Wabanaki Studies Curriculum Approach

Pictured above: Third and fourth-grade students in the spring of 2022, writing letters in support of LD 1626: An Act Implementing the Recommendations of the Task Force on Changes to the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Implementing Act. With the help of some folks at Sunlight Media Collective and the First Light organization, students learned as much as they could about the bill. They asked the question: why would we or why wouldn't we want to get involved? Next, they defined the terms sovereignty, ally, bill, hearing, sustenance, and stewardship. They looked into their systems of values and identity and wrote letters that reflected their beliefs and understandings about big ideas.

We began our work to re-envision our approach to Wabanaki Studies about ten years ago. Among other goals, we wanted to ensure that our approach to Wabanaki studies was as contemporary as it was historical, to combat the erasure of indigenous communities today and to underscore that indigenous people, including Wabanaki people, are integral members of our communities and our world. It also became clear that, rather than adding or revising discrete units and leaving the rest of the curriculum untouched, we wanted to use the work to make systemic changes to the curriculum– to incorporate Wabanaki voices, and perspectives (and, more broadly, indigenous voices, and perspectives) across the curriculum and the grades so that it became a lens we use more generally as we plan learning activities. 

Though we had some idea of the direction we wanted to move, we weren’t sure exactly how to do it, and there have been false starts and frustrations along the way. A number of teachers, passionate about this work, spent time educating themselves– attending workshops and conferences, reading books, questioning their own biases, and engaging in discussions with colleagues. Inspired by this learning, teachers began to re-envision the larger themes in their curricula.  

Teachers began by re-imagining and revising their essential questions– year-long teaching and learning-focused queries that provoke open thinking and discussion, invite reflection, and drive the social studies, science, and humanities curricula. Teachers considered how these questions might support their curriculum revisions. Third and fourth-grade teachers, for example, inspired by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Ted talk “The Danger of a Single Story” introduced “What is the power of a story?” as one of their essential questions. In fifth and sixth grade, we introduced the question “Who is an American?” to drive the U.S. civics and history year. And in seventh and eighth grade the question “What is the relationship between identity and power?” set the foundation for studies of identity, race and ethnicity, genetics and scientific classification, and colonialism. 

Beginning with rewriting essential questions has helped teachers to revise and create new units to include an indigenous lens. The third and fourth-grade national parks unit, long a tradition in that grade band, now emphasizes an understanding of the difference between land ownership and relationship to land as well as how issues of indigenous lands and indigenous sovereignty are being addressed by the national parks. The kindergarten name study, an annual entre into Kindergarteners’ essential yearlong letter-sound work, kicks off with Sherman Alexie’s book Thunderboy Jr. as a mentor text to introduce to students different naming traditions– including indigenous naming traditions. 

The freedom that FSP teachers have to shape (and reshape) their curricula, together with teachers’ own ongoing professional learning, has also allowed teachers to bring into the classroom various opportunities as they have arisen, whether it be learning about and sending testimony in support of legislation focused on Wabanaki rights and sovereignty, building a study around the Portland Ovations’ Wabanaki Stories, or participating in a workshop given by Toward Right Relationship with Native Peoples and using students’ post-questions to drive classroom studies. Below is a partial list of additional ways that this lens has helped to shape learning activities over the last few years:

Kindergarten

Special People Project—inspired by photographer Matika Wilbur, a citizen of the Tulalip Tribes.

Storytelling Unit with John Bear Mitchell, Penobscot Nation citizen, as the person of inspiration, including a trip to see Wabanaki Stories at Merrill Auditorium

Grades 3-4

A Maine geography study centering an in-depth study of Wabanaki place names

Grades 5-6:

A unit that included a study of the Maine Truth and Reconciliation Commission 

Grades 7-8:

A unit that centered around participating in research to support the project Ash Protection Collaboration Across Wabanakik, a joint program of UMaine, the Wabanaki nations, and state and federal forestry agencies.

This work is not finished, but we are on the journey. As part of this ongoing work to learn more and do better, teachers pose new questions regularly that begin the inquiry-reflection-action cycle anew for us. Here are some recent ones:

As a white teacher, how can I bring indigenous voices into my classroom in a way that is respectful and non-appropriative?

How can we ensure that we are celebrating indigenous contributions and indigenous excellence and not just indigenous trauma?

As a science teacher, how can I introduce indigenous, and in particular, Wabanaki ways of knowing alongside the scientific process?  

Written by Director of Studies, Nell Sears.

Elementary News: Students' Passion Becomes Class Unit

Pictured above: Third and fourth-grade students working on their newspaper articles.

Just as the first crocuses were blooming around campus in mid-March, I started to see interviews sprouting up all over campus. 

Rachel’s 3-4 class is writing an elementary school newspaper, and students have been interviewing friends and grown-ups for articles on topics ranging from playing soccer at recess in a more joyful and collaborative way… Littering on campus and stewardship… and AfterCare snacks. The seeds of this project started last year, when middle school students made a school newspaper that delighted Rachel’s class and inspired them to create their own. Last year, it was fully student-driven. 

This year, fourth-grade students invited the third-grade students into this aspect of their classroom culture, renaming it and reimagining it as a new group. When Rachel realized that everyone was involved, she turned it into a classroom curricular activity.

In December, Rachel answered two questions I had: 

What draws them to this project? “They really like working together. They really like collaborating, as in being the illustrator for a friend’s article. They love the idea of finding a role that fits them: who are our writers, who are our editors. They also know that they get to type their final products, so they get to use technology they don’t always get to, and elevated or more formal layout.”

