Beginning School
Parents, we need you! Even if you didn't sign up, come help with Rummage set-up and sale
David Bragdon '77 joining New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration
We did it — the Annual Fund reached 100% of goal. Thank you, donors!
The new Caller magazine is now online! Read about "School as Community"
A Dream Playground We Built Together
By Karen Katz '74
From the Spring 2010 Caller
What lifts spirits more than watching children run, swing, jump, and bounce on the playground adjacent to the Fir Grove? Answer: Watching them and knowing that my family, colleagues, and friends—my community—had a hand in building the structure that provides a magical venue for boundless, expressive play.
With little prodding, I can recapture 15-yearold memories of Lark and Schauff (former headmaster) drilling bolts into place and chatting about the state of education while the playground underpinnings took shape around them. I picture volunteer co-chairs Leah Kemper and Jennifer Sammons cheerfully gathering the troops, with the aid of bullhorns, to announce the next task requiring attention. And I remember tiny preschool hands sanding the boards that hold the playground together. Those once-tiny hands typed college application essays this year.
School students, now raising families of their own, toiled alongside adults sawing, routing, and sanding miles and miles of railings.
Before the building process even began, students and teachers had worked together to plan how our playground would reflect the campus aesthetic and our children’s imaginations. Excitement intensified as students worked together to come up with drawings and ideas. When a design group requested a castle tower, the plans were adjusted to include majestic spires. The children insisted on multiple tire swings, hidey-holes, and a spiral slide, and incorporating the beloved wooden boat. Community members suggested every feature of our grand playground.
Karen Katz ’74 is Catlin Gabel School’s communications director. She has been at the school since 1986. Photos of 1995 playground construction by Karen Katz ’74 and Steve Bonini.
Learning Community at Catlin Gabel
By Allen Schauffler & Jonathan Weedman
From the Spring 2010 Caller
Community is not an elusive quest at Catlin Gabel. It is the granite cornerstone of our foundation. We can reach back into the school’s earliest history and find references to community woven throughout Ruth Catlin’s writings. In the mid and late 1960s, when the influence of the Black Mountain College group among the faculty provided foundational ideas about community, the school as we now know it took shape. Ideas about community have come from many sources since then, but those two influences are the driving forces behind what we teach and model today. From Beginning Schoolers, where community is taught and experienced as concrete cause and effect, to Upper Schoolers, where community becomes an internalized and essential ingredient for living, its teaching is intentional and direct. Beginning with the littlest children, both in the classroom and outdoors on the playground, one can hear the mantra “Be Safe and Be Kind” over and over. In the Lower School that mantra becomes the essential question when a child is learning behavioral expectations.
community development. We teach kindergarteners the fundamentals of working in a group and how to get along with others. They are taught to discover if the choices they make are wise and ask themselves, is it safe? Is it kind? Is it honest? Is it fair? A good problem solver is a good community member, and from this early stage of their academic career children are taught the steps to problem solving, through stories, coaching, or through a tool called Kelso’s Wheel, a list of strategies for conflict resolution. Learning to be a good friend is also imperative as a kindergarten Eagle. Children spend time Fishin’ for Friends and discussing the components of good friendship, such as empathy, taking turns, problem solving, sharing, and helping each other. In fact, children learn that being a good friend helps their classroom and ultimately the entire community work well.
In addition to the children of Catlin Gabel, a parent body that embraces the school and its ideals is imperative for successful community building and to further solidify community engagement. We encourage parents to participate across the school in official and unofficial capacities, carry over classroom lessons to home, and serve as extended eyes and ears of the faculty while supervising children on the playground and on class trips. Elected Parent Faculty Association representatives for each grade strive to relay communication between parents and teachers. Unofficially, parents celebrate community with their children by attending Friday Sing in the Beginning School and Community Meeting in the Lower School. They volunteer across the school in a variety of capacities and are essential for successful completion of fundraising initiatives, conferences, and special events. Engaged parents model to children the emphasis on community and demonstrate a desire to make it a stronger and better place. Parents are asked to help each other’s children, to intervene in conflicts, and to help children understand that every adult at Catlin Gabel is there to support them.Preschool teacher Allen Schauffler has been at Catlin Gabel for 42 years. Jonathan Weedman is the Beginning and Lower School counselor at Catlin Gabel. He has worked with children, youth, and families in the Portland area for the last 10 years.
