February 2012

 

Park News Feb 2012

 
 
February 10, 2012  
ParkNews: The Park School
Lower School  Middle School  |  Upper School  |  Athletics |  All School  parkschool.net  

From The Principals

Fairness, Understanding, and Citizenship

In each issue of Park News, we not only report interesting things that have happened throughout the school over the past few weeks, but we also offer a glimpse of the ideas and ideals that shape life at Park. Inspired by the work of our Upper School Civil Rights Trip participants, the recent celebrations and studies of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, and the commencement of Black History Month, our principals take the opportunity to discuss the notions of fairness, understanding, and citizenship. From interpersonal relationships in the classroom to the study of large-scale movements to advocating for change, our students and teachers develop a true sense of what it means to be a thoughtful, engaged member of the community.

Each issue of Park News features, alternately, an address from Head of School Dan Paradis or our three principals, June Bennett, Josh Wolf, and Daniel Bergman. This week, we welcome Lower School Assistant Principal Lisa Sun’s contributions.
 

Lower School

Fairness and the Developing Child

That’s not fair!” This is a statement that we may often hear from our children. Frequently, it relates to an experience when a child may feel she or he is being excluded or does not have access to something that other children have access to. “She has more cookies than me!” or “He’s not letting me have a turn!” Even our youngest students have a sense of what is equal and what is not. We begin to teach our children about issues of fairness and equity starting with our K1 students, acknowledging that their life experiences can help them make connections with other people who may have also experienced unfairness. Every year following, we continue to foster an awareness and appreciation of the experiences of all people through the curriculum. In the Lower School, issues of fairness and equity may be covered across multiple years, but as the students develop and grow, the teachers engage students in deeper and meatier conversations through a curriculum that is challenging and age-appropriate. Students engage in honest conversations about our history, learn about important historical figures, and contemplate the responsibility that all of us have to help build a more fair and equal country and world. As you will see in the stories below, coinciding with both the observance of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday and with the commencement of Black History month, our students have been particularly mindful of the notion of fairness on both the personal and community levels.

—Lisa Sun,  Lower School Assistant Principal

Learning about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in K1

Observational portraits of Dr. Martin Luther King by K1 students.

From Kindergarten 1 Teacher, Linda Butler: Young children are fascinated with heroes and people who help others. The K1 class was immediately interested in learning more about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life and work. They asked relevant questions and wanted to know more about King as a boy and as a man. We attended the Lower School assembly where facts about Dr. King’s life and the story My Brother Martin by Christine King Farris were shared. In our classroom, we learned more about Dr. King through a very simple felt board story. The felt board story tells of Dr. King’s dream and delivers the message that Dr. King wanted people of all colors to work and play together peacefully. The children were fascinated and concerned that black children and white children could not go to school together. Although our class is not racially diverse, the children could understand that segregation applied to teachers as well. It upset the children that black teachers were not allowed to teach white children. We talked about how Dr. King helped to change that law. Later, everyone in our class drew an observational portrait of Dr. King, some of which are pictured above. The children’s drawings represent the man well. We didn’t stop there. A few days later, we learned that Stradine, our Physical Education teacher, and other Park friends were on the Civil Rights trip to learn more about Dr. Marin Luther King, Jr. We exchanged emails with the group to wish them well and ask questions about their experiences. We are looking forward to a visit from the students who traveled down south soon. We will continue to refer to Dr. King’s work and think about what we can do to make the world a better place.


Dr. King/Black History Month First Grade Curricular Happenings

From Jenn Lauder, First Grade teacher: If you’ve walked by the First Grade pod on a recent Friday morning, you might think you’d been transported to a 1960s-era Civil Rights rally. The three classes have become enamored with two protest songs, “We Shall Overcome” and “If You Miss Me at the Back of the Bus,” and they sing out with such gusto that passersby can’t help but stop to listen: “If you miss me at the back of the bus, and you can’t find me nowhere, come on up to the front of the bus, and I’ll be riding up there.
 
We learned these songs several weeks ago, as we were celebrating Martin Luther King’s birthday, and they’ve been in heavy rotation since then. And, as is the way of six- and seven-year-olds, these children want to soak up everything they can about the people who shaped our society by demanding equal rights for all.
 
As we read about Dr. King, students were thrilled to find “mirrors” of their lives in his childhood — points of connection that demonstrate how a “regular kid” could become a great leader. They loved his determination and his assertion that “one day I’m going to turn the world upside down.”
 
