Experience 2015

EXPERIENCESPECIAL ISSUE:

90 YEARS OF THE BUSH

SCHOOL

THE MAGAZINE OF THE BUSH SCHOOL

B U S H S C H O O L E X P E R I E N C E M A G A Z I N E 9 0 T H Y E A R

E X P E R I E N C E M A G A Z I N E9 0 T H Y E A R I S S U E

S P R I N G 2 0 1 5

Message from the Head of School ..................................................................... 1

The Bush School Turns 90:

Historical photos throughout the years ...................................................... 2

Then & Now: Profiles highlighting longtime staff .......................... 8 90th Year Celebration & Reception ............................................................... 12

Alumnae/i Events Holiday Bowling Party, Alumnae/i in College Brunch, Alumnae/i of Color Panel & Reunion ..................................................................................... 14

Reunion Weekend 2015 ................................................................................................. 18

Around Campus Photos from 2014-2015 school year .................................................................................................... 22

“Why Progressive Education Matters” Author of “Brain Rules”and Bush Parent John Medina speaks at Bush ..................................... 25

THE BUSH SCHOOL BOARD OF TRUSTEES

2014-2015

— P R E S I D E N T —

Chris Jones

— V I C E P R E S I D E N T —

Katharine “Trina” Wellman

— T R E A S U R E R —

Steven Wood

— S E C R E TA R Y —

Tracy Stanton

Eric Fahlman

Mike Galgon

Alden Garrett ‘73

Becky Guzak

Audrey Haberman

Ann Kawasaki Romero

Harold Malkin

Karen Marcotte Solimano

Justin Moon ‘91

Peggy O’Neill Skinner

Tim Panos

Jerry Parrish

Barbra Richardson

Steve Rosen ‘84

Curtis Vredenburg Rix

Mary “Sis” Pease ’41 LIFE TRUSTEE

— H E A D O F S C H O O L —

Percy L. Abram, Ph.D.

— E X O F F I C I O —

P R E S I D E N T PA R E N T A S S O C I AT I O N

C’Ardiss Gleser

EXPERIENCE MAGAZINE

2015

— E D I TO R —

Martin Voss DIRECTOR OF

COMMUNICATIONS

— C O N T R I B U TO R S —

Percy L. Abram, Ph.D. HEAD OF SCHOOL

Todd Campbell PARENT OF

OLIVER CHANG ’17

Alice Huang ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF COLLEGE COUNSELING

Jabali StewartDIRECTOR OF

INTERCULTURAL AFFAIRS

— P H OTO G R A P H Y —

Sheila Addleman

The Bush School

Archives

Libby Lewis

Martin Voss

— D E S I G N —

Rick Becker

PARENT OF ZOE BECKER ’15

2 0 1 4 1 9 8 2

Percy L. Abram, Ph.D.HEAD OF SCHOOL

“For 90 years, The Bush

School’s approach to

teaching and learning—one

based on experience and

reflection—creates in our

students and graduates

a sense of character,

scholarship, and service.”

A M E S S A G E F R O M

Head of School Percy Abram

Reflecting on my first year as the head of The Bush School — and the ceremonies, conversations, and events therein—the highlight for me was welcoming back to campus in April the school’s five living former heads and discussing with them our school’s history and future.

The Bush School arranged for Les Larsen (1972-1987), Fred Dust (1987-1996), Midge Bowman ‘51 (1996-1997), Tim Burns (1997-2000), and Frank Magusin (2000-2014)—and Sis Pease ’41, who was not a head, but has held most every other role at the school and is a direct link between today’s Bush and the school’s founder, Helen Taylor Bush—to return to campus for our 90th anniversary celebration. Listening to them reminisce about the school, the students, the faculty, and parents with whom they worked impressed upon me how much The Bush School has retained its core values and its status as a leader in progressive education. I apprised them of the school’s curricular, programmatic, and strategic initiatives over the next five to ten years, and they shared enthusiastic support of the school’s future direction. From the heads luncheon, to our all-school assembly, to a reception with former board members, there was a palpable sense of energy, elation, nostalgia, and optimism that permeated the day. [ SEE PAGE 12 ]

The sentiments shared by each of the former heads corroborated what I had come to learn through my conversations with students, teachers, alumnae/i, PLUMs (parents of alumnae/i), and current and former board members. The Bush School experience is meaningful, transformative, and enduring, and our graduates endeavor to use this experience to make a lasting impact on the world. For 90 years, The Bush School’s approach to teaching and learning—one based on experience and reflection—creates in our students and graduates a sense of character, scholarship, and service.

I am grateful to the eight previous heads for their honest, intrepid, and sage stewardship of the school during political tumult, economic downturns, social unrest, and pedagogical fads. Their leadership afforded me the opportunity to spend the 2014 -2015 school year learning about the community and Helen Bush’s vision in order to begin plotting a course for our future.

It is clear that the educational landscape in Seattle and throughout the country will look different 20 years from now than it does presently. Regardless of what the future holds, I am certain that a hands-on, inquiry-based, experiential, and joyful learning environment will remain as appealing and relevant then as it was in 1924. As Bush begins to look to its 100th birthday, the school is in an excellent position to build upon our strengths, to create broader access to a Bush education, to expand and strengthen our programs, and to extend the school’s outreach into the larger community. I look forward to applying what I learned about the school’s culture and history during my first year at Bush to ensure that our students will be prepared to meet the challenges of a complex and dynamic world, and that The Bush School remains an educational leader in and resource to Seattle and the world.

Sincerely,

Percy L. Abram, Ph.D. Head of School

2 B U S H S C H O O L E X P E R I E N C E M A G A Z I N E 9 0 T H Y E A R

Through 90 years of growth and change, both on campus and in the city of Seattle, The Bush School has been at the forefront of immersing students in a hands-on, inquiry-based, progressive learning environment. While the school has grown and evolved in its size and its program, what has not changed is a singular focus on engaging students in an active and stimulating environment of learning—the vision of Helen Taylor Bush.

What follows is an examination of the history of The Bush School through photographs culled from the physical archive and issues of the Tykoe yearbook, profiles of long-time teachers, and a recap of a special event hosted on campus featuring six heads of school—43 continuous years of Bush headship.

The Bush School

What started as six students in Mrs. Bush’s home has grown to a campus of more than five acres housing nearly 600 students from kindergarten through high school.

9090

3

“It’s hard to get bearings on this photo. There was a cottage-looking entrance to the school, which is what

burned. Maybe this is an angle of that? One day as we were studying, Mr. Bush pulled up in his car, but his brakes went

out, so he ended up high centering his car on 36th.”

“This looks like preschool, or maybe kindergarten, which was housed in the carriage house at

Gracemont.”

(Facing page) “That’s Mrs. Shannon, the housemother in Taylor. She was fierce; she was strict. Among other things, she made us have afternoon tea on Sundays, which we never wanted to do. She was

probably a very nice person, but as students we didn’t always see her that way.” — Life Trustee Sis Pease ’41

“That’s near where the front office is now. I taught in that

room. The girls are in uniform—wearing the knee socks and

saddle shoes. When I was Upper School Director I became so tired

of marking people off for their uniforms that we ultimately just

got rid of the uniforms!”


“That must be the ’30s. The

kind of dance we had then.”

“Student council with Mrs. Bush.”

“Girls at graduation.

Traditionally, they carried poppies.

The school owned the gowns and would hem the

gowns to your size, but they were all lost in the fire.”

“This looks like the Middle School corridor. The dining room was at the end of that

hallway.”

5

“Outside by the Truth, Beauty, and Purpose

sculpture. The girls are still in saddle shoes, so

this could be any time up until the ’60s. We didn’t

change the uniforms until 1970. Based on their hair, I would say this is closer

to the ’40s and ’50s.”

“This is certainly Parkside. This is way

back, look at how serious they are!”

“Mrs. Bush in her office. She’s hard to describe, you know. She was a quiet, still kind of person. She cared about you,

but there was a formality about her. You weren’t afraid of her, though. Like in this picture, she often had a serene look on her

face. In the early days, there wasn’t a whole lot of informal interaction, but we were all working hard. There also wasn’t that much of a sense of discipline because the school was so

small. We were mostly focused on our teachers.”

These photo captions come from

Life Trustee Sis Pease ’41, who has worked with every head

of The Bush School. If you have a

recollection sparked by any of these

photos, please contact

[email protected].


90

7

University of Arizona Barnard College Berklee College of MusicBoston University University of British Columbia University of California

Los Angeles Carleton College University of Chicago Colorado CollegeColorado State UniversityUniversity of Denver Dickinson College

Emory UniversityHarvard UniversityLawrence University Middlebury College Mills College University of Montana,

Western New York UniversityOberlin CollegeOccidental CollegePitzer College Reed College Rhodes College

Sarah Lawrence CollegeScripps CollegeSeattle University Skidmore College University of Southern

California Stanford UniversityTrinity CollegeUniversity of WashingtonUniversity of Washington

Honors Program

The Class of 2015 College Attendance

Congratulations Class of 2015!

“You graduates believe that creating an environment where every voice is heard leads to a diverse and deep discussion, and a better result,” remarked Board President Chris Jones during the ceremony. “You don’t just follow the formula, you inquire and want to understand why, making sure it makes logical sense. You make sure you bring everyone along with you on the journey. And you take the leap, do something different, experiment, and have fun.”

“As I reflected on this year, and this class, I reflected on how close you are and your time spent together,” said Head of School Percy Abram. “At Venue, supporting one another on the

field, on the court, at forums, the senior sneak… what I have discovered—and have been lucky enough to witness—is how you find joy in your friendships, in the exchange of ideas, in a photograph, in your connection with your teachers and with one

another, in a shared memory. Those cherished memories come through in your visage. A sense of independence and unity is palpable in each and every one of your faces.”

“Please continue to move through the world with integrity and truth, to look for

and create beauty, even in the most unlikely places, and by all means have purpose,” said Senior Class Dean and departing Upper School science teacher Erica Lengacher. “Trust that you have spent years carefully constructing a mountain of courage that will serve you well as you find your authentic path in life.”

The 49 members of the Class of 2015 became the newest alumnae/i of The Bush School on Sunday, June 7, 2015.


Spanning The Bush School’s 90 year history, a small group of people stand out for their outsized role in shaping the school. Bush parent Todd Campbell caught up with five of them.

“Then & Now”

One day, while hunting for a house big enough for a growing family, their car was surrounded by paramilitary police. A gun was held to Juan’s head. Warnings were issued.

“I was a journalist, so this happened a couple of times,” he says. “For me, it wasn’t too bad. For my wife, it was too much.”

After their daughter was born, the young couple fled to the United States where Juan focused on his first love – art. They spent a difficult

year on the East Coast, then bought a van and tried the Midwest, living in Chicago and other places. When a friend suggested Seattle, they

headed west but made it only as far as Idaho. A stop to visit Juan’s in-laws turned into a nine-year stay. Juan cobbled together a living by working as an artist, art teacher, and construction worker.

Eventually, the desire to live in a larger, more diverse community led to Seattle. Juan set up

a studio near Seward Park, where he painted and offered art classes to kids. Then he heard that The Bush School was looking for art teachers.

“Dennis Evans was the head of the department and he said come in and show what you can do,” remembers Juan. It didn’t take long before he had found a home. “Les Larsen called me one day and said if you are going to work here so much, you have to sign a contract.”

With its focus on hands-on learning and its emphasis on holistic learning that values empathy and a connection to community as well as academics, Bush was a perfect match for Juan. His

goal, he says, isn’t to train artists, but to teach students how to experience art with discernment – how to understand what they like and dislike, and why.

A lot has changed for Juan since he arrived at Bush 29 years ago. Noa, the daughter born in Argentina, attended Bush, Barnard, and Harvard before going on to a career in international development. He’s remarried – to Bush Middle School science teacher Kristin Gimelli Hemme – and has younger children, one of whom will enter Bush as a sixth grader in the fall. His career as an artist has flourished.

He’s has seen many changes at Bush as well – new facilities, six heads of school, generations of Middle School students. But according to Juan, the basic philosophy that makes Bush a great place to teach and to learn remains unchanged.

“Fundamentally, we are about experiential education,” he says. “We’re not here to train artists, or mathematicians, or scientists. This is not what Bush is about. Bush is about creating possibilities. We’re about opening doors, not closing them.”

To say that Bush Middle School art teacher Juan Gimelli Hemme’s path from Argentina to Seattle was indirect would risk understating the distance travelled and the number of twists and turns he navigated along the way.

It’s a journey that began in Buenos Aires where Juan worked as a newspaper reporter. It was the late 1970s, a period of intense political repression known as the Dirty War. He and his then-wife – an American citizen – were expecting their first child.

Juan Gimelli Hemme

9

also led to a deep interest in crisis intervention and a desire to understand how to support kids who are dealing with traumatic events. He became Bush’s Upper School Counselor in 1986.

At Bush, he works closely with teachers, the school’s learning coordinators, and outside resources to support students who are struggling with tough issues in their lives. Getting out of his office to spend time with students during their everyday school lives is also an important part of his job. So he coaches cross country, track and field, and bowling, leads an advisory, and he has taught psychology and a number of AMPs.

“I love to be involved in different parts of the school where kids aren’t necessarily dealing with distress,” he says. “It’s really important to maintaining balance and perspective.”

Whether he’s working with individual students or coaching a sport, the larger goal is to create a resilient community that can face difficult challenges with great

honesty while respecting privacy, and where it’s safe to have conversations about even the most complex and sensitive issues.

One example of such a conversation was a recent Upper School Forum that focused on the highly-charged topic of sexual assault on college campuses and the need to create a “culture of consent.”

“Some students came to my office and said we should be talking about this,” he says. “So they led a conversation in Forum that included an outside expert on sexual assault. It was a great first step in a very emotionally packed

subject, and it’s the kind of conversation we can have that doesn’t happen at other schools.”

It’s also a great example of what has made working at Bush deeply satisfying for John for nearly 30 years. “Every day, anybody can walk through that door with an issue that is very unique and interesting, and very special and important to them,” he says. “It can be anything, so it’s very challenging professionally. At the same time there’s an energy at Bush that is always renewing and dynamic.”

incredible modesty with a deep trust for her teachers and an endless curiosity to learn.

A Seattle native and the third generation descendant of Japanese immigrants to the Pacific Northwest, she’s been

Tucked away beneath the eaves in the upper reaches of Gracemont is a long, narrow room that feels more like a cave – or a sanctuary – than a high school office. With its quiet corners and low ceilings, it offers stillness amidst the scurry of a high school day that makes it a perfect quiet spot to read a book or to seek the refuge of a sympathetic and supportive listener.

