Perspectives on Our Strategic Planning Process: Courtney Bourns

Pictured above: Courtney Bourns facilitating the first meeting of the Strategic Planning Design Committee in October 2022.

Courtney Bourns joined us early in our strategic planning process as consultant and facilitator. She ran multiple sessions with board members, faculty & staff, all community events. She facilitated both the Strategic Planning Design Committee and the Strategy Teams that shaped our final plan.

What are your guiding principles when it comes to strategic planning?

I have an organic approach to strategic planning. I do a lot of careful listening on the front end of the process to get a sense of the organization I'm working with, what is their culture, what are their core values, what is their style? And then I design a strategic planning process to meet them where they are and fit their style and values.

In general, I would say my guiding principles are: be grounded in the guiding values of the organization, design for maximum collaboration and trust emergence. These principles felt like a good fit for Friends school of Portland. You are such a values-driven school, and because I was also raised in a Quaker school community, it felt easy to connect to your style and approach. I really enjoyed the challenge of creating a process that would support you to achieve the results of a clear strategic plan and be consistent with Quaker values.

How did you develop the timeline and phases for the strategic planning process?

I start with a basic template for strategic planning that I learned early in my career from the Interaction Institute for Social Change. The basic questions of most strategic planning frameworks start with: Where are we now? Where do we want to be? and How will we get there? Once we have a really strong sense of the current context and starting place for the strategic plan, I next focus on understanding the stakeholders who need to be involved. Once we knew those pieces, we mapped out the key decisions that needed to be made and put them into sequenced phases with a timeline that fit with your school calendar. In my view, it doesn’t make sense for organizations to go through a strategic planning process in exactly the same way, because organizations go through life cycles, and at different life cycles, you have different kinds of strategic questions to answer. So we began by reflecting on what you already knew and what you needed to wrestle with next. This is why I say that one of the values that I'm guided by is emergence, because it's only through situating ourselves in your current moment and then co-creating a process with you that I can design something that will work.

Why is right now an important moment for FSP?

Right now is an important moment for Friends School of Portland because you are evolving to a new stage of organizational maturity. In some ways this is a challenging period for an organization. You have moved past that sparky kind of startup energy that is often present in the early years of an organization and you're moving into a stage that calls for solidifying processes and cultural norms, but of course you want to keep alive the spirit that animates the school. So that presents some interesting challenges. One way to keep it exciting is to recognize this as its own kind of ‘new chapter.’

What were some takeaways from the process?

That's an interesting question. I think we managed to strike the right balance between keeping the process moving forward while also taking enough time to hear from many of the people who care deeply about the school. That is always a tricky balance to strike. I care a lot about hearing from more people and it's very important to me that everybody feels honored and included in the process. I could tell that was very important to you as well. And yet, in organizational life, you have to keep moving forward and so sometimes that feels a little unsatisfying in terms of taking all the time you'd want to take to listen to people. In this case, I felt like we managed that balance pretty well.

What about FSP's Strategic Plan do you find exciting?

I found it exciting to see the final strategic areas of focus come into view. It's always a bit of a leap of faith that the plan will come together, and yet I've done it enough now to know that some clarity of focus and direction always emerges as you get toward the end of the process. I feel like where you landed is very authentic to who you are and to what your school needs right now. I also felt that the board and the leadership of the school took very seriously the commitment to listening to parents and students and faculty--especially faculty and staff. Your commitment to having their voices be central to the shaping of this close future was evident.

I was also struck by how much the people in your community care about one another. You model a way of being that I know many other organizations are trying to achieve, namely, a deep commitment to building the kind of relational trust that is necessary for an organization to function in a collaborative and strategic way. It was a pleasure to get to be a part of that for a year.

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Learn more about our Strategic Plan and planning process…

Rooting Down, Branching Out: Strategic Plan 2023-2028

Perspectives On Our Strategic Planning Process: James Grumbach

James Grumbach is a familiar face at Friends School of Portland. He was the first head of Friends School of Portland from 2007-2012. He is currently on the Board of Directors and a grandfather to 4 FSP students. Here are a few thoughts from James on his involvement in his second strategic planning process at Friends School.

How did you feel going into this strategic planning process and how did you feel afterwards?

To begin with, I’m not a fan of strategic planning, but it serves an important purpose. I’m skeptical of the strategic plan part of the function; from my perspective, its best use is as a community-building exercise and a consensus-building exercise.

One of the things I liked about this strategic planning process was, as I recall, it started with the question of “What are we doing well right now?” I think that’s a great place to start because it recognizes that we are in fact doing a lot of things well. We want to focus the strategic planning on those things that we either are not doing and we think we should, or the things we think we could be doing better.

One of the reasons I remain a little bit skeptical is that external pressures are so hard to predict.

You respond to them as best you can and they can change your direction. I think by beginning with “What are we doing well?”, that affirms our fundamental values. What we are trying to accomplish comes from our values.

What is FSP doing well?

I have really wanted the school to have good Quaker process, and the values that drive that process. I have a sense that we’ve accomplished that, and I feel as though we are a Quaker School, whatever that slightly different flavor from other independent schools is. How that fundamentally impacts students is: allowing students to be and to discover, and to become, who they authentically are – and to build confidence around that. We have anecdotal information that many of our students come out of FSP with that good sense of themselves, their ability to engage with adults. That’s the root of what we do well. In addition to that, our students are academically well-prepared, which many families are looking for. That culture of joy we’ve built around learning – I think students really get excited about school, and they authentically want to come to school each day.

How would you characterize the moment FSP is in right now?

Part of the answer is that we’re certainly past our startup years, maybe what you’d call our adolescent years. To use that as an analogy, we are heading into early adulthood.

There was a lot of excitement around the school starting. We did bring something new to the area. There was not just trepidation but excitement when we created the new campus. That move succeeded beyond what we’d imagined. Here we are, well established on this campus.

From the board perspective, we are not going to keep growing in numbers so the increasing challenges will be financial. Therefore, there are some opportunities. For example, it seems to me that the opportunity to continue to grow the summer program helps bring in more income, and maybe opens us up to other revenue streams that we haven’t identified yet. Challenge will bring opportunities.

What were your main impressions of the process?

