ADULT rED

Have you ever wanted to go back to school in a progressive classroom similar to your child’s? Intrigued by what you hear around the dinner table? Many parents of LREI students tell us how they wish that they could have the experiences that their children have each day.

In response to significant parent interest, this winter LREI will be offering two evening courses for adults, taught by members of our outstanding faculty. These will be seminar style courses, with an emphasis on discussion and open dialogue between participants. Two members of our high school faculty, Julia Heaton (English Teacher, former Acting High School Principal, former Academic Dean) and Tom Murphy (History Teacher, History Department Chair), will be offering abridged versions of their most popular offerings—Dangerous Language and Global War on Terror: American Foreign Policy Since 9/11, respectively.

Each course will be open to 15 participants. There will be pre-seminar reading assignments (to be completed over Winter Break) with additional shorter supplemental assignments during the five-week session. The courses meet simultaneously. If you are interested in participating, please choose one, with the expectation that you will attend all five sessions. While there are no required writing assignments, participants are encouraged to take notes and respond in writing to the week’s guiding questions.

Classes will meet on the following Tuesday evenings—January 12th, January 19th, January 26th, February 2nd and February 9th. Courses will meet from 6:30PM-8:00PM in the high school, 40 Charlton Street.

There is a $100 registration fee for each participant.

If you would like to register for one of these courses, please contact Rowena Penaranda-Askins at rpenaranda@lrei.org or (212) 477-5316, x295.

Course Descriptions

Pornography or Masterpiece: Reading Lolita at LREI
“I shall never regret Lolita. She was like the composition of a beautiful puzzle– its composition and its solution at the same time, since one is a mirror view of the other, depending on the way you look.” – Vladimir Nabokov, 1964.
“What frightens or disturbs us in Lolita…opens our eyes to ourselves and our worlds. Everyone should read it for the pure joy.” — Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran

Published in 1955, Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita was hailed by Graham Greene as one of the best books of all time and also “the filthiest book I have ever read…sheer unrestrained pornography” (John Gordon, London Sunday Express, 1956). For the past half century, this iconic story of a middle-aged professor’s infatuation with his adolescent stepdaughter continues to fascinate, intoxicate and alienate readers of all ages. In this five-week seminar, we will journey together through the novel Lolita, analyzing the text in terms of character, language, formal structure, and theme. Furthermore, we will consider the novel’s publication history (banned in several countries) as well as its complicated position in the literary “canon”. Finally, we will discuss the societal and moral implications of the novel’s subject, and the complicity we feel as readers when we are at once “entranced with the book while abhorring its author” (Nabokov, Lolita). Participants will read an annotated version of Lolita as well as selected works of literary criticism.

The Global War on Terror: American Foreign Policy Since 9/11
“We will rid the world of evildoers.” — Bush, Sept. 17.
The Global War on Terrorism (or GWOT) is the name of a campaign with the stated goal of ending international terrorism by preventing terrorist groups from posing a threat, and by putting an end to state sponsorship of terrorism. This campaign was launched by the United States following the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. carried out by al-Qaeda. After more than eight years the name has changed yet the conflict continues. In this five-week seminar, we will use a combination of primary sources, articles and Frontline documentaries to examine the evolution of the war against radical Islam. By looking at how we got here we may develop a better understanding of what we should do next.

Syllabus:
Week One: Al Qaeda and the New Terrorism
Week Two: The Bush Foreign Policy Revolution
Week Three: The War in Afghanistan
Week Four: The War in Iraq
Week Five: The Global War on Terror and Human Rights

THE LOOMING TOWER Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. By Lawrence Wright. Illustrated. 469 pp. Alfred A. Knopf.