For Bush students, these qualities help make Upper School Counselor John Ganz’s office an island of safety in the sometimes-turbulent sea of the high school years. It’s a sense of safety that John has been working to create for nearly three decades – not just on the third floor of Gracemont, but across the entire school.

John started his career in law enforcement, including a stint as a Bothell police officer, and then worked as a teacher and counselor at Blanchett High School. After a Blanchett student and her mother were murdered, John launched an organization to advocate for the victims of crime. The event

A growing body of research suggests our assumptions about leadership are fundamentally wrong. We’ve long idealized the commander who manages through strong personality and strict orders. But it turns out that a much better model is someone like . . . well, someone like Bush Lower School Director Elaine Aoki. Her approach combines

John Ganz

Elaine Aoki


an elementary school teacher and principal, the curriculum director for the Seattle Public Schools, and a member of the faculty of the University of Washington. She’s also a highly regarded literacy specialist who has written widely on the topic, a regular reviewer of children’s literature, and she was appointed by Governor Locke to serve on the State of Washington’s first Professional Educators Standards Board. She came to The Bush School to lead the Lower School in 1994.

Given her long and distinguished career, you would think she’d be happy to take at least some of the credit for what she’s achieved at Bush over the past two decades. But when asked what makes the Lower School work so well for students, it’s striking how quick she is to deflect attention away from herself and toward her teachers and staff.

“This is a place where there is joy in learning and wonderment happens,” she says. “The catalyst for this is the teachers. To really understand why the Lower School works so well, you should talk to people like Learning Coordinator Gay Easter, who has been here longer than I have. [Note: Easter retired at the conclusion of the 2014-2015 school year.] Or Janet Bisignano. I have a truly magnificent faculty.”

In addition to her desire to spread credit around for creating one of the region’s most innovative and effective Lower Schools, it’s clear that she has given her teachers a great deal of freedom to experiment and respond

curious after a friend described how the school encouraged students and teachers to try new things.

“He told me about programs that allowed kids and teachers to take risks,” she remembers. “I wasn’t really sure what he was talking about, but I was intrigued by the opportunity to be creative with kids inside and outside the classrooms.”

Carolyn’s friend was referring to what’s now called the E-lective program. Today, she can point to a long list of E-lectives she’s led that have involved adventure and risk-taking, including wilderness skills training, and trips to Spain, Turkey, and the Arctic. Then there’s the mountain biking program, which has grown from a grassroots undertaking into one of the Middle School’s signature programs, with a fleet of new bikes and weeklong trips to places like Bend and Moab.

“I had never mountain biked until I was 32, so building an elective around a whole new sport was a bit of a risk,” she says with a laugh.

Teaching human relations started out as a bit of a risk

to students, all within the framework of a rigorous and thoughtful approach.

“We have a high stakes curriculum that is designed to meet certain goals,” she says. “But at the same time, we make room for teachers to be creative because they each bring a uniqueness in their teaching abilities and they are highly skilled at matching that to their students.”

This freedom has fostered a tight-knit faculty that brings uncommon energy and commitment to its work. And it has enabled the Lower School to experiment with new approaches that take into account vast new knowledge that has emerged in recent years about how the brain works, without losing sight of traditional teaching methods that are still effective.

“I don’t think we should ever throw out the baby with the bath water,” she explains. “But what we’re learning about cognition is that children bring a lot more to learning than we thought and you don’t need to break things down to the smallest kernel before you meet them at a very high level of comprehension.”

What sets one school apart from another? What qualities really make a difference in how children learn? Focus often falls upon things that are easy to measure: class size and test scores; areas of academic focus like science or the arts; the colleges that graduates attend.

These things matter. But what ultimately determines how well a school works for the children it serves is much more intangible—something that can probably best be called ‘culture.’

So how to describe the culture at The Bush School? According to Carolyn Regas, two words sum it up best: “risk” and “kindness.” She should

know. She teaches PE and human relations, and is the assistant director of the Middle School. She’s also seen the impact of Bush’s culture on her two sons, both of whom attended Bush from kindergarten through twelfth grade.

It was the first of these two qualities that initially attracted Carolyn to Bush. She started as a substitute in 1987,

Carolyn Regas

11

as well. The class had no set curriculum when Carolyn started teaching it 15 years ago. Today, she and a co-teacher cover human sexuality, nutrition, drug awareness, and assumptions, stereotypes, and respect.

That’s a challenging mix of topics for Middle Schoolers. What makes it work is the trust that exists between teachers and students. “There’s a teamwork dynamic,” she says. “It’s okay to say, ‘I’m going to try something new – not sure how it’s going to turn out but let’s just go with it for a moment and see.’ That in itself can be a life lesson.”