What’s different from last year? “They are really trying to be conscious of their audience and write with elementary students in mind. Last year they were so focused on the writing and the proud feeling of sharing – this year they are imagining further down the chain. What will it be like to see someone reading this? It’s the next step of empathy as a writer, where they say: I want to say something not just because I love saying it, but I want to know what it’s like for you as a reader.”

Another big difference from last year is that now there is a thread about the history of Quaker publications as part of religious and political life for early Quakers. 

As Rachel shared: “It felt like a worthwhile project to center in the curriculum both because it was important to them and because of the lineage of Quaker journalism.” She showed me a book she has been using, Print Culture and the Early Quakers by Kate Peters. The first line states: “The early Quaker movement is remarkable for its prolific use of the printing press.” Among other things, excerpts from this book have helped Rachel explore with her students: the role of writing in the creation of shared ideas and the notable inclusion of women among the early Quakers. Even without knowing the printing press was so widely used among Quakers and the power of the Quaker pamphlet, it is easy to see the connections of commitment to truth-telling and wanting to share important messages. Another content connection is that one of the students writers chose to write an article about Quaker life at school.

FSP Parent, Rebecca Traister and political journalist, came to talk to the class about being a journalist and what it means to be a reporter. She discussed the idea of having a lede; the idea of a “nut graph” (an early paragraph after the lede that encapsulates the topic); the idea of having a thoughtful and powerful conclusion that leaves your reader thinking. She also taught the importance of structure: that a writer’s choices about putting the information in order for them will shape how their reader understands the information. She also emphasized the important idea that reporting is gathering accurate information, and reporters need to be trustworthy. 

One of my favorite aspects of this project that I have experienced firsthand has been the joy of being interviewed. I spoke with four students about their article topics, and I am not alone in this – I have seen adults and 3-4 students paired up around campus as students conduct interviews and take notes. They started by thinking about experts in their world and writing letters that invited adults into conversation. Billy was interviewed as an expert on sports at school, Robin was interviewed about outdoor education. Rachel described that this project has given kids opportunities to connect with adults in a new way.

When I asked Rachel in March what most excited her about this project, she replied: “Everyone has chosen a topic that is really important to them. They are taking their process and their product very seriously because they deeply want to be understood. There are ideas I didn’t even know were so exciting to people until they started working on these!” 

Keep your eye out at the end of April for “The Elementary News”!

Visiting Artists Belong at FSP

Visiting Artists' Week is an FSP tradition. This year's theme is "Belonging." This year, we welcomed 13 artists. Students had the opportunity to choose to work on a diverse array of different projects in multi-age classrooms.

Below are many photos and a little more about each artist who joined FSP to share their talents for the week:

Alana Dao is a mother and writer whose creative practice explores contemporary culture, food, and identity. Her work most often takes the form of artists' books, zines, and essays. She received a BA from Smith College and an MA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is currently an adjunct professor at MECA+D and Co-Director of A CLEARING, an artistic collaboration with a Maine based connection.

Christina Bechstein is an artist, mama + teacher who has created and taught in all kinds of spaces. She is deeply grateful for her many mentors and visionaries who continue to influence the studio, one in particular, Josephine Herrald Love, Detroit Arts leader – who told her that the job of an artist and teacher is to learn about children and that if all she ever did was make self-portraits with children over and over to learn about them, that would be a job well done. Christina has been making art with folks in gardens, churches, fire stations, art/architecture colleges, elementary + pre-schools, community centers + lots of spaces in-between, and has taught pre-school children all the way up to college students. Check out more at lovelabstudio.com.

Claire Loon Baldwin is a Maine-based illustrator, designer, and storyteller inspired by the surreal beauty of nature. She spent several years working as an environmental educator and national park ranger throughout the west, and strives to inspire wonder and reverence for the natural world with her art. In 2018, Claire created the official centennial poster series for Grand Canyon National Park. Since then, her clients have included the Maine Audubon Society, the Nature Conservancy, and Down East Magazine. Claire is currently working on her first book illustration project with DK Publishing. Her primary mediums include watercolor, ink, gouache, and digital media. https://www.claireloonbaldwin.com/

Izzy Van den Heuvel is a printmaker currently living in Portland, Maine and working as Printmaking Technician and Artist-in-Residence at Maine College of Art and Design. Izzy obtained her BA in Studio Art at Bard College, where she was named a Stanley Landsman Scholar and received the Elizabeth Murray and Sol Lewitt Studio Arts Award. Her work has been shown in galleries in Colorado, Maine, and New York, and is featured in the collections of Oehme Graphics and the U.S. State Department. https://www.izzyvandenheuvel.com/

Janoah Bailin, aka "Janoah the Jester," learned unicycling in the empty after-hour corridors of zir middle school. As a teenager, ze traveled New England with the award-winning Circus Smirkus Big Top Tour. Janoah is now Assistant Director for the Gym Dandies Children’s Circus of Scarborough (ME), as well as a coach for the Children's Circus of Middletown (CT). Ze has created and tours 3 interactive family shows that intermingle circus, contemporary dance, puppetry and storytelling: "SpinS" ("Best Variety" London Fringe 2019), "meSSeS," ("Spirit of the Fringe" Elgin Fringe 2022), and "rOng." These shows have toured from Halifax to Orlando ("Pick of the Kids Fringe 2023") to Vancouver and many places in between. Janoah has received the 2020 MAC Fellowship in the Performing Arts, as well as NEFA's Public Art Learning Fund 2022 and support from the Puffin Foundation. Ze is currently collaborating to create the Maine Youth Circus, and performing for festivals, stages and parades across North America, leaving behind a wake of tumbled juggling props.

Josie Colt is an interdisciplinary artist and community arts organizer with a special love for comics and story-telling. Drawing and writing serves as a therapeutic and fun process for Josie -- it's about the process, not the product! She loves sharing art with others and does so through organizing events with Congress Square Park and creating accessible figure drawing opportunities with Portland Drawing Group. She is also known for her pop-up portrait affair, Portraits As You Pass. Also a frame by frame animator, they have worked on multiple award winning films over recent years. 

Kiah Gardner is an artist, a mother, and a graduate from Maine College of Art & Design where she majored in Illustration and Art History. She spent the last 9 years as a library assistant where she led creative programs for ages pre-k to adult. She recently left her position to rekindle her art practice and follow wherever that path leads her. While she enjoys working with traditional materials, she finds most of her creative spark in objects like shells, bones, and wool, which she turns into artist books, alter spaces, needle felting and collage. Kiah’s Instagram is @kiahgardnerart.

Lisa DiFranza is a theater director and educator, with a strong collaborative background. During the Covid 19 pandemic, with collaborative work at a standstill, she painted every day. In the first year of the pandemic, Lisa created and posted 365 small paintings that, together, tell a story of that year. She used painting as a way of documenting what she was seeing and feeling, and as a means of communicating on line, when direct communication was so difficult. Since the world has opened up again, Lisa has spoken to groups about what that year taught her. She believes that the arts have enormous power to change lives, and to create and sustain communities. With this project at Friends School of Portland, she plans to invite students to share and communicate through a combination of visual and performing arts, and to experience the joyful energy of collective collaboration that is inherent in creating theater. The project will be grounded in the notion that (just as the folktale of “Stone Soup” illustrates) the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts. 

Marie Reimensnyder Camillo is an experienced educator who taught for many years at Fiddlehead School of Arts and Sciences and is a former retired FSP preschool teacher. She has taught everything from clay and printmaking to kindergarten and preschool. An experienced screen printer...many FSP faculty and students might already be sporting some of her designs! 

Megan (M.E.V) Franasiak is a Portland-based artist whose work ranges from handmade costumes, fiber work, drawing, performance, and writing. M.E.V.’s art concerns a drive for understanding in a seemingly incomprehensible world and explores ways in which we cope with this struggle. Their work can be found on mevf.me and also instagram @oh_sweet_beast.

Molly Brown is a visual artist, map-maker and geographer. She discovered geography at Middlebury College and went on to receive a Ph.D. in Human Geography from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She received a Watson Fellowship and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to explore the value of map-making for communities and individuals. Molly has worked in environmental and art education for organizations, universities and schools across the country. Her current projects involve map-making with children, conveying climate change through landscape painting, and custom maps for place-based organizations. 

Rich Entel is a visual artist who works in sculpture, painting, and printmaking. He lives in Portland and also works as a physician in the area. His daughter is a very happy kindergartener at FSP. www.entelmenagerie.squarespace.com

Sarah Navin is a fiction writer and comic artist. Her visual art has most recently been featured in the women-led comic collection "Let Her Be Evil," and her scripted podcast "Darker Further Down" is forthcoming on streaming platforms, based on her comic of the same name.

Bird is the Word: A Kindergarten Exploration

Bird is the word in the kindergarten room. 

"Why are the animals hibernating?"

"How do birds keep warm?"

"Why do birds fly away in the winter?"

"Why don't their nests just blow away in a storm?" 

"Do they have a top on their nest so they don't get snow on them?"

"How can they keep warm if their nest is open?" 

"What are their nests made out of?"

Each season, children in kindergarten go on a “wander.” During their Winter Wander, students noticed their surroundings and then made a list of their questions -- including a few from above. Many of the questions were about birds which gave way to launch their exploration and study of birds!  

Children began by noticing the features that make a bird a bird through observational drawings and viewing from the bird perch in their classroom loft to begin identifying the birds that visit their feeders. The class collected data about the kinds of birds that make their homes in our forest.  

Then, each child chose a bird local to Maine to become the expert on. Children were encouraged to have conversations with their families about their birds, looking for books or information to read together with their families to begin becoming experts. Over the next couple of weeks, children learned about their bird's diet, winter adaptations, nesting habits, body parts, song/call, and behavior through observation. 

Children learned about the size of their bird, found a stick that was the same size as their bird, and then put the bird sticks in order from smallest to largest. 

Many of the wonders kindergarteners had about birds revolved around their nesting habits. After reading Mama Built a Little Nest, kindergarteners and their muddy buddies built their own nests. Together they identified a safe place to build their nest that wouldn't be blown away by a snowstorm and would be safe from predators. It was more challenging than it sounds! 

A field trip to the Maine Audubon was packed with bird-related exploration. Kindergarteners used identification guides to determine what kinds of birds they were seeing, then recorded how many of each bird they observed on tally charts. Then, the children settled into stillness. Holding handfuls of birdseed, children hoped a chickadee might come over and have a snack right out of their mittens. 

Kindergarteners have observed the bird life returning more and more around us. Children came to the classroom after February break with stories about the birds they heard and saw over vacation, and the new research they are undertaking at home about birds they are excited about. Parents have shared stories like: “Oh, I see a tufted titmouse. I’ve got to tell Julian.” “They just said that The Black Crows are playing this song on the radio. That’s Abby’s band.” Students have become experts on their birds and notice their friends' birds, too!  

Branching Out and Rooting Down: FSP's Strategic Plan

Pictured above: Students coloring together on the floor during the potluck Contra dance kick off to our Strategic Plan. It was an evening of good food, conversation, and something for everyone!

In January, we had a celebratory potluck Contra Dance to kick off our Strategic Plan. I was introduced to the magic of the FSP potluck, where the quantity, variety, and pacing of foods not just works out but massively delights!

It has been a while since FSP has hosted a potluck or contra dance, though I had heard about the "old days" of Outing Club potlucks and Harvest Fests. It was a delight that Maggie who has called at many of these FSP events was able to join us with a band. Our former head of school James Grumbach, Pam Grumbach, and former board member, Sam Solish, pulled up benches and instruments to join in. The room was full of friends who know FSP from all our years!

Afterwards, a middle schooler said: “Me and my mom used to contra dance when I was little, so it reminds me of when I was younger.” Our office manager Jenni shared: “It was my first Contra Dance! There was a lot of energy in the room.” 

The potluck and contra dance was paired with the launching of our new five-year Strategic Plan. Board members took time after finishing up dinner to share our three visions, the initiatives already in progress, and the work on the horizon.

Here are our three visions for the next five years, with the corresponding snapshots of the ways these visions have been “operationalized” into initiatives in progress during Year 1:

We will nurture and invest in a diverse community, where each person is valued, cared for, and belongs.

• We will spend the next 3-5 years sending every teacher in the building to the Responsive Classroom training, our school-wide approach to advisory and social-emotional behavioral learning.

• With the support of a grant this year, our Quaker Life Committee is writing and self-publishing a Faith and Practice booklet which will provide guidance internally about the ways Quakerism supports and informs our practices.

• With the support of a grant from the Obadiah Brown Benevolent Fund, we have joined up with a consultant who will lead us in a community-wide Equity Audit in the 2024-25 school year. Our equity audit will be a collaborative self-study that will leave us with new tools and new answers to the question: What will FSP be willing to do in order to achieve new outcomes?

We will strengthen our inquiry-based, community-engaged program so that our students are prepared to enter the world with confidence, competence, joy, and a sense of purpose. 

• In formalizing our commitment to overnight trips in grades 3-8, we are in the process of building the role of trip coordinator and developing further trip leadership guidance for our faculty.

• Inquiry will be our professional development focus for the 24-25 school year.

• This summer, Eliza Robinson will work on systematizing our After School offerings.

We will prepare for the future with a sustainable financial model, consistent with our Quaker values of integrity, truth, equality, peace, community, and simplicity.

• We are convening an investment committee, tasked with creating investment policies and reviewing them at appropriate and regular intervals; reviewing our investments; and making recommendations to the board in January and June about the growth and sustainability of our endowment.

• An ad hoc committee is finalizing the job description for a part-time facilities role

• We committed to hosting our annual parent pledge drive in the Fall instead of the Spring.  

A strategic plan is not a checklist; it is a direction. We are grateful for the vision and voices that have contributed to the initial planning process, the continued inquiry process, and the operationalizing of our plan. We continue to call on our strong community to keep us moving forward.

FSP Students and Grads in the News! Climate Change and Coastal Erosion

Pictured above: Seventh and eighth-grade students planting dune grass in South Portland on Willard Beach. Their efforts to limit coastal erosion and recent environmental justice project were recently spotlighted in the local news.

"I've grown up spending so much time on beaches. I am really interested in coastal erosion and how climate change affects our beaches in Maine. I was really excited to learn about this project in South Portland and how my class could be involved," shared an FSP seventh-grade student about his year-end project.

His class teamed up with former FSP science teacher and alum parent Jamien P'20 '21 and FSP grad Tristram Howard'12 to plant dune grass to limit coastal erosion in South Portland.

Both News Center Maine and Channel 8 News spotlighted this important work:

State of School: February Recap

Pictured above: Preschool students circling up in a snowstorm of handmade snowflakes with FSP grad Flora Bliss'20.

Over Zoom, early in February, I hosted my third State of the School. Preparing for this reflection of the school year has become a valuable practice to me that I look forward to. I want to share a snapshot of that evening.

Our financials tell a simple and affirming story, which is that we make careful decisions and we are in excellent shape. We’re in a good position because of strong enrollment and people who contribute, as well as the leadership that preceded me and the responsible work of current and past board members. The finance committee meets monthly to review, present, and make proposals to the board. Each fall, our financials are reviewed by an external accounting firm. The personnel committee meets about three or four times per year to review policies and explore how we can better compensate our faculty and staff.

One teacher who has worked at FSP since 2010 remarked that the opening “Year in Numbers” gave such a vivid snapshot of the moment of growth we are in as a school. I have divided these numbers into two categories, using the language of our Strategic Plan, as some have to do with rooting down into our campus and building, and some have to do with branching out into the wider community and world.

The Year in Numbers (February 2024)

Rooting Down:

141 students

103 households

23 zip codes

25 full-time staff

14 part-time staff (includes Summer Camp and AfterCare staff)

73 acres to explore (between FSP which sits on 21 acres and Falmouth Land Trust’s abutting property of 52 acres)

27 Middle School Ambassadors giving tours at 2 Open Houses!

430 Solar Panels which helped us to generate….

41,456 kWh more energy than we consumed. We are net positive! 

Branching Out:

108 graduates 

5 cross country meets that the girls won this year (all of them!)

21 After School Activities run so far this year

10 years of ice skating at Falmouth Family rink! 

35 Field Trips 

+ 49 Library Trips

13 Visiting Artists coming in March

1 more summer camp week added for summer 2024

0 visiting committees this year (NEASC, Strategic Plan, Friends Council)

As I said at the State of the School, it is such a thrill to be part of this community at the moment it is sending out its first wave of adult grads into the world. We are still a young school, not just in the age of our school – but in the age of our graduates. The vast majority of our graduates are still in high school and college. It’s been so informative and affirming how grads think back on their time at FSP. The core of what many alums talk to me about when talking about FSP are: Quaker values, adventurous exploratory time outdoors, their love of learning, and feeling truly respected by FSP adults.

“I didn't realize how much I miss this feeling of welcomeness that can't be found everywhere. I enjoyed helping (the youngest campers) interact with each other the same way Friends taught me to treat others.” – Tess McNally ‘20

“It is such a talent to be able to create a bond with a middle school student that is genuine, and appropriate, and treats them like a person with real thoughts and feelings. Teachers at FSP did that so well. – Annie Gott ‘12

“My relationships with teachers and mentors at FSP is something I truly cherish – both then and now! ” – Saharla Farah ‘15

Friends School's Board Is Seeking New Members

At the beginning of February, we held our third annual Board Visit Day! ✨

It was a chance for faculty, staff, students, and parents to get acquainted or reacquainted with this group of people who care so much about FSP. Classroom visits, spending time in the snow at recess, conversations with parents over coffee, and a delicious dessert potluck.

Interested in joining this hearty crew of FSP supporters? We are seeking new board members to leverage their skills and expertise to help us steward Friends School of Portland!

If you would like more information about what serving on FSP's Board or a Board Committee entails, please click on the below links or send an email to our Board Governance Committee Clerk, Jason Wentworth P'21, at boardgov@friendsschoolportland.org.

If you are interested in joining FSP's board start with this interest form:

If you would like to nominate a potential FSP board member start with this nominating form:

Launching into the Next 5 Years with a Contra Dance and Potluck: “Rooting Down, Branching Out” FSP’s Strategic Plan

A big hearty thank you to all who came out to learn about FSP's 5-year strategic plan, share food, and dance this weekend. What a glorious night of tasty dishes and do-si-does!

So many families, friends, and Friends came on Saturday evening to launch our five-year strategic plan with a potluck and contra dance! It was wonderful to have two former heads of school there too, James Grumbach and Jenny Rowe. We had musicians and a caller who’d also joined FSP in the past for Harvest Fest at Broadturn Farm and dances at Carter Hall on Mackworth Island.

Learn more about FSP’s Strategic Plan “Rooting Down, Branching Out” on our website here:

The Evolution of FSP's Outdoor Kindergarten Program

Before winter break, in our weekly Wednesday all-school community meeting, kindergarteners gave a “thought for the week” for the school community about the work, learning, and play they do in the forest each week. Using a slide show to show us their forest world, kindergarteners explained how they spend each Thursday and Friday in the forest, where they write in their forest journals, do chores to take care of the space, work on projects, cook food together, and learn how to be in community with one another and with the natural world. When asked which of the SPICES their work in the forest connects to, one kindergartener answered, “Community, because none of what’s out there is yours. It belongs to everyone.”  

Friends School of Portland’s founding location on Mackworth Island provided opportunities for students to engage with and learn from the island’s woods and waters. Place-based learning on Mackworth became a cornerstone of FSP’s early curriculum, and students who attended FSP on the island spent their early childhood years (and a good deal of time in later grades) exploring the shores, woods, and hills of the island.  

In preparation for the move to our current location in 2015, teachers brainstormed ways we could use the new land intentionally to strengthen students’ learning experiences outside. Inspired by existing forest kindergarten models both in the United States and abroad, FSP’s kindergarten took the opportunity that our new space in Cumberland provided to launch a “forest morning” program one morning each week. The woods around our new home gave us the opportunity to establish a more permanent homebase for the forest program that was not possible on the island. 

As Aja Stephan, former kindergarten teacher put it in 2016, “We decided having an ‘educational forest’ would be the best way to give young kids the chance to have wild play in the woods and still conserve the majority of our forest. Along with that, we thought the best way to get us outdoors, really and truly, was to build it into the curriculum for a large portion of one day a week, all day long.” Soon after, with the help of volunteers, many of them parents, we built a fire pit and a platform canvas tent, and the kindergarteners worked with their teachers to define boundaries between the forest classroom and the wild forest.

FSP’s forest kindergarten program has continued to evolve with intention each year. Carie Garrett and Robin Booty, the current kindergarten team, have grown the program to two full days each week, and they have worked to codify and articulate the competencies students are working toward in the forest: stewardship, independence, community, responsibility, self-regulation, and curiosity. As Carie and Robin have written in a recent guide to the Forest program:

“... The kindergarten class at FSP understands what it means to have water to wash hands in the outdoor classroom because they lug jugs of water all the way up the hill to our forest, so when it is their turn to wash their hands they conserve what we have. The very real applications of developing skills help children know themselves, push themselves to try new things, and use these skills in new ways when they are learning and growing across environments.     

"Children form and deepen relationships with themselves, each other, and the world around them through their work in the outdoor classroom. They learn to regulate themselves, to ask questions and seek answers, to look out for their classmates, and to take care of our natural world. Then they take this learning with them beyond their kindergarten experience.”

Forest kindergarten is now a cornerstone of our early childhood program that students recall and build on as they grow through the grades at FSP. As we move forward, we will continue to explore ways to deepen and strengthen the program, including our forest classroom infrastructure, so it lives on as a foundation and rite of passage for all future FSP kindergarteners.

Love of Learning: Middle School Electives

Pictured above: Students designed and built their own trebuchet to launch objects in the woods and the courtyard.

Middle School school students have just wrapped up a season of electives. The choices are a combination of student interests and teacher passions. It is an exciting process to see what teachers want to offer and what students are interested in delving into more.

