The Friends School of Atlanta

Bringing forward more than 325 years of excellence in Quaker Education

No Such Thing as a “Math Person”

Kenny Rochester, when he began teaching math about a decade ago, thought like many people do that some people were just “math people” and others weren’t. He considered himself a math person. Growing up in New York and Connecticut, he sat in math class after math class, and it all seemed to come relatively easily. When he was accepted to Atlanta’s Morehouse College and was asked to choose a major, he chose a subject that came easily to him. The choice was obvious. After all, he was a math person.

After eight years teaching middle school math at The Friends School of Atlanta, and after being trained on a teaching approach called “growth mindset,” Kenny has changed his view—and his students have benefited.

“There’s really no such thing as a ‘math person,’’’ Kenny says. “It’s really all about your experiences. In fact, those experiences can have a real impact in how successful you are. It’s about one’s willingness to make and learn from mistakes. Honestly, the growth mindset approach has really opened my eyes. I now know that all kids can learn math at a high level.”

Many like math because of its lack of ambiguity. Sure, undergrad and grad students discover the many subtleties of higher math, but when it comes to the foundational material—arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus—primary and middle school students have rules to follow. A math problem like x + y = 10 can have many right and wrong answers; but whether they’re right or wrong isn’t up for debate. An answer is eitherright or wrong, period; x equals 9, but only when y equals 1.

The students who grasp the concept quickly like its straightforward nature; they feel good when they find the right answer. Students who don’t get the right answer, though, can grow insecure in a hurry. They then think they’re just not a math person and, whether they’re conscious of it or not, they stop applying themselves in a positive manner.

Kenny has seen this happen many times, and to turn things around, he takes a multipronged approach. First, he knows that a teacher’s impatience is the enemy. He never praises students who get a problem right and, then immediately after, turn around and express disappointment with those who don’t. That just reinforces the “math person versus non-math person” stereotype.

He instead praises mistakes. When students make errors, it’s not a failure; they’re instead one step closer to getting it right. Kenny also doesn’t shower excessive praise on students who grasp math quickly. He asks them to explain what they did, find other ways to solve the problem and sometimes asks them to help their classmates.

Kenny also gives the class what he calls “low floor, high ceiling” problems—like, say, x + y = 10. The low floor allows all students to gain a solid footing; the high ceiling pushes those who are ready for the next level.

For instance, most middle schoolers grasp the basic concept and insert various answers to x and y that add up to 10; that’s the low floor. But Kenny doesn’t stop at integers. Introducing the high ceiling, he talks about the concept of infinity, that it’s not just about the fact that numbers go on forever, but that there are infinite numbers between two points on a number line. The x variable could be 5, but it also could be 5.879832, which would make y 4.120168. How do you express this? Kenny draws crosshairs on the board, a y vertical axis and an x horizontal axis, with zero in the middle, and graphs the answer.

The ceiling rises from there, and all of Kenny’s students continue to climb, reach higher, and embrace the mathematical concepts that have built our modern world.

A Community That Never Leaves You

Want to know what The Friends School of Atlanta is like? Ask Karen McMichael, known to her friends at FSA as Kaymac. She will be retiring as the school’s administrative assistant at the end of the 2017-2018 school year, but Kaymac’s Friends School journey started years before, when she and her husband decided to send their son, Ian, to FSA in 1998.

“Our son was at Georgia State University’s Child Development Center,” Kaymac recalled. “They recommended the Friends School for him, specifically because he wasn’t any trouble and he was [and still is] very bright. They felt he was going to fall through the cracks in the public schools. We visited FSA first, and to tell you the truth, we didn’t visit any other school.”

After Ian started attending, Kaymac volunteered her time and soon found that the culture fit her like a glove. She felt at home, so much so that when she was brought on staff full-time in 2001, the transition was virtually seamless.

She’s done a bit of everything over the years. She does website updates, performs some registrar work and helps with admissions in ways that coworkers identify as completely responsive, patient and effective in bringing calm to often stressful situations. She has taught word processing, Photoshop, jewelry making, among other subjects; and, as a teacher’s aid in reading, has experienced the joy of witnessing a child’s “aha” moment, the initial spark of understanding, of conquering a small hill, looking back with pride, and looking forward with confidence. “The squiggles on the page, the letters, now mean something to them,” she said. “It’s different with every child, but once you witness it, it’s something you never forget.”

“Kaymac’s smile and gentle nature was refreshing as well as encouraging to the children that she assisted with reading,” recalls long-time first grade teacher Celest Samas. “Her love of books has inspired generations of FSA first graders.”

