Mary's Turn

HEADLINES……………….October 21, 2011

Dan departed early today to attend an out-of-state family event, so he asked me to write this week’s update…

You may have heard that we began Reading Buddy time last Friday. Each student in the school is paired with another, and for a half-hour each Friday afternoon, these pairs get together to share books and some play time. During these sessions, you often hear older buddies reading to their younger friends, but as younger buddies learn to read on their own, they get some good practice by reading to their older friend. Books are shared and children make recommendations to one another. It’s a half-hour that’s dedicated to reading for the joy of it, and it’s one of our favorite half-hours of the week.

I can’t remember exactly how I got the job of making the Reading Buddy matches, but I’ve done it for years and I love it. I think I’m a natural. Because of my Reading Buddy experience, I’ve come to believe that I probably descended from a long line of matchmakers. I’m sure I have ancestors who were the wrinkled old matchmakers of their little Irish fishing villages or maybe for all of County Donegal. I’ve begun considering professional matchmaking as a possible second career for me, once I retire from my first. I thought I could match-make for other aging baby boomers. The problem is that my success rate with adults isn’t that impressive. My strength seems to be with making matches between children, and I’m not sure that’s a very marketable skill.

It’s also possible that I’m just attracted to the puppetry and power involved in social engineering. It’s true that I’ve sometimes matched children because their names rhymed and I liked hearing them together. (It was just too hard to resist pairing Willie and Lilly, Kate and Nate, Eddie and Freddie. Or, my all-time favorite…Izzy and Dizzy.) On just a few occasions, I’ve matched children because of their complimentary hair colors and I wanted to see the watercolor effect of the two heads close together as they looked at a book. But I’m not normally that shallow, and I usually try to make matches based on my knowledge of personalities, interests, and life experiences. I think about who can serve as a role model and who might need one. I think of who’s struggling with a challenge and who just recently overcame a similar struggle. I try to balance quiet and boisterous, introvert and extrovert, focused and fluttery. Sometimes I make a match only because I think two people might just really like one another. I feel certain of the rightness of some matches as soon as I make them, while others are risky and I know it.

On Friday afternoons, I lurk around in classrooms assessing my work. Sometimes I watch love at first sight developing right before my eyes, while other pairs engage in a slower warm-up. Sometimes my risk-taking goes bad and I’ve made a few matches that left me shaking my head, asking myself, “What were you thinking?” And then I’ve made others that were brilliant (if I do say so myself) and led to long-term friendships. Today I watched a pair, a fifth grader reading to a kindergartner sitting in her lap. The fifth grader was an animated and dramatic reader, and her younger buddy was completely focused and engrossed in the book they were sharing. At the end of Reading Buddy time, as this pair was about to part, the older buddy leaned down so they could hug. The smiles and the looks of affection that passed between those two children were lovely and affirming and powerful. It’s that affection and kindness and care for one another that I hope will suffuse the school and create that special Friends School atmosphere that is often so hard to describe or explain. It was a special moment and a delicious way to end a week.

Call me Cupid.

Have a wonderful away-game weekend,

Mary Ziegler


Announcements & Reminders

Invitation: State College Friends Meeting invites interested Friends School families to an address titled “What Do Quakers Believe?” by Arthur Larabee, the General Secretary of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Art is a dynamic and entertaining speaker and his remarks will address Quaker faith and practice, and may help to answer your questions. This event will be held at 9:45 a.m. on Sunday, October 23. Child care will be available. If you’ll need it, please contact the Meeting (office@statecollegefriends.org).


AnDa Union: On the morning of Tuesday, October 25, the whole school will attend a performance at Eisenhower Auditorium. We’ll be seeing AnDa Union, a group of young musicians from Inner Mongolia in northern China. Each year, the Center for the Performing Arts offers a slate of School-Time Matinees for students ranging from pre-K right up through high school. Due to the generosity of contributors to our Annual Fund, Friends School students are able to attend many of these events and reap the benefits of live performances by a variety of artists. On Tuesday, we’ll be leaving school at about 9:30 a.m. and should return close to 11:30.