Director’s Blog, October 1, 2009

I write this on what the Kindergartners tell me is the 15th day of school. Fall is solidly upon us as evidenced by a drop in temperature, changing leaf colors and another annual autumnal event—Curriculum Night. While I spend every day surrounded by our curriculum, it has been a pleasure to attend these evenings and to hear the teachers speak about the progressive program in which your children participate each day in all three divisions. For those who are interested in what is happening in the classrooms of another grade or another division, I invite you to read the divisional blogs and the curriculum guides (on the web site, by division.) I want to point you to one particular section of the high school curriculum guide. I was really quite impressed by the presentation made by the high school English and history teachers about our 11th and 12th grade electives. Clicking here will take you to the high school guide. (Pages 14-17 and 21-22 describe the English and History electives.) The opportunities offered to the students in these classes are akin to the experience of being in a college seminar. After their presentations the teachers and I spoke of the tight focus of their courses as a lens through which to view the wider world of literature. History teachers spoke of their students’ interests and how this engagement creates an openness and readiness to explore other areas of history. Take a look; I think you will be impressed.

This week, September 26th – October 3rd, is Banned Books Week. Sponsored by the American Library Association, “Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.” Banned Books Week encourages all of us to consider what it means that the response by some to books that offer differing points of view or that challenge one’s strongly held beliefs is anger and avoidance rather than respectful engagement. In contrast to the English teachers noted above, those who seek to ban books offer blinders, not lenses. Fine not to read a book that one finds objectionable, but to work to make these thoughts and opportunities unavailable to all? I noticed with some pride that many of the books we read throughout the school have been banned or challenged at some point. Pride not in the fact that we are reading books that are edgy or from a specific political point of view. But pride in the fact that we are offering your children the chance to be challenged by the books they read or have read to them, to see the world through the lives of others, to articulate their points of view and to become active participants in civil conversations. As I discussed this with one or our librarians, she commented that I should not be surprised that so many of the books we read at LREI are part of this club as the list of challenged and banned books is incredibly long and grows every day. A sad fact. One other thought about Banned Books Week. The people who challenge books seem to be organized and are able to effectively get their message out. I encourage you to find time next week to visit a library (our Sixth Avenue library has a terrific bulleting board display of banned books), to read a book that has been banned or challenged and to speak with your children about the power of books and freedom speech. For more information on Banned Books Week, visit the American Library Association’s web site.

09/09/09

Dear LREI Families,

The last of the students has left for the day and what a day it has been. There are few things more exciting than the first day of school. It was truly wonderful to see your children arriving this morning, whether here for only a short time in an early childhood class or for much of the day in the other grades. The students were bright-eyed and excited, eager to see their friends and, even if they don’t always admit it, excited about returning to class. We appreciate their energy.

Hats of to the teachers in all three divisions for their efforts over the past weeks preparing for today. A lot of work to do in a very short period of time, made shorter still, in the high school especially, by our construction projects. A tough job very well done by LREI’s faculty and staff.

I am looking forward to all that the 2009-2010 school year will bring to us as a community and to each student individually.

Two quick reminders:

On Monday, September 14th, from 8:45AM-10:15AM, I ask that all new parents/guardians attend LREI 101, our orientation program for new families. This gathering is an essential component of your entry into the LREI community. We will meet in the Sixth Avenue cafeteria.

On Tuesday, September 15th, Michael Patrick, ’71, Chair of the LREI Board of Trustees and his wife, Carol Sedwick, invite new parents to a reception in their home at 6:00PM. You should have received an official invitation to this gathering. If not, please contact lsacks@lrei.org.

On a more specific note, please read the attached letter regarding the H1N1 flu virus.

Best for a successful school year,

Phil

Dear LREI Community,

I sit down to write this note after a more leisurely bed time than usual and while anticipating a morning without a mad rush through the door.

The end of the school year, in all three divisions, was filled with activities and events that provided a glimpse at your child’s experiences at LREI this year. I hope that your family’s school year was enriching and that your children are proud of all that they accomplished.

It is an honor to work with our committed faculty and staff each day and to be a part of the educational lives of our students. I am proud of our students, of our faculty and thankful for the involvement, hard work and generosity of LREI’s families.

