The Met as Classroom

Boys in Grades Four and Eight visited The Metropolitan Museum of Art last week, one of many visits that our boys in several grades make throughout the year.

As the fourth graders explored what it means to be a civilization, they visited the Egyptian Wing of the museum. There, the mummies, pyramids, Cleopatra's Needle, and all of the artifacts they encountered and discussed, deepened their understanding of that ancient civilization and helped make classroom concepts spring to life.

Our eighth graders make four trips to the Met during the year, all related to their learning in the capstone humanities course. The first, in October, focused on Greece and Rome. Last week's, introduced the boys to the Renaissance, which they will explore and research in-depth this year, with a focus on how the Renaissance thinker is relevant to our conception and definition of a good man today.

This study will culminate in the Eighth Grade Spring Study Tour of Rome, Florence and Assisi, where the boys will see works by several of the masters, like Giotto, whom they were introduced to on Friday.

Enabling our boys to learn in ways that break down the walls of the classroom is a priority at Saint David's. We are fortunate by our location to be able to avail of the great campus that is New York City and we collaborate thoughtfully with a multitude of cultural, scientific, and educational institutions.

Whether it be The Met, the Native American Museum, The Frick, The American Museum of Natural History, The Rubin, the N-Y Historical Society, the Gilder Institute of American History or DNALC, our boys are out and about, not just to "get out of the classroom" but because we've carefully integrated such visits to extend their learning and broaden their minds.

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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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