“A project to interview neighbors and family members about their experiences for Gardiner’s World War II history elective introduced me to the power of personal stories to explain political and economic events,” says Kelly Knight ’87, an assistant professor of medical anthropology at the University

of California San Francisco. “I use the same methods today to understand complicated social problems like poverty and addiction.”

Gardiner grew up in North Bend, the town his great grandparents helped establish when they arrived as homesteaders in the 1880s. After earning degrees at Colorado College and the University of California at Santa Barbara, he was teaching at a private school in Portland when he was hired to join the Bush faculty in the spring of 1977.

Even before he taught his first class, he participated in the meetings to launch the AMP program that has come to embody the experiential nature of Bush’s approach to

education. Over the years, Gardiner has taught dozens of different AMPs – including one in which students create a 24-hour news webcast. Last year, students in his courtroom AMP saw

lawyers jump to their feet to call for a mistrial not once, but twice.

It was during one of those AMP meetings in 1977 that Gardiner met Upper School math teacher Janice Osaka. They married in 1981.

“Janice tells me that there was a certain feeling in the ranks that the last thing Bush needed was another history teacher and that she may or may not have been one of the people who shared that view,” he says. “I like to tell people that our eyes met and the music of Borodin filled the room as we fell in love.”

And what about the part of Bush culture that is based in kindness?

“Wouldn’t you like to tap into that and put it in a bottle?” she asks with another laugh. “We model it for kids all the time and I think that carries through. I also think the idea of kindness really resonates for kids at this age. They all want to be kind. But they goof up sometimes—we all do. When it happens, we ask how it fit with their notion of being kind. And they get it.”

Gardiner’s teaching is guided by a lifelong passion for politics and public life, an interest he can trace back at least as far as staying up late to watch the returns of the Kennedy-Nixon presidential election on television. Over the years in North Bend, he’s been a precinct committee officer, served on boards and commissions, and helped create a park district. He and a group of Bush students sat on a steering committee that drafted a statewide ballot proposition on open spaces.

Through courses like his year-long Civics class—which includes an intense six-week span when students research, write, and present a position paper every week on an issue under consideration before a U.S. Senate committee—he helps students form a framework for understanding how our political systems work and how citizens can play a role in shaping decisions.

But his greatest love is teaching incoming freshman. “Ninth-graders are just beginning to deal with ideas on a more conceptual level and they’re making huge developmental leaps,” he says. “They’re always making discoveries and looking for ways to expand on what they’ve learned. Those are the moments I really love.”

In nearly four decades as an Upper School history teacher, Gardiner Vinnedge has fostered a passion for civic engagement and an ability to think deeply about social issues in generations of students. For many Bush graduates, one of Gardiner’s classes opened the door to what would become their life’s work.

Gardiner Vinnedge


90th Year Celebration & Reception

Fifth-grader Elie Kopstein, Class of 2022

Being a Bush student means being part of a community where if you’re unsure about anything in any way, any staff or faculty will help you. A community where everyone looks out for you and makes you feel safe and included.

Whenever I step through the gates in the morning, I know I’m entering a place where we accept one another and our differences. When I leave, I feel like I have grown an entire inch in just seven short hours.

Eighth-grader Abby Parrish, Class of 2019

In the eighth grade, all students participate in an experiential independent project (EIP). This project is designed for students to learn about and pursue their interests. I decided I wanted to explore micro-apartments for my EIP. With the help of my advisor and the teachers, I was able to interview Tyler Carr, micro apartment builder, and Sarah Hatfield, a local architect. Thanks to this experience, my interest in architecture has only grown. I’m privileged to be a part of this diverse, independent community, taught by devoted, ingenious teachers who teach in innovative ways.

Senior Finley Tevlin, Class of 2015

After 13 years at Bush, the automatic response to the question ‘What do you like about Bush’ is ‘community.’ And I guess it’s true, though I think it’s something behind that. It’s a group of aspiring, inspiring, and inspired individualists—people who are really excited about something. And they might not show it, but if you ask them about it, they want to tell you about it—and they want you to be excited about it, too. Bush’s dedication to making space for those people, that’s what makes this thing we call Bush exciting to me. It’s what makes me want to come back every day, and it makes me want to come back after I’ve graduated.

To mark 90 years of The Bush School, five former heads of school returned to campus to participate in two celebratory events: a K-12 assembly and an

afternoon reception for alumnae/i and parents of alumnae/i.

The K-12 assembly featured speeches from Head of School Percy Abram and three current students, reflections from the former heads, and a musical performance by Chris Ballew ’83 of “Birthday” by The Beatles. This led into performances of three interpretations of the school song, originally written by Mrs. Bush and Marjorie Livengood, Bush’s second head of school. The first performance was by an alumnae group consisting of Sis Pease ’41, Midge Bowman ’51, Ann Wyman ’64, Deehan Wyman ’65, Virginia Wyman ’67, Alden Garret ’73, and former music teacher Joan Conlon. They challenged Chris Ballew ’83 to perform the song, and he responded with his own up-tempo version. A group of current students led by Max Melendez ’16 then performed a hip-hop interpretation of the song.