It seemed to me that a lot of people did a lot of work, and justifiably so. It did not feel like a burden to the board. It seems to me that the strategic planning committee, which certainly had board representation, was well-organized and made sure to reach out. There was a lot of inclusion. The committee came back several times to touch base with the board: this is how it’s shaping, and what do you see? We were asked for our affirmation or some massaging – we had ample opportunity to do that.

What about the content of FSP's Strategic Plan do you find exciting?

We had good conversations about how the financial goals enable the other goals.

Frankly, the part I’m most excited about is the community engagement piece. That’s the piece that has not had as much attention because of how much else has had to happen in the startup of a school. I would like to see more outreach and connection, and that’s part of the avenue to becoming a more diverse community.

On the program piece, I know that can always be fine-tuned – being more integrated. I think the scaffolding in that part is exciting and important.

Any parting words or blessings for our next five years?

My well wishes are for continued staffing stability starting with the administration. I would love to see our current administrative team around when we’re ready for the next strategic planning session. There is an intentionality among the administrative team that I am proud of.

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Learn more about our Strategic Plan and planning process…

Rooting Down, Branching Out: Strategic Plan 2023-2028

Reading with Instead of Reading to: Picture Book Possibilities with Middle School Assistant Nadja

photo credit: Kelsey Kobik

Once our middle school hit its full capacity for the 2022-23 school year, Nadja Tiktinksy joined us in our newly created position of middle school assistant teacher. As middle school assistant teacher, Nadja spends one full day with each classroom teacher per week, helps students one-on-one with their work, teaches a range of creative electives, and steps in as primary coverage whenever a middle school teacher is out. As often happens at Friends School, there was some cross-pollination which led to her sharing her expertise and passion beyond the middle school hallway. Sara Primo sat down with Nadja Tiktinsky to talk about a topic they both share a love for: taking picture books and young people as readers seriously!

Tell me about your passion for picture books. When did it start? What about picture books excites you?

When I did my MFA in children’s literature, I had the opportunity to deep-dive into the mechanics of picture books. Picture books, in my opinion, are the most elevated art form. There is just so much opportunity to create meaning - using page breaks, blank space, end papers, gutter, text size, spot art, etc. In the best picture books, words and illustrations each do half the storytelling, sometimes complementing and sometimes countering each other. Preschoolers talk a lot about not bumping each other’s words (interrupting), and that’s important in a picture book, too - the words and illustrations can’t bump into each other’s storytelling work, creating redundancies. They have to leave room for each other.

Q. What have you been doing with preschoolers specifically?

Ashley and I had a conversation earlier this year about a theory book I’d recently read, Reading Picture Books With Children by Megan Dowd Lambert. That’s opposed to “to” children. Lambert’s research on her “Whole Book Approach” shows that children understand, retain, and analyze on a higher level when they interact with books instead of just listening to them. She advocates giving children the technical language necessary to describe what’s happening in a book, and encouraging them to interrupt and comment during reading. Ashley invited me to come to preschool once a week to introduce the Whole Book Approach to her class.

When I read with the preschool, I say, “We’re going to read this book together. I’ll read the words to you, and you’ll read the pictures to me.” Then I’ll explain a technical term that I think will be helpful. For example, before we read Hot Dog by Doug Salati, I introduced the term “gutter”. The gutter is the centerline of a book, where two open pages meet. It’s often used to separate and group images. Hot Dog is about a dog overheating on a summer day, and the kids noticed that when the dog was upset, the gutter separated it from its owner. When the owner takes her dog to the beach, they’re shown on the same side of the gutter. The kids’ technical knowledge enhanced their ability to track the emotional story through the images. As I read, I stop on every page and give time for responses. Sometimes I ask, “what do you notice about this page?” or remind the kids of a technical term, i.e. “what do you notice about blank space here?” but I try not to prompt more than that. 

How have you analyzed picture books with middle schoolers?... and how has it gone?

What’s interesting is that what I’ve done with middle schoolers and preschoolers is exactly the same. However, preschoolers, who look at picture books all the time, are primed to do visual analytical work. Just being invited gets them there. Middle schoolers have to be prompted more. With older kids, I’ve also picked books that are more emotionally or topically challenging, on par with what they’re learning in Humanities. 

Q. What are you hoping this leaves students with? How do you see this connecting with other work that goes on at FSP?

What the preschoolers are doing is high-level art and story analysis. They are noticing and discussing symbolism, foreshadowing, theme, foils, and character development in the books we read. This is foundational work that they will build upon for the rest of their academic lives. At FSP, we think a lot about capability, and I see the preschoolers feeling and acting capable as they read pictures. The beginning stages of reading and writing letters and words are really, really hard - it is a lot of work. I hope that as these kids begin that difficult work, they are buoyed by the capability with pictures they have built this year.

Traditions of Giving with Good Heart Friends School of Portland's Annual Fund

Each year, Director of Enrollment, Megan Campbell makes a contribution to Friends School of Portland in honor of her grandparents. When she was growing up, her grandparents would make a donation in her honor to the school she attended in order to provide scholarships and tuition assistance for families. She continues that tradition now by donating in honor of her grandparents, Phyllis and Ted Campbell.   

During Megan’s first year at FSP as a teacher, she was surprised to learn that her grandmother also taught at a Friends School. This spring, Megan and her grandmother talked about their first years teaching at a Friends School. Megan at Friends School of Portland and Phyllis at Friends School of Baltimore.  

Megan shared that, “we both went into our first years teaching at a Friends School with little to no knowledge of what that meant. As my grandmother was remembering her experience, it struck me how much she felt supported coming into an unknown situation and space. Although I did go to school for teaching, my path at FSP has been anything but linear, and I too have felt so loved and held by this community.” 

Here is a bit more of what Megan and her Ama, Phyllis, shared about their conversation.  

Megan: What did you teach at Friends School of Baltimore? 

Phyllis: I taught in the early childhood ed classrooms. The 4s classroom, and I remember that there was a 3s classroom and a 5s classroom in our building, and that we were in our own building in the corner of campus. Our building had at one point been a house, so my classroom felt like one big living room – and it probably had been! 

Megan: Can you remember what a normal day consisted of?

Phyllis: Oh yes! I had 22 students I believe, and I had another teacher in the room with me. We always started our morning with free play, and then we would move to circle time. I would teach them a song, or we would play a game, or I would read a book. I remember that they had rest time after lunch, and they would bring their blankets and stuffed animals and find a spot on the floor. That was when I would do my planning for the next day. I remember that we would walk over to the playground and we wouldn’t have a set time we would go inside. Every day we would gauge how long the children felt like they needed to be outside. Many of the students would go home at lunch, so we would have a smaller group in the afternoon. And twice a year I would do parent-teacher conferences.

