This Blog`s for You

Transcription

This Blog`s for You

B
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This Blog’s for You
Healthcare • travel
education • Parenting
Nutrition • theology
Spring 2010
in this issue
17
This Blog’s
for You
By Julie Reiff
h Members of Taft’s Collegium
Musicum relax on the steps
of San Francisco’s Grace
Cathedral, where they
performed over March break.
Brian Chung ’11
18
Taking Note:
Thoughts on
Education
John Merrow ’59
22
B ulletin
Spring 2010
What to Feed Your Kids
Our Gluten-Free Family
Kirstin Boncher ’87
24
Following Elias
The special needs journey of premature
parenthood in the last frontier
Christy Everett ’90
28
Thin Places
Places where heaven and earth touch
Amy Julia Truesdell Becker ’94
32
Firestone Sisters
Bringing that playful
vacation spirit back home
into everyday life!
Lucy ’97 and Mary Firestone ’95
36
Saving Money
and Surviving the
Healthcare Crisis:
Your Guide to Better Care for Less
Davis Liu ’89
Departments
2 From the Editor
2 Taft Trivia
3 Letters
4 Alumni Spotlight
10 Around the Pond
15 Sport
39 Tales of a Taftie:
Samuel T. Orton 1897
from the EDITOR
No, I don’t have a blog (like the alums featured in this issue). I guess you could say
that the four-times-per-year ramblings you
find in this space are a bit like a blog, except
that you may be reading them on paper instead of online.
Most of the time I have no idea what to
write about. Well, actually, I have tons of
ideas, but what will you still want to read
about weeks or months from now when it
actually arrives in your box? That’s a wonderful advantage of blogs: their timeliness.
The biggest news on campus as I write, is
the reopening of the Jigger Shop. For those
of you who haven’t been closely following
our movable feast, the Jigger Shop got a
major renovation two years ago—in part because it needed a facelift after 20 years, but
also to serve as an additional but temporary
dining space while the HDT renovations
were underway.
Seniors are happiest of all that the Jig is
back in time for spring term, but all students
are enjoying the return of the televisions,
pool and ping-pong tables, and the addition
of foosball, dartboards and a few computers.
Ted Heavenrich is already treating members of the math team with perfect scores
to milkshakes, and kids are lining up for a
quick bacon-egg-n-cheese after assembly.
Life is good.
Of course, by the time you read this, the
whole dining hall complex will be open. There
will be plenty more on that in the next issue. In
the meantime, keep those stories coming!
—Julie Reiff
p.s. If you’re intrigued by any of the blogs in
this issue, be sure to check them out online.
You’ll find convenient links on our website
at www.TaftSchool.org/bulletin. Have a blog
of your own? Let us know and we’ll add it to
the list!
On the Cover
B
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This Blog’s For You
Healthcare • travel
education • Parenting
Nutrition • theology
Spring 2010
2 Taft Bulletin spring 2010
v No, the letters
do not appear in
that order on your
keyboard, but they
are the keys to a new
kind of media. For
more, see page 17.
©iStockphoto.com/
jallfree
???
Taft Trivia
B ulletin
As we prepare to dedicate a new
dining space, who can recall the name
of the man whose bequest made the
1959 dining hall addition possible?
A Taft blanket will be sent to the
winner, whose name will be drawn
from all correct entries received.
Congratulations to Ken Saverin
’72, who correctly identified Dick
Cobb as the longest serving faculty
member at Taft. Ken adds, “Not
only did I have the pleasure of
being a Latin student of his, but my
daughter Hilary ’06 was his student
too. It was great to connect with him
the last six years as a parent of two
Tafties—Hilary and Diana ’09. I also
have fond memories of late-night card
games in his apartment with Molly
Baldrige ’72.”
Spring 2010
Volume 80, Number 3
Bulletin Staff
Director of Development:
Chris Latham
Editor: Julie Reiff
Alumni Notes: Linda Beyus
Design: Good Design, LLC
www.gooddesignusa.com
Proofreader: Nina Maynard
Mail letters to:
Julie Reiff, Editor
Taft Bulletin
The Taft School
Watertown, CT 06795-2100 U.S.A.
ReiffJ@TaftSchool.org
WWW
Send alumni news to:
Linda Beyus
Alumni Office
The Taft School
TaftBulletin@TaftSchool.org
Taft on the Web
Find a friend’s address or
look up back issues of the Bulletin
at www.TaftAlumni.com
Deadlines for Alumni Notes:
Summer–May 15
Fall–August 30
Winter–November 15
Spring–February 15
For more campus news and events,
including admissions information,
visit www.TaftSchool.org
Send address corrections to:
Sally Membrino
Alumni Records
The Taft School
TaftRhino@TaftSchool.org
What happened at this
afternoon’s game?
Visit www.TaftSports.com
Don’t forget you can shop online
at www.TaftStore.com
800-995-8238 or 860-945-7736
1-860-945-7777
www.TaftAlumni.com
The Taft Bulletin (ISSN 0148-0855)
is published quarterly, in February,
May, August and November, by The
Taft School, 110 Woodbury Road,
Watertown, CT 06795-2100, and is
distributed free of charge to alumni,
parents, grandparents and friends of
the school. All rights reserved.
This issue of Taft Bulletin
was manufactured
using 100 percent
Green-e Certified
Renewable Energy.
This magazine is printed on
30% recycled paper.
Letters
Love it? Hate it?
Read it? Tell us!
We’d love to hear what you think
about the stories in this Bulletin.
We may edit your letters for length,
clarity and content, but please write!
Julie Reiff, editor
Taft Bulletin
110 Woodbury Road
Watertown, CT 06795-2100
or Reiff J@TaftSchool.org
Alumni in Africa
It was with particular interest that I read the
theme issue on Africa in the winter Bulletin.
After graduating from Chapel Hill (UNC)
in 1966, I served for two years in the Peace
Corps in Ethiopia, where I taught 9th grade
secondary school English and my wife,
an RN, taught in the Red Cross School of
Nursing. Our first year was in Asmara, now
the capital of Eritrea, and our second year
we were in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capitol.
Both years I taught four classes of approximately 30 to 40 students in each class.
Truth be told, many of us who served our
country at that time, myself included, did
so for reasons that were not entirely selfless
and noble, but practical. For me it was either
the Peace Corps or Vietnam! Nevertheless,
it turned out to be a great, transformative
experience for me, one that opens your eyes
and lets you see the world (our country included) as never before. During the school
break the summer between our first and second years, we traveled to Uganda, Tanzania,
the island of Zanzibar, and Kenya, where
Bob Poole ’50, Taft’s famous football coach
during my four years at school, was the
Peace Corps’ country director. I never got
to see him, but only was able to leave him a
note. We learned sometime later that he had
died tragically in a car accident. I believe his
daughter, Joyce ’74, carried on his legacy,
working to save elephants in Kenya.
Thank you for bringing back so many wonderful memories of my experience in Africa.
—David Forster ’62
I read the most recent Bulletin featuring
Taft Alumni in Africa with great interest. I
think it is wonderful the number of alumni
who are involved in Africa and the range of
their activities.
It made me wonder, how many Tafties of
an earlier generation were involved in Africa.
I am sure there were quite a few, but perhaps
this letter or some other enquiry would
smoke them out.
After graduating from Yale Law School
in 1962, I was awarded a fellowship by the
Ford Foundation as an Africa-Asia fellow and
taught law at the University of East Africa in
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It was a fascinating
experience. Since then I have made approximately ten trips to various parts of Africa and
am currently involved in secondary education
for young girls in Tanzania.
I am interested in hearing from contemporaries of about that time as to their
experiences in Africa. It made a great change
in my life.
—Charles Richards ’55
I was particularly interested in the “Alumni
in Africa” issue. I have traveled to 40 African
countries and have a particular affinity
for Liberia, a country founded by returning American slaves in the mid-1800s.
Their capital, Monrovia, is named for our
American president James Monroe.
My fascination with Africa is thanks to former Taft faculty member Bob Poole ’50, who
ran the African Peace Corps for many years.
Many Taft alumni have been involved in one
way or another with this diverse continent.
For several years I have been a trustee of
a Boston-based foundation, founded 150
Legacies Left Off
An export error meant that a number of grandparents were unfortunately omitted
from the list of alumni with offspring currently attending Taft (winter, page 49).
Our apologies. They are as follows. Do you know of others we missed?
Otis L. Guernsey 1912, great-grandfather*..........................................Sara E. Guernsey ’11
John V. Farwell III 1914, great-grandfather*....................................... Jennifer J. Janeck ’11
Samuel F. Pryor Jr. ’17 great-grandfather*..........................................Peter C. Burgeson ’10
Charles P. Luckey ’18, great-grandfather*......................................... William P. Luckey ’11
J. Stillman Rockefeller ’20, great-grandfather*..................................... Andrew M. F. Cannon ’11
Thomas W. Chrystie ’21, great-grandfather*......................................... John L. Wyman ’10
Charles Fleming Richards ’21, great-grandfather*............................ William G. Evans ’11
Wilmot B. North ’30, grandfather* . ................................................Benjamin W. North ’10
L. Charles Scherer ’58, grandfather*...............................................Taylor C. Persechini ’12
Two alumni were mislabeled in the most recent “In Print” column. Christy Everett is
Class of ’90, and Richard Smoley is Class of ’74. My apologies to both.
For more on the correct year for the Oriocos photo, please read the letters…
n Dan Senecal ’60 in Monrovia with the president
of the University of Liberia, Al Hassan Conteh.
—letters continued on page 50
Taft Bulletin Spring 2010 3
alumni Spotlight
By Julie Reiff
h Laura Kreitler
’97, at her family’s
vineyard, Bates
Ranch, is working
with vineyards, golf
courses and growers in
California and Nevada
to help them improve
their soil and reduce
water consumption.
Conner Jay
Better Dirt
After five years in banking and two at
Kellogg business school, Laura Kreitler
’97 has found her niche as a partner
at the sustainable agriculture start-up
HealthySoil in California. They manufacture organically based products that
improve soil health and enable customers to reduce their use of water and
synthetic inputs while improving crop
yield and quality.
Half of their business is production
agriculture and the other half is golf
courses and landscaping. Customers
include Jackson Family Wines, Driscoll’s
Berries and championship golf courses
and resorts in Las Vegas.
“Las Vegas is under huge water restrictions right now,” says Kreitler, “and water
costs are through the roof. Most courses
out there spend over a million dollars a
year on water.”
Kreitler turned down an offer with
Disney after business school. “I realized it
was exactly what I didn’t want—cog in a
wheel, what have you, and wasn’t in line
with my interests…sustainable business, a
small company. So I took a break; people
thought I was nuts.”
Nine years earlier, her father had set up
a company in the U.S. to manufacture and
distribute a soil remineralization product
developed by an Australian farmer he met
at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, but he
had moved on to other projects.
“I said to my dad, if ever there was a time
for this business to take off, it’s now, with
people so interested in organic and sustainable farming and local food sources, etc. So
I helped him develop a website and worked
on his marketing campaign. And in that process met with some of the larger buyers…
one of whom is now my business partner.”
The company, now called HealthySoil,
manufactures products that enable their
customers to substantially decrease use of
water and synthetic inputs. Their products
are organically based, and although 80
percent of their customers are conventional growers, “they love us because we
reduce their costs and improve their crops
or turf,” says Kreitler.
Remineralization used to be a natural
process that happened on its own, she
explains. Water sources carrying minerals down from the mountains into the
plains would flood the valleys, “but now
with industrial agriculture and advanced
irrigation systems you don’t have that
natural flow of minerals. Our soils are
getting depleted at a much faster rate,”
she adds, “and that is what my dad’s business tapped into.”
But remineralization is just a part of
HealthySoil’s business. “Our golden child
is a microbial solution we inject into the
field, often through irrigation,” she says.
“We rebalance the soil by introducing the
good bacteria, good fungi, all the good
bugs, and by giving them proper nutrition, you can sustain the benefits over the
long term.”
Improving the aggregate structure of
the soil improves input efficiency—“We
turn soil from concrete into a sponge.
Plants have better access to water and to
nutrients so we’re able to improve crop
quality and yield with a lot less water, fertilizer, and pesticides.”