Pumpkin Painting Party: All families and friends are invited to gather on Friday, October 28 from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. for our first Pumpkin Painting Party. The Community Room will be open for all families to come and decorate pumpkins, enjoy a pizza dinner, and get into the spirit of Halloween. Pizza will be available for purchase by the slice. Small pumpkins and decoration materials will be on hand for your use. You’re also welcome to provide your own pumpkin.

We’ll be inviting our Friends Schoolhouse pre-school families to join us for pumpkin painting. Since this will be the first school event for many of them, please help us in welcoming them and helping them to feel comfortable.


Halloween: Friends School will be celebrating Halloween on the very day---Monday, October 31. You’ll receive information specific to your child’s classroom from your teacher, but we do have some all-school information to share.
Students may bring their costumes to school on Monday morning, but we won’t change into them until after lunch. Our younger students will parade through Foxdale, leaving from our front porch at about 1:00 p.m. Upon their return, we’ll hold the Monster Mash dance in the Community Room and that will be followed by classroom parties. Parents, costumed or not, are invited to join us for the afternoon or any part of it.


Parent-Teacher Conferences: Our fall parent-teacher conferences will be held on Thursday and Friday, November 3 and 4. If you haven’t yet scheduled yours, please call (237-8386) or stop by the school office to do so. Conferences are scheduled for a half-hour and they’re held in your child’s classroom. Please make every effort to arrive on time and stick to the half-hour time slot you schedule. Things can get backed up quickly otherwise.

There’s no school for students on conference days, but our child care program will be operating. If you’d like to register your child for child care---for all day, part of the day, or just during your conference time---please do so by November 1.

Anat Cohen Quartet: Two tickets to Thursday’s performance at Schwab by the Anat Cohen Quartet are still available to the first family to donate $100 to our Annual Fund.

SPICES: SPICES invitations should reach your homes this weekend. Please RSVP by October 31 to take advantage of FREE child care during the event.

Here are some of the SPICES FAQs we’ve been getting:

What should we wear? The SPICES Gala is a special, fun celebration. While the event is held in the lovely ballroom of the Atherton Hotel, guests are encouraged to wear their comfortable, special, fun, celebration clothes. Last year, that ranged from blue jeans and a dapper suede jacket, skirts or slacks with shiny adorned blouses and cozy seasonal sweaters, to more semi-formal evening wear with child-made and vintage art jewelry…in other words, a pretty big range. As one mother of an infant told a friend last year, “It’s anything without a baby food stain.”

How do we pay for auction items? Checks or cash, please. This year, there will be some small children’s art items available for direct sale in addition to the auction items. (Wrapping paper, note cards, etc.) We’ve also tried to secure auction items in many interest and price ranges

Is there child care available, and if so, what’s the cost and is it at the hotel? Yes. The child care staff will be here at Friends School offering age-appropriate activities. There is no charge for child care during the event.
Can I invite friends whose children aren’t students at Friends? Sure. Everyone’s welcome. This is a celebration of our school community and our local community and all the gifts within.
A list of auction items and links will be posted on the school’s website beginning October 25. Enjoy a sneak peak.
You may also have a look at photos from last year’s event at www.freerangingphotography.com. (This is the work of school parent Sabine Carey.)
Please call or email Lori Pacchioli with any other questions. lorip@scfriends.org


DVD Available: If you didn’t receive the 2010-2011 Reflections DVD at the fall pot-luck, they’ll be available at the family pumpkin painting night and at SPICES. Or, stop by Lori’s office for a copy. She’s also happy to send them to distant relatives. Just ask.


One Last Call: If you haven’t returned your Parent Interest/Volunteer Form and the Photo Release Form, please do so. Several families have informed us that they’re “on call” for the school any time and don’t feel the need to complete a Volunteer Form and that’s just fine, but we do need your Photo Releases. If you need a new set of forms or want to express any special interests or willingness to help with parent-run events such as the FUN FAIR, that would be most helpful. Just email lorip@scfriends.org.