Megan: What was special about that year of teaching? 

Phyllis: I really enjoyed being around the kids, and getting a chance to work with the other women in the building. I remained friends with some of them for many years after. It was my first year out of college, and my first full time job, so it will always be special. One of the things I really loved was that I was asked to be the Director of the Summer Programs that summer, and I had a lot of fun with that! I will always remember that time fondly. 

Every gift helps make a powerful and important impact in our annual budget. Each gift that is made comes with care and thought from each member of our community.

We are thrilled to share that we have met and exceeded this year’s Annual Fund goal of $113,500. 237 friends and families have contributed so far! 

Make a gift by June 30, 2023, to support this school year's Annual Fund.

Magic in Music: Reflections on the School Year with Bethany

photo credit: Kelsey Kobik

“Bethany taught me all my songs! I didn’t sing at the last concert but I did at this one. I knew all the words to Sally Go Round the Sun.” - Preschool student

“I didn’t know how much I would like singing this song until Bethany taught it.” Sixth-grade student

From middle school students singing rounds of "Follow me" on the FSP Bus, Puddle Jumper, to a "Peace Never ending" sing-a-long around a campfire on the 3-4 class overnight...songs that Bethany has taught students pop up consistently. 

Bethany joined FSP this Fall and here are a few of her reflections from her first year: 

"I remember my first community meeting, during which everyone was sitting in a circle in the courtyard. It was so heartwarming to see so many age groups together, such a clear visual for the huge span of learning and growth that happens at FSP. By the end of the year, rather than being struck by the overall scope of a full school gathering, my focus shifted into seeing all of the individual, known, loved faces of these wonderful young people." 

"The beginning of the year was quiet in the music room! Younger students entered the room politely and stared at me with saucer eyes or sang in tiny little voices, while the older students ranged from open and conversational to fully skeptical, skittish at the idea that I might make them sing by themselves. (I didn't.) The younger students quickly got comfortable with musical play, lured by colorful scarves and animal-faced shakers, getting increasingly generous with their singing voices, energy and hugs. As the year went on, I felt The Great Thaw from the middle school students, where week by week, risk by risk, they relaxed and started being much more actively engaged. One of my favorite mental snapshots is a day when a sixth grade student started adding yoga poses to the round we were working on. Within minutes, that whole group was moving and singing together, and then they shared it with the other half of the class, working up to the moment when they successfully sang (and moved) in a round. They got a huge kick out of it, and my heart was soaring." 

Back to teaching this year...

"I felt an overall sense of wholeness in coming back to the classroom for the first time in five years. I had a wonderful, fulfilling, tiring, joyful time being home full time, and yet I was so happy to be out in the world more, meeting new colleagues and students. Actually meeting and getting to know students at FSP, getting a sense for what moves them, helped my transition a lot. This is such a warm, welcoming place where immediately felt inspired to join in the fun and learning!"

Reflections on a Year of AfterCare from Eliza

“Would you rather swim in a pool of jello or chocolate pudding?”

“Would you rather live in space or under the sea?”

“Would you rather from a safe distance see a fox or a bear?”

This year, preschool and kindergarten students looked forward to beginning AfterCare with a “Question of the Day” from AfterCare Coordinator, Eliza. She joined FSP last August bringing with her a wealth of experience working at summer camps in Mid-Coast and Central Maine. 

After a school year working at FSP, here are a few reflections on Aftercare and FSP from Eliza: 

“AfterCare is similar to summer camp in so many ways: there is a lot of choice, outdoor energy, fun games with kids of different ages playing together. You have to strike the right balance of fun things for kids to do in conditions that might not be perfect… it’s the end of a long, hot/cold, wet/sunny, day.”

“Working at Friends School this year, I’ve noticed the really careful consideration and intentionality in the choices that are made. I’ve really felt seen and heard in the decision-making process.”  

“I’ve gleaned so much institutional knowledge in FSP’s kitchen.” Kitchens are hubs for conversation, and at FSP that is no different. “Putting together snacks, I am often in conversations with families who are dropping off meal trains or a special snack. Families and staff members share their institutional knowledge with no expectation that I should do things the way it always has been done. But I get to soak up the best stuff and run with it.”  

You might find Eliza joining in a game of frisbee, kicking a ball back and forth, navigating the ethereal rules of AfterCare four square, or sitting down to a round of LIFE. Although this summer, you will find Eliza most weeks at FSP hanging out with our oldest campers - Crow Camp!      

This year, FSP’s AfterCare program grew from 49 students to 72 students! A big hearty thank you to Eliza and the AfterCare team who worked hard to navigate this growth. If your family is interested in signing up for aftercare for the 2023-2024 school year, more information will be provided via email over the summer. Registration is tentatively set for Tuesday, August 1. 

Highlight Reel: Year's 7-8 Class Play "The Tempest"

@georgewaldmanphotography

The Annual 7-8 class play is a tradition looked forward to by the entire school community. Graduates often share memories of their class play and the youngest preschoolers look forward to watching "the big kids" perform with great anticipation. A few snapshots of this year's production of The Tempest!

Thank you Drama Notebook Script Library for the use of the script.

Inquiry - Reflection - Action for Adult Learners: Professional Development at FSP

"Our belief that there is light in each of us leads to the conclusion that we are all natural learners, and we all have something to teach. These beliefs support an active, inquiry-based approach to learning at FSP. In a community of learners, students and teachers alike frame questions, investigate topics and ideas, practice frequent reflection, and connect learning to individual and group action within our communities." -Friends School of Portland Curriculum Guide

Professional Development is critical to the practice of teaching. It allows teachers to stay up-to-date on emerging research and best practices and provides avenues for teachers to follow their passions and hone their practice. At Friends Schools in general, and at FSP in particular, it holds additional weight. Professional learning is one of the ways that teachers live the philosophy that “we are all natural learners, and we all have something to teach.” At FSP, there are several ways we engage in professional development; teachers and staff choose a common area of focus each year that guides our faculty meeting time together. This year we worked on starting Critical Friends Groups and aligning our curriculum standards across grade levels. In addition, individual teachers and/or small groups of teachers identify areas of focus for professional learning each year and use an inquiry-reflection-action approach to deepen their understanding and practice in those areas. 

