September27 Back-to-School Night - Middle School (6:15 - 8:45p)

October4 Building Friends Campaign Kick-Off (6-9:30p)

5 Community Worship (8:40-9:15a)

5 New Parent Coffee (9:15-10:00a)

5 Parents Association Meeting (6:00-8:00p) - Early Bird Wiki Training (5:30-6:00p)

5-7 4th & 6th Grade Trips

7 SSAT FOR 8th Graders

10 Fall Holiday - NO SCHOOL

12 Diversity with Alison Park (6:00-7:30p)

17 Sibling Applications Due

18 SPEAK Event - Dan Coyle (7:00-8:30p)

See full calendar here

CIRCLE BACK September 23, 2011

Getting Uncomfortable

Community Gardens

Making Mistakes

Building Autonomy

You must do the thing you think

you cannot do.

- Eleanor Roosevelt

san francisco friends school * 250 valencia street * san francisco, ca 94103 * 415-565-0400 * sffriendsschool.org

San Francisco Friends SchoolSeptember 23, 2011

SPEAK Event (speakers for parents, educators, and knowledge)

What do Manny Ramirez, Jessica Simpson, Tiger Woods and Frank Sinatra have in common? Accord-ing to NYT bestselling author Daniel Coyle, it’s the nature and intensity of their practice habits.

Coyle is the author of The Tal-ent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How. He visited hotbeds of talent around the world - places that seem to breed ten-nis phenoms and pop stars. And he found that they share similar habits of coaching, motivation and deep, deep practice -- a pattern that shows us a new way to think about talent and how to unlock it.

Details:October 18, 7:00pCathedral of St. Mary of the As-sumption, 1111 Gough Street (St. Francis Hall, lower level)Questions? - Mary Hossfeld MAHossfeld@gmail.com

FREE for Friends School families

http://speaksf.org/

Back-to-School NightCome back to school on September 27 (MS), 6:15-8:45p. The evening starts with a reception on the unfin-ished 3rd floor space (hearty refresh-ments and music). Presentations and classroom visits to follow.

Details:September 27 (MS), 6:15p - 8:45pAndrew Salverda (MS) asalverda@sffriendsschool.org

Abadá CapoeiraFriends School tutor Kelly Gleason performs Capoeira at assembly with students. Sign up for the middle school class and see photos on the parent wiki.

BOOKTOPIA SoonCome have fun with your fellow parents while helping to expand the Friends School library! Booktopia is a fun evening of shopping, refresh-ments, and delicious food where our community supplies the SFFS library with hundreds of books, including all of the books for the Birthday Book program. If you can’t attend, phone orders can be taken on Nov. 2 & 3.

Details:November 3, 6:00 – 9:00p Books, Inc., Opera Plaza 601 Van Ness at Golden GateQuestions? Laura Norman, lauranor@yahoo.comJenny Lee, jennyleeburnett@yahoo.com

Diversity with Alison Park"Do I have good hair?""Only boys play with Legos.""Am I white?"

Not sure what to say sometimes when children talk about identity and dif-ference? Alison Park, founder of Blink Diversity Consulting, will discuss sup-portive and meaningful ways in which adults can talk with children about race, gender and other aspects of identity that they notice and wonder about.

With the assumption that we all have a role and responsibility in diversity work, this evening is an opportunity for parents and teachers to explore their own experiences and questions about when to say what to support children’s positive identity develop-ment and understandings of diversity. Parents and faculty are welcome. Childcare provided.

Details:October 12, 6:00 - 7:30pMeeting RoomGuybe Slangengslangen@sffriendsschool.org Diali Bose-Roy dboseroy@sffriendsschool.org www.rethinkingdiversity.com

San Francisco Friends SchoolSeptember 23, 2011

Back-to-School Night Speech by Jennifer Arnest, Lower School Head

Here we are, about to enter another school year. We are placing our kids in the hands of these adventurous educators behind me. We all know how much atten-tion and energy it takes to pave the way for just one child. These teachers all do it twenty-fold everyday. On behalf of all of us parents here, myself included, we are grateful for what we receive.

This year will be full of surpris-ing changes in the lives of your children. Kindergarten parents feel the change most palpably. They know how dramatic it is to jump from knowing exactly where, how, and when your child went to the bathroom every day in preschool to not knowing quite where the bathrooms at the Friends School are. 2nd grade parents might be happy to realize that their kids have discovered rational thinking. And 4th grade parents are just holding their breath because it is really next year, in middle school, that you have to save all your energy for.

No matter what age your child is, here is the hard truth: we shed some part of our children each year that they grow. We know that this constant process of separation can be completely mystifying to you, yet so central to your child’s development.

