Princeton Friends School

A visit to Princeton Friends School If you want to see a state of the art school with 130 students k-8th grade, this is it. It began in the late 80s. I taught there in the early 90s when it was 3 years old - walked in and said this will become a remarkable school, and Ernie Boyer at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in his book Basic School, a community of learning thought so too. This school has such a profound sense of respect and encouragement for each and every student. The attitude is projected from the top by Jane Fremon, the director. There is a beginning school of 4's and 5's, then the advisories are identified by age or grades 2nd and 3rd, 4th and 5th, 6th -8th. I advised an advisory of 3rd through 6th graders. I also taught everything as elementary teachers often do with drama, Central Study, Math and PE. With a class of 4th through 8th graders in PE I thought it would be a challenge. How could I teach a gifted athlete who is raging to show off how to play with a clumsy non-athletic 4th grader? I asked him to take up a challenge. "You're good" I said, "if you can get that 4th grader to score a soccer goal. You must coach a young newby in soccer to follow you up and you'll be the assist for his scoring -- then you're good." He accepted that challenge and learned to respect that younger athlete too. The school is designed around the library which has risers to sit on in front of the books as a place to read. There is the big room for all school gatherings for Friday folk dance, singing, and meeting. It now has a playground and basketball court, but that all came after 1997. The core of the school is the amazing faculty. The courtesy, respect and time spent to instill a wonder about the world is palpable. princetonfriendsschool.org can give you some understanding and pictures. Here are a few of their programs: canoe trips to the New JerseyPine Barrons to learn about brackish water and ecology, an annual trip to Guatemala with a sister school there a trip to Kentucky for a folk dancing festival sometimes. Richard Fischer produces a math problem of the week that includes information about mathematicians and encourages parents and student collaboration toward work, study and play with the problem; sometimes its games pr designs. Each student gets a schedule to follow. Each student has an advisor, but also goes from class to class to follow central study: this year work and play, other years Walls and Bridges, or Rivers -- a topic that is discussed and read about and studied in metaphor, non-fiction, fiction, science and throughout the curriculum; devised in a customized fashion by the entire faculty. I had an amazing day watching students love being there because the entire staff loved being there. If you're interested I can tell you more details of the classes I attended. write back

Princeton Friends School and reunions

What do people do at reunions? Eat fabulous famous family meals, talk about what they are doing and play sports! We played tennis, went horseback riding and swimming in the pool. I am very lucky to have a great sister-in-law who has this place outside of Philadelphia. But what did I learn today? I am not a half bad tennis player when I thought I was pretty bad. I guess the recent playing 3 times a week is making a difference. Any time you want to do something well you have to do it a lot. Eventually I am hoping my writing will improve with this project. Especially as I tell you more about myself and my teaching experiences in the past and the ones I'll have this year around the country. A little more about Princeton Friends School. It was mentioned as one of the best examples of progressive education following some of the principles of excellent teaching because much of the curriculum within the yearly theme is directed by children. There are also yearly events. One that I remember so well is a Story Telling Festival. Every student with workshops on performing and speaking and lots of theater games learns a story to tell to a group of parents and teachers over the period of about 2 weeks. Students don't memorize the words they learn the plot and points of the story and tell it with expression, accents, sound effects, gestures, and movement. If they enter the school in kindergarten they do 9 stories by the time they graduate at the end of 8th grade. Each year they improve and learn much about literature as they search for their story the want to retell and much about themselves as they perform. That's just one of the experiences that students have at PFS. Not only is there a story festival at PFS, but they also visit other schools and classrooms in the area to tell their stories. More later Must run for another fabulous meal. Ciao