Below are three examples from the 2022-2023 school year:

Reading Instruction in First and Second Grades

You may have heard about the ongoing debate around reading instruction, featuring an approach often referred to as the “science of reading”. The first and second grade teachers and assistants have begun with the question “How can the science of reading research be applied to strengthen early reading instruction at FSP?” Together, they delved into the discussion around this topic. Supported by shared readings and an online course, they’ve been discussing implications for their practice in grades 1 and 2.

Developmental Designs in Middle School

Last summer and this year, the middle school advisors were trained in an approach called Developmental Designs. Based originally on the Responsive Classroom approach, Developmental Designs is an academic and social-emotional teaching structure focused on the needs of adolescents. It forms the scaffold on which we build our school culture in the fifth through eighth-grades, providing the structures for much of our advisory, social-emotional, and social justice and equity work. 

Outdoor Learning in Kindergarten

This spring Carie Garret, FSP’s kindergarten teacher (together with Marie Reimensnyder, FSP’s former preschool teacher and current Outdoor Learning Coordinator at Fiddlehead School of Arts and Sciences, and Kate Cass, a Kindergarten teacher at Fiddlehead) led a workshop for Antioch University’s In Bloom conference. In Bloom is an annual conference focused on “promising practices in nature-based early childhood education.”

The workshop, entitled “Keeping it Simple: Teaching Through Routines in the Outdoor Classroom,” was designed to facilitate exploration of ways in which common routines in the forest (preparing to enter the forest, gathering as a group,and learning walks, for example) can be powerful tools for enhancing and supporting student learning and growth in an outdoor program. 

FSP’s culture of joyful learning is at the center of what we do. That culture is fed and nourished by teachers who, themselves, are encouraged to follow their passions, question their assumptions, and work together to be continuously open to the world’s revelations. 

If you’re interested in looking at a few of the professional books that have been influential to teachers over the past year, here is a selection:

Charney, Ruth. Teaching Children to Care

Denton, Paula. The Power of Our Words

Crawford, Linda. Face to Face Advisories: Bridging Cultural Gaps in Grades 5-9

Liljedahl, Peter. Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics

SanGiovanni, John J, Katt, Susie, and Dykema, Kevin. Productive Math Struggle: A 6-Point Action Plan for Fostering Perseverance

Burkins, Jan and Yates, Karie. Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom

Destinations to Visit with your Family from the 1-2 Classes

First and second grade students in both Xanthe's and Katie's classes worked together this spring on a mapping unit. Their unit culminating with a guidebook that students shared fun and free places to adventure with your family in the Portland area. You can view the guidebook online here or pick up a copy to read when you are in the front office at FSP next.

Kindergarten Class Remembers When

During the last week of school, the kindergarten class sat around the circle and played a game called "The Remember Whens". Kindergarteners shared a memory from their time together that they want to keep forever, recognizing that telling stories is the best way to hold onto memories. 

Here are their memories from the year.

I will remember when...

The owl landed in the outdoor classroom.

It was a really rainy day and we had to go back down to the inside classroom.

There was a giant storm and a tree and branches fell.

We went to Narnia.

We roasted s'mores with the buddies.

We had the chicks... they were so cute!

We did bird calls with our buddies.

The chicks were really small and now they're bigger! They used to fit in our hands!

We tried to knock over the big tree and we couldn't and I brought over the big hammer log and knocked it down.

I was going to lay down in the snow and there was no snow there.

It sounds like a giant storm in the morning, but it's just a swarm of buffalos upstairs.

We went snowshoeing after the big storm.

Violet and Pearl splashed in a big puddle and got their hair wet.

I took off the hood of my rainsuit and laid down in a puddle.

I got my boots all wet and it took a week to get my boots dry.

I bit through a s'more and marshmallow squirted out.

It was a forest day and we went to the secret garden and everyone got stuck and we had to save each other.

We made monkey bread and stone soup and latkes and pancakes.

Sunbread!

It was so hard to get gear on to go out to the forest.

There was huge rain and I couldn't open my eyes because it was so rainy and we went down to the inside classroom for quiet time and then we had to decide go go back out or stay in after quiet time, so we did both.

We learned about Shackleton and trying to make an igloo.

I was telling a story about snow falling on my head and right when I was telling it snow fell on my head!

Stewardship of Our Woods

Third grade student painting a rock for Birdland -- a beloved spot in our forest with a special bird legend.

In 2020 and 2022, Aliza’s 5-6 classes collected data on which hemlock trees in our forest are affected by wooly adelgid, a small, invasive insect that threatens the sustainability of hemlock trees. Students contributed this data to Gulf of Maine Research Institute’s citizen science data collection program which has been mapping the wooly adelgid’s spread, and it is moving quickly. This year a seventh-grade student wrote her Year End Project on the future of our hemlock trees. In her words: “The woods and the forest are an important part of our school. If we don’t do something to protect our hemlock forest, we’re not protecting part of our school – we’re letting go of a really big part of our school.” Slowing down the death of hemlock trees is a way of safely reestablishing the health of our educational forest.

Our internal efforts to map and predict have now been supported by a number of professionals. This spring, we are working with Mike Hughes, an ISA Board-Certified Master Arborist, to treat our hemlock trees, which are being affected by hemlock wooly adelgid. Mike treated some of our trees over April break, focusing on selected mature hemlock trees around the perimeter of the school that we're at risk of losing. In addition to working with Mike Hughes, we work with Dan O'Wril from Blue Ox to care for our hemlock trees and the other trees in the forest. 

Kindergarten Spring Wander

At the start of each season the kindergarten class does a seasonal WANDER. Children are given time and asked to explore their surroundings with only one sense, reporting their observations back to the group. During our Spring Wander children observed green plants, a little snow, water, quicksand, squishy sounds, holes in the ground, bird sounds, stinky water, sinking into the ground, moss, nature smell, foamy water, a dribble sound, a stream, an underground river, and more.  

After sharing their observations children are invited to brainstorm questions about their observations. Some of the questions they came up with are: Do worms have bones? Why are some trees not sprouting and some are? Where does the water go? Why do some places stay snowy? Why have the big trees been falling but the little ones haven't? Why is there so much mud? Why is the water foamy? What was that new sound in our outdoor classroom? Where does the water come from? Why is the stream underground? 