Below are excerpts from the event’s speakers:

BACK ROW, LEFT TO RIGHT: Les Larsen, Tim Burns, Percy Abram. FRONT ROW: Sis Pease ’41, Frank Magusin, Midge Bowman ’51, and Fred Dust.

13

Les Larsen, Head of School from 1972 to 1987

The Bush School allows individuals to pursue their own strengths and to be different from other people, so we don’t have to be a model for others—we are a model for ourselves. The Bush School will continue to love individuals and make them whole.

Fred Dust, Head of School from 1987 to 1996

One day, I was in my office and my assistant Anita tells me a gentleman has pulled up in a black limousine and wants to see me. He wasn’t in my appointment book, but I met him and he said, “I would like to buy The Bush School.”

I told him it was not for sale, so the man invited me to visit his school in Japan. I went, and it was a wonderful trip. At the end of the trip, I asked the man what it was about The Bush School that resonated with him. And he said, “The Bush School is like a jewel box of a school. ” You know how you have a

jewel box, and you open it up and see how beautiful it is inside?

When [long-time teacher and current trustee] Peggy Skinner’s son came in fourth grade, she asked him, “You’ve had an experience at another school, and you’ve been at Bush. How does it compare?” And he said, “The school I was at was very nice, but it was like a small box of crayons with a few colors. The Bush School is like a crayon box that you open up and you have 56 colors.”

Midge Bowman ‘51, Head of School from 1996 to 1997

I’ve been a part of this school since I was 12 years old. I loved this school for a lot of reasons as a student, but mostly because everyone really loved to learn. We did a lot of the arts and I am so glad that’s such an important part of the school.

When I came to the school today, I saw the Truth, Beauty, and Purpose sculpture. Those were the school’s three ideals. Students made that sculpture, and I’m so glad it’s still here. Take care of it, will you?

Tim Burns, Head of School from 1997 to 2000

My experiences at The Bush School helped to change and shape my thinking about education and how children learn. What I have taken with me is a sincere desire to have learning be a joyful experience.

The educators in this school have such a wonderful, close relationship with the students. I hope The Bush School maintains its tradition in inspiring students to learn, and to find joy in learning.

Frank Magusin, Head of School from 2000 to 2014

I have wonderful memories of the promise of each school year, and the energy. I loved that first day of school. This place allows you to be you and to be the best you with the help of the teachers.

Cristin Carpenter and Andrew Price ’40


More than 100 members of

The Bush School community

gathered at The Garage for the

Alumnae/i Holiday Bowling Party.

Adam Sedgley ’97 and LeJhon Cotton ’97

Juan Gimelli Hemme, Oliver Wood ’08, and Will Baber ’00

Arian Noma ’94, Steve

Banks ’94, and MJ Banks

Alumnae/i Holiday & Bowling Party

Alison Scott ’93 and Ashley Stansbury ’93

Dan the bowler enjoys competitive bowling spirit!

John Ganz and El l ie Wood ‘06

G inger Ferguson and Karim Lessard ’89

Ken Schubert ’89, Karen Foster-Schubert ’89,

Karim Lessard ’89, Kristen Nesholm ’90,

Jen Zeiebel Henninger ’90

Janice Osaka and Anna Zemke ’07

Enjoying the Alumnae/i Holiday

Party

15

Dylan Hirshkowitz ’10

Claire Stimson, Constituent Relations Coordinator

Chris Filer ’99

Dan Jewett, Upper School Science

Dara Esperanza Leary ’09

Peter King ’10

Mark Batho and Janice Osaka

Dara Esperanza

Leary ’09 and Ray Leary ’11

Alumnae/i Holiday & Bowling Party

Dan the bowler enjoys competitive bowling spirit!

Shakespear N. Feyissa ’95, Steve Banks ’94, MJ Banks, LeJhon Cotton ’97

FILM STRIP, TOP TO BOTTOM:

Julianna Batho

Dan the Bowler showed his prowess extends well beyond

the classroom

16

Alumnae/i in College Brunch

Bush alumnae/i from the classes of 2013 and 2014 returned to campus in January to brunch with the class of 2015 and share pearls of wisdom based on their college experience. Questions asked of the alumnae/i focused on academic workloads, transitioning to a larger community, and most humorously, “How’s the babe situation?”

Thank you to the alumnae/i who participated:

Alana Al-Hatlani ‘14, New York UniversityAlden Blatter ‘14, Beloit CollegeClaire A. Brunner ‘14, Bowdoin CollegeAdriana R. Bucceri ‘14, Occidental CollegeAlexander E. Crist ‘14, Northeastern UniversityKatie David ‘14, Tulane UniversityChristopher Dudler-Christie ‘14, University of WashingtonDuncan Cock Foster ‘13, Emory UniversityMelody D’Amelio ‘13, St. John’s UniversityAaron Gordon ‘14, Washington University in St. LouisCaitlin Gaylord ‘14, Scripps CollegeJordan Guzak ‘13, University of VermontAnndee Hilton ‘13, Cottey CollegeOliver Isik ‘14, Brown UniversityJillian Kaplan ‘14, Scripps CollegeAmelia Keyser-Gibson ‘14, Haverford CollegeJames K. C. Lai ‘13, Franklin & Marshall CollegeMacKenzie Patton-Donnelly ‘14, University of VermontCarolyn Perry ‘14, Emory UniversityHannah Preisinger ‘14, Eastern Washington UniversityDavid Rubinstein ‘14, Cornell UniversityJoanne Rubinstein ‘14, Washington University in St. LouisSarah Trop ‘13, Grinnell CollegeGalen Voorhees ‘13, Whitman College

“We each have a beautiful

light that the world needs so much. Let Bush

help you find that light.”

Michelle Purnell-

Hepburn ’75 addressing the Upper School.

17

“I wish I could come to today’s Bush—I love today’s Bush!” said Sheri Stephens ‘75 and Michelle Purnell-Hepburn ‘75 during their visit to an Upper School Friday Forum in January,

adding with a smile, “we warmed it up for you all!”

Sheri and Michelle returned to campus as part of an Alumnae/i of Color Panel, and later that day an Alumnae/i of Color

Reunion. The purpose of the event, held every other year, is to bridge the efforts and realities of current students of color with the efforts and knowledge of alumnae/i who

may have walked a similar path. In this way, both parties are able to see part of the continual progress made in the realm of social

responsibility, a central piece of Helen Bush’s vision for her school.

During Friday Forum, Sheri and Michelle recounted to students various experiences during a pivotal time in Bush’s history when the Upper School became coeducational and the entire school began to integrate racially. Both spoke frankly about the struggles of being African-American students in a predominantly Caucasian school, and their feeling that the effort paid to welcoming male students was unfairly disproportionate to the effort paid to welcome African-American students.

However, both Sheri and Michelle were bullish on Bush’s current composition and focus on intercultural fluency. “Look at this wonderful group of humanity,” said Sheri of the Upper School students. “There are people my color here, and people other colors. It’s important to see role models who look like you.”

Sheri and Michelle have been close friends since first grade and imparted words of wisdom to current students: “We need to raise each other up whether we’re in the dominant culture or not. We each have a beautiful light that the world needs so much. Let Bush help you find that light.”

During the evening reunion, other alumnae/i and current students of color joined Sheri and Michelle to discuss their experiences at Bush, both positive and adverse. The evening was filled with stories from current students and alumnae/i with tears and laughter alike freely issuing forth. There was a sense of comfort in the room born of a shared experience providing a bedrock of understanding. Current students spoke of being in the presence of fellow students who use racial slurs, not realizing that the slur directly impacted the person sitting next to them. And despite stories of that nature, the alumnae/i were able to assure current students and parents that things have in fact changed – because they have the experience to be able to see it.

Alumnae/i of Color Panel & Reunion Head of School

Percy Abram and Sheri Stephens ’75


Reunion Weekend 2015 was held in June featuring a welcome reception complemented by an exhibit exploring 90 years of Bush history. Activities ranged from a maker space session in the library to an ethics seminar with former Head

of School Frank Magusin, plus the 50-year reunion of the Class of 1965.

BACK ROW, LEFT TO RIGHT: Hope Stroble, Carol Ostrom, Dorothy Drumheller, Deehan Wyman, Liz Baxter-Schroedel

FRONT ROW, LEFT TO RIGHT: Eva Jensen, Diane Clark, Merrily Jantzi, Robin Groth

Members of the C lass of 1965

21

90th Anniversary IssueThis edition of Experience commemorates 90 years of

The Bush School and the campus activities during the

2014-2015 school year that celebrated the legacy and

spirit of Mrs. Bush’s vision.

The class notes and in memoriam sections have been held out of this issue. They will return with the next edition of Experience. If you have a class note or an in memoriam submission, please send it to [email protected].

If you have general feedback about Experience, please contact [email protected].

90


FALL FESTIVAL

The Bush School’s “K-12ness” was on display during the 2014-2015 school year in a variety of activities that fortified the community.

Anna Nielsen ’15 and Emma Dubery ’15 led a revival of Fall Festival in October, featuring an array of games and activities across the campus for the entire student body to share together.

Around Campus

23

MUSEUM IN A SCHOOL Upper School students

served as exhibition guides to second- and fifth-grade students through designing, developing, and executing discussion-based tours of original art in the Seattle Art Museum in an AMP called Museum in a School.

Upper Schoolers in the Homework Club AMP twice a week helped fifth-graders in Extended Day with their homework, a way for the Upper Schoolers to reconnect with their past and for fifth-graders to interact with older role models in the Bush community.

HOMEWORK CLUB


Around Campus...

The entire student body gathered in Schuchart Gym to recognize and celebrate the fall and winter Blazer athletes in each division in an event sponsored by the Booster Club featuring the pep band, a layup line, and more.

