels in her identity. She all at once, Kamala during story dictation or to was thinking about running soon sheds that skin, realizing settle a classroom debate: out to get the sixth. I was she must be comfortable in shatters many “Ms. Younus! Is Batman an amazed at how much I—the her own, and starts to use her stereotypes, within X-man?” (He’s not.) Beyond daughter of Pakistani Muslim powers to greater heroic effect. the classroom, I enjoyed the immigrants—related to Ms. Kamala is perfectly the comic’s pages summer blockbuster Marvel Marvel and how much it spoke relatable precisely because but also outside of movies as much as anyone else. to my experience growing up. she is imperfect—young and Recently, however, my personal Like any teenager, Kamala impetuous, sometimes reckless. them. interest level in comic books questions her identity, wants to But Kamala also is paying experienced a sharp uptick fit in but also to carve her own attention to issues happening in and fitting seamlessly into the when I was introduced path, and dreams about having the world around her, working greater world of Marvel comics, to the Ms. Marvel superpowers. Well, in her way toward sound moral in the tradition of Captain series, featuring her case, she has one: shape choices.