With water being a major point of interest and wonder for our class, we went out exploring the waterways on and around our school campus during our forest days last week. On Thursday we followed Norton Brook as it made its way away from school, and on Friday we broke up into two teams, one exploring a marsh and the other looking at some other flowing waterways on campus. To guide our work children were asked to think about: Where is the water? What is it doing? and Why? Below you will see some of the pictures from our outdoor days as well as some of the conversations children had.

"I want to go but I'm scared. I will go if you go with me."

"It's okay, look it's fun!"

"It's not wet in there."

"It's not dark all the way."

"Why does the water move?"

"It's slanting down."

"But why does water only go downhill?"

 * * * * * * * * * * *

"The puddle sinks down into the ground."

"It's a cave!"

"No, it's an underground lake!"

 * * * * * * * * * * *

"Icicles are a type of water."

"So are puddles."

  * * * * * * * * * * *

"Hey! This is the exact same stream we were following yesterday!"

"I bet if we walked long enough we could get to the ocean!"

     * * * * * * * * * * *

"Why isn't my boat moving at this part of the stream?" 

"Maybe the force is not so strong?" 

"Maybe it got stuck on something." 

"Maybe it was too shallow"

  "Uh, do fish live there?"

* * * * * * * * * * *

"Where does that other stream come from?"

"How many streams did we pass by?"

"I think it was 11!"

* * * * * * * * * * *

"There's a dip over there... could the stream come from there?"

* * * * * * * * * * *

"The water looks cloudy, like when we look at the eggs with the candler!"

* * * * * * * * * *

"It's moving fast here!"

"It's very calm now!"

* * * * * * * * * * *

"When the river is thinner there is more water... like it's deeper!"

Braver Math: A Spotlight on Aliza Gordon's 5-6 Math Class

One of our north stars at Friends School is getting more comfortable with discomfort. This comes up in the Quaker principle of continued revelation, where truth is continually revealed. This has come up in our commitment to direct communication and having challenging conversations, and it also comes up curricularly in the priorities of teaching critical thinking skills and asking students to sit with uncertainty. 

Things look different in Aliza’s math classroom this year. There are more whiteboards than ever before. Sometimes Aliza hands out a card to each student to put them in random groupings. If a student asks her for the answer to a question, she might not answer right away.

These are calculated and research-based choices. Aliza was inspired by the book Building Thinking Classrooms by Peter Liljedahl. He was motivated by the ideas of building thinking and engagement – and the importance of rethinking the roles of student and educator. With these choices, in Aliza’s words: “you’re mixing up the cultural expectations of a classroom in order to get kids thinking harder.”

More dry-erase boards give students a new way to try things, erase them, and collaborate. Visibly random groupings give students the chance to work with other students without predefined social or academic roles. “Students think they might be placed in ability groupings – like if they’re struggling, I would match them up with a student that could help them. But in our room, all students can learn together.” 

Aliza encourages students to answer their own questions. “Students often ask questions they can solve on their own. Students think that the ‘role’ of a student is to ask questions and teachers think the ‘role’ of the teacher is to answer them… Instead, this approach highlights the act of breaking down a larger problem into smaller steps – and asking questions to get students to see that.” Here is an example of how that might look: if a student is struggling with 636 divided by 12 and they don’t know how to start, Aliza gives them a sentence-starter. “Can you turn this into a sentence that starts with ‘How many groups…’ and then students would jump in with ‘Oh! How many groups of 12 fit into 636?’ And then I would say ‘OK! What can we do next?’”

It’s about getting messy, being willing to not know right away, and trying new things.That can be uncomfortable – but beyond sitting with discomfort, it is also playful, engaged, collaborative, and exhilarating. The premise is that “discomfort leads to empowerment.” This approach to learning connects to Aliza’s roots as an outdoor trip leader. In that role, she would gradually release responsibility to the young people on the trip. “They would know how to run the whole trip and we would be walking behind them watching.” Similarly, her math instruction gives students a guide. In her words: “I don’t want kids to feel ‘my teacher taught me so much’ – I want them to feel like they taught themselves so much.” In that way, it recasts the conventional role of a teacher. “I model for the students what it’s like to be confused.” 

“Until I felt validated by a researcher to do this, I always felt like there was something missing. Nell recommended the book last summer, and it came at the perfect time for me. I’m really grateful that FSP encourages me to try new things and become a more effective educator. It almost feels like the same amount of wanting students to get bold in their exploration of ideas, FSP wants for its teachers. It’s almost like building risk tolerance.”

“The biggest thing I’ve been trying to do this year that is different from other years is to assess thinking and engagement. We tend to assess in math ‘Can you accurately answer this math question?’ but now it is more about: How engaged are you? What percentage of the class are you actually thinking? Never before in my class have kids said ‘My brain hurts.’ That to me is a sign of success – that they want a break because they’ve been thinking so hard.” What about this type of learning would make a student say their brain hurts? Like a muscle sore from strengthening, their learning zone is expanding. 

This approach is about students thinking through what strategy to use to approach a problem – as opposed to repetitive mimicking of particular strategies. As a math student, you might remember getting a worksheet covered with problems that are all solved the same way: for example, an “equivalent fraction” worksheet. Students aren’t always told which tools they already have that they’ll need for what’s in front of them. Aliza is trying to help them become self-sufficient in determining the most efficient approach. In Aliza’s words, “My goal is for students to have the tools to apply their math learning to a variety of situations.”

“I had always bought into the myth that math is a disconnected set of facts to memorize, with rules and procedures to mimic. I now call that fake math,” says Pam Harris, math educator and speaker in the “Building Math Minds” conference which many FSP teachers attended virtually. Aliza has noticed that students feel better about starting things when they’re not sure they can finish – or trying things when they’re not sure they’ll get it right. Our math program is more rigorous than typical grade-level standards; this deep thinking is academically a much higher standard than the “mimicking” or “memorizing” approach.

This desire to empower students, by giving them more responsibility over their own learning, is connected to so many other aspects of life at FSP, including the recent middle school student-led conferences. 

Students are having an unbelievable amount of success, but Aliza wonders if they are all feeling the power of their success. This type of math feels playful for some students, but it doesn’t always feel that way to everyone. Like so many aspects of learning at FSP, it is the balance (and marriage!) of joy and rigor. As Aliza assesses her next steps, she is thinking more about student resilience, and finding the right amount of stretch for each student. In other words: how to make rigor feel more joyful for each student.  