We hope that your family enjoys a well deserved and restful break this summer and look forward to seeing all in September.

Warmly,

Phil

It would be almost impossible not to close your eyes for just a moment today to look back to the beginning, to the time when parents counted fingers and toes, made a final choice of name—Vera, Hayata, Jessica—or heard their child cry for the first time.   How long has it been since parent and child first gazed at each other—not really knowing the other person but being two people absolutely in love nonetheless?  How long has it been since parent and child first fell asleep in each other’s arms, hearts beating as one?  How long since the first time, in the dead of night or maybe at the break of day, morning’s gentle stirrings just beginning, when secret wishes were confided, fears and hopes and dreams for the future?  How long?  Seconds, it seems.  Just a blink of an eye and here we are.   

How long since these students were first left in a classroom, in the care of another– someone else teaching them, caring for them and guiding their discovery of the world?  How long since that first amazing moment when they learned to read? How many paintings and sculptures created and “ooed” and “ahed” over?  How many skinned knees or skinned feelings soothed?  How long since that first trip out into the world alone, beyond a parent’s reach?  So many moments that we can look back on to measure how far these, now, young adults have moved from where they began.  It seems as if nothing has happened since those very first moments.  And yet, it seems as if everything has happened since those very first moments. 

And so here we are.  Looking up at you, our little charges grown into adults.  Here we are, so proud of you, so full of admiration, so amazed at who you have become, so in awe of the promise that you embody. This promise has not changed.  Whether during those early days imagining what the future would bring, or sitting here today, seeing just how beautiful and handsome you are up here on the stage, how confident you are, how vital you are—there is now at this moment, as there was then, that promise of good things to come.  Welcome, class of 2009, to this moment.

Good Afternoon. Welcome trustees, administrators, faculty, students, families and guests to this moment, the 64^th commencement exercises of LREI, Little Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin High School.  My name is Philip Kassen, and I have the distinct and daily pleasure of being the Director of LREI.  We are here today to honor the 47 graduating seniors seated before you.

Before we do so, however, I ask you, students, families, friends to join me in expressing our gratitude to the faculty of LREI, all of whom are here today.  This moment would not be this moment without you and without those who you represent. 

Of particular note, to Steve Neiman, Middle School computer teacher, congratulations on completing your 30^th year at LREI and to Mark Bledstein, high school history teacher, congratulations on your 40^th year at LREI.  We can’t thank you enough.

You have grown and changed, graduates, and the world has grown and changed with and around you.  So much in the world has changed since you began your school career. Computers more powerful than any found during your early days are now carried like loose change in your pockets.  In your lifetime a space telescope that has helped to answer fundamental questions about the Universe was not only placed into orbit but now, unbelievably, is beginning its last act. The ways in which we communicate and find entertainment have become more varied, flexible and interactive.  Thankfully, as a society, we have developed a new respect and understanding for the need to be more careful stewards of the earth’s resources.  And of course, when you entered Kindergarten few of us would have thought that we would have a Latina nominee for the Supreme Court and an African – American President. 

Some things remain the same, however, and they fall into the categories of the bad and the good.   The Bad–War and hatred, hunger and poverty, sickness, and despair are still with us.  It is hard to read a newspaper (themselves once part of daily life, now possibly on their way to being artifacts) or watch TV (on an actual set or online or on a phone) without seeing examples of age-old human misery and suffering. Whether hunger or poverty around the world or in our backyard, bigotry on an individual or institutional level, ignorance, inequality or intolerance—change comes harder to people than it does to widgets and whatnots.  No matter how far technology, scientific understanding or artistic expression have traveled, the pace of development that there has been in most adults’ ability to find ways to peacefully and constructively coexist, to respectfully disagree and to follow the rule of law is shockingly and painfully sluggish. It is this reluctance and refusal to change that permits acts such as the murder of a doctor for simply providing legal healthcare to women faced with unbearably difficult decisions. 