The entire FSA experience is shaped by a kind of empathy that anyone associated with the school—staff, teachers, students, parents, alumni—knows very well. “Early on, working here and sending my son to school here, I learned about not judging people by my life. Consider what the other person’s life is like.” That is, she doesn’t judge someone based on her own life experiences, but instead tries to truly understand the complete context, and how the whole of a life shapes a person. It’s living the expression “knowing where the person is coming from,” but on a much deeper level.

This philosophy even lends itself to her teaching. Speaking about Kaymac’s jewelry-making middle school exploratory, 6th graders Katy and Paideia said, “Kaymac gives lots of freedom to express yourself, always makes space for laughter and responds right away when you need help.”

Living it comes through listening instead of waiting to talk. It also comes through feeling at home in silence, be it during class, silent meeting or during administrative staff meetings, where silence plays a key role. After someone expresses an opinion, everyone sits for a brief period of silence, allowing time to reflect on what was just said. That builds understanding, reinforces empathy, and buttresses FSA’s unique, enduring community.

“I’ve loved this place since the first day my son started school here, and I’ve never stopped learning. It’s such an amazing community.”

Those who have worked side by side with Kaymac in the administration, whether for decades or just a few years, are not sure how to move forward without her capable, reassuring presence. “It would be impossible to enumerate all of the ways that our beloved Kaymac has served the school community,” according to Waman French, Head of School. “Speaking personally, Kaymac has provided the ultimate support during some very difficult times as well as joyous ones.”

Likewise, Nancy Bent, Director of Advancement, shared, “Kaymac is so utterly reliable, so meticulous with detail, so unflagging in her willingness to serve however she is needed. I will dearly miss partnering with her on the work of the school.”

Kaymac may be retiring this year, but she—like all the students, staff, teachers, and alums who have passed through The Friends School’s doors—will never stop being part of the FSA community.

 

By Tim Heston

Tim Heston has written for business magazines since 1996. He’s won some awards here and there, but his greatest achievement is being the proud parent of an FSA fifth grader.

About Harmony, Acceptance, and Playing Your Part

Every classroom has its rhythm to it, the people its chord structure, and at The Friends School of Atlanta, the classes have some rich chords. Fifth grade language arts teacher Johnny Pride felt the vibe of those chords the first time he stepped into FSA, when he saw the art on the wall and heard about the philosophy, about the Light Within.

“It was me. I was in.”

Johnny felt the vibe since he interviewed and began teaching for the school six years ago—a bridge, if one were to map out his life in song form. He had been a classroom teacher and then a literacy specialist at The Howard School. Eventually, he wanted to be in front of the classroom again.

From one perspective, FSA seems like an unlikely destination for Johnny, a music industry veteran who once played with the drummer for REM, whose band once opened for The Police and other big acts, who ended up being featured in The Doors movie, and who even roomed with Val Kilmer for a few months during the filming of it.

But from another perspective, Johnny’s landing at FSA makes all the sense in the world. He majored in journalism at the University of Georgia (hence the connection with REM). He wrote for the Atlanta-Journal Constitution for a time and worked for PBS before jumping in the car and heading for California. He headed west to perform and write, songs instead of prose, before family commitments called him back to Georgia. He taught and coached his nephew, who attended Howard, which is how he ended up at that school and, ultimately, FSA.

It’s safe to say that Johnny wouldn’t feel at home at Friends if he taught in a traditional environment where students are tracked and separated by ability. Grouping students together in advanced and remedial classes doesn’t reflect real life, where different people with different strengths and weaknesses need to work together.

True, FSA pushes students as far as they can go. For instance, a few middle schoolers who’ve mastered certain concepts join math or language arts classes in higher grades. But students aren’t segmented into tracks. Teachers, Johnny included, practice what’s known as learning differentiation. They teach differently to different children, depending on their strengths and weaknesses. They also encourage students to teach each other.

“I probably do about four different lesson plans per class,” Johnny said. “All kids are different. They all work together, and what I love about it is the acceptance they have for each other.”

That acceptance builds the harmony and drives the rhythm of learning. “Here I can make learning joyful and fun,” Johnny said. “Students work very hard, but they don’t feel that they’re working hard because they have so much fun. This place allows me to do that.”

Visit Johnny’s class, and you’ll see students constantly in action. They write all the time and read each other’s stories allowed. They learn vocabulary through theater; they dream up and write scripts that use new words or imply them, and the students watching guess what those words are. Students teach students. Like those in the best bands playing the best music, everyone listens, everyone helps, and everyone plays their part.

By Tim Heston

Tim Heston has written for business magazines since 1996. He’s won some awards here and there, but his greatest achievement is being the proud parent of an FSA fifth grader.

No Popsicle Sticks

When Fiona Thompson came to develop the art program at The Friends School of Atlanta, she did so under one important condition.

“No popsicle sticks on construction paper. I teach the visual arts. Respectfully I don’t teach crafts.”

Fiona told this to Waman French, the head of school, when interviewing for the job 10 years ago. And sure enough, look around the art room today, you’ll see no popsicle sticks, or at least none used in a crafty sort of way, with rows and rows of similar-looking works lining the walls. In Fiona’s classroom, stuffed to the gills with art supplies, you won’t find such conformity. You instead find clay figures next to paintings next to a sculpture put together using pieces from an IKEA furniture box—sans instructions, of course.

There’s nothing wrong with crafts; it just doesn’t have much to do with what Fiona teaches. She doesn’t teach art appreciation. The act of appreciation implies a kind of separation, a proscenium between art and its audience. Fiona’s classes have no proscenium.

“It’s not just about what you see in an art book,” Fiona said. “It’s about the visual thinking strategies behind what you see, how you see, and why you feel like you do when you’re looking at art. It’s a unique moment.”

Fiona grew up in a household where inclusiveness and social service reigned. Her father spent time in India during World War II. Then back home in Derbyshire, after retirement, he worked to help recent Indian immigrants find their way within the U.K. She went to college to study art at Bath Academy of Art, taught art in London, then at 21 decided to leave the U.K. and travel. She landed in Egypt, worked at the Schutz American School in Alexandria, and taught art pro bono at an Egyptian school and within the Egyptian community. She wasn’t a post-grad on holiday; she was in the trenches, working and serving.

Life has since brought her to (among other places) the University of Chicago, the High Museum of Art’s Education Department, and then, at long last, to her home at The Friends School of Atlanta. The school’s Quaker philosophy fit Fiona’s perfectly, about channeling the Light Within—with a paint brush, sculpting clay, even assembling IKEA furniture assembled into a new creation—to make the world better.

She teaches artistic fundamentals that involve sophisticated concepts, including main ideas, visualizing, making inferences, perspective. She also applies what’s known as design thinking to problem-solving. In a nutshell, she gives students the artistic grammar not just to appreciate, but to create, perceive, and connect.

In Fiona’s view, artistic concepts are at the heart of humanity, the essence of which can’t be automated. The sensors on self-driving cars can “see,” but they cannot perceive. You’ll find Fiona and her students collaborating with instructors in the 3D printing Innovation lab. The best scientists, engineers, mathematicians, physicists—although they may not realize it, they’re artists and design thinkers too.

Even yours truly, something Fiona insisted after I told her that, well, no, I just don’t have the artist’s muse. She shook her head and dove into a speech I could tell she had given many times before. “I believe everybody can draw,” Fiona said. “There’s no reason why you can’t; you’ve just not been shown.”

Looking at the amazing creations lying about the Friends School art room, I believe her wholeheartedly.

By Tim Heston

Tim Heston has written for business magazines since 1996. He’s won some awards here and there, but his greatest achievement is being the proud parent of an FSA fourth grader.

All Sides of the Picture

photo drivingNancy Bent knows about seeing the world with open eyes. Her father moved the family down south in the 1950s to work as a UPI photographer. He saw it all—the race riots, the protests, the fear, and the strong yet peaceful tenacity of those who stand up for their beliefs.

He spent years as a photojournalist and a television producer in Atlanta, and his experience taught Nancy to see the world in a specific way. You have one picture of reality with two (or more) sides. You see it all, unfiltered, and, with knowledge and empathy, move forward with conviction to do what’s right.

That conviction eventually brought her to The Friends School of Atlanta, first as a mother, then as a board member, and, starting seven years ago, as a school administrator. She’s now FSA’s Director of Advancement and Admissions.  Serving all three roles has given her unique perspective.

It can be summed up in an experience Nancy had as an FSA parent, looking at a child’s drawing posted among many others in the school hallway. The school project had to do with human and civil rights, and the stick-figure sketch was of a little girl holding hands with two moms. At first Nancy thought that her daughter—who, after all, has two moms— had drawn it. This was the mid-1990s, and having two moms or two dads wasn’t viewed quite like it is today.

But her daughter hadn’t drawn it. It was a girl who the year before had teased her, saying, “You can’t have two moms. That’s illegal.”

Teachers and administrators intervened and got the children and parents together. Turns out the girl’s parents didn’t believe what their daughter had said. “Bottom line, the girl was just being mean,” Nancy recalled. “She was 8; it can be tough age. I got it. I wasn’t upset with anybody, and it was all handled respectfully.”

The next year, when the teacher asked children to draw something that showed a human or civil right, that same girl thought of her classmate and friend. Next to the drawing she wrote, “Everyone has the right to have a family.”

The girl learned all sides of the picture, moved forward with conviction, followed her heart, and did what she thought was right.

That, in a nutshell, is a Friends School of Atlanta education.

By Tim Heston

Tim Heston has written for business magazines since 1996. He’s won some awards here and there, but his greatest achievement is being the proud parent of an FSA fourth grader.