The Stories Maps Tell: Third and Fourth Grade Map Unit

Pictured above: Third and fourth grade students working together on their recent map unit.

Maps tell stories, and the cartographer gets to choose what story to tell and how to tell it.  

Third and fourth-grade students delved into their unit on maps this spring. Early on, students began by looking at different types of maps of Maine and thought about the stories they tell. They traced outlines of Mackworth Island and then set out to create maps that told the story of their day's island adventure! 

Students worked together on compass work, learning about longitude and latitude, cardinal and intermediate directions, and different features of maps. A visual dictionary of landforms was created as well as maps of Maine.    

Students added Wabanaki place names to their maps of Maine. Casco Bay is named for a word that means "muddy waters", Chebeauague comes from a word meaning "almost separated" because of the tidal beach connecting Great and Little Chebeague Islands, and Sebago means "big still water". 

A visit to the USM Osher Map Library was a treat to get up close and personal with beautiful map-making artifacts. Students had the opportunity to see how varied the practice of map mapping and globe-making can be.  

And a later visit to Rine Forest provided a unique moment to use their newfound map skills. Students made a plan together for their hike. After looking at maps of local hikes, students decided on a visit to Rine Forest. They then decided to make a plan to eat lunch by a waterfall, and used the scale to figure out the distance to the waterfall. This had children working on adding decimals, and converting benchmark fractions to decimals. The fourth graders were explaining the difference between tenths and hundredths to their third-grade peers. It was a really great way for children to apply what they have learned in math to real-world situations, and it was a fun way to use their newly acquired mapping skills. Students felt very accomplished when they made it to the waterfall in time for lunch! 

Learning How To Research: Social Justice Year End Projects

Pictured above: Parents and students at the "Year End Projects - YEP" community share.

At Friends School of Portland, seventh and eighth-grade students just wrapped up their year end projects. They took time to identify and research an interest and take action on that issue in our wider community. Opioid addiction, English language learners, video games, deforestation, feminism, Native American erasure, and climate change were among the many topics students investigated.  

Students first identified an interest and wrote their first essay. Then, students made connections and interviewed an expert in the field. Students took their action step next: volunteering at a local organization, an organization visit, and creating awareness-raising materials. These opportunities gave each student a chance to get to know their topics more fully. Students then wrote their second and final research essays.  

"I was really focused on the solutions like needle exchange and medications at first. Now, approaching people with compassion and treating each person like a real person is what I think matters the most."

"Learning English is harder than I thought and more important than I realized. My first language is English and I've learned Somali at home. I didn't realize how hard it would be to learn English if you were a kid new to the country.” 

“I realized that ski communities are having a really hard time addressing climate change.”  

“I was really interested in deforestation. I read different articles about forests around the world. And after I wrote my first essay, I talked with Eben Sypitkowski, the Nature Conservancy’s Director of Land Management. We talked a lot about the health of Maine’s Forests. By the end of my project, I was really learning about solutions that people are investigating to combat invasive plants and climate change in the Maine forests. I’m pretty excited that my dad and I are going to plant a few trees at FSP this spring too. I really like making this place a little bit better.”  

“I researched unwanted horses. I talked with Education Director at MSSPA and volunteered at the horse farm, It Takes Two. Horses take a lot of work and care. When I volunteered, I helped feed horses and get them ready for lessons with younger kids. I wanted to learn more about horses and what happens to them if they aren’t in a place that takes good care of them.”  

Students had a chance in April to share with peers, younger children, and their families about their projects. Seventh and Eighth-grade Humanities teacher, Pete Nowak shared: “The project showcased so much important learning: students connected with experts from the outside world, managed a variety of tasks and deadlines, coupled skills they've been practicing with personal passions, and gained a deep enough understanding about their topics to be able to think flexibly and change their minds.”

The community share was relaxed and gave way to small engaged conversations. Students really had the opportunity to share what they had learned about a topic of their choice.  

Strategy Teams: A Next Step In Our Strategic Planning Process

Pictured above: The Collaborative Visioning Session held on Saturday, March 18 in the Meeting Room at FSP.

On Saturday, March 18, we held a Collaborative Visioning Session with sixty people in attendance. That morning was a time for interaction, catching everyone up, and engagement with the content generated so far – as well as imagining possibilities toward a five-year vision. Nine faculty members and five administrators were there, as well as our school’s founding teacher Mary Tracy and the two previous heads of school, James Grumbach and Jenny Rowe. One parent heard a lot of alignment in what was reflected and how the room responded; she also wondered who wasn’t in the room and how we can continue being purposeful in seeking further input and direction.

Saturday’s agenda started with an overview of the strategic planning process so far, and then moved into an overview of the content generated by that point: the Strategic Planning Design Committee Retreat, the Strategic State of the School, Community-wide surveys, individual conversations, the board retreat and meetings, admin team meetings, and faculty meetings – as well as feedback and recommendations from our accreditation visits from New England Association of Schools and Colleges (last year) and Friends Council on Education (in 2019). At that time, we had distilled all of this input into these categories: Campus and Financial Stewardship and Sustainability; Cultivating DEI and Belonging; Social-Emotional Support/Growth; Faculty/Staff Well-being, Professional Growth, and Retention; Programmatic Identity and Alignment; and External Connection and Partnership. For the last hour of the Saturday event, small groups envisioned five years from now at Friends School.

Since then, our administrative team, professional facilitator Courtney Bourns, and Strategic Plan Design Committee spent a few weeks synthesizing the themes and questions that arose and shaping vision statements. Small strategy groups have now been formed to research, collect data, and gain a better understanding of the ways in which we might achieve our goals. In the coming months, there will be times for faculty, administration, and the board to triage, pace, and operationalize these strategies.

We are coming to the close of this phase when we’ve been taking in lots of ideas. I’ve enjoyed getting to know people in many ways and hearing so many ideas during the beginning parts of this process. As we move into the next stage, please know that I am interested to hear what’s coming up for you.

Please continue to stay up to date on our process here on our website.

A Culture of Joyful Learning: Playful Rigor

Pictured above: Fifth and sixth-grade students toasting to their Harlem Renaissance unit presentations.