As for the good—love, service, arts, caring, empathy, honesty, trust, hard work, and on and on—they sustain us and it does not take much, even in a city like ours, to see examples of the good as you move through your days.  The good is there, it is everywhere, it does not, however, rise to the surface often enough. 

Your years at LREI fostered your progress.  Progressive education at its heart is hopeful and optimistic and encourages students to see a future that is open and endless not closed and limiting.  This experience has allowed you to develop in ways that while we knew they were coming we did not know where and how your journey would end.  You are so capable. So able to participate in the world. So able to impact the world and each other. So able to make yourselves heard and known. So able to bring your powers and talents to bear. 

So, you are changing—very quickly, and the world is changing—also quickly, and people, in general, are changing—though not so quickly.  This presents an opportunity for you, class of 2009 and one that you should not squander.  How can you use your new powers and the forces of good as levers against the inertia of the bad?  Your job, your responsibility, is to use all of the tools at your disposal to confront intolerance and hate.  To work against the weight of complacency and push your friends and family and colleagues and those people you don’t know to imagine a more just world, a more equitable time, a brighter future. 

So, you ask, how to do this?  You can join others who are already working in this manner, some of your classmates among them.  You can invite colleagues to join you in the search for opportunities.  You can start big and challenge global issues or you can start small, in your own life, close to home.  Be kind to all with whom you come into contact, each day say hello to someone you don’t know, volunteer at a library or a soup kitchen.  Spread the word regarding a cause about which you are passionate via Twitter—140 characters, well chosen and well used might just change the world. 

There are so many means and methods available to you.  I urge you to find the one or ones that resonate with your hopes and dreams. 

What do you have to do to meet the challenge of those first wishes whispered in your ear by the ones who love you so much, as you fell slowly to sleep, so many moments ago?  Seize this moment in your life, so filled with opportunity.  It is a gift.  Accept and cherish it and put it to good use.  Promise that you will come back and tell us of your successes.  We love you dearly. Best of luck. 

Almost There

Phew!  What a full end to the 2008-2009 school year! Projects, tests, quizzes, presentations, potlucks, potlucks and more potlucks, concerts, recitals, more potlucks, award ceremonies and on and on.  All interesting, all fun, all opportunities to display the hard work and serious learning that have gone on throughout year.  My hat is off to the students and teachers who are managing to stay fresh and focused in the face of this series of quite fortunate events. 

The seniors are counting the hours until graduation—25 or so at press time.  Last week the twelfth graders presented their Senior Projects, the result of internships and many weeks work, to standing room only crowds.  Last Friday, the class attended the Senior Prom and tonight, along with their families, they will participate in the annual Senior Banquet. Performances, speeches, gifts for each student and the presentation of our most prestigious institutional awards—it is a wonderful evening and one to which we look forward each year.  And tomorrow, their day of days, the senior class will be honored in  LREI’s 64^th Commencement Exercises. Hard to describe how moving this event is each year.  If you are not a parent of a senior you will just have to wait to see. 

Click here to see the most up to date list of our seniors’ college acceptances.

Click here to see the most up to date list of college matriculation plans for the Class of 2009.

Monday will bring a return to school for those the seniors will have left behind.  Final exams will take up most of the last week in the high school, while Lower and Middle School students will finish up their academic and arts classes with a variety of events and participate in our traditional moving up exercises and then slip away to summer.  Please visit the three divisional blogs to get a sense of what is happening throughout the school. 

Our summer camp, “Summers at LREI”, will fill much of both campuses starting in late June.  Summer will also bring significant construction to both buildings.  On Sixth Avenue we will continue the upgrade and greening of the classrooms that we began last summer. The middle school classrooms that we renovated a year ago have added tremendously to the day-to-day life in the brownstones. During the coming summer we will renovate several lower school classrooms in a similar manner. I will be in touch to share renderings of these spaces as soon as possible.  .