Miles Roberts, in Mrs. Wilder’s class, asked, “If Martin Luther King never lived, would our world still be the same as it was then?” We were reminded of Harriet Tubman, whose courage and perseverance helped to free enslaved people and dismantle a horrendous system; Ruby Bridges, a young girl whose prayers for peace allowed her overcome hatred and attend one of the first integrated schools; Rosa Parks, who decided to say “No” rather than be treated like a second-class citizen; and Dr. King’s own words, “Remember, if I am stopped, this movement will not be stopped.”
 
In a conversation in my own classroom around the question, “Are things still unfair?” children mentioned such injustices as homelessness, war, and the fact that there has never been a female president in the U.S. Alessandra Meecham asked, “If there’s no more segregation, why are so many people at Park white?” These children recognize that, though many issues have been resolved, there is still work to be done.
 
So, while we’re not marching on the Capitol in first grade, we are fostering the next generation of activists who already feel empowered to become agents for positive change. Perhaps in another 50 years, they too will have turned the world upside down.
 

Points of View in the Third Grade


From Ann Starer, Third Grade teacher:
By third grade, students are ready cognitively to move beyond their own sense of self and begin to understand the points of view of others. In our theme studies we explore three peoples from the early 1600s: Northeastern Woodland Indians, English Settlers, and enslaved West Africans. We study these cultures and note how the groups interacted. We discover each group’s unique view on life and explore how their perspective of their world lead to conflict and support.
 
This focus on point of view offers a natural path for integrating the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr. While the third graders come with some schema (background knowledge) for Dr. King from prior school years, the students are ready to go deeper. We read and discuss children’s biographies, confirm facts many already know, catch misconceptions, gain new pieces of information and pursue new thoughts about Dr. King. The students expand their understanding of Dr. King as a child and man, and reflect on and appreciate his determination, bravery, and gentleness as he worked peacefully for equity and justice for African Americans.  We define vocabulary significant for understanding the topic, such as civil, rights, equity, segregation, colored, march, boycott, and strike
 
As a final task, the students choose from a variety of assignments to express their thoughts on Dr. King and civil rights. Some choose to interview an elderly relative or friend about his or her experience with segregation in Baltimore. Others reflect on personal connections they have to injustices that exist today, some decide to research contemporary issues of inequality, while others write letters to Dr. King thanking him for his world-changing leadership. The students may also interpret significant quotes from Dr. King, taking his poignant words and translating them in their own third grade language. 
 
After our study of Dr. King, we circle back to our theme studies, where we now have another avenue for understanding the inequities imposed on the native peoples of North America and enslaved West Africans. We discuss how differing ways of life and perspective, and naïveté about respecting and sharing land, caused oppression, and prejudice of American Indians.  As we study the enslaved West Africans transported to Jamestown, Virginia and explore the injustices of slavery, we once more make connections to the plight of hardship and mistreatment of peoples and explore how they rebelled and fought for the rights that should be available to all people.
 

Middle School

Opening the Middle School Mind

Muhammad Ibn Arabi, the 12th century philosopher from Al-Andalus (currently Spain), conveyed his profound belief in diversity and in seeing the world through all lenses, with a poem:
 
My heart has grown capable of taking on all forms:
A pasture for gazelles, a convent for Christians
A temple for idols, a Kaaba for the pilgrim
A table for the Torah, a book for the Koran
My religion is love.
Whichever the route love’s caravan shall take,
That path shall be the path of my faith.
 
Respect for diversity is hardly a new concept, and yet the difficulty of honoring different perspectives remains one of our greatest challenges today. And just how difficult is it to comprehend another’s perspective, to walk in another’s shoes, to advocate for causes that aren’t inherently our own? Extremely!
 
Kids-becoming-adults develop awareness and sensitivity to others in a few ways:
1) by exposure to new paradigms of thinking
2) by immersion into often-uncomfortable situations or dialogue
3) by building relationships with those different from themselves, and
4) by learning about how advocacy for others transforms both ourselves and the communities we live in.
 
Park facilitates this kind of growth by helping kids adventure into conversations about stereotype and privilege, by encouraging discussions about cultural identifiers (from gender and race to age and learning styles), by safely immersing our students into unfamiliar situations, and by modeling advocacy in ways that are relevant to Middle School kids.
 