The word rigor, ubiquitous in mission statements and admissions literature, is meant to convey high standards for intellectual engagement. Its largely negative companion definitions (stiffness, strictness, fever-induced cold-sweats) reinforce the misapprehension that for academic work to be deep and challenging it must also be painful. In fact, the opposite is most often true. Children of all ages engage in their most rigorous work THROUGH play and playful learning. More rigorous thinking practices such as evaluation, analysis, and creation are the ones that students more naturally engage during open-ended, playful moments: thinking tasks, creating a project together, writing and performing a skit, articulating a hypothesis and supporting it, and open-ended play. 

To be clear, “playful” does not mean “comfortable“. In fact, this kind of rich learning requires students to grapple with ideas; it can feel messy, uncertain, and decidedly uncomfortable at times. But it also requires that students feel safe enough to take risks. And so a supportive community is not antithetical to rigorous learning, but a prerequisite for it. When we do it well, the deepest and most meaningful learning is engaging and satisfying, and, very often, joyful.

Though it looks different at different developmental stages, playful rigor isn’t the purview of one age group. Four-year-olds engage in analysis, evaluation, and creativity through their open-ended group play. Eighth-grade students do it when they engage with a question using the scientific method. Many of you are familiar with our play-based early childhood program. Below are a few examples of older FSP students engaging in “playful rigor” at their developmental levels -- developing deep thinking through engaging learning experiences, with a large helping of discomfort, giggles, and goofiness.

First and Second-Grade Math Fluency

In math, first and second-grade students are working on building an understanding of the way that numbers relate to each other– how they can be broken apart, put together, or manipulated to add and subtract ever larger numbers. If you walk into one of the 1-2 classes during math time, you will almost always see pairs or small groups of children sprawled out on the rug in various corners of the room, fully engaging in math games that are stretching numeracy muscles and helping students to build a deep foundational understanding of our number system. Two favorites are “Oh No 20!” and “How Close?”.

Third and Fourth-Grade Mapping

Third and fourth-grade students study maps as a way to engage with their essential question “What is the power of a story?” Through their study of maps, they explore the idea that a map tells a story with a particular point of view (typically the cartographer’s), and that maps can be tools for celebrating, centering, or silencing just as stories (and history) can. This unit requires incredibly rigorous thinking for third and fourth-grade students, but they are able to engage at this level of intellectual sophistication precisely because it is introduced in playful ways. As part of the unit, Lindsay’s third and fourth-grade class traveled to Mackworth Island yesterday to practice mapping and begin some of these conversations. Here’s what Lindsay wrote to parents upon their return:

It might not look like normal "instructional time", but these kids were learners and teachers all day long. They were industrious, thoughtful, careful, brave, silly, and sensitive. They negotiated, solved problems, made decisions, persevered, and helped one another. Kids got to shine their light in new ways, and we all have new ways of knowing and honoring each other after days like this.

Fifth and Sixth-Grade Harlem Renaissance

This winter, Allie has taught a social studies unit on the Harlem Renaissance to her fifth and sixth-grade classes. From the first day, the students engage in playful inquiry. Decorating the room with black velvet tablecloths and silver feathers, Allie transformed the fifth and sixth-grade classroom into a museum of the Harlem Renaissance, filled with primary documents (maps, photos, copies of The Crisis, eg) and jazz music playing in the background. Rather than beginning the unit with a lecture or textbook article telling them to know or what to think about this movement, students responded to guiding questions and engaged with the material to begin to build for themselves an idea of what the Harlem Renaissance was, why it happened, and what its importance to our history and culture is. The work that students did required deep and complex thinking, but the mood in the room was decidedly playful.

Seventh and Eighth-Grade Year-End Projects (YEP!)

As they have since the earliest days of FSP, seventh and eighth-grade students have just completed culminating projects (now known as “Year End Projects”). The projects ask students to identify an issue of social or environmental justice about which they are particularly passionate; conduct background research and craft an essay on the problem they are exploring; interview an expert in the field; engage in an “action” related to the problem they have chosen; write a second essay that incorporates further research, their interview and action experiences, and proposes a “solution” to the problem; and present their work to parents and classmates. In the weeks leading up to the presentations, the far end of the middle school wing was a hive of focused, passionate activity and early-adolescent joyful rigor.

How We Take Care of Friends School of Portland:What Does It Look Like When We Are Good Stewards

Pictured above: A view of Friends School of Portland taken by Kelsey Kobik Photography.

At Friends School of Portland, Quaker values are the framework that is instilled in our actions and decision-making for both small and large choices. We often reflect on how we strive to teach children each day to be careful, conscientious, and thoughtful about caring for their belongings, and our school building and land. As thoughtful, caring adults we all strive to make decisions at both the programmatic and administrative levels with our head and heart that we can put into action.  

What kind of bus do we want to purchase? 

Where will we invest our money? 

What kind of school building will we build? 

What type of plate will we use at our school event?

What type of elective might we offer for Middle School students? 

These are questions that come up in teacher meetings, Board Finance Committee meetings, Annual Auction planning meetings, past Building and Capital Campaign Committee meetings, and everyday conversations at FSP.  

Our school is still young in its 16th year. We have taken care to think about the ways that we can care for the resources that we have and the spaces and places around us. We think about this in both big and small ways.  

In 2015, we moved into the building that we call home -- the first Passive House school building in Maine and just the third in the country. In 2018, we began a small endowment which is invested in the Friends Fiduciary Quaker Index Fund.  

Each school year, we print off a few large mailings with Franklin Printing who are one of the 100% wind-powered printers in the state.  

Each day, we compost paper towels and on days with bigger events we make sure to purchase compostable plates and flatware.   

Before February School break, students, teachers, and faculty took time to “Love Our School” during an all-school stewardship assembly. Cubbies, desks, hallways, overlooked closets, and even the space for the downstairs printer was cleaned up and attended to.  

Every day, we make choices and take actions. We give care and tend to what is needed. We don’t always get it right. But we strive together to find the ways that we can best take good care of the spaces and places around us. 

I Notice, I Wonder: A 1-2 Class Study of Biomimicry

Pictured above: 1-2 Assistant Teacher, Aila leading an "I Notice, I Wonder" activity with a zoomed-in burdock plant at the launch of the biomimicry study.

Katie Nowak and Xanthe Charov, first and second-grade teachers, designed a new unit with their students investigating biomimicry. Each class began with a “I Notice, I Wonder” activity, viewing a zoomed in burdock plant the natural inspiration for velcro. 