When you look back to to those first days of kindergarten, you likely felt that gentle pull of separation beginning back then. That feeling of separating, letting your child’s hand go, is actually pretty much what learning is all about, because when we watch our children separate successfully, we are witnessing that elusive notion of autonomy developing in them. Then swiftly, we see kids rise to the challenges that they will inevitably face -- and even seeking them out.

I’m not sure if any of you came across the Atlantic Monthly article last spring called, “How to Land Your Kid in Therapy.” Many of us here at Friends did, and much of the research out there affirms what we believe at our core. Since development involves many emotional and intellectual upheavals, parents need all the help they can get.

First, and to our great relief, it turns out that neglecting your kids is a good thing. A favorite author and psychologist, Wendy Mogel, says it best: “Please let [your child] be devastated at age 6. [Do] not let them have their first devastation be in college! Please, please, please let them be devastated many times on the soccer field!”

Let’s admit it though -- it’s unnatural as a parent to sit back and watch your child be devastated or even struggle. If you are anything like me, maybe we should ask ourselves some tough questions about our parenting:

Getting Uncomfortable

Learning requires

engagement and

persistence ... and

it has to be a little

uncomfortable almost

all the time.

San Francisco Friends SchoolSeptember 23, 2011

•Did I perhaps leave those training wheels on a little longer than I needed to?

•When my child has struggled in pain, did I feel the urge to blame someone else?

•When something seemed out of reach, did I want to solve it to save his or her self esteem?

•And, how is it that even though my son is capable of getting his pants on all by himself, I keep doing it for him anyway!?

We parents are here to help each other out with allowing these “developmental dev-astations” to happen and support our resolve to see our children grow stronger in the long run.

It is during times of my weakest parenting moments that I try to channel my inner Wendy Mogel. When I’m struggling to stand back, I remember this anecdote that Mogel relates: “My adult friend, Kathy, told me that she likes to ski, but hates to fall, and that after skiing for two seasons she has never fallen once. ... She is also still skiing on the bunny slopes.”

In the Quaker educational tradition, we believe that each child develops his or her In-ner Light, that “still, small voice within” (which turns out not to be the voice of your mother or Jiminy Cricket on your shoulder telling you what to do). We also believe that learning to hear that voice requires separation and, occasionally, a little pain.

My husband experienced this pain during grass drills he had to do for football practice in high school. They awakened a survival instinct in him that serves him well today. I was “enlightened” on Tom LaMonica’s farm. I was a Baltimore Friends middle school-er, sent to Parkton, Maryland with a couple pairs of flip-flops and shorts for the sum-mer. In the caring hands of my brother’s wrestling coach who ran a farm, and his wife, my gymnastics coach, I found myself on top of a hay-baling truck. I was pummeled by hay bales twice my weight, knocking me into the spaces between the scorching, sum-mer haystacks and leaving me with scratches all over my bare legs.

The point is, I don’t think my mother ever thought of calling Tom Lamonica’s cell phone when I returned home that summer to decry my injuries. Nor did it occur to me to complain about my servitude. I remember thinking, for the first time, “I better survive this nightmare ... or my coach will kill me.”

I also remember the great joy and pride I felt, even though I completely failed at the hay baling thing. I was scared, but now awake. Yes, fear and respect were the under-pinnings of my Quaker education.

Take heart though. The role of the teachers is to relieve you of this ever-present burden to help your kids find they can actually do unimaginable things. It is part of our job to introduce your kids to adversity, to lead your children to strange and edgy places, to get them to take intellectual and emotional chances that help them grow. It is not always so natural for parents, by at the Friends School, it is what we do.

Welcome, each one of you, to a joyful, and if we are lucky, often uncomfortable new school year. Let these tremendous teachers help you navigate these waters with humor and wisdom. Let our kids experience the separation, discomfort, and occasional pain that true learning brings.

Welcome, Friends.

- Jennifer Arnest, Lower School Head

San Francisco Friends SchoolSeptember 23, 2011

As part of their study of the novel, “Seedfolks,” the 6th Grade visited several community gardens in the Mission,

as well as the Growing Home Community Garden on Octavia Street. The Growing Home Community Garden is

our service project partner. The garden was planted by Project Homeless Connect as a place to build community

and provide solace for the homeless. 6th graders will support projects at the garden and contribute regularly to

the food pantry on site.

- Kristen Daniels, 6th Grade Humanities Teacher

In a word: reading.

Not only does reading on a regular basis broadly improve stu-dents’ literacy, but most second graders are able to read autono-mously at some level. Whether it’s a student piecing a story together from pictures or the big-book lugger who just discovered Harry Potter, reading for homework al-lows all learners to find that sweet spot of autonomous academic success at home.

Homework is a milestone for these kids. They’re enthusiastic. They’re eager. And we hope to keep it that way.

- Zach, Ilsa, Travis, CharlotteThe 2nd Grade Team

Homework is a rite of passage for 2nd graders at SFFS. It is one of the first things our students asked about when the year began. It is our hope to not only challenge our students academically but to set them up for success in the future as well.