HealthySoil won an award from the
EPA in 2008 as one of 6 national pesticide
environmental stewardship champions and was named a semifinalist in
California’s 2009 Clean Tech Open.
“I’m passionate about sustainable
agriculture,” Kreitler says, “and the importance of figuring out ways to conserve
water, especially here in California, where
our water resources are at risk.”
For more information, visit
www.healthysoil.com.
Stand-up Paddleboarding
whole new point of view,” adds Losee,
“from paddling with dolphins, to sneaking up on blue crabs, to dropping in at
your favorite surf-break, stand-up paddling has evolved from its surfing roots to
a far more extensive means to enjoy time
on the water from a new perspective.”
So far response has been very good.
Vie magazine listed YOLO boards as a
must-have Christmas gift in 2009, and
Coastal Living, Florida Travel + Life,
Standup Paddle magazine and several
other publications have recently featured YOLO boards.
The Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, company also hosted a successful cancer
benefit in September, raising $11,250 at
the YOLO Board Seaside Celebration.
YOLO Board recently teamed up
with renowned California surf legend
and board shaper Steve Brom to design
a new custom line of YOLO boards for
racing and performance surfing, reports
Standup Paddle magazine. The two
first collaborated on the creation of the
YOLO Yak, the first rotomolded polyethylene stand-up paddleboard on the
market. “Made in Washington state, the
YOLO Yak now ships internationally,”
the magazine adds, “and has become a
popular rental board of choice at resorts
across the Southeast and Caribbean.”
“My favorite moments,” says Losee,
“are when you are stand-up paddling in
crystal-clear water and see all the way
to the bottom and everything in between—including an occasional shark
or alligator in our neck-of-the-woods!”
To see where you can try out the
sport, visit www.yoloboard.com.
Tommy Crow
Combine surfing with kayaking and you
get YOLOing, or stand-up paddleboarding. “This beginner-friendly paddle
sport feels like walking on water,” says
Coastal Living magazine.
“It’s the perfect combination of
two things,” says Tom Losee ’84, “my
love of being on the water—having
sailed, windsurfed and surfed my whole
life—and my determination to stay fit.
Because it is so low impact, stand-up
paddling can be enjoyed by participants
into their 80s. So...I know what I’ll be
doing for the next 40 or so years!”
So Losee and friend Jeff Archer
launched their own line of paddleboards
called YOLO, or You Only Live Once.
Balancing family, business and recreational activities has its challenges, yet
the realization that life will never slow
down caused them to look at maximizing fun in relation to responsibility.
After extensive research and development, Losee and Archer determined
that there was a need for more of a hybrid style stand-up paddleboard—one
that not only has its roots in traditional
surfing but also in other related paddle
sports such as canoeing and kayaking.
“Standing up and paddling offers a
alumni Spotlight
Farm Fresh Children’s Hair Care
“What goes on children’s bodies should be
as natural as what goes into their mouths,”
says Kate Solomon ’90, who recently
launched Babo Botanicals, a line of hair
and skin care products for babies and kids.
Drawing on her 10 years of experience
with companies such as L’Oréal, Parfums
Givenchy and Avon, she combined her expertise in prestige hair care development
with her passion for natural ingredients.
“It seemed like most baby
‘grooming’ products were long
on chemical names,” Kate
adds, “and didn’t truly address
our children’s particular hair
and skin problems.”
Several years ago, she began
working with top botanists to
develop a line of products that
are sulfate free and allergytested, containing certified
organic ingredients and plantbased science. She also worked
with hair stylists from top Manhattan
salons to ensure product performance and
professional quality.
“I worked with three botanists for
more than two years to perfect each and
every one of the Babo formulas,” she says.
“We all used them on our infants and kids
to ensure they were effective and gentle. I
also gave the products out to all my mommy friends to use on their children.”
Kate had served in the Peace Corps
in South America, where she taught rural women farmers to beekeep so they
could earn additional income and also
serve their nutritional needs. Supporting
sustainable, pesticide-free agriculture continues to be her mission, so she selected
an organic farm in upstate New York to
produce her collection.
“When I thought about how I wanted
to develop and produce Babo Botanicals, a
few concepts kept coming to mind: authenticity, sustainability and organic farming.
I am passionate about greenmarkets—I
just love the idea that locally grown organic foods can be made available to urban
dwellers,” Kate adds. “I found an amazing
farm in upstate New York whose values
and ethics seemed exactly like my own.
Our products are manufactured right in
the red barn; since products are made in an
immaculate and sterile barn, the batches
are small—so they are easier to control in
terms of quality and safety.
“I love visiting the farm; I love the
simple nature of the place—they have a
café where all of the employees eat every
meal together, every day—with fresh food
they grow right there on the farm. And,
they are committed to using the highest
quality, fair trade ingredients, which is
very important to me,” says Kate. “They
are here to make lives better—that is their
livelihood. The team values the earth and
helping others. As a former Agricultural
Peace Corps volunteer, I, too, am committed to advocating best farming practices
and using natural ingredients.”
, Kate Solomon and her team, Rush and Seka.
Kfir Ziv
Energy Advocate by Ethan Gilsdorf
department, to design better HVAC
systems, and to teach adults about solar
power and energy conservation.
“There is absolutely no escape from the
necessity of getting rid of our dependence
on fossil fuel,” says Killorin. He admits
finding the answers will be daunting, but
he’s hopeful, adding, “It’s a long-term challenge we’re beginning to solve, clumsily.”
These days, he’s less a tinkerer in
the basement than he is a citizen activist. He serves on his town’s energy and
solid waste committees, belongs to a
public awareness group called Plymouth
Sustainable, and runs a website called
www.popularenergy.org that’s full of information and tips on how “to save energy, to
cut back on the petroleum imports…and
to save a lot of money in the process.”
For the past three years, he’s written
a column called “Popular Energy” for
his local paper, the Old Colony Memorial,
covering issues such as whether wind
or nuclear might be the right path. But
Killorin’s columns are no rants. “I fit it
into people’s lives,” he says, “so they might
modify their attitude or actions.” (That
said, anyone who does not believe in global warming, he says, “is out of his mind.”)
Despite his Ivy League education, it’s
Taft, not Yale, he credits for teaching him
how to write. In fact, the Watertown native’s family has long been linked to Taft.
“The headmaster now lives in my uncle’s
house,” Killorin says. His class, interestingly, was the last to receive diplomas
Ethan Gilsdorf
Like the Energizer Bunny, Frank Killorin
’36 keeps going, and going, as if powered by
some endless and renewable energy source.
As it turns out, energy is Killorin’s
obsession. The 91-year-old World War
II veteran, Yale-educated mechanical
engineer and inventor-entrepreneur has
dedicated much of his life to finding better ways to meet our country’s ravenous
energy demands.
After stints as an engineer with
Westinghouse and Anderson Nichols,
and developing real estate on Cape Cod,
Killorin’s life took an inspired turn. Angered
by the energy crisis of the early ’70s and
the gas-wasting, V-8 engines of the era, he
figured there must be a better way.
“So I plunged in,” he says during a recent visit to the Plymouth, Massachusetts,
home he shares with Peg, his wife of 64
years. “And I have been into renewable
energy ever since.”
First stop: solar power. The ’70s were
a time when alternative energy ideas like
burning woods and harnessing the sun
began to percolate. But the practical technology was often inefficient.
“I thought I could design a better solar
water heater,” he says. “And I did.” He obtained a patent and sold a couple hundred
models. While his design never caught
on in a big way, the invention kick-started
his passion to wean Americans from their
fossil fuel addiction. He went on to work
for Joseph Kennedy’s non-profit Citizens
Energy as manager of its energy auditing
signed by Horace Dutton Taft himself.
Killorin says there’s no point in trying
to find “a logical sequence” that led him
from one pursuit to the next. Looking back
over his life, living within earshot of Pilgrim
Station, Massachusetts’s lone nuclear
power plant, had no bearing on his interest
in alternative energy. Nor did being part of
the team that measured atomic bomb tests
in the Marshall Islands—an experience, he
says, that exposed him to “an overdose of
radiation.” In fact, he thinks nuclear power,
done well, can be a part of a sensible mix of
this country’s future energy options—one
that he hopes might also include wind, solar and even hydrogen.
Legendary
With Harvard’s 5–1 victory over Princeton in February,
Katey Stone ’84, the Landry Family Head Coach for
Harvard Women’s Ice Hockey, became the NCAA Division
I all-time winningest coach, reported the Boston Globe.
Stone, in her 16th season with the Crimson, has won
338 games, all at Harvard. Nine of Stone’s players—
including A.J. Mleczko ’93 and Tammy Shewchuk ’96—
have medaled either for Canada or the United States at
the Olympics since women’s hockey was introduced at
the games in Nagano, Japan. Kevin Burns Photography
alumni Spotlight
Trading Place
In Print
Chicken Soup for the Soul:
Teacher Tales
Bing Bingham ’64,
contributor
Chicken Soup for the Soul
Publishing, 2010
Wade Sheppard ’86 has been on the China Desk at the Department of
Agriculture since 2002, and their senior adviser on China since 2006.
“China is a top-five market for us,” says Sheppard. “Our agricultural exports
to China in 2009 were approximately $14 billion—soybeans alone accounted
for $9 billion of the total. We help coordinate across the department and represent USDA in the development of our trade policy vis-à-vis China. We also have
several offices in China under the embassy umbrella and my desk is their central
point of coordination in Washington for the department. We brief senior officials for their meetings, and usually sit in or travel with them for the meetings.”
Last fall, he attended the annual U.S.–China Joint Commission on
Commerce and Trade ( JCCT) in Beijing, his sixth.
“This is our highest bilateral forum for resolving trade issues,” says
Sheppard. “USDA, Commerce Dept and USTR are represented at the
Cabinet level. A Chinese vice premier and three ministers also participate.
My office coordinates USDA’s role in this meeting, as well as related working groups. If an issue cannot be resolved in other fora (such as technical
level meetings), then it can be elevated to the JCCT.”
Current trends and tensions make it both more challenging and more
critical to generate successes from meetings such as the JCCT, he adds.
“China came through the latest global financial crisis with a sense of
vindication that its policies have been wildly successful. Meanwhile, our
current domestic troubles take away the moral high ground that once gave
us greater leverage in these discussions. This, combined with a global rise
in protectionist sentiments, raises the stakes for our annual trade meetings.
The bottom line for both countries, though, is a need to expand market access for our respective markets, thereby creating or preserving jobs.”
Sheppard says the job is still fun and varied enough to not become stale,
but not what he thought he’d be doing when he started learning Chinese at
Taft. He finds that his experiences working and living in Asia certainly enrich
the work he does now. He first studied in China in 1988 and taught English in
Taiwan in 1990–91. He lived in Shanghai from 1997 to 2000. In his current
position, he visits China 2 to 3 times a year. “We still keep an apartment in
Shanghai,” he says, “but we don’t get back as often as we hoped.”
“I am here in large part because of the first year of Chinese I took with
Mr. Liu back in 1985,” he adds. “That led me to two degrees in Chinese
studies (with another in trade policy), five years living in Asia, and more
than one China-centric career. If not for that first year, I cannot imagine
where my life would have taken me.... My French grades at Taft certainly
didn’t indicate a proficiency with foreign languages!”
Here are 101 inspirational stories
that will make teachers laugh out
loud, shed a few tears, and above
all, realize that they really do
make a difference and that they
are very much appreciated.
As Anthony Mullen, the 2009
National Teacher of the Year,
says in his foreword, “We need
this book!” In an unprecedented
move, all 55 of the 2009 State
Teachers of the Year came together in this project, joined by
several dozen other teachers and
appreciative students, to write
the stories in Chicken Soup for
the Soul: Teacher Tales. “These
educators understand what we
teach is not as important as
whom we teach.”
In addition to the stories
from the State Teachers of the
Year, Chicken Soup for the Soul
selected 46 stories from teachers, and some grateful students,
from the thousands of stories
that were submitted.
In, “The Lesson,” Bingham,
who teaches at Marvelwood
School in Kent, Connecticut,
reminds us that a little gratitude
goes a long way.