“I notice… the curved ends.” 

“I notice… the poke at the top.”

“I notice… the curves connected.”

“I notice… the curved stem.”  

“I wonder... why it goes out diagonally?”

“I wonder... if it is hair?”

“I wonder... why it looks like velcro?”

This initial activity led students to “notice and wonder” with many images of inventions that were inspired by nature. Over the course of the unit, children talked with students studying biomimicry at USM, asked questions and investigated together, and created their own inventions addressing everyday problems with solutions found in nature.  

Here is a little insight into a few of the favorite lessons: 

Students looked closely at adaptations, including camouflage. Working in "nesting pairs," children designed and built a nest that took into consideration location and durability using resources found in the classroom habitat. Then they "lay" their eggs and colored them to be well-camouflaged in the nest. 

Classes read An Egg is Quiet and A Nest is Noisy, to provide background knowledge and spur discussion. Students were interested to learn how resourceful birds are when building nests in the urban environment (they use plastic cups and straws?!) and why female birds are not as colorful as their male counterparts (they need to be hidden while sitting on their eggs).

Students also experimented to demonstrate how bird bones are hollow (and therefore light) but also strong enough to support a wing, by stabbing a potato with a straw and covering the end of the straw to trap the air (as happens in a birds' wing to give it strength), or leaving the end of the straw uncovered to let the air escape. 

Another popular lesson was our "owl hearing test," which revealed how humans (with symmetric ear placement) have difficulty identifying where a sound originates when the sound isn't clearly coming from the left or right side of them (but somewhere in the middle). Students were blindfolded and had to guess which direction the sound was coming from. They also learned how an owl's asymmetric ear placement improves its hearing and is a beneficial adaptation.

After exploring biomimicry inventions, students had the opportunity to design and build their own inventions based on the adaptation on an animal of their choice. 

An archerfish word finder

A pillbug portable bed that rolls into a purse 

A jackrabbit cooling headpiece

A sharkskin mitten cover

An octopus suction cup

A pelican beak spoon 

The inspiration was vast and each invention was unique in solving an everyday problem! 

Critical Friends Groups: A Tool For Teacher Professional Development and Sustainability

Pictured above: Kindergarten teacher, Carie, with students out at the Outdoor Classroom on a wintery day.

Approximately every fourth Friday, faculty members meet in three groups (the administration comprises a fourth group) and when 3:30 pm hits, they emerge from these intimate subgroup meeting areas with bright eyes, sometimes laughing, and usually taking longer to leave than normal.

Critical Friends Groups are a National School Reform initiative, a peer-to-peer form of professional development started in the 1990s. The “Friends” in CFG is not Quaker, though I did first experience CFGs at a Quaker retreat at Pendle Hill. And though the word “Critical” can be intimidating, the experience is anything but – it is validating and empowering, though it does often push people out of their comfort zones. These small communities consist of at least five adults who commit to looking seriously at their educational practice and making changes or revisions, using a structured interaction (called a protocol). As the first stage, a foundation of trust and intention is built by a facilitator.

FSP's first cohort of nine teacher facilitators were trained last summer to lead CFG protocols. For each monthly meeting, the facilitator meets ahead of the main meeting with someone who will present a classroom/professional dilemma or share student work, to help them hone the question they would like to ask their CFG. As someone who has participated in CFG communities for three years prior to coming to FSP, I know that this pre-meeting can be valuable in its own right. Sitting with someone who listens intently to help the presenter clarify what their dilemma or growth edge actually is can be groundbreaking. Taking the time to find (or excavate) our true question can be as important as answering it.

The facilitator then chooses which protocol will work best with the presenter’s topic. At first, protocols can feel socially unnatural for a variety of reasons. In many protocols, presenters have a certain number of minutes to share their topic. Most involve careful question-asking that starts with clarifying questions and moves into probing questions. In some protocols, presenters are asked to move their chair away from the group and take notes while the group discusses what they hear and what they think. Almost all protocols end with the presenter reflecting back what they just received from the group. And the closing debrief is essential. The biggest difference I find between a CFG protocol and a regular discussion is how careful participants have to be about listening/witnessing versus suggesting or projecting themselves onto the topic. A powerful holding takes place, due to some combination of the time constraints (facilitators literally use a timer and keep the protocol moving) and also due to the emphasis on echoing and asking thoughtful questions. Protocols have come to feel like a baking recipe to me: if the directions are followed precisely, then something magic comes out of the oven.

We have used CFG protocols as a whole faculty, at our January in-service day during a leadership style activity. FSP’s Racial Justice Accountability Group used a CFG text protocol when discussing a book this January. At their best, CFGs expand possibilities, lead to best practices, and deepen relationships.

Pete Nowak, seventh and eighth-grade teacher, said: “I think I connect with different people in different circumstances by means of different channels. The CFG process has opened new channels or pathways to people I already enjoyed an existing relationship with and, in doing so, has made these relationships more dynamic and vibrant.”

Fifth and sixth-grade teacher Allie Miller, who trained last summer with National School Reform and has supported our school’s launch of CFGs, shared her thoughts on the value of CFGs at this precise cultural moment: 

“Teaching through a pandemic has been a uniquely difficult experience and many of the (very necessary!) safety measures taken also meant that teachers had fewer opportunities to collaborate. Bandwidth was limited and a lot of time and effort was put into pivoting how we taught. Fortunately, now, we are in a place of increased normalcy in schools; I see CFGs as a crucial part of teacher support as we leave the early days of the pandemic. CFGs create a much-needed space for educators to connect, problem-solve, and feel seen and heard by their colleagues. We also hope, in turn, that this work will positively impact our students' experiences, too.”

Bandwidth has two primary definitions. The way we often mean it at school is the energy or capacity to deal with or rise to a situation. Bandwidth is also defined as the volume of information that can be sent over a connection in a measured amount of time.

Critical Friends Groups exist at the intersection of these two definitions: they are a tool for increasing our professional stamina and sustainable energy for the work we do, by maximizing the human connection possible within constrained periods of discussion.

In deepening connections, building trust, reducing isolation, and empowering problem-solving, CFGs have proven to be a valuable lynchpin in FSP’s professional development plan for the coming years. The hope is that CFGs will continue to promote faculty and staff sustainability and enrich the experience of our students.