Break Down Classroom Walls

Last week our second grade boys traveled to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to build on their knowledge of the American Revolution.

To prepare for the trip, the boys have been studying how New Amsterdam eventually became the New York Colony and why the colonists were upset about a remote monarch ruling over their land.

At the museum, boys visited the American Wing, where they critically analyzed Emanuel Leutze's 1851 painting Washington Crossing the Delaware.

Getting our boys out of the classroom through field trips such as this, which amplify and deepen their learning, is something we've been focusing on at Saint David's throughout all grades.

Next week, our fifth grade boys will be engaged in hands-on work in a forensics DNA Lab located in the city, our sixth graders will be at the N-Y Historical Society examining the Gilder Lehrman Collection, a unique archive of primary sources from America's past, and our eighth graders will be heading off to JFK International for their 10-day Italian Study Tour. All of these experiences are important outside components of comprehensive interdisciplinary units of study.

We are fortunate to be in a city that offers myriad opportunities for us to "break down walls of the classroom" and Saint David's boys are taking full advantage of it!

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OLIVER!

This morning our fifth graders continued a great year-end tradition at Saint David's, The Fifth Grade Musical. The boys performed Oliver! and they were fantastic, providing impressive performances and demonstrating great vocal ability. They have been mastering the dialogue and musical numbers for weeks, and clearly gave it their all. Congratulations to the cast on a job well done, and to their Producers/Teachers James Hubbard and Jamie MacNeille, Director Phyllis Clark, Musical Conductor Jeff Moore, and the Parent Committee of Cynthia Chapman, Susan Kissane, Tara Neumann, Joyce Restituto, and Ann Roberts. Musical theater is alive and well at Saint David's!

Sixth Graders Meet with Dr. Carter Emmart, Director of Astrovisualization at the American Museum of Natural History

Dr. Carter Emmart with Saint David's Sixth Graders This past Friday, as part of our unique partnership with the American Museum of Natural History, sixth graders had the great honor to attend a private lecture given by Carter Emmart, Director of Astrovisualization at AMNH. Dr. Emmart told the boys about his passion for science along with an overview of the history of the Hayden Planetarium. He also gave the boys advice on how to take scientific information about the universe and compile it into an interesting and captivating show for an audience. The boys were able to see Dr. Emmart's original sketches, which helped create the Uniview program they are using to develop their presentations. The session provided our boys with an opportunity to learn how art and science come together in the planetarium, and to obtain expert advice on developing their own space shows from one of the creators of Uniview . You can learn more about Dr. Emmart's work and Univie...

Tales of a Good Man

"Sometime in the midst of all this, we became friends. And his story, and all its vast world passed into mine." --From the Introduction of Blood & Oil by Roxane Farmanfarmaian. "Stories are so important; they become traditions that tell about the good that often comes out of bad experiences..." So began Roxane Farmanfarmaian's fascinating talk Monday night at Saint David's Seventh Grade Father-Son Dinner. Dr. Farmanfarmaian, Affiliated Lecturer of Modern Middle East Studies at the Political and International Studies Department at Cambridge University, was introduced by her nephew, Saint David's seventh grader Cyrus '17. She spoke to the seventh grade boys and their fathers about what makes a "Good Man" through the prism of her book Blood & Oil : A Prince's Memoir of Iran from the Shah to the Ayatollah (Random House 2005), which she co-authored with her late father, Prince Manucher Farmanfarmaian. The memoir i...

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