Since 1993, books in the
Chicken Soup for the Soul series
have sold more than 112 million
copies, with titles translated
into more than 40 languages.
For more information visit:
www.chickensoup.com.
American Insurgents,
American Patriots: The
Revolution of the People
Rethinking World Politics:
A Theory of Transnational
Neopluralism
T.H. Breen ’60
Philip G. Cerny ’63
Hill and Wang, 2010
Oxford University Press, 2010
Most Americans have a working knowledge of the Founding
Fathers and the role they played
in American Independence,
but in his new book, celebrated
historian T.H. Breen tells a different story—that revolutions are
not made solely by a handful of
influential leaders. Revolutions
require a majority of the ordinary. They are violent events that
require a level of anger, organization, communication along with
a philosophical undercurrent
that emboldens purpose.
Drawing on a wealth of
rarely seen documents, including diaries, letters and minutes
from revolutionary committee
meetings, Breen introduces us to
some of the extraordinary farmers who made up this grassroots
movement. He points to the important role newspapers played
in uniting colonists from New
Hampshire to Georgia.
Breen, who is William Smith
Mason Professor of American
History at Northwestern
University, has written ten books
and hundreds of articles. He has
been called “one of the most
imaginative and productive of
early American historians.”
Rethinking World Politics is a
major intervention into a central
debate in international relations:
how has globalization transformed world politics?
Most work on world politics
still presumes that the state lies at
the center; it is what politics is all
about. Cerny contends, however,
that recent experience suggests
another process at work: “transnational neopluralism.”
Cerny explains that contemporary world politics is subject
to pressures from a wide variety
of sub- and supra-national actors,
many of which are organized
transnationally. In recent years,
the ability of transnational
governance bodies, NGOs and
transnational firms to shape
world politics has steadily grown.
These processes are not replacing
nation-states, but they are forging
new transnational webs of power.
Rethinking World Politics offers us
new ways to think about the forces
shaping the contemporary world.
“The study of international
relations has traditionally been
dominated by state-centric approaches,” says David Baldwin,
senior political scientist at
Princeton University. “This book
challenges students of international relations to think about
world affairs from alternative
perspectives and to question the
applicability of traditional approaches to the 21st century.”
Cerny is a professor of
global political economy in the
Department of Politics and
International Studies and the
Division of Global Affairs at
Rutgers University, Newark.
He is also professor emeritus of
government at the University
of Manchester, UK. He is a former chair of the International
Political Economy Section of the
International Studies Association
and has been a member of the
executive committees of the
British International Studies
Association and the Political
Studies Association of the United
Kingdom. He has written extensively on political theories of the
state and globalization.
Schooner: Building a
Wooden Boat on Martha’s
Vineyard
Tom Dunlop ’79
Photographs by Alison Shaw
Vineyard Stories, 2010
In photographs and words,
and from drawings to launch,
Schooner: Building a Wooden
Boat on Martha’s Vineyard takes
you through the construction of
Rebecca, a 60-foot wooden schooner (and the largest boat built on
the Vineyard since the election
of Abraham Lincoln), as no other
book about traditional boat building ever has.
Schooner celebrates the 30th
anniversary of the Gannon and
Benjamin Marine Railway, the
boatyard where Rebecca was
designed and built—and one of
only a very few yards in North
America still devoted exclusively
to the design, construction, repair,
and maintenance of traditional
wooden boats.
For the latest news
on campus events,
please visit
TaftSchool.org.
around the Pond
By Sam Routhier
h Jazz artist Darmon
Meader performed as part
of the Walker Hall series.
www.Darmonmeader.com
Much Music for a While
Bruce Fifer’s music series for Walker Hall
has been extremely active this winter,
keeping a smile on Taft’s face in spite of
the tough weather.
On February 12, Walker Hall welcomed the Manhattan String Quartet.
Celebrating its 39th season, the group has
been the quartet-in-residence at Colgate
University for the past twenty-two years
and is known as the premier performer of
the quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich.
Darmon Meader presented an evening of jazz on January 22. Recognized
in both the jazz and instrumental worlds,
Meader is a highly respected vocalist, arranger and saxophonist. He has achieved
international recognition as the founder,
musical director, chief arranger, composer,
producer, saxophonist and vocalist with
New York Voices.
Providing a lighter feel, Rani Arbo and
Daisy Mayhem returned to Walker Hall
on January 8. The quartet also played a
children’s concert earlier in the day and
graced Taft with “a jubilant and unabashed
mix of traditional, original and contemporary sounds.”
Green Cup Take 2
alongside ongoing construction. With
that in mind, our usage per square foot
actually decreased significantly. As the
challenge progressed, Taft students
became more aware of their electricity
consumption and made huge efforts to
act more sustainably. This was evident
as our electricity use decreased with
each week of the challenge. In addition,
a number of the dorms contributed
excellent performances. Vogelstein
and CPT decreased the most, with
a considerable overall decrease of
16.85 percent. Taft beat schools such
as Exeter, St. Andrew’s, Salisbury and
Blair; however, Hotchkiss competed
Andri Li ’11
For the second year in a row, Taft
competed in the annual Green Cup
Challenge. The Green Cup Challenge is
a competition among sixty-four boarding and day schools to reduce electricity
throughout February. Each week, members of TEAM, Taft’s Environmental
Awareness Movement, checked the
electricity meters of each Taft building to monitor usage. We then entered
the data and compared our results to
our average usage from the last three
years. This year, Taft had an overall
increase of +0.43 percent in electricity
use, a notable achievement considering the addition of the new dining hall
in the Green Cup Challenge for their
first time and decreased an impressive
12 percent. Nevertheless, TEAM and
its faculty leaders, Carly Borken and
Jim Lehner, are excited for next year’s
competition. Planning is already underway for ways to make Taft sustainable
not only for the Green Cup Challenge,
but also for the future.
—Hanna Dethlefs ’12
Landscapes fill Potter Gallery
Author Author
For the month of February, artist Nancy
Friese’s exhibit “Greenswards: Tremendous
Trees, Bending Skies, and Greenswards”
adorned the Potter Gallery. The exhibit
showcased landscape painting at its finest. Friese writes, “By studying nature’s
phenomenon, I tie visual observations
to experience…. With unpeopled views,
scenes, and vistas, one can enter a more
philosophical, personal, and timeless
place.” The works range from oil-on-linen
landscapes that cover half of the gallery’s
far wall to smaller line etchings. Friese’s art
has been on display in 25 solo shows and
170 group shows in cities ranging from
London, Tokyo and New York.
Yee-Fun Yin
Loueta Chickadaunce
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa
Lahiri spoke in Morning Meeting in March
and also attended classes on campus.
Her novel, The Namesake, was chosen as
Taft’s all-school read last summer.
Lahiri was born in London and
raised in Rhode Island. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship
and author of two previous books. Her
debut collection of stories, Interpreter of
Maladies, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize,
the PEN/Hemingway Award and The New
Yorker Debut of the Year. The Namesake
was a New York Times Notable Book, a
Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and
was selected as one of the best books of
the year by USA Today and Entertainment
Weekly, among other publications. She
lives in Brooklyn, New York. Her latest
book is Unaccustomed Earth.
around the POND
Haiti Relief Efforts
When he addressed the faculty in early
January, Headmaster Willy MacMullen
’78 used the term “helpless” to describe
his feelings in response to the earthquake
disaster that hit Haiti. To be sure, the
scope of the events in Haiti present a
daunting challenge for world relief efforts. With that said, the Taft community
has shown determination to do its part.
Coordinated by Baba Frew, students of the
Global Concerns Club, and various varsity
athletic teams, Taft has put its best foot
forward in efforts to raise money to help
those in need.
The most lucrative fundraiser that
Frew put together was a raffle for
four tickets to a Trey Anastasio show.
Anastasio ’83, former lead singer of the
hit band Phish, played to a packed house
in New Haven on Saturday, February 13.
The tickets were donated by Brad Joblin
’73. The winners of the tickets were
Remo Plunkett ’13, Rob Daigle ’12, Ben
Rifkin ’12 and John Carroll ’12, and the
raffle earned $2,085.
In addition to the Volunteer Council’s
efforts, the Global Concerns Club has been
baking avidly to raise money for Haiti.
Brian Sengdala ’10 and Thu Pham ’10
organized brownie sales that totaled $300.
The varsity boys’ basketball team
spearheaded an extremely profitable and
philanthropic venture. Taking off of the
University of Kentucky’s idea, the team
in brief…
designed and ordered “Hoops for Haiti”
T-shirts. During Taft’s night basketball
game against Avon Old Farms, the crowd
enjoyed a “red-out,” with the majority
donning the T-shirts. In just two weeks,
the team sold nearly 100 shirts and raised
$1,100 for the cause. Additionally, the
boys’ varsity hockey team contributed
$700 from bake sales at games.
Proceeds from these fundraisers
were donated to two organizations—
Partners in Health and the Hospital
Albert Schweitzer. Students chose these
organizations with a few items in mind.
First of all, the whole school had read
author Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond
Mountains in the summer of 2007, the
story of Paul Farmer’s Partners in Health.
“It only seemed right that we should
donate part of our money to PIH,” uppermid LillieBelle Viebranz said, “and so
we decided right away that they would
be one of the two recipients.” The other
recipient, Hospital Albert Schweitzer, is
the only fully functioning hospital within
reach of Port-au-Prince, according to
Viebranz. Because it was lesser-known,
the volunteer council trusted that funds
would be used directly for aid as opposed
to advertising.
“We’re confident that we did really good work for Haitian relief,” added
Viebranz. “It feels extra good to know that
the money will go toward optimal use.”
Students Boogie
Down for Dance Club
February 13 saw the Taft community
rally for the school’s dance club. For
the first time, the club was invited
to an international dance festival
in Jamaica over spring break. As a
fundraiser and a general enthusiasmbuilder, dance teacher Meredith
Lyons teamed up with the student
activities team to put together “Taft’s
Best Dance Crew.” The competition
featured three different teams of
students dancing before a panel of
judges, with seniors Thad Reycraft,
Thomas Freyre, and Cam Mullen
taking home the crown in a tight
competition. In addition, the night
featured a performance by the dance
team at halftime of the boys’ basketball game. “We loved rallying support
for the dancers,” explained Mullen. “It
was great to have the whole student
body getting behind their efforts.”
Crush Can Sale
Benefits
Uppermid Class,
Community Love
Rob Madden ’03
Forget candy hearts, chocolate boxes
and serenades. Valentine’s Day at
Taft means only one thing—the annual Crush Can sale. Headed by the
Uppermid class committee, students
and teachers are encouraged to purchase cans of orange Crush soda for
friends, significant others and maybe
even an unsuspecting far-off object
of affection. One recipient of a Crush
can this year was Lisa Keys, director of Health Services. Keys,
an avid baker, used her gift to
bake an Orange Crush pound
cake in order to “keep the
love alive all year long.”
Andre li ’11
MLK Day Celebration Shows Taft at Its Finest
For yet another year, Greg Ricks and
the Martin Luther King Day team put
together a memorable day for the Taft
community. From school-wide assemblies
in Bingham Auditorium to outreach to
local middle schoolers to reflective workshops between students and faculty, the
day filled our hearts and minds with the
spirit of Dr. King.
The events began on Sunday night,
January 17, as the community gathered
for a keynote presentation. After talks by
Headmaster MacMullen and head monitor Bo Redpath, the performing group
Nzinga Daughters took the stage. The
quartet hails from Waterbury and seeks
to educate through music of the African
diaspora. Their music livened the audience and inspired the community values
that mark MLK Day as special. Producer
Callie Crossley then presented the keynote talk about her work on “Eyes on the
Prize,” the Oscar-nominated documentary that chronicles the civil rights struggle
from start to finish.
The next morning, interested faculty
and students assembled for the annual
MLK prayer breakfast along with 45
guests from the local community. Each
table had a student leader who offered
his or her perspective on service at
Taft, highlighting the many forms that
leadership takes on and off this campus.
Following these brief statements, the
group heard speeches from Headmaster
MacMullen and Connecticut’s
Lieutenant Governor, Michael Fidele.
Up at the athletic center, Tafties then
welcomed students for the MLK Young
Heroes program. Local middle schoolers heard a talk by Rohan Freeman,
who described his experience as the
first African-American to climb Mount
Everest. Freeman also led a workshop for
Taft students entitled, “Climbing your
personal Everest.” At the Young Heroes
program, 105 Taft students led clinics
in rock climbing, ice skating, volleyball,
basketball and other sports in a great effort of community outreach.
In the second part of the morning,
faculty and guest speakers sponsored
more than 30 workshops related to
themes of MLK Day. Included among
these was an examination of the Negro
Leagues in baseball, a class on the
current gay marriage debate and a discussion on health-care reform.
Following the workshops, the whole
community rallied in the afternoon for
“Faces, Voices, and Spirit,” a series of
performances highlighting not only Taft’s
pervasive talent, but also its friendship
and goodwill. Performances included a
rendition of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going
On?” a traditional Vietnamese song and
dance called “Co Tam Ngay Nay,” and U2’s
“Pride (In the Name of Love),” performed
by Spanish teacher Chamby Zepeda.
“The energy of the participants all contributed to making this a community-wide
success,” said Linda Saarnijoki. “This was
a day when everyone was influenced to
think about ideas and values that will help
make ours a better world.”
around the POND
Courtesy of Taft Annual
Club
Spotlight
Improv Keeps Taft Light
It has been a pleasure to report on various Taft clubs that are constantly adding
to the feel of the campus. A group that
certainly falls into that category is the
Improv group. Led by acting teacher
Helena Fifer, the improv group not only
augments its members’ Taft experiences,
but frequently performs in a manner that
enlivens everyone else’s days. The group
meets once a week to learn new methods
of improvisational comedy and to try out
new games. Along with these meetings,
they perform about twice each season,
usually in the black box, but also to open
for Saturday night entertainment in places like the choral room or Cruikshank
gym. Some of their favorite games
take such wacky titles as “Motivational
Speech,” “Inner Monologue,” and “PoemGibberish-Interpretive Dance.”
The improv-ers were quite open
with what they see as the value that the
group has added to their lives. “Being
part of the improv club has given me
more confidence in everything that I do,”
remarks uppermiddler Sam Fifer. Fellow
uppermiddler Jake Cohen adds that
performing with the improv group has
been a delightful exercise in teamwork:
“Each of us has our own set of interests;
we even have a handful of varsity athletes.
However, we still connect through comedy, working as a team to build scenes
and stories that people hopefully find
funny.” Furthermore, many members of
the improv group have gone on to play
significant parts in their colleges’ groups.
Just this February, Matt Fisher ’97 came
through Taft with his group, Sidecar, to
perform for his alma mater. Our school
is lucky to have a group so talented and
dedicated as the improv squad.
Flaming Idiots
n Uppermids Ebony Easley, Sam Fifer and Jake
Cohen keep the customers laughing as they
try to keep their new restaurant in business in
Flaming Idiots. Peter Frew ’75
“This fast-paced, physical comedy
depends on precise timing,” writes
Tom Sasani ’11 in the Taft Papyrus.
Directed by acting teacher Helena
Fifer, Flaming Idiots consists of frantic and
fast-paced action that is complemented by
“ridiculous twists and turns.”
Clever dialogue is essential to the farcical nature of the play, Sasani adds. “Idiots
succeeds here as well. Combining witty
banter and slapstick humor, Flaming Idiots
covers all of the comedic bases.”
Technical director David Kievet
worked on the original Flaming Idiots set
when it premièred.
“A talented cast and an experienced
crew have combined to bring a humorous and witty script to life onstage,” says
Sasani, “and the results are memorable and
downright hilarious.”
For more on the
winter season,
please visit
TaftSports.com.
winter SPORT wrap-up
By steve Palmer
Lindsay Karcher ’12, Katie Harpin ’13 and
Maggie O’Neill ’13. Double victories over
Hotchkiss and Berkshire were season highlights. The second Hotchkiss win saw the
visiting Big Red storm back from a six-point
deficit to finish a solid season. Karraker
led the team in scoring, while newcomers
O’Neill and Harpin had several great games
in double figures.
h Founders League
MVP Chris Evans ’10
Rob Madden ’03
Wrestling 10–6
Boys’ Basketball 18–7
Western N.E. Semifinals
This was a great season for the team, and
their 18 wins were the third most in school
history. Taft went 16–4 to earn the top seed
in the Western N.E. Basketball tournament.
They won the first-round game convincingly against a strong Salisbury team,
71–51, then lost an agonizingly close but
well-played semifinal game to Wilbraham,
57–54. During the regular season, this
hard-playing, tightly knit team swept the
two game series against perennial powers Trinity Pawling and Avon, and took 2
out of 3 games against eventual champion
Kent. The Rhinos also won three overtime
games, another indication of their team
character. Throughout the season, Taft was
led by league MVP Chris Evans ’10, who
averaged 22 points and nearly 8 rebounds
a game and was a force at both ends of the
court. Greg Nicol ’10 played hard inside
and led the team averaging 9 rebounds per
game, while Jeff Tagger ’10 and captain
Jared Jackson ’10 were multifaceted guards
who handled the ball and were all over
the court. Keefer Rafferty ’10 and Matt
McLaughlin ’10 played crucial roles as well
in this special season.
Girls’ Basketball 10–12
This was a young team, with six lower
schoolers and two seniors, that was never at
full strength. Senior co-captain Katie Carden
was out early in December, and other key
players—notably scoring guards Kate
Karraker ’11 and Claire Wilson ’11—missed
several games. But, co-captain Sarah Perda
’10 was a constant, as were Lexi Dwyer ’12,
Despite having very few returning starters from last year’s team, the grapplers put
together an impressive season. Co-captain
Tucker Jennings ’10, who wrestled at 125
pounds, started the winter in spectacular
fashion, becoming the first Taft wrestler to
be crowned champion at the Canterbury
Tournament in December. The highlight
of the season was a tri-meet win against
Choate (54–24) and Suffield (48–24). The
team went 9–3 for the final 4 weeks of dual
meets. In the league tournament, eight Taft
wrestlers took home medals. Ryan Tam ’11
(103), Quinn Gorman ’12 (112), and Nick
Joung ’11 (160) finished 6th. Steve Holland
’11 (119) and Alex Urban ’10 (285) earned
5th. John Kukral ’11 (145) battled his way to
fourth place. Tucker Jennings reached third
place at 125, and co-captain Kris Bae ’11 was
the league champion at 189 pounds, a fitting
end to his great season.
Girls’ Hockey 6–15
This young team, with only one senior,
struggled to score goals, but kept many
games close through solid defensive play.
The Rhinos lost eight games by two goals
finishing 4th in New England at the #5
position, and James Calello ’11, who played
in the final varsity spot this winter, will be
one of the co-captains for next year’s team,
which looks to be very strong again.
h Middlers Sachika Balvani (pictured) and Zeyad Elshorfy both won the NE #1 squash
draws—the first time a Taft boy and girl have done so in the same year. Rob Madden ’03
or fewer, including two in overtime, and
half the team’s wins came by one goal.
Highlights of the season were wins against
Berkshire, a come-from-behind thirdperiod 2–1 win, and Hotchkiss, a 1–0 win
behind uppermid Jess Desorcie’s goal and
uppermid Emy Farrow-German’s great
play in the net. The Rhinos also had the
opportunity to play against Andover at
Harvard’s Bright Ice. Despite losing 4–2,
it was a great trip, set up by Taft alum and
Harvard women’s head coach Katey Stone
’84. Both teams are looking forward to a
rematch at Harvard next year. Desorcie
led the team in scoring, and her linemate
Laura Mead ’12 was second in points,
while captain Kate Moreau ’11 was the
team’s leader on defense.
Boys’ Hockey 11–11–3
The team finished with a .500 record but
had several big wins over the best teams in
New England, including eventual champion Avon, 3–2, Salisbury, 4–1, and a very
strong Belmont Hill team, 3–0. However,
playing in and winning an exhibition game
against Avon Old Farms at Fenway Park
was by the far the highlight of the season
and a memorable moment for everyone
playing or coaching that day. Taft’s defense was anchored by tri-captain Mike
Petchonka ’10 in the net, with a .915 save
percentage, while Zander Masucci ’10,
Eliot Bostrom ’10 and tri-captains Thomas
Freyre ’10 and John Barr ’10 controlled
the bluelines. Offensively, the goals came
in spurts in some games, including an 8–1
win over a strong Canterbury team, and at
the last minute in others, such as the two
goals in the final minutes of the exciting
2–0 win over Deerfield. Founders League
All Stars Aidan Cavallini ’11 and Corbin
McGuire ’11 led the team in scoring, while
Will Einstein ’10, Peter Mistretta ’11 and
Mike Moran ’11 did a lot of the hard work
in the corners and neutral zone. Of course,
for everyone on this team but for the
seniors especially, their final game, a hardfought 3–2 win over Hotchkiss, was a good
way to go out.
Boys’ Squash 12–1
Founders League Champions
5th Place Nationals
The boys varsity squash team finished off a
fantastic season as Founders League champions with a 12–1 record. The Rhinos went
undefeated in the league, and their only
dual-match loss was to New England champion Brunswick. The season began with
an exciting win over Exeter, 4–3, but Taft
had its best day later at the biggest venue,
finishing 5th at the United States Team
Nationals held at Yale University. In that
highly competitive tournament, Taft came
from behind in two heart-pounding wins
over Haverford, 4–3, and Tabor Academy,
4–3, with Max Frew ’10 winning the final
match by a 3–2 score both times. Cocaptains Andy Cannon ’11 and Max Kachur
’10 played well all season in the 2nd and 3rd
spots respectively, while newcomer Zeyad
Elshorfy ’12 went undefeated at the top spot
and finished as the individual New England
champion. During the season, he also beat
the #1 and #2 ranked players in the United
States. Freshman Andrew Cadienhead was
outstanding all season long, finishing #3
in New England at the #6 position. Senior
Cam Mullen also had a fabulous season,
Girls’ Squash 11–2
New England Runner–up
6th Place Nationals
The girls’ squash team saved their best for
last in their fantastic 2nd place finish at the
New England Championships. While the
Rhinos had defeated strong teams from
Hotchkiss, Deerfield and Andover during
the season, all by the score of 7–0, they felt
that their 6th place finish at the National
Team tournament left something to be desired. However, they left no doubt that this
was one of the best squash teams Taft has
had by scoring 102 team points, close on the
heels of champion Greenwich Academy’s
111 points. Taft’s top player, Sachika Balvani
’12, won the individual championship over
her counterpart from GA in a tough 3–1
match. Ellie O’Neill ’11, Celina Schreiber ’12
and Jenny Janeck ’11, all finished 2nd—in
the third, fifth and seventh spots respectively.
Captain Kelly Barnes ’10 was 4th in the
second draw, and Rachel Barnes ’11 and
Katherine Carroll ’12 were both third.
Skiing
The Taft Ski Team competed in a number
of Berkshire Ski League slalom races during this spotty winter. Jason Feinman ’11
and captain Mike Klein ’10 were a strong
1–2 punch for the boys, while captain
Jessie Johnson ’11 and Sarah Palmore ’11
often led the girls. At the ten-school BSL
Giant Slalom championships, Taft’s combined, co-ed placement was 8th, behind
Feinman’s 14th place out of the 72 finishing competitors. At the NEPSAC Class C
Championships, the boys placed 8th of the
14 teams, while the girls were 10th. Taft’s
highest finish was Feinman’s 11th place in
the slalom, and Andrew Trevenen ’13 and
Liz Veillette ’13 both had great GS runs.
This Blog’s For You
During the 94 days Christy Everett ’90 waited to bring her newborn son home from the hospital,
she started a blog, a “written outlet [that became] as important for my own healing and growth as
it was to tell my loved ones about Elias’s.”
Family physician Davis Liu ’89 started his blog to give his patients, and everyone else, more
information to help them make better health-care decisions. Along the way he also became an
advocate for health-care reform.
After 35 years of reporting on education, John Merrow ’59 was already a recognized expert in the
field, but he sees his blog as a place to share some of his stories and ideas.
Blogs are the new media. They may have started out as a form of online journaling, but today they
can be anything from a means to share expertise to a way to connect with others who share similar
interests or concerns.
A recent study by www.Technorati.com found that bloggers actually vary little by age or gender, or
even geography. Blogging is the universal equalizer; anyone with internet access can now become
a columnist or reporter.
Who knows how many Taft alumni are actually blogging; we’d love to find out. The ones I have
come across in recent months—and which are excerpted here—are impressive. From education
and health-care reform to travel and theology, from parenting to nutrition, their variety and scope
reflect well on our community of lifelong learners and their passion for effecting change.
In a world where we are ever-connected, people have increasingly looked for ways to connect—
not just with information but with each other—and blogs can help us do that. At a time when the
line between our personal and professional lives is increasingly blurred, bloggers can help narrate
and help us navigate this brave new world.
S TAT S
Blogosphere stats
133,000,000—number of
blogs indexed since 2002
346,000,000—number of
people globally who read
blogs
900,000—average number
of blog posts in a 24-hour
period
77—percentage of active
Internet users who read
blogs
81—number of languages
represented in the
blogosphere
59—percentage of bloggers
who have been blogging for
at least 2 years
Source: www.Technorati.com
—Julie Reiff, editor
Blog (a contraction of the term “web log”): a type of website, usually maintained by an individual
with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or
video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as
a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. Many blogs provide commentary or news on
a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. The ability of readers to leave
comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. [www.wikipedia.org]
Check out all of the blogs at our website at http://www.TaftSchool.org/Bulletin
ab o u t
Taking
Education isn’t known for having an institutional memory, which means reformers often
embrace fads or re-invent the wheel. Unfortunately, every such misstep wastes more than
money and energy. Each also has real consequences for children and youth, who don’t get
a do-over when adults endorse “reforms” that have failed before.
After nearly 35 years of reporting, I may now qualify for “institutional memory” status, and
this weekly blog is a place to share some of my stories and ideas, in hopes that you will find
at least a few of them of value.
J u ly 2 1 , 2 0 0 9
Wasting Talent
“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air”
In Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” those flowers are a metaphor for talents and gifts. I have always loved
both the poem and those lines, but I wonder whether they accurately describe what is more likely to happen to talented youth today?
What happens to talent that is not nurtured?
I remember the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan—the gifted son of hardscrabble Irish immigrants–telling me that “cream rises to the
top,” which was his own experience. My experience as a teacher in a federal penitentiary suggests otherwise. More importantly, so
does hard data from solid research.
Let’s put one important fact on the table to start: Talent is randomly distributed. It is not a function of social class, race, income or
even education. For more information on this, look at “The Achievement Trap” (PDF), a report by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation.
It notes that when they enter elementary school, high-achieving, lower-income students mirror America both demographically and
geographically. They exist proportionately to the overall first-grade population among males and females and within urban, suburban
and rural communities and are similar to the first-grade population in terms of race and ethnicity (African-American, Hispanic, white,
and Asian).
Not only that, “More than one million K–12 children who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch rank in the top quartile academically. Overall, about 3.4 million K–12 children residing in households with incomes below the national median rank in the top quartile
academically.” This population is larger than the individual populations of 21 states, the report notes.
Read more from his blog at http://learningmatters.tv/blog/op-ed/
Note
Thoughts on education from John Merrow ’59
But then what happens? Here the news is not good, starting as early as first grade. Because ability is randomly distributed, kids from different income groups ought to appear in equal numbers
in the four academic quartiles. Unfortunately, among first-grade students performing in the top
academic quartile, only 28 percent are from lower-income families, while 72 percent are from
higher-income families. As the report notes, “In elementary and high school, lower-income students neither maintain their status as high achievers nor rise into the ranks of high achievers as
frequently as higher-income students. Only 56 percent of lower-income students maintain their
status as high achievers in reading by fifth grade, versus 69 percent of higher-income students.”
If programs for gifted and talented were adequately funded, things might be different. But, as we
and others have reported, these programs have been cut, victims of No Child Left Behind’s frenzied pressure for higher test scores among kids who were just a point or two away from getting
over the “adequate” bar.
Does “Cream rise to the top” on its own? No, that’s not likely. However, talented kids who were
born into upper-income families are likely to rise. Again quoting from the Jack Kent Cooke report:
While 25 percent of high-achieving lower-income students fall out of the top academic
quartile in math in high school, only 16 percent of high-achieving upper income students
do so. Among those not in the top academic quartile in first grade, children from families
in the upper income half are more than twice as likely as those from lower income families to rise into the top academic quartile by fifth grade. The same is true between eighth
and twelfth grades.
They are also twice as likely to drop out of high school without graduating.
And do these kids whose talent is not nurtured “waste their sweetness on the desert air,” as
Thomas Gray wrote? Here I have some direct experience. I taught in a federal penitentiary in
Virginia for two years in the late 1960s. I had classes of 20 or so young men who wanted to read
literature and improve their writing. During my career I have also been a high school English
teacher (NY), a junior high school summer school teacher (Greenwich, CT) and a teaching assistant (Harvard). The young men in that federal prison were easily the most focused, ambitious and
responsive students I’ve ever taught. And while it’s true that they were self-selected and that most
prisoners have literacy issues, I still wonder, nearly 40 years later, where things went wrong for
those guys. Why criminals instead of teachers or plumbers or business executives? What did not
happen in their schools that might have set them on a productive path?
I stayed in touch with one of those former prisoners and later was best man at his wedding. Bobby
worked hard, bought and fixed up a couple of two- and three-family homes, rented them out, and
before long became a very successful citizen. I hope the other guys did as well, but, more than
C o mme n ts
John Bennett said…
There are two problems, I
believe. First, any minimal
assessment that’s done
is used only to defend
current positions—never
as the starting point for
honest dialogue (teachers,
administrators and parents)
as to how things are going
and what can be done to
make things go better. No
one talks/plans; they just “go
to the mattresses.” Secondly,
new teachers coming into
the profession do have
the intrinsic motivation to
work to do better. But just
as happens with young
learners (who are intrinsically
motivated to learn), the
school environment kills all
the motivation.
There are lots of great
thoughts expressed in
this article, John, and in
the comments offered by
others. IF there’s no dialogue
and intrinsically motivated
commitment to meaningful
change, teachers of today
will be comfortable in the
schools of 2059—but very
unhappy with the position of
the USA in the world.
Taking Note
Thoughts on education from John Merrow ’59
that, I hope that educators will address their own “Expectations Gap” when it comes to low-income kids. Kids from wealthy homes
are likely to get that extra stimulation at home, but poor kids need what schools can and should provide—field trips, challenging curriculum, and the best teachers.
This country cannot afford to waste any talent. We’ve done that for too long.
S e p tember 1 4 , 2 0 0 9
The Sources of Innovation
What produces innovation? Why does there seem to be such an abundance of it in serious fields like medicine and computer technology and trivial ones like online dating, but so little in education, arguably the most important of human activities?
First, let me support my premise, that schooling is largely bereft of innovation. A doctor or an auto mechanic from the 1950s, if
dropped into today’s hospital or garage, would be baffled. A teacher from the ’50s, however, would feel pretty darn comfortable in
today’s classrooms. Maybe the desks wouldn’t be attached to the floor, and perhaps the blackboards would have been replaced by
whiteboards, but there’d be bells every 50 minutes or so, attendance to be taken, and interruptions by the principal. I rest my case.
Back to why: The thirst for money, prestige and fame are reliable spurs of innovation. Living in Silicon Valley as I do,
I’ve seen plenty of evidence of that. Unfortunately, public education is not the road to travel if your goals are money,
prestige and fame.
Another spur to innovate is a supportive but challenging environment, one in which failure is seen as an opportunity to learn, not a
stain. Does that describe most schools? I don’t think so.
John Doerr’s New Schools Venture Fund is working to recreate
in education some of the conditions that have spurred Silicon
Valley’s growth. That’s an uphill battle with a number of hurdles
standing in the way, including a “one size fits all” mentality and a
glut of “experts.”
Education’s “one size fits all” approach to evaluating and
paying teachers has to dampen enthusiasm for trying
new approaches. Why bother if you aren’t going to be reward-
ed? As “The Widget Effect,” a new report from the New Teacher
Project, makes clear, administrators don’t pay much attention
to teacher effectiveness. “Evaluation systems fail to differentiate
performance among teachers. As a result, teacher effectiveness
is largely ignored. Excellent teachers cannot be recognized or
rewarded, chronically low-performing teachers languish, and the
wide majority of teachers performing at moderate levels do not get
the differentiated support and development they need to improve
as professionals.”
Read more from his blog at http://learningmatters.tv/blog/op-ed/
bi o
Another barrier to innovation in education is the glut of “experts,” meaning
all of us went to school and therefore “know” what school should be like.
It’s tough to argue for new and different approaches when everyone’s an expert!
Imagine, for example, trying to create an ungraded classroom for children in the K–2
range. It makes sense, because children learn in spurts and at different times. We segregate by age largely because it’s administratively convenient, not for pedagogical reasons.
Now suppose an enlightened principal wanted to put all the kindergarten, first grade and
second grade students into one group, empowering teachers to work with them in skillappropriate groups. She’d say, in effect, “Your job is to get them all to a certain level by
the end of what we used to call Second Grade.”
That’s innovation at its best, in my view, because it empowers teachers, sets standards
and encourages responsibility.
What would happen if we did try to innovate? Imagine the conversations at
the hairdresser’s or the hardware store:
“How’s little Charlie doing this year? He’s in 1st grade this year, right?”
“Well, no. There’s no such thing as 1st grade any more. Now they call it “K–2.”
Charlie’s 6, but they’ve got him in with a bunch of 4-, 5- and 7-year-olds.”
“That’s crazy. We didn’t do stuff like that when I went to school. Have they lost
their minds down there? Wait till I tell people about this”
How long would that innovation last?
Perhaps bad times will spur innovation. A theory going around is that today’s desperate
circumstances are likely to produce educational breakthroughs.
Certainly desperation can be a source of innovation, as in Apollo 13 (“Houston, we’ve
got a problem”) or in countless big game situations when time is running out. The
Apollo 13 astronauts solved a life-threatening crisis with stuff like duct tape, baling wire
and paper clips, just as quarterbacks like Tom Brady manage to find ways to overcome
impossible odds and win the game. But those are not innovations with a long shelf life,
just ways to get past a challenge.
I’m hearing that recession conditions—45 students in a class, and so on—
do not have a silver lining, at least not one that teachers themselves have
been able to discern.
John Merrow began his
career as an education
reporter with National
Public Radio in 1974 with
the weekly series, “Options
in Education,” for which
he received the George
Polk Award in 1982. He
is currently president of
Learning Matters and
scholar in residence at the
Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching at
Stanford. Since 1984 he has
worked in public television
as Education Correspondent
for The NewsHour with
Jim Lehrer and as host
of his own series of
documentaries, The Merrow
Report. His work has been
recognized with Peabody
Awards in 2000 and 2006,
Emmy nominations in
1984, 2005 and 2007, four
CINE Golden Eagles and
other reporting awards.
A frequent contributor to
USA Today, the New York
Times, the Washington
Post, the Los Angeles Times
and Education Week, he
is the author of Choosing
Excellence and co-editor of
Declining by Degrees.
Are you hearing different? I’d like to know. j
our glutenab o u t
Kirstin Boncher ’87
I went to cooking school and cooked in restaurants years ago. Then I went back to school
to study art (painting). Now I am back cooking...for my kids. With the genes for celiac and
many severe symptoms of gluten intolerance we have given up gluten (wheat, rye and
barley) and gone dairy and soy light as the molecules are similar. In the process we have
found an old-fashioned, unprocessed homemade life that is profoundly satisfying. My father
says that I am 3/4 scientist and 1/4 religious nut about this stuff. I think my blog reflects my
conviction that there is a better, healthier way to live. And it can be miraculous for everyone.
It isn’t easy, but it is worth doing.
T u es d a y, N o v ember 2 7 , 2 0 0 7
The Dangers of Processed Food
Processed food is everywhere. It is hard to avoid and seems to be a staple among young children. We grew up on Goldfish and macaroni and cheese, so I used to think it wasn’t that bad. But the more I know about nutrition, the scarier this processed food is becoming.
Being gluten free and soy free and dairy light eliminates 95 percent of this processed kid food. But as I read every ingredient on every
label on every food that I even consider buying, I have become more aware of how this processed food has changed since we were
growing up. Although we don’t eat Goldfish anymore, the “Goldfish” today are probably not the same recipe that they were when we
were growing up. They probably contain additional additives and preservatives that didn’t even exist when we were growing up.
I thought MSG wasn’t something I had to worry about until I read this article.
www.livingwithout.com/features/feature-MSG.html
This one also gives a thorough explanation of how MSG is hidden
in most processed food.
www.naturodoc.com/library/nutrition/MSG.htm
For snacks, we try to have fruit, nuts, homemade GFCF cookies,
homemade GFCF muffins, rice cakes, organic popcorn or Organic
Kettle potato chips, which have three ingredients (organic potatoes,
safflower or sunflower oil and salt) and are clearly labeled no
MSG, no transfats, no artificial anything.
Read more from her blog at http://www.whattofeedyourkids.com
Melissa O’Neal/Classic Kids
And this article on fast food also opened my mind to how bad processed food is for developing children.
www.newstarget.com/022194.html
free family
Everyone who knows me knows I am on a mission not only to feed our
family better, but to get other parents to realize that they can make
better choices about the nutrition and well-being of their children.
Nutritional intervention isn’t easy, but it works.
©iStockphoto.com/carterdayne
S u n d a y, S e p tember 2 7 , 2 0 0 9
Easy Pad Thai Recipe
This recipe for Pad Thai (Fried Noodles) is a yummy dinner everyone in my house loves. It is nice
to have one meal that we all like. I learned to make Pad Thai when I lived in Thailand years ago.
Unfortunately, I lost the original recipe, but I am still hoping that it will turn up some day. Also, in
Thailand you use a spoon and fork to eat pad thai, but the picture with the chopsticks looked nice.
I rediscovered pad thai when I made this for the Gourmet Club with my friend, Lauren.
We found the hard to find ingredients at The Bangkok Center Grocery in Chinatown. (They ship anywhere in the US in case you have a hard time finding tamarind and fish sauce.) If you want to see pad
thai being prepared, you can go to Thai Food Tonight to watch them cook an authentic pad thai recipe.
Bangkok Center Grocery: 104 Mosco Street, New York, NY 10013, 212-732-8916
Easy Pad Thai Recipe
4 T. oil
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 shallots
1 egg
4 oz./120 g. dry flat rice noodles soaked in water for 20 minutes until soft and drained
2 T. lime juice
1½ T. fish sauce
2 T. tamarind sauce
½ t. palm sugar (or sugar)
2 T. chopped roasted peanuts
⅛ t. dried red chili powder (or cayenne)
½ cup bean sprouts
2 spring onions/scallions, chopped into 1 in. lengths
sprig of coriander leaf, coarsely chopped
1 lime cut into 4 pieces for garnish
shrimp optional
In a wok or frying pan, heat the oil, add the garlic and shallots and fry until golden brown. Break
the egg into the wok, stir quickly and cook for a couple of seconds. Add the noodles and stir well,
scraping down the sides of the pan to ensure they mix with the garlic and egg. One by one, add
the lemon juice, fish sauce, tamarind, sugar, half the peanuts, the chili powder, half of the bean
sprouts, and the spring onions, stirring quickly all the time. Test the noodles for tenderness. When
done, turn onto a serving plate and arrange the remaining peanuts, dried shrimp and the rest of
the bean sprouts around the dish. Garnish with the coriander and lime wedges. j
Bio
A 1992 graduate of the
French Culinary Institute,
Kirstin Boncher publishes
the blog What To Feed
Your Kids (at
www.whattofeedyourkids.com)
in which she focuses on
nutrition and its impact on
the health and development
of children. She has written
extensively on: celiac and
gluten intolerance, the
importance of healthy fats
for brain development,
how real foods can be
protective against toxins,
how processed foods are
damaging our health, and
how healthier food choices
can have a huge impact
on children’s health. Her
passionate belief that
nutrition plays a critical role
in childhood health and
development stems from her
own experience as a mother
of two children whose
developmental delays were
eliminated through dietary
intervention. Kirstin’s focus
is now on educating other
families how homemade,
nutritious food can be
healing for children and
adults with chronic problems. Taft Bulletin Spring 2010 23
Following
Elias
The special needs journey of premature parenthood in the last frontier
ab o u t
I started writing about Elias, in February of
2004, a few weeks after his premature birth,
as a way to keep family and friends informed
on his status from our home in Alaska. As the
days in the NICU turned into months I found
this written outlet as important for my own
healing and growth as it was to tell my loved
ones about Elias’s.
I continued to write updates, though not as often,
when after 94 days we finally brought our baby
home...along with oxygen tanks, medication and
a long list of appointments for the months ahead.
In 2006, my friend E-beth who worked for
ClubMom in NY asked if I’d be interested in
applying for one of their new blogging positions.
“What’s a blog I asked?”
n Nick, Elias and Christy
“It’s what you’ve been doing, a way of journaling on the internet...”
“Oh...”
So I applied and was offered a contract to start From the Mountain Top to the Valley Floor.
It was during these years that the reality of Elias’s disabilities, as a result of his premature
birth, began to sink in and I will be forever grateful to the support of my readers and
commenters for helping me through each stage. Read more from her blog at http://www.followingelias.com/
©iStockphoto.com/gollykim
02/25/2010
A Snowy Morning Reflection
Sometimes being a parent means stretching thin the line between self and other, till the threads
of who you are unravel and trail behind the person who rocks, feeds, holds and comforts another.
You barely remember what it felt like to wake in the mornings on your own time clock, with only
your individual needs to fulfill.
A late February snowfall covers the unfamiliar trees in my new backyard, fat flakes, relentless in
their tragic beauty. Somewhere underneath the layers, up in the mountains, on the tundra, in the
caves and hollows, Mama Grizzlies give birth to their cubs, where they wait out spring, entwined
in the darkness, tongue to nipple, fur to fur, skin to skin.
C o mme n ts
Tina said…
Christy, I think this is your
most beautiful and heart
wrenching writing yet. Love
to you and your baby cubs
from our den...
This morning as I lay in bed nursing Olive, Elias asked, “Did you
used to nurse me when I was a baby?”
“Yes, babe.”
“Was I in your belly?”
“Mm-hmm,” I responded, eyes still closed, not quite ready to rise
to this ongoing conversation we’ve carried and nurtured and expanded since the arrival of his sister.
“What room was I born in?”
“The surgery room.”
“Did I have to have surgery?” he asked, as he leaned over Olive and
put his head on top of mine.
“Yes, as a baby you did,” I said, awake now.
“Where did I have to have surgery?” he asked, cutting our conversation deeper, to questions I haven’t yet answered.
“On your heart, your brain, and your eyes.”
Following Elias
As I said this, I looked at his eyes that rarely look at mine, for a sign of comprehension, wondering if
the next question would be “Why?”
Heart. Brain. Eyes.
Three different doorways to the soul.
And I may not attend an indoor church, or identify with a specific religion, but I still search for
deeper meanings, for spiritual awakenings, and redemption.
When it comes time to answer Elias’s brewing storm of why’s—Why do I need canes? Why was I
born early? Why can’t I...—I’ll try to give him different layers to wrap around his growing sense of
self, so that he looks in the mirror and sees himself as whole.
In order to do this, I need to do the same. Embrace my own completeness, my own soul.
I will always be Elias’s and Olive’s mommy, and with this title comes a blurring of edges, a run-on
sentence in which my subject leads to theirs, without semicolons or periods, barely a comma rests
between us as we breathe the same air, like Grizzlies entwined in their winter den, snowed-in till
spring comes.
But spring will come. And little paws will grow wide.
And wander off to find their own blueberry bushes, their own salmon streams, their own honeyscented air to breathe.
0 2 / 11 / 2 0 1 0
Following Elias, Olive Too
I had the chance to rename this blog when www.Parents.com
ended their blogging contracts and I started writing for myself.
But I chose not to, even knowing Elias had a sister on her way. In
part because I already had to change names once, on my editors
request, when I moved from ClubMom to Parents.
It was during our family bike trip from Washington to Wyoming,
as we pedaled over mountain passes and through small western
towns, that I thought of possible names as a way to pass the time. I
didn’t think of Following Elias, my husband Nick did, and I liked it
right away, even if it was his creative impulse and not mine.
I liked the simplicity of it.
And the layers.
Read more from her blog at http://www.followingelias.com/
Those of you who read regularly are following Elias’s journey. As his mother I’m often literally
walking behind him, holding his hood, ready to catch him when he stumbles. He leads me to
places I didn’t expect to go, teaches me, forces me to grow. I’ve learned to work on his timetable and not mine, not child development experts or doctors or school specialists.
Elias time.
“As his mother I’m often
literally walking behind
him, holding his hood,
ready to catch him when
he stumbles. He leads me
to places I didn’t expect
to go, teaches me, forces
me to grow.”
And now his sister Olivia, whom we call Olive, has followed him into our family and will forever be the second child.
I am also the second child, the younger sister of my brother Andrew, who is two years minus two days older than me. When I arrived
and my parents’ friends came to check out the new baby, Andrew would say, “I’m cute, too!”
Before long it was me who followed him around saying, “Me too, me too, me too!”
I am defined by his presence, by my desire to keep up with the boys, or to choose a different path from my big brother’s. Whether I
wanted to do exactly what he did or wanted to do the opposite, he was one of the mirrors I judged myself by.
Not as smart as Andrew. Not as social as Andrew. Not as strong as Andrew...
I still remember my sixth grade teacher telling me that my creative writing book of poems and short stories was one of the best in the
class, but it was her next line that made me beam: “Better than your brother Andrew’s.” More often I failed to live up to the standards
he set. At least in my own mind—in my own impulse to measure and compare. I remember thinking my parents loved him more
because his baby book was fatter than mine, his Christmas stocking bigger, and more pictures of him in diapers could be found in the
albums on our shelves.
But oh, do I get this now. It’s not about lack of love but lack of time. Olive will always share us with Elias, but he had almost six years of
our undivided attention. We could take more pictures, collect more, sew a bigger stocking...that is, if I knew how to sew.
Olive will always follow Elias.
Her cries seem louder than normal because her brother rarely cried. She seems so round and pudgy compared to Elias’s bony frame.
The other day, after watching a 12- to 18-month-old baby jump from a picnic table into his mother’s arms, I turned to Nick and said,
“You know, this feels weird to say but I’m excited about Olive’s physicality.”
“I know, me too,” he said.
And by this we mean compared to Elias. At seven weeks, I can already see the difference in her strength and ease of movement. Her
grasp of objects, the way she kicks her legs, or when I hold her in a standing position, how she supports her weight for a moment and
takes a mock step forward.
I wouldn’t appreciate this in quite the same way if it weren’t for Elias. A part of me feels guilty, like I’m somehow cheating on my devotion for my son by admiring his presumably able-bodied sister. Not sure if that makes sense. It’s the same part of me that struggled
with my desire for a full-term, healthy baby during my pregnancy, as if this took away from my love for Elias because I hoped for a different situation this time. As if I wanted someone different from him.
And I did, but not because I don’t love him to pieces.
Just as Olive’s second place in line doesn’t mean I love her any less. j
ab o u t
Thin Places
I am a writer, a student at Princeton Theological Seminary, wife to Peter ’95 and mother to
Penny and William. I blog about the things I’m thinking about, which usually include theology,
disability, children and parenting, education and the intersection of grief and hope.
God is at
work in this
world, but
most of us
are blind to
it most of
the time.
W e d n es d a y, F ebr u ar y 1 7 , 2 0 1 0
Considering Lent: Disruptive Grace
It’s one of Jesus’ more enigmatic sayings. The disciples ask him to explain why he speaks
in parables, and he replies: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do
not hear or understand” (see Matthew 13 for the whole context). It’s a theme that runs
throughout the Gospels, and one that Jesus picks up from writers of the Old Testament.
God is at work in this world, but most of us are blind to it most of the time.
I thought about that passage when a friend asked me a few months back, “What do you
think it takes for people to open their minds to a new idea?”
I’m approaching my 33rd birthday, and I’m pretty stuck in my ways. I drink black tea
with one Splenda and lots of milk every morning. I place the same order every time I
eat at Panera. I read TIME magazine cover to cover each week. I drink one Diet Coke in
the afternoon. Every Tuesday, a friend comes over for a play date with our kids. Every
Thursday, my mom comes to visit and Peter and I go out to dinner. I drink a glass of
wine, or two, in the evening. I go to church on Sunday and to small group on Monday
nights.
I have a routine, a framework for understanding the world, habits of doing and being. In
the past, it has been moving, sickness, death and birth that have changed those patterns.
I hope and pray that I won’t face a major life crisis again anytime soon, and yet I sometimes long for the clarity of vision that came in their midst.
Do I have eyes to see what God is doing all around me? Do I have eyes to see my own
faults and failings? Do I have eyes to see other people and their gifts? Do I have eyes to
see other people and their needs?
Read more from her blog at http://amyjuliabecker.blogspot.com/
C eltic C hristia n s called them thi n p laces ,
p laces where hea v e n a n d earth touch ,
where G od seems more readily p rese n t, more easily accessed .
T his s p ace is mea n t to ide n tify thi n p laces —
ideas , relatio n shi p s , p oi n ts of co n n ectio n ,
mome n ts with beauty a n d truth
that draw us towards o n e a n other ,
a n d toward the H oly O n e .
©iStockphoto.com/chesterf
It’s the fear of being stuck, of becoming blind to the spiritual reality all around me, that has
prompted me to decide to observe Lent this year. I can give all sorts of personal reasons why I will
be fasting from alcohol for the next 40 days—the money, the calories, the fear of addiction—but
really, it’s because disrupting my own habits provides an opening for God’s grace. Really, it’s the
hope that one small change will open my eyes.
W e d n es d a y, F ebr u ar y 1 0 , 2 0 1 0
What Yoga Has to Do with Snowstorms
I’ve been practicing yoga for going on seven years now. Approximately once a week I spend an
hour in a room with a dozen other people, saluting the sun, breathing deeply, and contorting my
body into poses that both energize and relax me, all at the same time.
There are three main aspects to yoga, as far as I can tell: flexibility, strength and balance. Flexibility
is not my thing. When we’re supposed to be stretching our hips, for example, I can’t even get to
them because my hamstrings hurt too much. One shoulder is so tight I can hardly reach my arm
overhead somedays. When we do a “forward fold,” I’m lucky if it simulates a forward tilt. As for
C o mme n ts
DVDRowe said...
I appreciate and agree
with much of what you say
here, Amy Julia. Thanks!
What would you say to
those who warn that this
Lenten practice is potentially
dangerous precisely
because it is much easier to
fast from certain foods, say,
than it is to turn from idols of
the heart? Because the point
of Lent is not of course to
give up chocolate or even to
fast; it’s to give up sin. And
yet we often reduce sin to
eating chocolate, and never
really deal with the real
sin of the heart. When that
happens, well, then grace
will seem abundant!
v Penny, Peter ’95,
Amy Julia ’94
and William
Thin Places
strength, I’m okay. I can usually stay in Goddess pose or Warrior One or a High Runner’s Lunge
(American terms, fyi) for as long as needed. But balance? Balance is my forte. Put me in Tree Pose
(one leg hitched upon the other, arms overhead, swaying like a tree in the wind) and I can stand
there forever.
As it turns out, what holds true for my body in a yoga class holds true for my whole life. Adequate
strength. Impressive balance. Not so flexible.
They have a constant fear that they won’t measure up,
won’t get into the right school, won’t “make it” in life.
But tonight, they were playing in the snow.
Let’s use today as an example. A snowstorm. Which means a snowday for Penny. Which means
two hours that I expected to work (while William napped), gone. Another snowday tomorrow,
and a snowed in babysitter. Which means another however many hours of work, gone. I have been
cursing the snow. It disrupts the balance of my life.
We live on the campus of a boarding school, and the view out our window contends for the award
for “most idyllic snow scene in America.” Tonight, I was walking back from yoga class. And I
stopped walking. Just stood there. First I noticed the silence. No trucks passing by. No rush hour
traffic. Then the softness. The contours of the snow. The way it traced the lines of every branch
of every tree, bending without breaking. And then two boys, students who live in the dorm with
us, concentrating hard on constructing an igloo. These boys are pushed hard every day—classes,
sports, activities, homework. They have a constant fear that they won’t measure up, won’t get into
the right school, won’t “make it” in life. But tonight, they were playing in the snow.
Silence. Beauty. Delight.
Maybe we’ll take our kids sledding tomorrow. Maybe I’ll try snowshoes for the first time. Maybe
yoga is making me a little more flexible after all.
Read more from her blog at http://amyjuliabecker.blogspot.com/
T h u rs d a y, N o v ember 1 2 , 2 0 0 9
Making Mistakes
William and Penny and I were taking a walk. William said, “Wa! Wa!” (Watch! Watch!) I complied. Penny took off in the other direction. So I chased her down, plunked her in the stroller next
to her brother, and resumed walking. It was about 30 seconds later that I realized William was no
longer playing with my watch.
We searched the stroller, his clothes, her clothes. I went through my own pockets four times. We
traced the path where I knew the watch must have fallen. I even called Peter to come and look
with us. To no avail.
I felt sick to my stomach. It was the watch Peter gave me for Christmas last year. It cost a lot of
money. It was stupid to let William play with something so valuable. Stupid to turn my attention
away from him, even for that moment. Stupid.
I realized, over the course of the night, as I traced over the moment of loss again and again, that it
wasn’t really the watch I was upset about. I could buy another. Peter wasn’t mad. It really wasn’t
that big of a deal. Honestly, what really upset me was that I had made a mistake.
A friend of mine wrote recently to say that her car had been stolen because she left the keys in the
front seat. I responded by saying, “Actually, your car was stolen because someone violated your
private property.” She made a mistake in leaving the keys in the front seat. But she didn’t cause the
car to be stolen.
I made a mistake in entrusting my watch to a toddler, but I didn’t cause the watch to be lost. And
yet I hated myself for the mistake, nonetheless.
So what causes us to make mistakes? Is it human sinfulness? Will we someday, when God has
begun the new heavens and the new earth, not make mistakes? Actually, I think making mistakes
is not bad or wrong or immoral, in and of itself (which is not to say I could never make a mistake
that was bad or wrong or immoral, just that giving William my watch wasn’t one of those). I’m
pretty sure Adam and Eve made mistakes in the garden, learned from God, learned from each other, grew, changed. Jesus may very well have made mistakes as he learned carpentry from Joseph.
Making mistakes is a part of being human, of being limited.
So this morning, when I mistakenly cut William’s hair way too short and Peter compared it to a
traditional monk’s do, and when I started to apologize and berate myself and think back through
all the ways I could have avoided... I let it go. I made a mistake. Sorry, William. Your hair will grow
back. I promise.
As it turned out, my watch was found and returned to me by a colleague the next day. Funny. I
guess I just needed to learn something about who I am. j
ab o u t
We are sisters who share a love of traveling and experiencing new places, cultures, the
great outdoors, food, fashion, and helping others travel more authentically, effortlessly and
dynamically. And bringing that playful vacation spirit back home into everyday life!
We love discovering the spirit of each place we visit. From the hotels, shops, restaurants
and bars (no chains!), to unique experiences in each area. We have searched high and low
to find where to go and what to do. (If you think we’ve missed anything, let us know!) We
hope to be a source of inspiration and show you a new way to experience the world where
you are and the world where you want to go. Join us on our journey and share in our life’s
adventures. See you out there!
Read more from their blog at http://firestonesisters.com/
Firestone Sisters
Lucy ’97 and Mary Firestone ’95
M o n d a y, Oct o ber 2 6 , 2 0 0 9
Not All Waiters in PARIS Are Mean
We arrived exhausted and it was raining, but nothing could dampen the effect of gay Paris. Unlike
previous visits when we were slaves to the Michelin Guide, we simply walked the city. We focused
mostly on the Marais and St. Germain des Prés discovering lesser known and more peaceful
churches (St. Julien, St. Paul and St. Eustache) and fortifying ourselves with chocolate crêpes, kir
royales and café crèmes. Our trip ended on a high note at the launch party for the Louis Vuitton
City Guides. We celebrated our contribution to the City Guide for Los Angeles at the cozy and
original home of Louis Vuitton. The party was elegant and tasteful with champagne flowing and
the opportunity to explore the small museum on the second floor with a collection of iconoclastic
LV pieces including steamer trunks, car camping sets and a custom yellow patent leather suitcase
that straps onto the back of a motorcycle.
Stay
ST. GERMAIN DES PRES (6th arrondissement)
C o mme n ts
Jen said…
Congratulations on your
gorgeous site. Just visited all
the different pages and felt
like I got to know you both
better. I look forward to more
“sisters” themed posts as
well—with more details like
those from your biographies.
Can’t wait to keep visiting,
and for my next trip west
with all of your ideas and
suggestions.
Hôtel Le Placide de St. Germain
6, rue Saint-Placide
75006 Paris
Tel: +33 (0)1 42 84 34 60
Fax: +33 (0)1 47 20 79 78
contact@leplacidehotel.com
www.leplacidehotel.com
After searching for a chic boutique hotel that was in any way affordable in trendy St. Germain or
the Marais, we stumbled upon glowing reviews and gorgeous photos of a newly opened 11 room
hotel just catty-corner to the upscale department store, Bon Marché. We appreciated that in these
economic times, the hotel was willing to offer us a great rate (which many other hotels would not
even days before our arrival) on a junior suite. The junior suites are half of a floor (two per floor),
and are really one long room but are so stylish and thoughtful in design with desks, sitting areas
and a huge (especially for Parisian standards) white marble bathroom. The Cole and Son wallpaper of trees is modern and warm all at once, the bed linens are high quality and luxurious, the
white leather built-in bench is chic, chic, chic, and the Murano vases filled with fresh flowers and
Missoni pillows are refined touches. The staff is exceedingly charming and friendly as well. This
truly is a little oasis in the bustling city.
Firestone Sisters
Lucy ’97 and Mary Firestone
MARAIS (4th arrondissement)
Hôtel Caron
3, rue Caron
75004 Paris
Tel: +33 (0)1 40 29 02 94
Fax: +33 (0)1 40 29 02 95
hotelcaron@gmail.com
www.hotelcaron.com
Hôtel Caron is located just off a charming little square in the Marais where we had an amazing lunch (see Le Marché below). We had
read about the hotel which opened several months ago and had a look at a few rooms after lunch. They are tiny, as most rooms in Paris
are, and modern in design and décor. The location is pretty perfect and the prices far more reasonable than most in town. Let us know
if you stay there and what you think!
Marais House
Tel: +33 (0)1 42 74 61 36
Fax: +33 (0)1 42 74 61 36
info@maraishouse.com
www.maraishouse.com
We wanted to stay at this four-room, elegant looking hotel in the Marais but were not
interested in splurging. If you are, it looks amazing.
Eat
Le Grand Colbert
4, rue Vivienne
Louvre/Tuileries Paris
Tel: +33 (0)1 42 86 87 88
n Mary and Lucy at La Société
www.legrandcolbert.fr
Set in a historic monument in the 2nd arrondissement, Le Grand Colbert is a better version of the traditional bustling French brasserie. With huge potted palms, brass railings, leather banquettes and mosaic floors, the crowd was 100 percent French (except for us!)
and animated. The steak frites were excellent and the profiteroles mind blowing—soft croissant-like pastry with delicious vanilla ice
cream and warm chocolate sauce.
Le Marché Restaurant
2, place du Marché Ste Catherine
75004 Paris
Tel: +33 (0)1 42 77 34 88
We stumbled upon this cozy restaurant nestled in a quaint courtyard on a rainy day. It was a welcome refuge from the wet and busy
thoroughfares and the white truffle raviolis in cream sauce were shockingly delicious.