Communitas: The Gift of Coming Together
By Lark P. Palma, PhD, Head of School
From the Spring 2010 Caller
What is a community? It’s undoubtedly different for every person, and each of us may have many different intersecting or distinct communities in our lives. A school community, like the one we have here at Catlin Gabel, distinguishes itself because in the process of education we explicitly teach children how to become good members of their society and their world, and we model behavior constantly for them. We show our students that we are always there for them, and that they are surrounded by caring adults who are ready to catch them if they fall, both literally and metaphorically. Students who have been at Catlin Gabel for any length of time feel that this school community, in which they have been immersed for hours every weekday, and maybe even evenings and weekends, is an enormous part of their lives.
Faculty reach 100 percent participation in annual fund
We are grateful for the outstanding efforts of Faculty-Staff Giving Committee members Kathy Qualman, Lynda Douglas, Ginny Malm, Kate Grant, Ron Sobel, Chris Balag, Chris Woodard, and Spencer White.
Thanks to everyone who made a gift to the 2009-10 Annual Fund. Your contributions directly support our students and our school.
Congratulations, graduates! Welcome to the Alumni Association, Class of 2010.
Eagle News, 6/8/10
Calendar
June
10 Kindergarten Olympics, 10:00 a.m., Track, See note...►
Last Friday Sing
11 Kindergarten Boat Trip
Last Day of Classes
*Prearranged childcare available as space permits
View as a Webpage
Heads-up!
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The weather forecast is a little dicey for Thursday, so we may have to cancel the Kindergarten Olympics if it is too rainy or cold. Unfortunately all the inside venues that might work for the Olympics are already scheduled with Middle and Upper School classes. Sheila and the PE staff will make the call early in the day. For those of you planning to attend the Olympics on Thurs. 10:00-12:00, please check your e-mail at around 8:00 a.m. on Thursday, for a message, should we need to cancel the event. We will also post notices on the Beehive doors. Think sun, or at least no rain!
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Carpooling on Thursday
Parents: Thursday will be a busy day on campus with several events that will bring many vehicles to the parking lot. If possible, it would be very helpful if you could arrange carpooling with others to school on this day. Thank you!
Work Alert!
The Last…
Kindergarten News!
Dear Parents,
The Olympics!!!
Boat Day!!!
Many thanks to all of you for a wonderful kindergarten year!
With love and Happy Summer Wishes from the Kindergarten Team
Lost and Found
Please check the basket in the Well for your child's sweater, coat, socks, water bottle, etc.
The following Items may be claimed in Toad Hall Reception:
Camera, black/silver FINEPIX WP Z
Watch, XinTAi, black with black rubber strap
Notebook, 4 1/2 x 2 1/2, red metal with "LOVE" printed on the cover and attached silver pen
Necklace, on a brown rope with a large stone in orange, black, and gray
Lifers photo gallery

Click on any photo below to start the slide show.
Poet Billy Collins speaking at 2010-11 Karl Jonske Memorial Lecture
Two-time U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins will return to the Catlin Gabel campus this fall, as a Karl Jonske Memorial Lecturer. His last visit was in 1999, the year of Karl Jonske's graduation, as a Jean Vollum Distinguished Writer.
The date for the Karl Jonske Memorial Lecture will be announced in late summer. Due to space limitations in our theater, this event will be open to Catlin Gabel community members only.
Upper School students will prepare for the lecture by reading Collins' Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems (2001) this summer. This volume will soon be available in the Catlin Gabel bookstore.
We also highly recommend Collins' latest collection, Ballistics (2008) to those who might be interested in his most recent work.
The "Billy Collins, Action Poetry" website, which offers a series of animated versions of his poetry, is a flat-out hoot: http://www.bcactionpoet.org
The Poetry Foundation has a bio and links to several poems and audio files: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=80600
Publication history for Collins can be found at http://www.billy-collins.com
The Karl Jonske '99 Memorial Lecture Series honors a devoted student of English and lover of the written word. Karl graduated from Catlin Gabel in 1999, where he was a National Merit semi-finalist, a member of the varsity tennis team, and a captain of the varsity basketball team. He went on to attend the University of Chicago, where he was active in community service, sports, and the Model United Nations.
His many interests included reading, writing, scuba, and travel. He had a passion for working with young people and volunteered with middle school youth as a math tutor. He hoped to become a professional writer. In addition to the lecture itself, the memorial has provided for the acquisition of 687 titles to date by the Upper School library.
Past lecturers have included poet and essayist Ted Kooser, journalists David Lamb and Sandy Northrop, photographer Anne B. Keiser, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder.