The Friends School of Atlanta

Bringing forward more than 329 years of excellence in Quaker Education

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.

Pam Upchurch: Building a Community of Learners

Visit The Friends School of Atlanta on Friday mornings, and you’ll witness a memorable sight: a group of schoolchildren sitting in complete silence, contemplating. This isn’t detention; no one misbehaved. This is Silent Meeting. Sitting in the the front of the meeting room, as she has for nearly 25 years, is Pam Upchurch. And next to her sits her class, silent, gazing, drinking in the new experience. Most experiences are new for them—being only four or five years old.

Pam has been with the school from the beginning. As a parent, I recall taking my daughter on a tour, meeting Pam, and sensing something almost immediately: Her calm demeanor connects with those around her, and with young children most of all.

“I think I was born to teach, especially younger people,” she told me earnestly, without a hint of egotism.  “Teaching always energized me.”

It’s hard to imagine that Pam initially wanted to be an accountant. It wasn’t until she landed a substitute teaching job at a preschool near Atlanta that she realized she had a calling. She would almost become giddy when she got the call from the regular teacher. “And after spending a day with the kids, I would just feel so energized–noticing their similarities, their differences. It was just amazing to me.”

During the first six weeks of class at The Friends School, Pam and her colleagues foster what they call a “community of learners.”. They talk to the children. They listen. They get to know one another and build a foundation for the years to follow.

“We don’t just talk to them,” Pam said. “We allow their voices to be heard. And we make them curious about peace and respect in the classroom. When they know the expectation is to be respectful to others, it plays out that they become more in tune to what the needs of others are.”

This complements the school’s longstanding Buddy Program in which eighth graders pair up with the youngest children. “They feel cared for,” she said, “and that instills their desire to care for others.”

Those eighth graders often sit with their buddies during Silent Meeting. Sure, some wiggle and get a little impatient. These are preschoolers, after all. But for the most part, they’re thinking not just about themselves, but about their buddy, their class, and their school. In children so young, it’s really something to see.

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.

School People: Waman French

By Tim Heston

Waman French remembers driving with his uncle on Long Island one Thanksgiving, pointing out schools on the road—which for the Frenchs wasn’t at all unusual. As Waman’s father put it, the Frenchs are “school people.”

School people go back generations in the French family. His grandfather was a Columbia University professor fully engaged in the progressive education movement. A generation before him the Frenchs taught in one-room schoolhouses in the newly-formed state of Kansas.

For school people, teaching is more than a profession; it’s a distinct approach to life. Waman put it this way: “It’s the idea of being part of an optimistic community that sees education as something more than the act of teaching,” Waman said.  “They see a community that aspires to being better, and sees education as the answer to many of those questions we ask in life, both personally and as a society.”

On the road on Long Island, Waman’s uncle pointed out the local sights along with a few of the local schools: a public school here and a prestigious boarding school there, complete with iron-wrought gates and the obligatory ivy climbing the walls.

Then Waman saw another school that didn’t look like any other: tidy, somewhat unadorned, yet not institutional. “That’s a Quaker school. They’re different,” his uncle said in an enthusiastic tone, with no hint of irony or contempt.

That was the first time Waman had heard about Quaker education, but it wouldn’t be the last. He grew up, couldn’t escape the family trade and joined the teaching profession, working at a Friends school in Brooklyn before moving to Atlanta, where he helped launch the Friends School of Atlanta.

Quaker schools were, and are, different, and it’s a difference many school people have embraced, Waman included. I embraced that difference when I toured the school four years ago with my daughter. I talked with teachers and (especially) students about the Quaker difference. These weren’t typical eighth graders. They all exuded a pleasant mixture of kindness, intellectual engagement, empathy, and confidence.

At Friends School of Atlanta, we have teachers, students, parents, and alumni who make a community of “school people”—and in this blog, during the ensuing weeks and months, we’ll tell their stories.

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.