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In this issue: Answers and Questions: What it’s Like to Teach at Commonwealth CMCommonwealth School Magazine Fall 2014 Why I Made It Commonwealth Quilt by Allyson Edwards ’14 rom afar, you’re aware only of the main picture: the Commonwealth mermaid in the center. However, as you get closer, you can see original drawings by all the students, teachers, Fand staff (yes, all!) at Commonwealth. In this way the quilt represents our school. If you walk up to any one person here, you find a unique individual; stepping back you see how everyone together forms the community we know and love. My Commonwealth Quilt became what it is today because of curiosity and mistakes, and because I’m a knitter. It started when I found a pattern online for a “beehive quilt,” which was made by knitting small, six-sided, stuffed pockets called hexipuffs and joining them together. I brought printmaking teacher Rusty Crump a hexipuff I had made and asked him, “Do you think I could print on this?” He was skeptical but to our surprise the first attempt came out perfectly! We discovered that blocks of foam could be carved or incised with designs, inked, and used to transfer the design to the hexipuff. Before long I had handed out dozens of hexipuff-sized foam squares for people to draw on. My idea was still half-baked: knitting, printing, and connecting as many hexipuffs as I needed would be no problem, I thought. “They’re so small; it can’t be that time consuming.” That was the first mistake. By the time Senior Projects came along in March, I looked at my measly output—around 200 of the 1,575 hexipuffs my design called for—and blanched. I realized I had to recruit my own knitting army. My “mistake” turned the quilt into a true picture of the community. You can see in the varying shapes, sizes, and textures of the mermaid’s red hexipuffs how many volunteers made them. Even the connecting seams show the signs of different hands at work. The way people came together to help—from knitting to drawing to design suggestions—makes the quilt special. It may have started as my idea, but at the end of the project, it’s the bits and pieces from everyone I know, sprinkled throughout, that have made my idea beautiful. The quilt now hangs at the top of the stairs from the Commonwealth lobby to the second floor. Photos by Tristan Davies CM 1 FROM THE EDITOR very year, Project Week and Senior Project free students from Issue 7 the routine of school and homework and give them time to Fall 2014 explore personal interests. Some students work on mentored Headmaster individual projects, writing or painting for example. Most William D. Wharton Eare welcomed and do challenging work in social justice organiza- tions, shelters, child care centers, restaurants and bakeries, businesses, Editor Tristan Davies ’83 startups, state and national parks, university libraries and laborato- [email protected] ries; or with individual elected officials, doctors, prosecutors, attor- (617) 266-7525 x290 neys, scientists, and artists. But one week can prove frustratingly short. I remember a couple Design Jeanne Abboud of years where just when I thought I was getting into the swing of things, my time was up. In order to extend the spirit of Projects into Associate Editor more sustained and deeper investigation, Commonwealth has Rebecca Folkman initiated a Senior Capstone program. With a mentor of their choice, Class Notes Editor students engage in a yearlong research and scholarship project, for Grayson Palmer academic credit. Last spring, a committee approved three capstone Contributing Writers proposals from rising seniors: Alisha Atlas-Corbett ’01 Mattie Glenhaber, an accomplished artist and historian (her Allyson Edwards ’14 tenth-grade research paper was published in the Concord Review), Janetta Stringfellow has undertaken an examination of why comic books have been Rachel Tils ’15 maligned and feared—especially in mid-twentieth-century America. Special Thanks Fittingly enough, she will compose her final report presenting her Jacquelin Harris research and analysis in comic-book form! www.commschool.org/cm Ian Polakiewicz (whose photography appears regularly in CM and www.facebook.com/commschoolalums our calendar) studies philosophy independently, reading texts by Plato, Kant, Heidegger, and Nietzsche. Ian chose to investigate CM is published twice a year by Commonwealth School, 151 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA connections between the development of Existentialism and the 02116 and distributed without charge to alumni/ae, Nietzschean theme of eternal recurrence, the infinite cycling of current and former parents, and other members of everything in the universe—matter and occurrence. the Commonwealth community. Opinions expressed Rachel Tils, herself a talented actor, is writing a set of monologues in CM are those of the authors and subjects, and do not necessarily represent the views of the school or based on the experiences of women during the Civil War. Her project its