The recent offerings ranged:

• Theatre Games and Improv

• Narrative Poetry

• Making a Trebuchet

• Nature Art

• Moving Mindfully

• Creating Leather Wallets

• Learning to Draw Like Picasso

• Helping in the Preschool Helpers

Here's a glimpse into electives this Fall...

Each student in the Narrative Poetry elective spent time working on a poem, learned the process of submitting work to a publication, and then on the last day of their elective each student submitted their work. Below is one student’s poem that he submitted to The New Yorker.

Students followed the curriculum that Picasso used to learn how to draw to develop their own artistic skills.

Students tending to a fire while building a bench and a bookshelf outdoors.

Students cut leather, used special tools to create patterns, and sewed their own leather wallets.

Seventh-grade students spent time in the preschool assisting with projects and learning from FSP's preschool team about child development.

Students learned to propagate plant clippings and created small potted plants to distribute to homebound elders through Meals on Wheels.

Black Ash Tree Research and Seed Collection: Seventh and Eighth-Grade Science

A seventh-grade student described how “it feels good to know that what you are learning about is something that you can help with.” He was speaking about his science class research project through the University of Maine’s Ash Protection Collaboration Across Wabanakik (APCAW). This Fall, students mapped trees on our property, learned how to identify the presence of the Emerald Ash Borer, and ventured to the neighboring Royal River watershed to collect Black Ash Tree seed.  

Seventh and eighth-grade students began their study of the Emerald Ash Borer with a visit from Nell at the Wild Seed Project. Students generated questions initial questions. 

Where are EAB native to? 

How do we identify ash trees?

Are they hard to grow? 

Why is it an ash tree in the Wabanaki creation story?

Why do 1% of ash trees survive EAB?

What makes an ash tree better for making baskets?

How many ash trees are there?

Then students went to work discovering answers to their questions and asking new questions. The seventh and eighth-grade science classes worked with The Wild Seed Project, Falmouth Land Trust, and the University of Maine. Students watched They Carry Us With Them: Richard Silliboy – Jeremy Seifert to gain insight into the importance that black and brown ash plays in Wabanaki identity. 

The Falmouth Land Trust and Wild Seed Project worked with students on identification and mapping. Students learned to identify the three main species of Ash in Maine, and in particular, identify the trees that we have on our school campus and the neighboring land trust property. Students then participated in the APCAW research project implementing protocols to identify the presence of EAB. And then, students had the opportunity to learn to harvest seeds from green ash and black trees near the Royal River.  

In early November, seventh and eighth-grade students shared their field experiences and research on the Black Ash Tree and Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) over a state-wide Zoom with the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. Students also had the opportunity to ask questions with scientists working on this project. Later in November, students from King Middle School in Portland visited. Students shared their research and findings with peers just beginning a study of Ash trees.   

"When I thought about what kind of science teacher I wanted to be, this is the work that I hoped I would be doing" shared 7-8 Science Teacher, Nicole.

Seventh-grade parent, Sarah Griffiths P’25, shared “ It is clear that my daughter and her classmates feel like true scientists as the data they are collecting is valued and will have a lasting impact in Maine’s forests.” 

Supporting Friends School of Portland's Annual Fund

All gifts, large and small, make a difference in sustaining the education and community at Friends School of Portland. There are many different ways to make a gift. One way that friends make gifts is through appreciated securities.

At Friends School, we have maintained an account through TDAmeritrade to accept gift of stocks. This account has recently changed hands to Charles Schwab. If you typically prefer to make gifts to FSP using this method, please note that this change went into effect on December 1, 2023. We have posted our new transaction information on our website giving page found below.

If you are curious about learning more about donating through appreciated securities, please reach out to Development Director, Brooke Burkett (207) 558-6214 or (brooke@friendsschoolportland.org).

Heart Work: Committee Work

Pictured above: Storytelling with retired FSP teacher, Linda Ashe-Ford during a recent Friday all-school assembly.

Committee work is the engine of how our school runs. Students, parents, faculty and staff, board members, grandfriends, and Friends engage in different ways to move projects they are passionate about to fruition. Recently, the Outdoor Spaces faculty committee came together to have a new swingset installed. The committee worked together to choose the equipment and organize the installation.  

Committee work is critical at the board level as well. FSP’s board has a handful of committees that each meet once per month: Finance, Governance, Development, and School Safety. There are also board committees that meet a few times per year: the Personnel and Executive Committees. Each board member is a member of at least one committee and board committees often include community members who are not board members.  

There are a handful of faculty and staff committees: Assembly Committee, Hiring Committees, Faculty Clerks, Outdoor Spaces, Student Integrity, Multilingual Learners, and a Love Week Committee. Every faculty and staff member belongs to at least one committee. Committees such as Quaker Life, Parenting for Peace, Visiting Artists’ Week, and Point Parents tend to have more varied representation including faculty, staff, parents, and students.     

Committee work at a Quaker school can also be characterized as “Meeting for Business,” which is a way of saying there can be something spiritual about working collectively, listening deeply, and letting a group goal evolve. This article from Friends Journal describes what it can be like to clerk a committee.

Love Week happens every February, based on “Spring Fever” week, a model from the Netherlands where schools spend an intensive week each year with students from ages four through adolescence focusing on relationship and sexual health education. 

The Love Week committee, which has representation of each grade level, meets three or four times a year. Each academic year, the committee sets a new goal based on where they are with their ongoing work. In 2023, the Love Week Committee considered the National Sex Education Standards through an organization called FoSE (Future of Sex Education) and made a new Scope and Sequence for FSP. This February, each grade level band will have the chance to review and assess the new Scope and Sequence.