Below are a few examples of ways that we are promoting open-mindedness in the Middle School right now, and helping kids to begin a lifelong devotion to advocacy for others, and a respect for difference.


—Josh Wolf, Middle School Principal
 
 

Recent Middle School Experiences:

Seventh grade Language Arts students are currently reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Students are learning about Native Americans, the Wellpinit tribe in eastern Washington State, and grappling with questions about authentic portrayals of adolescents versus the stereotypical ones that are promoted in popular culture.
 
Working on Patricia Va a California.

Seventh and eighth Grade Spanish students are reading the novels Pobre Ana and Patricia Va a California. Both combine coming-of-age stories with themes of immigration, classism, and racism.
                  
Sixth grade French students watched and discussed Azur et Asmar, a French/Belgian animated tale about cultural and physical differences, prejudice, and superstition. These students also interviewed two native speakers: a male ballet dancer from Paris and a Park School employee from the Ivory Coast.
 
Sixth grade Spanish students watched the film Viva Cuba, and talked about Cuban history: the political, religious, economic, and social fissures in Cuba, daily life, the challenges of the Communist regime, the differences between life in the capital and in the countryside, and racial identities in Cuba and much of the Caribbean.
 
Seventh grade French students watched Etre et Avoir, a documentary film about a year in the life of a one-room school house in rural France. The kids remarked how different school and daily life are for those kids. The film also served to remind kids that France is so much more than Paris.  
 
In sixth grade science students examined the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and gained a true understanding of the complexities of protecting this diverse natural resource. Conversations about the subtle differences between environmental problems and environmental issues led students to the notion of compromise—that moving forward requires multiple perspectives and hard choices. That students could use this model to solve problemsoutside of science class was enlightening to the kids!
 
There are two classes in seventh grade life skills that address diversity issues. Our most recent presenter was Head of School, Dan Paradis. He provided an overview of the Park philosophy and highlighted the significance of diversity as a salient goal in both our philosophy and culture. This was followed by a class with the Upper School Mentors in small groups where aspects of our progressive philosophy were brought to life with personal stories.
 
A second class in seventh grade life skills involves a presentation by a Park faculty member explaining her coming-out process and the life changes she experienced in accepting her sexual identity. This class will be followed up with the Mentors, involving a values clarification exercise to make distinctions between sexual identity and gender identity.
 
In a combined Language Arts and Tech project, sixth graders read various novels about kids responding to bullying in schools. They viewed public service announcements and then wrote scripts for PSA’s focusing on positive behavior that would improve our school community (and not necessarily about bullying). Then the students filmed and edited their videos. Topics included acceptance of differences, healthy activity, and not spreading rumors.
 
Eigth grade Social Studies students discuss the dismay that Jews and Christians felt over the multiplicity of gods held dear by the Mesopotamian polytheists. They also learn how the Greeks and Persians both thought that their way of looking at the world in terms of individual freedoms versus order was “correct.” In the same vein, Emperor Ashoka insisted that Buddhism was more appropriate than Hinduism in India. Dialogue and debate are critical in every single class! The students learn why each person (or community) develops a certain identity and then advocates based on that identity. To bring the discussion closer to home, the kids look at how Park’s Progressive goal of “active participation in a democracy” is best served by understanding and also respecting each other’s diverse perspectives.
 
The Middle School Gay-Straight Alliance has been engaging members of the Park Community by sponsoring a “question of the month” box, which asks passersby to submit their anonymous responses to thought-provoking questions about gender and sexuality diversity. Questions have included, “Why don’t straight people have to come out?” and “How do YOU define gender?” and “What are some unwritten rules about gender in our school and what happens if people break those rules?”An upcoming Middle School Assembly will share responses to these questions.
 
Sixth grade math students are reading The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa. The story, which takes place in Japan, deals with mathematics, growing old with disabilities, and love.
 
In sixth grade life skills class, the kids read a wonderful identity poem by George Ella Lyon called “Where I’m From.” After discussing the poem and the concrete imagery used by the poet to reveal herself and her background, the kids wrote their own identity poems. Throughout the class, they discussed the question “What makes us who we are?” Throughout the conversation, students explored issues of ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, ancestry, class, living spaces, and adoption.
 