Studies show that student au-tonomy during completion of homework leads to academic self-confidence, which, in turn, leads to academic achievement. When it comes to homework, giving an assignment that requires too much assistance is found to have a negative effect on students’ attitudes, and thus achievement. So we’ve asked ourselves, how do we foster academic autonomy in 2nd grade when assigning home-work?

Building Autonomy with Homework

For further reading:

The Case Against Homework Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish

The Homework MythAlfie Kohn

6th Grade Visits Community Gardens

San Francisco Friends SchoolSeptember 23, 2011

As the school doors swing open to welcome the start of another year, both teachers and students will have goals: to inspire a class, to learn new things, to get good grades.

What probably won’t be on that list is to make a mistake -- in fact many. But it should be.

Why? Because we’re raising a generation of children -- primarily in afflu-ent, high-achieving districts -- who are terrified of blundering. Of failing. Of even sitting with the discomfort of not knowing something for a few minutes.

If students are afraid of mistakes, then they’re afraid of trying something new, of being creative, of thinking in a different way. They’re scared to raise their hands when they don’t know the answer and their response to a difficult problem is to ask the teacher rather than try different solutions that might, gasp, be wrong.

They’re as one teacher told me, “victims of excellence.”

Why is this? Because success in school is too often defined as high marks on tests. And if results are all that matter in education, then mistakes play no positive role. They are only helpful if we believe that the process of learning -- which inevitably must include the process of erring -- is just as, or more, important than getting to the correct answer.

I realize that parents play a crucial role in how their children view mis-takes -- and I’ve written about that -- but here, I’m focusing on educa-tors.

While writing my book Better by Mistake: The Unexpected Benefits of Being Wrong, I came across some fascinating research about how chil-dren learn and what message they take away about mistakes.

Carol Dweck, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, has conducted groundbreaking research in this area. One of her experiments asked 400 5th graders in New York City schools to take an easy short test, on which almost all performed well. Half the children were praised for “being really smart.” The other half was complimented “having worked really hard.”

Then they were asked to take a sec-ond test and given the options of either choosing one that was pretty simple and they would do well on, or one that was more challenging, but they might make mistakes.

Making Mistakesby Alina Tugend, Author of Better By Mistake: The Unexpected Benefits of Being Wrong

“we’re raising a generation of children who

are terrified of blundering”

San Francisco Friends SchoolSeptember 23, 2011

Making Mistakes (cont.)

Of those students praised for effort, 90 percent chose the harder test. Of those praised for being smart, the majority chose the easy test. Dweck has conducted such experiments and studies in a variety of school districts -- low-income, high-income, homogenous and mixed- culture and races.

A cornerstone of Dweck’s research is the concepts of fixed mindsets and growth mindsets. Those with fixed mindsets, as Professor Dweck says, believe people are good at something -- either good at math or music or baseball -- or they’re not. For those with a fixed mindset, mistakes serve no purpose but to highlight failure.

Those with what Professor Dweck calls growth mindsets -- who believe that some people are better or worse in certain areas but we can all improve and develop our skills and abilities -- are much more likely to be able to accept mistakes because they know they’re part of learning.

And studies in a secondary school have shown that when students are taught about growth mindsets and that the brain is malleable, their mo-tivation to learn dramatically increases. Take a look at the web site www.brainology.us if you want to learn more.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that we can all be world-class chess play-ers or pro athletes, but rather that we all have a much greater ability to develop our potential than we think we do. It takes hard work, however, and we can’t do it without taking chances and making mistakes.

Embracing such an ideology also means, to circle back, that the empha-sis in schools must be on the process of learning, not solely the results. I know this is difficult in our country now, particularly when so much stress is put on standardized tests -- which are all about results and not explor-ing different ideas -- as a way to measure the success of both teachers and children.

But it can be done. We can learn from other cultures -- for example, in Japan, children are allowed, and expected, to work out a problem in front of the class for 10 minutes or more. Even if the student is wrong, there is no shame. Mistakes are an indication, not of failure, in these classrooms, but of what still needs to be learned.

I also know a group of fourth-grade and fifth-grade teachers in New York who, inspired by the idea that children need to learn to make and live with mistakes, are developing their own les-son plan to build resilient learn-ers. The idea is to help students examine the ideas of effort and persistence, learn to take risks and accept imperfection and be willing to sit with the uncertainty of not knowing.

It’s a big task. But over time, I think we can teach students how to shift the prism at least slightly, so they look at mistakes not as something to be dreaded and avoided, but as an inevitable -- and often very helpful -- part of learning.

Reprinted with permission from Alina Tugend. Originally published on Edutopia.com, 9/6/11. http://www.edutopia.org/blog/benefits-mis-takes-classroom-alina-tugend