Just like with math and literacy, we aim for students to have a developmental progression from preschool through eighth grade on this subject. Aliza Gordon, 5-6 teacher and clerk of the committee, said: “I do really think of this committee as one about student rights. We really want students to have this knowledge.” She pointed to a description from the national standards: We “recognize young people’s rights to honest sexual health education.” Aliza also added: “A Scope and Sequence doesn’t tell a teacher how to teach; teachers use their own best practices and knowledge of their students to apply the standards.” 

Carie Garrett, Kindergarten teacher and a member of Love Week Committee, shared: “I see this as identity work. From the lower school perspective, a big part of our Love Week work is helping students to know themselves and their boundaries – and what kinds of friends they want to be. That moves up the age progression little by little until people can really speak up for themselves and their identity at every age level.”                             

A big thank you to the Love Week Committee as we approach Love Week 2024, as well as to everyone serving on a committee that supports Friends School.

Other glimpses into faculty committee work in the past months:

• In early 2024, the Quaker Life committee will be compiling and crafting an FSP Faith and Practice booklet which will be used to share our common understandings of Quaker practice and ideology. We received a grant from the Sue Thomas Turner Fund to create and publish this booklet for our community.

• Visiting Artists’ Week committee wrote this guiding mission statement in June of 2023, which just recently anchored its past few committee meetings when searching and hiring artists for the upcoming Spring 2024 event: The Visiting Artists program gives students new, creative experiences both in its variety of art forms and artists, holding central the school’s values of community, truth, and joy. 

• The Assembly Committee organizes a weekly gathering for students on Fridays. In December, the Assembly Committee was particularly excited to bring retired teacher, Linda Ashe-Ford, in for a special storytelling assembly.

Cross Country Spotlights

Friends School of Portland has two teams this year: Grades 3-5 and Grades 6-8. Each week students practice rain or shine and run in meets across Southern Maine. There have been some epic sunny meets and others in downpours this season. A big shout out to the girl's Grade 6-8 team who have been on fire...and won all their meets to date!

Here are a few shout-outs from students and parents about what they have loved about this year's cross-country season:

"The best part of the race is the end of the race! People cheer!" - Fourth-grade student

"I think that my favorite part is going to be the pizza party that we have at the end of the season." - Fourth-grade student

"I really love having a supportive team. And just all the good people around. I love it!" - Third-grade student

"Everything is my favorite part of the season so far. Mostly the running... it's my third year." - Eighth-grade student

"This is the after-school activity for me!" - Eighth-grade student

"It's the bright spot of my day hanging out with these kids." Parent

"I love it too much. Happy tears at each race." - Parent

"I really enjoy watching children show and share their love of the sport!" - Parent

Rocky Shore Ecosystems with Third and Fourth-Grade Students

Both Lindsay and Rachel's 3-4 classes headed out this Fall to Kettle Cove Beach to explore the rocky shores as they prepare to launch into their Casco Bay Ecosystems studies.

Here's a recent snapshot from Lindsay's class outing:

On our trip to Kettle Cove, we explored the different intertidal zones we had learned about in class. We were lucky to be there at low tide, and we walked all the way out into the lower intertidal zone. We played in the tidepools, made hypotheses about what we were seeing, and identified species. As we walked back, we noticed how things were changing as we went from zone to zone. We were surprised by how obvious it was to see the differences. We got back to our picnic spot and looked back to find that the different tidal zones were literally color-coded. The kids guessed that it was because of the amount of sunlight that hit different zones when they were out of water. It was a pretty cool moment!

As we gathered for snack, we read a chapter of Braiding Sweetgrass For Young Adults by Robin Wall Kimmerer. We read about indigenous wisdom and different ways of being in relation with the land.

"The land is the real teacher. All we need as students of the land is mindfulness. Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world and receiving the teachings with open eyes, open mind, and open heart."

We took some time to pay attention and kids got out art supplies and had some time to capture what they were seeing and feeling. We practiced this again back at school while looking at goldenrods and asters. Although they don't have much to do with rocky shore ecosystems, they are having their moment, and we had to stop and watch! Have your child show you the "yellow paper trick", and see what they can tell you about the relationship between goldenrods and asters!

A highlight of the week was when one of the students used one of the vocabulary words, and said, "The bees were so tenacious!", another quickly quoted a Kahlil Gibran poem from last week and shouted, "We are the seeds of a tenacious plant!" 

Quaker Life Committee: Lifting Up the Testimonies of Integrity and Community

The Quaker Life Committee (QLC) is a small group of board members, faculty and staff, and students that meet monthly to support Quakerism at Friends School. Among many aspects of Quakerism at FSP, the committee discusses ways to support and scaffold weekly all-school Meeting for Worship.

It is a common practice at Friends Schools across the world to choose a testimony a year to lift up. This year, the QLC recommended that we trial choosing a Quaker testimony pairing to delve into, school-wide. As a faculty and staff, we set aside time during a recent Friday staff meeting to discuss which pairing we might begin with. From that discussion, the testimonies that rose were Integrity and Community.

This focus on two testimonies does not mean that we won’t incorporate Peace, Stewardship, Simplicity, Equality, Truth, and Continuing Revelation into the classroom and school year. Rather, it allows us to lift up and more deeply concentrate on Integrity and Community. We look forward to what this experiment might bring to our school year!

Additionally, the work of the Quaker Life Committee this year will include the creation of a Faith + Practice book. Many Quaker Schools have a compilation of their Quaker practices, queries, and history. As a young school, we just received a grant from the Sue Thomas Turner Fund to create and compile our own. We took time to reflect on the question: How do we see Quaker testimonies in action at FSP?