Seventh grade French students will soon watch the film La Rue Cases-Nègres, based on the novel by Joseph Zobel. The novel is an account of a young boy raised by his grandmother in a post-slavery, but still plantation-based Martinique. The struggles of the impoverished cane sugar plantation workers are the core subject of the novel. Zobel stated that the novel was his version of Richard Wright’s Black Boy, in that they are both semi-autobiographical (Wikipedia).
 
Seventh grade Social Studies students define the terms “perpetrator,” “bystander,” “target,” and “activist” and discuss these roles in every unit that they study (e.g. The Middle Passage and slavery). Kids learn that everyone ends up playing all of these roles at some point in their lives. In an effort to “lean into the discomfort,” students write journal entries reflecting on specific moments when they played one of these roles (Why were they in that role? How did it feel? What could they have done differently?). Before beginning their activist projects in the spring, students will refer to the eight identifiers for diversity (gender, age, ability, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, social class) and connect these to the terms, “perpetrator,” etc. The experience prepares the students for eighth grade, when they will become activists/advocates themselves.
 
On Friday, January 20, Park students who are involved with the Middle Grades Partnership met with students from their Baltimore City partner school, The Afya Charter School. They bowled, ate pizza, and spent the afternoon together. The Middle Grades Partnership involves more than 500 Baltimore City middle school students in nine summer and school year programs. The city schools and their partner independent school (or university) jointly plan the program. For more information see:
http://www.middlegradespartnership.org.
 
During Exploratory Learning Week, Elizabeth Hollister ran a course called “The International Children’s Film Festival,” where students viewed two feature length movies about the experiences of children in other parts of the world, as well as several international shorts geared towards children. One feature film, Under the Same Moon, was about a Mexican boy who illegally travels to the USA to find his mother, an undocumented worker. The other film, Ma Vie en Rose, focused on a young French boy who insists on wearing girls’ clothing. This affects his family, his community, and of course, his own life. Both movies sparked meaningful discussions about important topics, such as gender issues and immigration, and helped Park students to practice empathy and also to view the issues in a more personal way.
 
In sixth grade Social Studies classes, students will be focusing on culture and cultural change, as part of their study of Africa. One upcoming lesson will explain Kiswahili time, which is used in some East African countries, such as Tanzania. Kiswahili time is a different way of telling time (like military time). Kiswahili time, which always seems quite strange to students, (“Why would they tell time THAT way?”) is used to demonstrate how geography, daily life, and technology (or lack of it) can impact a culture and result in different practices. Kids learn that things that may seem strange when viewed from outside a culture actually are quite logical and appropriate for the culture in which they exist.
 
In all Social Studies classes, students come to recognize that learning about diverse groups and individuals in both ancient and modern times requires applying multiple perspectives. Diversity is reflected in the assigned readings and projects, in the questions that are asked, and even in the posters and charts in our classrooms. In both sixth and eighth grades, students visit issues from every continent on earth and try to examine them from various and diverse perspectives. When we focus on American issues in seventh grade, our studies always look at diversity, including the clash between Native American and European cultures, the African American experience and the development of racism, interactions between immigrant groups and the pressures of assimilation, the continuous transformations of gender and sexual identity, and issues involving civil liberties and civil rights.
 

Upper School

Rising to the Challenges

Just ten days ago, Manil Suri, UMBC Mathematics professor and acclaimed author, spoke to the Upper School about the many cultures he has straddled in his life. At the same time, fourteen Park students, along with Mathematics teacher Angela Doyle, Dean of Students Traci Wright, and other Park faculty, were traveling across the south with peers from City College High School and City Neighbors High School on our ninth annual Civil Rights Trip, meeting activists and leaders from the Civil Rights movement and finding inspiration to confront injustice today. Meanwhile, this week thirteen Park Upper School families are hosting twenty-five students from our partner school in China, Beijing School #9. While our Chinese guests brought insight into the life and culture of contemporary China, other Park students devoted free blocks to discussions about cultural constructions of masculinity. Still others worked on editing and publishing Ojala!, our Spanish language literary journal. Amidst all this activity dozens of Upper School Students spent two evenings hunkered over phones in the annual Park Habitat-for-Humanity Phon-A-Thon, raising money to help restore housing in impoverished Baltimore neighborhoods. Like Manil Suri, Park actively explores the world from many cultural vantage points, seek understanding of our diversity and rise to the challenge of being efficacious citizens.

—Daniel Bergman, Upper School Principal

Civil Rights Trip

Baltimore City Neighbors, City College High School and Park School students with their counterparts at Simmons High School (Mississippi).

