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Comenius Corner

Comenius Corner

What we're curious about

Archives for March 2017

Collaboration is the Catalyst for Success

March 15, 2017 By Jeffrey Zemsky

Among the many lessons I’ve learned about Moravian Academy this year, one that I keep returning to is how central teamwork is to our students and how they learn. I’ve seen them working hard together in classrooms and hallways, of course, but the real nuances come into focus when we notice that students choose to spend their precious energies most on the tasks that they know are valuable to their peers, when they feel inspiration from a teammate, and especially when they are working hard to directly benefit a classmate. When alumni gather, their stories return to how their peers at Moravian inspired them to be more creative, to focus longer, and to ask bigger questions. At Moravian Academy, I’ve learned, collaboration is the catalyst for success.

Growing up in a culture of collaborative learning—one where this is the expectation starting from the youngest grades—produces students with highly attuned listening skills, empathy, and, as I’ve noticed at Moravian, enhanced skills of synthesizing ideas together. These skills create the beautiful moments in problem solving when students realize that the idea they produced together is actually better—more efficient, more elegant, more sustainable, more profound—than any of the answers they made individually.

It is no surprise to see that the many accomplishments our students achieve, either by working directly as a team or, more indirectly, inspire them to be their best selves. A look back at just the last month’s milestones reveals this.

  • 65 Middle School students braved the stage in this year’s Talent Show, which featured an amazing 37 acts. They brought their best in singing, playing instruments, dancing, and even performance drawing and stand-up comedy.
  • After a tremendous showing at the District XI meet, our Upper School swim team won a total of four individual and team event medals, including a team silver. Two of our relay teams will be representing Moravian Academy at the PIAA State Championships at Bucknell University on Friday, March 17th and those team members cheered on Kyra Manson ’17 as she won the gold medal in the 100 Butterfly on Thursday, March 16th and placed 7th overall in the 100 Freestyle.
  • On February 25th, ten Upper School and 25 Middle School students presented their work at the regional meeting of the Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Sciences in Region 3. These students followed their curiosity in order to design and complete experiments in categories ranging from engineering to behavioral sciences. Many of our students also participated in the Lehigh Valley Science and Engineering Research Fair on March 10th (Upper School) and 11th (Middle School), and a team of 15 students went to the Science Olympiad on March 16th. Congratulations to all involved! Elsewhere in applied sciences, the Upper School Robotics Team, The Dark Byte, has been busy preparing for the FIRST Robotics Competition which will bring them to Chestnut Hill Academy this weekend.
  • In the Lower School, 16 fifth graders engaged in the Colonial IU20 K’NEX competition, working to demonstrate their engineering skills after weeks of practicing to solve practical problems. Our fourth grade students presented a fantastic evening of songs and introductions to famous people from our “50 Nifty United States.” Behind the singing and smiling faces, students were learning separately and together in this program that integrates social studies and music. All first graders enjoyed collaborating with Upper School students on a storybook project—the Spanish Immersion class worked with students in Mr. Gonzalo del Real’s Upper School Spanish class and the English first grade students worked with Dr. Catherine Moore’s Creative Writing class. Speaking of teamwork, the students of the Lower School raised $662 in gym class by jumping rope to raise money for the American Heart Association during American Heart Month!
  • In another highlight of the past month, more than 55 students staged this year’s challenging and unique musical, “Urinetown,” to the delight of sold-out shows and area theater critics. The entire cast and crew worked for weeks to hone their craft and produced extraordinary acting, singing, music, choreography, staging, set design, lighting, and effects. As all who saw the show realized, each person—from the soloists to the entire dance ensemble, and from the pit musicians to the tech crew—contributed his or her best to produce a singular group effort.
  • Not to be outdone, the Parents’ Association is adding to the teamwork theme in hosting what is sure to be an auction to remember! The committee has a wonderful evening planned with silent and live auctions, fine cuisine from Catering by Karen Hunter, cocktails, dancing, and cirque entertainment. Students have been working on beautiful artwork displays that enhance this year’s cirque theme. Don’t miss this event on April 21st!
Those of you who know accomplishments and teamwork also know that the greatest personal victories always come with the help of amazing supporters. This is true when facing even the biggest challenges. Our community has been reminded of this several times this year, as we’ve been amazed with the resilience, strength, and “relentless positivity” of those who are fighting cancer and other illnesses. We hope in some way that Moravian Academy’s culture of care and our belief that we can solve problems if we continually work together are helping to inspire their strength. Certainly we know that they are an inspiration for us.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: athletics, Collaboration, Colonial League, PJAS, Research, Science, teamwork

Changing with the Seasons

March 15, 2017 By Jeffrey Zemsky

Change is the theme of this season, as we return from spring break and the Easter holiday to officially emerge from our various states of winter hibernation. This time of change is a welcome and rejuvenating one, but I’m also reminded that change, no matter how joyful, can bring with it at least a few moments of tandem discomfort. April’s warmer days allow us a change of wardrobe—the return of shorts!—and evening sunlight gives us time to sit outside after dinner or take the dog for a longer evening walk. Afternoons hold the potential of meeting up for ice cream with new friends and running at full strength down grassy hills. If we think hard enough, we may be able to remember from last year the minor aches of newly used muscles, or the tenderness of sunburned skin, or the slightly anxious twinges of making new friendships. One of the magics of spring is that it is new each time, though, and our brains can enjoy feeling in the moment, finding fresh experiences, and making new memories.