Here are a few thoughts:

"I appreciate how the testimonies keep me grounded in both the "what" (the meaning of the testimony) and the "how" (the process or manifestation of the term). Discussing integrity WITH integrity; discussing simplicity in ways that dispense with complicated rumination."

"I think the Quaker testimonies tend to emerge when we aren't actively thinking about them -- especially in the numerous interactions each day when the bigger kids are taking time to really see the younger ones and vice versa."

"I see the testimonies as an important framing for the work that we do each day. And the ways that we show up as teachers, staff, students, and families."

"This morning, after the kids shared their identity project gallery, we gathered for our morning silence to start the day. Out of the silence, kids were asked to think about the experience of being seen and seeing others. It’s moments like these that I really feel like the Quaker testimonies are in action. Last year, it comes to mind, our essential question was around truth we really thought hard about how me maintain integrity within the science community linking that work to internal and external validity of data."

"I like looking at a single span of a week to see how the testimonies are alive at FSP. I picture them as a braided thread that tracks through the entire building. Similar to the string and nails in the identity sculptures on display this week, I see so many interconnections between and stories told in the overlaps and links."

New Faces at FSP

Art Teacher, Yasamin: “What I am enjoying about this school year is getting to know the students, and with each day feeling more in tune with the rhythms of the school, and feeling inspired by the creativity and bravery of these young artists.”

5-6 Humanities Teacher, Colin: “It’s been wonderful to get to know the students and school better. We had a morning meeting in Bird Land and I loved seeing a place that was special to them.”

1-2 Class Assistant, MC: “I’ve enjoyed rekindling my professional partnership with Xanthe. I love our open dialogue and communication, and together working on making things better for the students.”

What is Identity?: Identity Work in Seventh and Eighth-Grade Classes

What is identity?

“Education (as contrasted with training) comes from community and creates community. When a meeting [for learning] breaks, the community goes out to embrace people and events in new and more powerful ways. When the community meets again, they bring all of that back with them, to hold in the light.”

– Parker Palmer, Meeting for Learning: Education in a Quaker Context

At Friends School of Portland, teachers use essential questions (one might think of them as the education version of a query) to invite reflection, help students build connections across disciplines, encourage inquiry, and shape the work of the year together. This year, the seventh and eighth graders are exploring the question, “What is identity?”. In addition to voicing a critical developmental question for early adolescents the world over, this question will shape FSP seventh and eighth-grade students’ curriculum this year.

During advisory time, students have been exploring their own identities and the ways in which identity shapes them, their views, and their communities. This is both academic work and social-emotional work. When we make space for children to explore and share their identities with one another, we build classroom communities that welcome each student fully into the community. This work is necessary for supporting all children to be able to take the risks they need to learn and grow, and it’s equally necessary to our work toward equity more generally.

Pictured above: Students are creating artistic representations of their identities– thinking about how to represent aspects of their identities that are visible or invisible, central or peripheral. A gallery walk was open to students and families to view.

In the seventh and eighth-grade classes, this work will not only lay the groundwork for a strong and inclusive classroom community, but it will also prepare seventh and eighth-grade students to examine their essential question through various academic inquiries this year as they engage with and build new understanding of communities beyond the classroom walls. At the end of last month, representatives from Toward Right Relationship with Native Peoples led FSP seventh and eighth-grade students in a workshop about Native sovereignty. Students are just beginning a science unit working with the University of Maine project Ash Protection Collaboration Across Wabanakik, through which students will learn about citizen science, ecology, conservation, and Wabanaki identity and sovereignty. In humanities, students will engage with colonialism and its connections with identity and to current world events. Ultimately, through this work, we hope to create a space for students to understand and engage more deeply with themselves, their communities, and their world, to (in Parker Palmer's words) “embrace people and events in new and more powerful ways,” and to “bring all of that back with them, to hold in the light.”

Pictured above: Seventh and eighth-grade students learning about colonialism, imperialism, and the “scramble for Africa”

Perspectives On Our Strategic Planning Process: Rachel Fischhoff

Rachel Fischhoff joined Friends School of Portland as a Lead 3-4 Classroom Teacher in the Fall of 2022. She jumped right into the strategic planning process as a Strategic Plan Design Committee member.

How would you characterize the FSP strategic planning process?

I would characterize the FSP strategic planning process as collaborative. I was impressed by how consistently and effectively stakeholders with diverse perspectives were brought into the process. And the process was iterative--as a teacher, there were multiple moments where I had the opportunity to share my ideas and feedback.

What was it like being on the Strategic Plan Design Committee?

I loved getting to know FSP through my participation in the SPDC. As a newcomer to the community, it was a great way to fast track my understanding of the school's history, to meet parents and board members I might not have otherwise, and to step back and see how my classroom community fits into a much larger ecosystem.

What did you learn from the 10-month process?

This summer I've been reading Priya Parker's book The Art of Gathering. I'm thinking a lot about what it means to bring people together for a common purpose, in and out of the classroom. As I'm reflecting on the strategic planning process, I've noticed how different people were "hosting" different parts of the journey--our facilitator Courtney, administrators like Sara and Nell, parents, and members of the design committee--and I was able to learn from all of them. It was a unique opportunity to see people in our community leading, caring, guiding, and listening.

What advice would you offer FSP as we live the plan?

I'm hoping that we can hold onto the memory of the process that led us to the final plan. I want to remember how many community members brought their wisdom to bear in the crafting of this ambitious plan. I want to remember that this plan wasn't designed to be easy or frictionless; it was designed to push us in the direction of our shared values. I'm hoping we will be kind to ourselves when we stumble while remaining steadfast in our resolve. 

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Learn more about our Strategic Plan and planning process…

Rooting Down, Branching Out: Strategic Plan 2023-2028