From Angela Doyle, Upper School Mathematics teacher: This year’s Civil Rights Trip was an adventure every day — from greeting life-changing speakers to hiding from tornadoes. We began our trip in Greensboro, NC, exploring the site of the lunch-counter sit-ins which launched a nationwide movement, and continued to Atlanta where we met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s fellow activist and friend, Andrew Young. We continued to Birmingham, where a former Freedom Rider, Catherine Burks-Brooks, engaged us with stories of riding with Bull Connor and John Lewis to the Alabama state border. Walking the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, the site of Bloody Sunday, proved to be a moving experience as we sang freedom songs for our march over Alabama River. Continuing into Mississippi, we spent the day sharing with students from the Mississippi Delta (seen above in our photo from Simmons High School), discussing our experience of race and race relations and finding that life in Baltimore is truly different, but in some ways similar, to life in the deep South. Our next stop was Little Rock, where Dr. Sybil Hampton talked to us about finding inner resilience and a spirit of tolerance from being the first African American to attend Central High School. Our final stops were Memphis, where a founder of the National Civil Rights Museum, Judge D’Army Bailey, spoke to us about being an agent of change, and the Highlander Research Center, which encouraged the students to think critically about the injustice they see every day. With such a wealth of speakers and experiences, the Civil Rights Trip impacts each student in a life-changing and unique way. It’s important to hear their stories and their voice to know what this trip is truly about. Click here to read their trip blog.

Update Regarding our Chinese Exchange Students

Our Chinese exchange students at Park’s Lunar New Year celebration and in an Upper School science classroom.

From Xiaomu Hu, Upper School Chinese teacher:
With so many hugs and tears, our Chinese guests left on Wednesday morning after spending a wonderful week at Park. They shadowed students, attended special classes and discussions designed for them, had a tour of the Lower School, helped with the Lunar New Year Celebration, and more. They told me they were so impressed by Park School, the idea of progressive education, and most of all, the teachers and students here. It’s a life-changing experience for them, and I believe the influence Park has given them within a short week is long-term. The friendship they established with us will last for many, many years.

Notice: Upper School Math Text Billing

Just a quick, repeat reminder: In March, all Upper School students using a non-commercial math textbook will be charged $45. For anyone unfamiliar with the math textbooks created in-house by Park faculty, here is a link to portions of the books made available through the wonderful Upper School Faculty Math Blog (www.parkmath.org).
 
 

Athletics

What’s Bruin:
From the Desks of the Athletic Directors

Before we address the theme at hand, or a slight derivation thereof, let’s wrap up the winter.  A depleted indoor soccer squad stumbled after dominating their first three opponents, but managed to regain much of their swagger before entering the playoffs. Unfortunately, their lower seeding, in part the result of an exceedingly unlucky coin flip, matched them against the league’s third place, two-loss team. Playing tough, as is the Bruin manner, the girls leapt out to an early 1-0 lead, but eventually fell in the quarterfinal bout. With only 3 seniors among the 12-member group, the girls should rebound well entering next year. Similarly, the squash team will return all but one of their athletes next year, including their number one. For now though, they remain at least a rung below the powerhouses that dominate the league (and, in some cases, the country!).  Each of the boys’ basketball lineups deserves mention for their outstanding season. The Freshman Team, playing in the ultra-challenging B Conference Fresh-Soph league, battled into a share of second place by season’s end, but dropped the final contest on the calendar and, thus, barely missed appearing in the newly revived league championship game. The Junior Varsity had already clinched first place and were prepping for their own ultimate challenge, a Final that Park will host on Tuesday, February 14. If you haven’t already made plans to do so, please pencil in an early Valentine’s Day date at the PAC for the big game! The very next day, the plucky and determined Boys’ Varsity will begin their own playoff run. Having soared as high as a tie for first among their rivals in the C Conference, the boys are poised to challenge all comers on the way to their Final, February 19 at UMBC.
 