At Moravian, we mark this season of changing by being together. Spring, it seems, is a time to fill our calendars with school events! It was wonderful to kick off this season with an incredible Cirque du MA Auction, which certainly brought fun and imagination to the forefront as our entire community jumped into spring. As our athletic teams were entering their first contests on soft spring fields, and we were hosting another intriguing and sold out Upper School art and fashion show, we gathered across our three divisions and with Moravian College to celebrate the 275th anniversary of Countess Benigna’s “call for education.” On this occasion, we filled the air with our own calls to honor the teachers who have changed us. This was just the start though!

To look ahead is to see the amazing depth and breadth of the Moravian Academy experience. In the next several weeks, we will gather to read, proclaim, and discuss poetry in its many forms with this year’s writer-in-residence Clare E. Potter. We will learn about green energy, swarm robotics, storytelling, and fashion design as social innovation (as well as other topics) from Upper School students as they present the results of their Comenius projects, which will showcase the intellectual curiosity and quest to understand the world that Moravian nurtures. On April 22nd, our next Community Garden Day, we will lend our hands to open the Academy’s garden at the Merle-Smith Campus.

Our school will also ring in this spring with a series of music concerts and art events that will showcase the talents, dedication, and joy of our community. I hope you will join us for this very special series, which begins with the Middle and Upper School String Orchestra concert on May 3rd and concludes with the Middle School Choral and Handbell concert on May 23rd. The Lower School hosts a special Celebration of the Arts on May 16th with an art show and choral concert, the Middle School will perform an adaptation of the young adult novella “Coraline” on April 27th, and the Upper School theater department will delight and invigorate us with their ambitious and heady spring play, “Arcadia,” by Tom Stoppard, on April 28th and 29th.

Spring at Moravian means afternoons of sports and evenings of music. It means poetry to make us feel alive and plays to make us curious about the world. It means putting our hands in the dirt to plant seeds and then putting our hands together to clap and cheer for our friends, our children, and our students. At Moravian, this season of change is also a season of celebration for the gifts, the hard work, and the growth that our students work to create and achieve throughout the year. Ultimately, it is a reminder of how vibrant and vital our community is. Spring, and all the changes that come with it, reminds me that thoughtful, continual improvement is one of our community’s core traditions.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Arcadia, art show, Auction, Comenius Projects, community garden, Events, fashion show

On Snow, Compassion, And Savoring The Moment

March 6, 2017 By Jeffrey Zemsky

When our first snow day of the season arrived last week, like many of us I was grateful for a chance to rest and recuperate. So with an extra cup of coffee in hand, and slippers on my feet, I sat down at home and took in the winter scene outside my window. Within moments my mind had traveled back in time to being a college student in Minnesota, where snow-ins were the norm, and I found myself mentally stumbling over an old poem from Horace that was a favorite of mine back then. It took some time to locate my crimson red edition of Horace’s Odes, but when I did the book practically opened itself to page 37 and to Ode 1.9. It was a small moment, standing in the living room with an old book in my hand watching the snow fall, but I knew it was one worth keeping with me for the week ahead.
That poem, with its call to notice the small moments of life, has now followed me around Moravian Academy for a week. It was there on Friday when the crowd of students was waiting in line for the ski bus, laughing and helping each other carry their too-large bags. These 84 Middle School students were going to have a wonderful night full of bravery on the slopes and with their ever-changing friend groups.
When I sat in Chapel and heard the third grade deliver their virtue meditation on compassion, which included a Moravian recipe for compassion cookies (see right), I saw in the their faces a peace with each other and with the world. For that moment, as we celebrated love and Presidents’ Day and the children sang “Lean on Me,” everyone knew we had happy days in front of us. For me, the words of Horace echoed throughout The Old Chapel.
Then on Saturday, I watched Upper School students build snowmen and chase each other with snowballs around the Merle-Smith Campus. I thought about Horace, and his poetic call to put another log on the fire while we are young to keep the cold snow of old age at bay. I wondered if Horace understood the flames of youth included compassion, and love of community, and support for those who are fighting cancer. Our Upper School students clearly knew this. They were not there just to raise $4,000 for pediatric cancer research (which they did), or to shave Mr. Axford’s head when they reached their goal (which they did), they were there to show their compassion and their admiration for their teenage classmates who are fighting cancer right now.
On that snowy morning I had picked up the 2,000-year-old Horace poem to think about enjoying the small moments in life. After spending another week with our caring, compassionate, and fun-loving students, I realized my favorite poem is about more than appreciating the beauty of small moments. It is about believing that even on the coldest days a love for humanity can make the oldest poems, and the oldest schools, young at heart.
The English below is adapted from the translation of another college student named Nathaniel Solley, and it captures many of the nuances from the Latin. The cookie recipe captures much of the creativity of our third graders. Enjoy!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: enjoying life, Horace Poem, love of community, moments

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