HOUR OF CODE

FAMILY GROUPS

PEP RALLY

Bush students dipped their toes in the programming and coding waters for the Hour of Code through a variety of age-appropriate ventures ranging from handwriting secret codes to using Scratch.

K-12 Family Groups gathered in December to eat lunch, craft a collaborative story, and wish one another holiday cheer. Family Groups consist of a cross-section of students from all 13 grade levels plus faculty and staff members.

25

Medina spoke in the Community Room in March about the power of sleep and its affect on brain function. Medina, an in-demand national speaker, nimbly mixed scientific concepts, research findings, and spirited anecdotes about the impact a good night’s sleep can have on comprehension and cognitive capability.

Before his presentation, Medina sat down to talk about the value of a progressive education and his impressions of The Bush School.

Medina sees parallels between progressive education and the brain’s natural instincts. “We are natural hypothesis-testers,” he says. “Inquiry-based learning models have a strong congruence with that.

“When I do an experiment, I make a sensory observation, I make a hypothesis about what I think is going on, I design an experiment to test the hypothesis, and I sit back and evaluate the results of the experiment.

“Infants do the exact same thing,” says Medina. “In fact, most of the way infants acquire knowledge is through a series of increasingly self-corrected ideas based particularly on guesses that they make about what’s going on out there. A gifted researcher named Andy Meltzoff, who is at the University

of Washington and whose daughter Katherine ’05 is a Bush alumna, was the first to show that if you stick your tongue out at a baby, the baby does an amazing thing: the baby sticks his or her tongue back out at you.

“The youngest that he ever tested it is 42 minutes of age. And that’s astonishing! Has the baby ever seen a tongue before? No. Has the baby ever seen you before? No. But he intuits almost immediately, so that if you stick your tongue out, the baby doesn’t try to stick out its elbow or its pancreas, it sticks the tongue out.”

Medina took Meltzoff’s experiment and applied it to his son almost immediately upon his birth. “My son Noah ’18 was sticking out his tongue at 30 minutes of age. I’d stick my tongue out at him and he’d stick his tongue out at me.

“This shows why I think that exploratory and inquiry-based models are so congruent with how we naturally acquire information. When Noah was three months old, I completed a big complex lecture and Kari, my wife, was in the back with Noah. She was holding him while I fielded questions, and I see out of the corner of my eye that he’s sticking out his tongue at me; he’s knocking at my cognitive door wondering if I can come out and play! So, mid-answer,

I stuck my tongue out at him and he lit up!”

Medina ties Noah’s behavior back to the architecture of inquiry-based learning. “In Noah’s action, we find that he made a sensory observation: ‘the old man and I, for whatever reason, stick our tongues out at each other.’ He makes a hypothesis: ‘I hypothesize that if I stick my tongue out at dad, dad will stick his tongue back out at me.’ And then, I can think about this all day long because it’s astonishing, he designs an experiment that can test his hypothesis. Where does that come from? The answer is: we have no idea.”

Medina focuses in on a key component of student success at Bush: the community. “The thing that I like about Bush that is not true about other schools is called social gating theory,” says Medina. “When you learn something, you learn it in the context of a safe community.

“There’s an evolutionary reason for that: we’re biological wimps. We probably became the apex predator not because we’re the strongest on the

block, but because we’re the smartest. And one of the great reasons we were the smartest is because we could cooperate with one another very quickly.

“There’s two ways to double your biomass out in Darwin-land: you can wait 20 million years and go from a small elephant to a giant elephant and become apex, or you can change the architecture of a few neurons and become cooperative.

“The operative lesson here is that the brain is not interested in learning. The brain is interested in surviving. And it survives because it sees a nascent social environment and knows it has allies. So you double your biomass not by waiting 20 million years, but by creating the concept of ‘ally.’

“Your brain is not built to learn calculus, your brain is built to survive in the flatlands of the Sahara! The instant it feels threatened, the calculus goes out the window. But the instant it feels safe and warm…

“Bush has a strong sense of a community. There’s a lot of emphasis on the emotional environment in which the kids are surrounded. I love it.”

“You can show that infants as

little as 42 minutes of age have

the nascent ideas of exploratory

learning already available to them,”

says John Medina, developmental molecular biologist,

research consultant, affiliate professor of bioengineering at

the University of Washington School of Medicine, bestselling

author of Brain Rules, and Bush parent of Noah ’18. “So we

think it’s innate.”

“Why Progressive Education Matters”

“Insights from Bush parent , developmental molecular biologist, and bestselling author of Brain Rules John Medina”

E X P E R I E N C E E D U C A T I O N

3400 East Harrison StreetSeattle, WA 98112

Nonprofit ORG.US POSTAGE

PAIDSEATTLE WA

PERMIT NO. 983

Printed in USA with soy-based inks on SFI and PEFC certified paper.

Experience 2015

Documents

Transcript of Experience 2015