Girls’ Basketball warrants a discussion on many fronts. Due to injuries, illnesses, and other unforeseen circumstances, the girls’ season came to an abrupt and premature demise. The varsity and JV schedules were left incomplete when the number of healthy athletes diminished to an alarming, and unsafe, level. One would say the teams’ year in general, such as it was, was one of character building as the Bruins suffered through difficult losses and, at times, demeaning behavior on the part of some opposing teams and onlookers. Shorthanded and hurting, Park often experienced little civility on the road and even at home at the hands of visiting coaches.  While a “hostile” environment, given the most benign definition of hostility within athletics as it pertains to a boisterous home crowd, might be tolerated or even expected, mockery and dehumanizing of a team through chants and outrageous running up of scores is simply unacceptable. We as fans and participants have much to be proud of when it comes to Park Athletics. Not lowest on the list is most certainly our sportsmanship, persistently second to none. Having goodwill towards others, being well-mannered while still rooting or playing with all your heart, and remaining always respectful of opponents have long been lessons passed on to our students. The girls’ agonizing winter can at least be valued in that it once again shed light on the merit and significance of these basic tenets.  
 
See you all in the spring and, as always, GO BRUINS!

 

All School

Park Night School


Park Night School classes for adults provide intriguing samplings for a variety of interests. Our Spring 2012 offerings of dance, beekeeping, music, and figure drawing may appeal to those looking for renewal. Widen the Park circle by inviting a friend! There are limited enrollments and classes may fill quickly. For more information and to register go to: www.parkschool.net/events

Bees and Beekeeping [click here for full description]
Jeff Jennings—Upper School Science
Thursdays, March 8, March 15, April 5, and April 12 – 7:00 to 8:30pm
Sunday, April 15 – 10:00 to 1:00pm

Tuition is $75. Enrollment is limited to 14.
 
The Joy of Latin Dancing
[click here for full description]
Emily Liss—Lower School Music
Fridays, April 13, April 20, and April 27 from 7:00 to 8:30pm

Tuition is $75. Enrollment is limited to 15.
 
Learn How to Use Finale and GarageBand
[click here for full description]
Paul Hulleberg—Middle School Music, Director of the Upper School a cappella group, The Vocal Chords.
Thursdays, March 29, April 5, April 12, and April 19 from 7:00 to 8:30pm
Tuition for this class is $75. Enrollment is limited to 15.

Figure Drawing
[click here for full description]
Carolyn Sutton, Director of Arts
Tuesdays, March 6, March 13, and April 3, from 7:00 to 9:00pm.

Tuition is $75. In addition, there is a materials fee of $25 to cover the cost of models, portfolios, and materials. Enrollment is limited to 15.
 


Admission Dates of Note

In the coming weeks, Park welcomes our 2012-2013 Accepted Families to join us on campus:

Lower School Accepted Family Reception – February 22, 4:30-6:00pm
Middle and Upper School Accepted Family Reception – February 27, 4:30-6:00pm

Please contact the Admission Office with any questions: 410-339-4130 or admission@parkschool.net
 

Student Directed Plays – Feb 23-25

Three very different plays explore three very different relationships directed by three very dynamic young directors: Apocalyptic Butterflies by Wendy McCleod, a romantic comedy directed by Tess Langrill-Miles ’12; The Clean House by Sarah Ruhl, a poetic comedy, directed by Ellie Kahn ’12; and Ordinary Days by Adam Gwon, a musical, directed by Josie Verchomin ’12. Tickets are $8 and are available from the front and upper school desks two weeks prior to performances. Appropriate for grades 8 and up.
 

Music by Prudence – Free Film Screening – Feb 24

Presented by the Parents’ Asociation, the Cultural Diversity Film Series continues its programming with a screening of Music by Prudence on Friday, February 24, 2012, 7:00-9:00pm. Music by Prudence tells the story of Prudence Mabhena, who, together with her band, overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds and, in her own voice, conveys to the world that disability does not mean inability. In addition to its sheer emotional punch, Music by Prudence has become the cornerstone of an advocacy campaign and has been embraced by the UN, Human Rights Watch, and the disability community as an unprecedented portrayal advocating for the rights of persons with disabilities. (See www.musicbyprudence.com.)

For additional information about this series and other Parents’ Association events contact Ellen Small, Parent Program Coordinator, 410-339-4145 or esmall@parkschool.net
 

Discussion with Abigail Sullivan Moore – Feb 29

The Park Parents’ Association invites you to a discussion with Abigail Sullivan Moore — co-author of The iConnected Parent: Staying Connected to Your College Kids (and Beyond) While Letting Them Grow Up. Wednesday, February 29, 7:30 pm in the Blaustein Lecture Hall. Click here for full details.