faculty and students. is a natural offshoot of her U.S. History research paper on public portrayals and perceptions of women in the nineteenth century (see We welcome your comments and news at [email protected]. Letters may be an excerpt on page 18). edited for style, length, clarity, and grammar. Commonwealth has always been known for the intellectual tenacity of its students. I’m excited to see how far capstone projects Printed on recycled paper. Please recycle. will take them. Do you remember a favorite project? Tell us about it at www.facebook.com/commschool. Tristan Davies ’83 Director of Communications, Editor [email protected] 2 CM CMCommonwealth School Magazine Fall 2014 Contents Why I Made It 1 7 A modular quilt for the Commonwealth community. News 4 Preparing for Change Have You Seen the Plan? New Faces 4 Academic Honors A Complex Character 7 The rewards of teaching a difficult language 8 Answers and Questions 8 What it’s like to teach at Commonwealth Grace Under Pressure 18 Rachel Tils ’15 on how conflicting images of nineteenth-century American women fractured societal ideals. History of a Friendship: Opportunities and Lifetimes 20 A connection across generations matures into a self-declared family The Alumni/ae Association 24 Greetings from the new president 20 A new way to connect alumni/ae Class Notes 25 On the cover: Moments of discovery and insight take place in every corner of the school. Chances are a teacher was In Memoriam 31 involved, either directly or indirectly, as an intellectual guide, advisor, mentor, or cheerleader. Beginning on page 8, a group of Commonwealth teachers spanning Alumnus Perspective: the school’s entire history talk about the A Mermaid in Mexico 32 challenges and triumphs of what they do. When trying something new becomes a familiar experience. Illustration by JooHee Yoon. CM 3 NewsCOMMONWEALTH Preparing for Change ow that the new strategic plan has been officially the classrooms, now being used as offices and chemical storage, adopted, plans are moving forward for some is enlarged by extending it over the stairwell from the first important renovations to the school. The first floor to the basement. Doubled in size, the larger space will phase, scheduled for summer 2015, includes major provide two offices as well as two prep rooms, and slightly Nupgrades to the biology and chemistry spaces, rooms 1B and enlarges the classrooms themselves. 1C, located on the alley-facing side of the first floor. “A primary goal is to maximize opportunities for students Architects from Watertown-based Imai Keller Moore (IKM) to discuss science with each other, with faculty, and for faculty have been meeting with science teachers over the last two years to discuss issues of teaching among themselves,” says Imai. to discuss an array of pressing needs. The classrooms themselves, Enlarging or adding windows on the hallway side of the rooms notes architect Randall Imai, are “used for both lecture and addresses a second goal: “to make science more visible to demonstration teaching as well as the hands-on activities of visitors and to non-science students as a way of engaging them the laboratory. We looked at ways of arranging the room with in this aspect of the Commonwealth academic community.” better furnishings that allowed for the small-group activities of The decision to add the new office areas led to another the lab at the perimeter of the rooms with the lecture/discussion/ question: how to connect the first floor to the lower level? demonstration activities focused in the center and on a combined The answer was simple (in concept at least): extend the whiteboard and projection screen ‘teaching wall.’” stairway on the Dartmouth St. side of the building down. Since different teachers often use these rooms in consecutive Doing so will make it easier to go from upper floors to class periods, IKM also studied how to increase the amount of the basement, and it will help funnel that traffic into space where teachers can prepare demonstration or lab materials a reconfigured lower level, including an enlarged and while the classrooms are occupied. This led to the concept shown reorganized food service area. As a bonus, adding the new in the final plan (see below, where the renovations are illustrated staircase will widen the uncomfortably cramped passage in an elevated perspective from the alley side). The area between between the Dartmouth and Commonwealth lobbies. TECTS PREP LABS (2) 2-sided chemical Teaching I 2-sided chemical allows teachers fumehood wall fumehood to set up (in classroom and SCIENCE (in classroom and while the prep lab spaces) IKM ARCH CLASSROOM/ LAB/ SCIENCE prep lab spaces) classroom/lab (shown in lecture CLASSROOM/LAB 2 is in use demonstration (shown in discussion and lab configuration) configuration) n n n Teaching wall n n n n n n n Faculty Offices (total of 3 desks) 4 CM More than T-shirts ommonwealth fans, take note! This fall the school launched a new online store (run by Amerasport), which offers a wide range of Commonwealth merchandise.