On Charlton Street we will continue the phase of construction that we started in March. Let me pause to thank the high school students and faculty for their patience during the construction. Major disruption was limited to a few days, but these days were hard.  Thank you very much.   This summer we will be renovating the 40 Charlton Street lobby and our chemistry lab, adding an elevator and renovating the townhouse (future home to the college guidance and admissions offices, humanities classrooms and faculty offices) to the west of the current high school building and integrating this restored landmark building into the existing facility.  We will be adding considerable space to the high school’s basement classrooms and enlarging the cafeteria/student center. In the fall we will hold classes and receptions in a spacious outdoor courtyard.  This project is a huge undertaking.  The bulk of the work will be completed in time for the opening of school with the rest coming on line in mid-September. 

I hope that you enjoy the exciting end of the school year.  The thought and care and learning evident in all that the students will do in the next two weeks will earn them well deserved pats on the back and will send a raft of “Thank you’s” to their teachers.  The summer will begin, and end, at the same breakneck pace that we are experiencing now.  We will, and hope that you will, find some time during the summer to reflect on your child’s experience at LREI and how much they have learned and grown. 

Warmly,

Phil 

As we enter the home stretch towards the end of the school year, we enter a time at LREI, and I imagine in most schools, when we see the results of the students’ hard work over the past eight months.  While this growth did not occur overnight, there is something about the spring that allows this development to shine. 

I watched two members of our Fours class carry the attendance to Eileen at the reception desk the other morning.  If this had been September they would have walked nervously towards her not sure of what to do, where to go or how to get back to class. They likely would have been holding the one slim sheet of paper together, with four hands, as if the weight of the responsibility it represented was too heavy for any one mere mortal.  When our paths crossed this week, these rising Kindergarteners strolled down the hall, chatting away, handed Eileen the attendance and then skipped back to class.  They are fully at home in the school, confident of their abilities and a little full of themselves.  The fourth graders seem a little too big for the lower school as they write their original musical based on their study of immigration, ready to go to the new world of the middle school, while the fifth graders seem right at home there and are moving about the building on their own with none of the timidity displayed in the fall.  They are ready to welcome their replacements rising from the lower school and to stop being the youngest students in the brownstones.  At our weekly middle school assembly we watched the leads in the middle school musical perform for their division-mates. I remember when these two first stepped onto the stage, two years ago, as sixth graders.  Talented even then, yet nowhere near as self-assured nor as charming.  (Bugsy Malone, Jr. will be performed Friday at 7PM and Saturday at 2PM and 7PM, all in the Performing Arts Center, 40 Charlton Street.) 

In ninth grade English today, as the teacher checked in with each student to make sure the past evening’s assignment had been completed, the group discussed the growth in their ability to annotate a text.  Some students had developed their own method for doing this; others followed the teacher’s technique.  The teacher asked the class to reflect on where they are now, “Is this where you want to be in tenth grade?”  A great question and one that indicates expectations for each school year while acknowledging the ongoing, multi-year development that school holds for all students.  

In classrooms throughout the school, we see evidence of all of the skills honed, content absorbed, talents fostered and a deepening of the students’ understanding of the world and their role in it.  Most excitedly, we watch the seniors come and go, as much members of our alumni body as they are high school students.  These young adults are prepared and ready to go.

Another project that has blossomed this spring is the work on our expansion project in the Charlton Street building.  What was a hole in the ground is now clearly the foundation for our future Arts Pavilion.  The townhouse is becoming its former self and will be completely renovated and restored this summer.  Soon after work ends, the high school’s Science Lab B will receive its first ever renovation and the lobby of 40 Charlton Street will grow into its new, more mature self throughout the summer. We will also see newly renovated classrooms in the Sixth Avenue building when we return in the fall.  More on the growth and development of our spaces next month. 

Best,

Phil

Dear LREI Community,

Each day, as you walk through the halls of the school, you pass people whose ability to take care of themselves and their families and whose hopes and dreams are constrained simply because of who they are.  These are not constraints that can be avoided by making different choices.  These limitations are forced upon these human beings solely for having the audacity to be gay.  These members of our community are loving, hard working, supportive people who may be unable to marry or adopt, visit hospitalized loved ones or make legal life decisions for ailing partners. 

 I write to invite you to join me in addressing this inequity.  An evening dedicated to learning about and discussing one of the pressing human rights issues of our time—Marriage Equality-A Civil Rights Issue—is sponsored by LREI’s Lesbian/Gay/Straight Alliance.  We will gather on Monday, April 27^th at 6:00PM in the Performing Arts Center at 40 Charlton Street to hear from a number of people who are very involved in the fight to bring justice to this situation.  I urge you to join this conversation, as an injustice visited upon any one of us is ultimately injustice for all.

Warmly,

Phil

April 2, 2009

Dear LREI Families,

Welcome back.  I hope that you had a relaxing Spring Break, whether here in NYC or away.  It was such a pleasure to welcome your children back to school on Monday and to see how relaxed and rested they were.  We are expecting great things from them in the months to come. 

So here it is, the first day of April (I am writing this note on Wednesday so that the blog gets out on time) and as advertised we are having April showers.  Whether or not these sprinkles bring May flowers remains to be seen.  However, one thing that is definitely growing and blooming is our college list.  Over the past couple of weeks, and continuing for a few weeks more, our seniors are, and will be, receiving affirmation of four years of hard work and success.  The acceptances received this month are the culmination of a college process that lasts for over two years.  Working with our college counselor, Amy Shapiro, students identify their interests, investigate options, plan their application process and get to work.  Juniors spend two trimesters in a class devoted to the college process and seniors spend considerable time during the first half of their twelfth grade year moving ever closer to the day when they will decide where they will spend the next four years. 

Our seniors apply to a wide variety of schools and make choices based on academic interests, distance from home and financial concerns to name but a few of a tremendous number of variables.  Some students choose to apply to small liberal arts schools similar to the high school where they spent the past four years, colleges such as Bard, Oberlin, Wesleyan, Gettysburg, Williams, Vassar, Hamilton and Occidental.  Other students apply to schools that match their specific interests-the Art Institute of Chicago, Polytechnic University of NYU and Rochester Institute of Technology.  Foreign universities call out to some students with their promise of cultural challenges along with the academic ones.  This year, these schools include, St. Andrew’s in Scotland, Montreal’s McGill University and American University in Paris.  Still other students decide that they need larger universities, public and private, in New York and beyond—NYU, SUNY New Paltz, Georgetown, Boston University, the University of Indiana at Bloomington, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Duke, Harvard, Brown and Cornell.  Each of the schools named here has accepted at least one member of our twelfth grade.  This list is quite incomplete and does not represent our pride in each senior.  I look forward to sending home an initial acceptance list very soon and a complete list of acceptances in the next few weeks.  You will be thrilled when you see the complete list. I know you join me in congratulating the members of the class of 2009.   Seniors, we are so proud of you!

One final note, at the same time that we are celebrating the seniors’ successes, the juniors are preparing to leave on their first group college visit tomorrow morning. The process begins again.

Best,

Phil

Dear LREI Community,

Hello, all. A quick blog posting before I run off to see many of you at our annual Big Auction—a terrific community building and fund raising event.   I want to take this opportunity to point out a number of highlights of the past few weeks and in the coming the days leading up to Spring Break.  This list is by no means complete.  It is just a taste of what happens each day. 

In the Lower School:

• I saw many of you at the Lower School Art Show.  Wow!  What a terrific display of all of the handiwork that children create in the art room and wood shop. Congratulations, Artists.
• Last week the Kindergarten celebrated the 100^th day of school.  The students had spent considerable time investigating the number 100 and on the big day they shared much of what they learned with parents and other LS classes.  From shells to Lego to milk cartons, the number 100 took some fascinating sizes, shapes and forms. Among my favorites were the 100 self-portraits of visitors to Luise’s room.
• Fourth graders study immigration to the US in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  In addition to visits to Ellis Island they have experienced a number of simulations of immigrant life.  It is not surprising to walk past the fourth grade rooms and find the students dressed as “recent” immigrants.  Residents of Minetta Lane looked out of their windows last week to see our fourth graders learning old fashioned street games such as Potsy and Stickball.  A blast from the past!

 In the Middle School:

• Each eighth grader has selected one or more aspects of sustainability that he or she finds interesting and will join classmates with similar interests to arrange community service and self-education relating to this chosen area.  Their work will culminate when the eighth grade will present the “Sustainability Teach-In” for the entire Middle School.  More information at http://blog.lrei.org/greencore
• The fifth and sixth grades have big days next week. On Wednesday, the Sixth Graders will perform their Medieval Pageant, the annual presentation of all that they have learned about feudal societies.  This original play will be performed for students and parents.  Next Thursday, Fifth Graders will guide their schoolmates and parents through an Egyptian Tomb. One of the two fifth grade classrooms will be transformed into a tomb in which the students display all of the artifacts they have “unearthed” as part of their studies of ancient civilizations.
• On Saturday, our Middle School Robotics teams will defend their NYC Championships. More info can be found at http://www.nycnjfirst.org/nyc_fll.html.  Last week representatives of this team were selected by league officials to discuss the league and competition with representatives of Google.  Team representatives are scheduled to be on the CBS Early Show on Friday between 8:00 – 8:30 AM. 
• Our Middle School Rube Goldberg Contest team (winner of last year’s Creativity Award) is beginning their creation of a multi-step contraption that will meet this year’s challenge—turning off a very small light switch.  A number of high school students who have worked on this project in years past are acting advisors to this years team as they prepare for this contest, sponsored by the Fay School and MIT. More info at http://web.mit.edu/museum/rubegoldbergcontest/2009/contestoverview/

 In the High School:

I hope that many of you were able to attend last weekend’s performances of The Taming of the Shrew.  A truly amazing production!

·Two LREI high schools students have won Scholastic Writing Awards.  Junior Montana Jaro won a Silver Key for a short story, “Down the Stairs” and Senior Celi Lynch won a Gold Key for a personal essay/memoir titled “Identity Search.”·        

As our seniors move towards the end of their college process, our juniors are just beginning theirs.  Eleventh grade families have started their college search by having family meetings with Amy Shapiro, Director of College Guidance.  These students will spend several days in early April visiting a number of colleges and universities as a group in order to help them to define their ideal school and to hone their search skills. Tenth grade families will meet next week to have an introduction to the college process they will engage in during the next two years. 

·As our seniors gear up for their third trimester senior projects they are also participating in Senior Seminar, which takes time to focus on the health and well being of our twelfth graders as they transition to internships and college life—significantly increased independence—begins next week.  Joanne Gouge, School Nurse and Andrew Weiss, School Psychologist meet with the seniors over the next few days to discuss and revisit general health, first aid, emotional well being in the context of making thoughtful choices in this transitional period and into their move to college. 

March also signals the end of the basketball season.  Thank you to all of the fans who came out and cheered our teams on as they represented the School in a variety of playoff games and end of season tournaments.  Don’t forget tomorrow’s Spirit Game—come out and watch our student athletes play against their teachers, Friday, March 6^th, 3:30PM, Thompson Street gym.  You can also watch the Championship games of the Middle School Intramural Basketball League next Thursday, March 12^th, beginning at 3:30 in the Thompson Street gym.  These are great games for lower school basketball fans. 

Phew!  That is just the tip of the iceberg.  LREI is a busy and challenging place of learning.  Stay tuned for future updates.