Café de Flore
172, boulevard Saint Germain
75006 Paris
Tel: +33 (0)1 45 48 55 26
www.cafe-de-flore.com
This famous café is the one to go to (Les Deux Magots next door is chock-full of American tourists). Traditional favorites are served at
picture perfect café tables and our waiter was surprise, surprise, sweet and encouraging of our school-level French. Allegedly their hot
chocolate is worthy of its world famous reputation. We can attest to the fact the cheese plate is scrumptious.
Read more from their blog at http://firestonesisters.com/
La Société
4, place Saint-Germain
75006 Paris
Tel: +33 (01) 53 63 60 60
Fax: +33 (01) 53 63 60 61
After several flutes of champagne at the Louis Vuitton
party, we were on a high and
n Lucy at the Place des Vosges in Paris
this was just the place to match
our mood. The word from several chic Parisians we met, including our Louis Vuitton editor Julien Guerrier, is that Société is the ofthe-moment place to see and be seen. We agree.
SEE
Place des Vosges
75003 Paris
We love Paris for the gorgeous gardens and parks that spring up around every corner. Place des Vosges is an elegant and welcome refuge in the bustling Marais.
Notre Dame
6, place du Parvis
Ile de la Cité
75004 Paris
Is famous for good reason. While we had so much fun exploring lesser known churches and chapels, Notre Dame is awe inspiring and
words can’t describe. If you do one touristy thing in Paris, go visit Notre Dame!
SHOP
We were so disappointed with ourselves that we were too exhausted and pressed for time to shop in Paris! These are a few of the shops
we browsed and wish had had more time to return to….
Merci
111, boulevard Beaumarchais
+33 (01) 42 77 78 92
www.merci-merci.com
Housed in a former factory, such stellar designers as Stella McCartney and YSL design lines for Merci at price points 30 percent lower
than those designers usually sell for. They also have an extensive selection of vintage, books, home furnishings and a small bar. And all
the profits go to children’s charity in Madagascar. Cheers!
ba & sh
www.ba-sh.com
We loved the wearable staples with a fashionable twist! And at reasonable prices. We would be happy outfitted head to toe in ba & sh.
They have several boutiques around Paris, so check the website for your best location.
Jonak
www.jonak.fr
Jonak appears to be the much more fashion forward, upscale cousin of America’s Nine West. We worshiped boots we saw through the
window while walking home at night and are on a mad hunt to find them online and have them sent to us! j
Saving Money and
the Healthcare
ab o u t
Y o u r G u i d e T o B etter C are F o r Less
Davis Liu, M.D., ’89, is a practicing board-certified family physician
and author of the book, Stay Healthy, Live Longer, Spend Wisely—
Making Intelligent Choices in America’s Healthcare System.
He graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the
Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
He received his medical degree from the University of Connecticut
School of Medicine. Learn more about what you must do to stay healthy
and well at www.davisliumd.com. Follow me at Twitter—davisliumd
Disclaimer
This blog provides general
medical, health insurance
and financial information
that are meant to inform and
educate the reader. Readers
should consult with their
doctors, human resources
staff, insurance brokers,
accountants and financial
advisers about their specific
situations, as the information
provided in this blog does
not replace their counsel.
S u n d a y, J a n u ar y 3 , 2 0 1 0
Hate English. Became a Doctor. My New Year’s
Resolution to Blog and Fix Healthcare.
I’ve always wanted to be a doctor.
Never a writer.
With a new year and a new decade, I am determined to become a better writer not because of
some childhood dream or expectation from others, but because of a near mishap that occurred at
the beginning of 2000. A simple phone call changed the destiny of my brother from having a good
outcome to having a great outcome. A simple phone call may have been the difference between
you are cancer-free to I’m sorry to tell you it’s come back.
It was a medical error that was avoided only because I was a doctor who was engaged to an oncologist and because my brother simply called me the night before his surgery. Based on his
diagnosis, his surgeon should have referred him to an orthopedic oncologist, a musculoskeletal
cancer surgeon, to perform curative surgery. Only two exist in the entire state of Connecticut.
Instead, the surgeon opted to do the surgery himself even though he admitted he didn’t know
what the diagnosis meant.
A simple phone call the night before made the difference between being told that “unfortunately
your cancer came back” to “you are cancer-free.”
Read more from his blog at http://davisliumd.blogspot.com
Surviving
Crisis
Davis Liu, M.D
©iStockphoto.com/alexsl
What if you had the knowledge to make a difference to save lives? What if you could see the
problems that others don’t or refuse to see? Would you feel compelled to intervene? I write and
communicate this information because our healthcare system, the doctors and hospitals, that we
or our families rely on at some point in our lives is not as good as it can and should be. Each of you
have your stories. Healthcare reform will not fix the problem.
It was my brother’s phone call and many subsequent episodes with other relatives that made me
glad I became a doctor not because I could help them get better sooner, but help stop bad things
from happening to them as a result of less than perfect medical care.
What if you had the knowledge to
make a difference to save lives?
What if you could see the problems
that others don’t or refuse to see?
Would you feel compelled to intervene?
C o mme n ts
Anonymous said...
Hmmm...Vertically
integrated, controls
hardware & software,
closed, proprietary system,
one configuration...Sounds
kinda like an accountable
healthcare organization like
Kaiser Permanente, doesn’t
it? Are they the “Apple” of
healthcare?
Despite my knowledge, I wish I could say I stopped each and every bad outcome. I didn’t. I
couldn’t. Every missed opportunity to intervene and make things better bothers me today. I am
a better doctor today than I was a decade ago and will undoubtedly be a more skilled physician a
decade from now.
As everyone this new year focuses on typical goals of becoming healthier by exercising, losing
weight and ridding themselves of vices like smoking and excessive drinking, I have a completely
different lifelong mission: to educate individuals on how to get the best medical care by giving
them insider tips only a doctor would know.
As a doctor I’ve taken a pledge to do no harm and to help those who suffer. To do that I need to be
a better writer.
Saving Money and Surviving
the Healthcare Crisis
Davis Liu, M.D
W e d n es d a y, N o v ember 2 5 , 2 0 0 9
e-Patients, Dr. Google, Your Doctor, and You
A recent article by NPR confirmed what many patients and doctors already know. The internet is leveling the playing field and allows
individuals to access information easier and more quickly. Research by Pew Internet and American Life Project found:
• 61 percent of adults say they look online for health information—known as e-patients
• 20 percent of e-patients go to internet and social-networking sites where they can talk
to medical experts and other patients
• 39 percent of e-patients already use a social-networking site like Facebook
Yet as individuals embrace new technology, the New England Journal of Medicine found earlier this year that only 17 percent of doctors
use electronic medical records. To say doctors are conservative and slow in adapting to new ways of communicating and accessing
information would be an understatement. An article in TIME magazine proclaimed “Email Your Doctor” which graced newsstands in
1998! Email communications with doctors is still the exception rather than the rule.
Many doctors actually are very concerned about patients using the internet to research information. Stories of physicians being inundated with printouts or patients insistent that they have a certain diagnosis based on a description abound. Doctors don’t always
appreciate patients googling their medical information.
Why?
Because although information gathering is far easier than a decade ago, the problem is data overload. How does one filter out all of the
different diagnoses with similar symptoms? How does one use judgment when theirs is based on little experience? Medical students
commonly coming down with medical illnesses after studying a subject. The power of suggestion. Fever and a little neck stiffness?
Meningitis. Intermittent numbness in the arm? Multiple sclerosis. Circular rash? Lyme disease.
Only through experience and actually caring for patients diagnosed by more seasoned colleagues do medical students see the textbook descriptions come. Patients diagnosed with meningitis, multiple sclerosis, and Lyme disease and their symptoms and signs are
seared into their memories. Words in the textbook now have far different meanings. Reading and book learning while important only
provide the foundation to build upon. It’s seeing and doing that matter.
Doctors can’t know everything. It can be helpful if you research information and bring in some ideas or questions you have about a
particular diagnosis. I know patients are more empowered with more information, but realize there is still value in clinical expertise.
Have a frank discussion with your doctor whether the information obtained by Dr. Google is accurate or relevant to your concerns.
Keep an open mind. Don’t be anchored by what you read. I certainly learn from my patients. My patients learn from me. It’s a win-win.
While the internet can make anyone more knowledgeable, it doesn’t make someone an expert. The good news is that the survey found
in the end that the source people still trust the most is their doctor. So go ahead research, but find reputable sources like the Mayo
Clinic or Medline Plus. Talk to your doctor and perhaps email him. Gain from both knowledge tempered with expertise.
As we all gather around for Thanksgiving, savor the time with family and friends. While I would never be mistaken for a chef, let alone
a good cook, I will be making a delicious butternut squash soup, which is a new Thanksgiving tradition. The recipe? Courtesy of the
internet and Wolfgang Puck. How hard could it be? I finished organic chemistry. j
Read more from his blog at http://davisliumd.blogspot.com
tales of a TAFTIE
Samuel Torrey Orton, Class of 1897
An American physician who pioneered the study of learning disabilities
Sources:
Annals of Dyslexia
Augustus C. Long Health
Sciences Library, Columbia
University Medical Center
Wikipedia
Works:
In addition to authoring
numerous scientific
articles and papers,
Orton published Reading,
Writing and Speech
Problems in Children and
Selected Papers
(W. W. Norton, 1937)
Thanks:
Henry Reiff ’71,
who is a professor
of special education
at McDaniel College,
suggested this column.
Photo:
Augustus C. Long Health
Sciences Library/Columbia
University Medical Center
Orton is best known for his work examining the
causes and treatment of reading disability, or dyslexia.
The International Dyslexia Association was originally
founded as The Orton Society in his honor.
Born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1879, Orton was a
first cousin to Horace and William Howard Taft (their
mothers were sisters), and son of Edward Orton, a
noted geologist who went on to become president of
Antioch College and Ohio State University.
“Sam was described by an older sister as ‘the imp’
at the age of four,” his second wife, June, recalled, “and
his participation in the activities of his neighborhood
friends seems to have been one of the reasons his
parents decided to send him east to his cousin, Horace
Taft, for his college preparatory years. Although he
did not shine as a scholar at Taft School, his pranks in
pursuit of ‘science’ were long remembered there.”
He trained as a pathologist (M.D. University of
Pennsylvania and M.A. at Harvard) at Boston City
Hospital, and went on to work at Columbus State
Hospital (Ohio) and St. Ann’s Hospital (Montana)
before returning east to work at Worcester State
Hospital (Massachusetts) and teach at Harvard
Medical School. In 1913, he traveled to Germany
to study with famed neurologist Alois Alzheimer.
He later founded a clinic in Iowa before moving to
New York in 1928, the year he became president of
the American Psychiatric Association.
“A few years ago, by one of those quirks of life,
I found myself invited to be on the Board of the
Massachusetts Branch of the International Dyslexia
Society (formerly called the Orton Society),” says
Mark Orton ’65, “and encountered this cult around
Dr. Orton. I attended a meeting at MGH and found
myself surrounded by young students who simply
wanted to shake hands with a grandson.”
Orton not only discovered that people who
were thought to be mentally retarded were in fact
suffering from a disease that he described—and
originally called strephosymbolia—he also developed a therapeutic technique that successfully
allows dyslexics to become fully competent, engaged individuals, Mark explains. Orton’s research
is still frequently cited today, more than half a century after his passing.
Many of his theories are now being proven
with new medical evidence. “Researchers today
confirmed part of an 80-year-old theory on the
neurobiological basis of reading disability,”
reported Science Daily in 2003 in an article titled,
“Was Orton Right?” Even without modern brainscanning equipment, Orton believed that the
problem for many subjects with above average
IQs who had difficulty reading was the failure of
one brain hemisphere to dominate the other.
Developed in the 1930s, the Orton-Gillingham
Method, a multisensory approach to teaching dyslexic students how to read, is still the most prevalent
form of remediation used today. He retired from active practice in 1948 and died a few weeks later.
The International Dyslexia Association annually
presents the Samuel T. Orton Award, its highest
honor. His collected papers are held at Columbia
University’s Augustus C. Long Health Sciences
Library in New York. j
—Julie Reiff
Taft Bulletin
The Taft School
110 Woodbury Road
Watertown, CT 06795-2100
860-945-7777
www.TaftAlumni.com
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