Cynthia Weill at far left, with the family of artisans who worked on Opuestos.
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On Monday, October 23, the granddaughter and great-granddaughter of Bank Street founder Lucy Sprague Mitchell paid the College a visit.
Granddaughter Polly Mitchell Henderson, who lives in England and was a longtime elementary school teacher in Leicester, came with her husband Paul Henderson, a former professor of Sociology at the University of Leicester. Their daughter, Lucy McLelland, her great-grandmother's namesake, lives in New York and had visited Bank Street earlier. The visitors sat in on classes for 5/6s and 4/5s; went to the Library and talked with Archivist Lindsay Wyckoff and Children's Librarian Lisa Von Drasek; met with Dean of the College and of the Graduate School, Jon Snyder; toured the Archival Picture Exhibit curated by Sal Vascellaro on the sixth floor; had a lively discussion with Graduate faculty members, who spoke eloquently about Mitchell's enduring legacy for their work; and had lunch in President Dickey's apartment with various members of the Bank Street faculty and staff.
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Left to right: Lucy McLellan, Paul Henderson, Polly Mitchell Henderson, and Elizabeth D. Dickey, President of Bank Street College. |
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| Left to right: Polly Mitchell Henderson with Trustees and Bank Street alumnae Lynn G. Straus '47 and Sarah Gund '73. |
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| Paul and Polly Henderson with Jon Snyder, Dean of Bank Street College and Dean of the Graduate School. |
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Lucy McLellan and the Hendersons with Margery B. Franklin, the daughter of Barbara Biber, who was a colleague and friend of Lucy Sprague Mitchell. |
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| L-r in front row: Lucy McLellan and her parents, Polly Mitchell Henderson and Paul Henderson, pose with Bank Street faculty after their spirited discussion about Lucy Sprague Mitchell and her enduring legacy at Bank Street. |
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| Sal Vascellaro shows Polly Henderson the Bank Street Archival History Exhibit, much of which featured her grandmother. |
The Bank Street Bookstore hosted a publication party on the evening of Tuesday, November 17, 2009, to honor A Kid's Guide to Native American History.
The authors, Yvonne Wakim Dennis and Arlene Hirschfelder, are long-time members of the Bank Street Writers Lab, an affiliate of the Bank Street Center for Children's Literature.
The book, a hands-on guide featuring more than 50 activities, introduces children (and grown-ups too!) to the diversity of American's indigenous cultures, people, experiences, and events that have helped to shape the United States, past and present.
Dennis is the outreach director for Nitchen, Inc., a support agency for indigenous families, and the Nitchen Children's Museum of Native America. She and Hirschfelder also coauthored Children of Native America Today (2003), and were co-editors of Children of the U.S.A. (2008). Hirschfelder is also the author of numerous books on Native Americans, including Native Americans: A History in Pictures (2000) and Rising Voices: The Writings of Young Native Americans (1993). She has been a consultant for the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.
The Bank Street Writers Lab, created in 1937 by Bank Street College founder Lucy Sprague Mitchell, is a supportive workshop that fosters the writing of children's literature that shows an understanding and appreciation of the language of growing children, is aware of and responsive to children's real and imagined worlds, and affirms the social and cultural heritage of every child.
The Bank Street Writers Lab is an affiliate of the Bank Street Center for Children's Literature.
Members critique each other's works-in-progress and encourage each other in their striving for excellence.
The Writers Lab achieves this by providing a supportive workshop haven where published authors can critique each other's works-in-progress and encourage each other in their striving for excellence. This process aids members to create literary works that comprehend and respect the situations and dilemmas young children and adolescents face in today's complex and multicultural world.
Quick: what's almost as thrilling as a visit from Santa Claus? It's a visit from Marc Brown, the creator of Arthur the Aardvark and other fascinating creatures, who gave an absorbing presentation before the School for Children's Lower School students on the morning of November 10 in the Auditorium. The author of more than 100 children's books and the award-winning TV series based on Arthur the Aardvark, Marc's appearance was a gift from a School for Children grandparent, who won the presentation in a charity auction.
Marc explained to the eager children that he was there to "help you with your work, and with your writing books and scripts for TV shows and other things." Writing, he emphasized, was like learning to play the piano or basketball. You had to practice a lot to get better at it and to get what you were doing just right. It was the same with drawing as with writing, he added. That was why it was important to keep on working and trying.
He described how Arthur came to be: his son Tolon asked him for a bedtime story about a strange animal, so he started at the beginning of the alphabet, with an aardvark. As he said this, Marc began to draw a real aardvark on the drawing easel, one with the long pointy nose that aardvarks have, and with ears that he noted looked like "ping pong paddles." Over the years in his many books for children, Arthur the Aardvark's nose got progressively shorter and he began wearing glasses. Then Marc showed the children how they could draw Arthur themselves. He created Arthur's face by drawing a series of U's: for the head, a big lower U was connected to a big upside-down U; a tiny upside-down U connected the two round lenses of Arthur's eyeglasses; two dots indicated his eyes, two other his nose, and a small U served for his smile.
Regarding story ideas, Marc said that he gets them from everything and everybody, and so could the students. For instance, Grandma Thora is his grandmother, D.W. is based on three of his sisters, Francine on his sister Bonnie, Mr. Ratburn on his old math teacher Gary Rathburn. He also turned many of the kids in his third grade class into characters in his books. He showed slides of his early life in Erie, PA and of his home on Martha's Vineyard, with its five ponies, two goats, two cows, turkeys, chickens, one blue peacock, ducks, and two cats. His wife Laurie is also an artist and sometimes they collaborate.
In the spirited question and answer period that followed, the children asked him about the genesis of various favorite characters and stories. As he answered them, he urged them to read as much as they could, and to keep creating their own stories and pictures.
The Ben Waltzer jazz quartet featuring Ben Waltzer (piano), Chris Lightcap (bass), Gerald Cleaver (drums) and Christine Correa (vocals) performed for Bank Street middle and upper school students on April 1st, 2009. The musicians alternated between playing such jazz favorites as "Old Devil Moon" and "Caravan" and engaging students in a discussion of jazz rhythm and improvisation. After the concert, the quartet taught two workshops for the 12/13s. The concert was funded by the Alex Cohen Endowment Fund for the Performing Arts in memory of Bank Street alumnus Alex Cohen SFC '86. The Fund brings a wide range of performing artists to Bank Street School each year to stage theater, music and dance productions for its students.
A celebration of the life and work of Elsbeth Pfeiffer (1916-2008) took place in the Daniel Tabas and Evelyn Rome Tabas Auditorium at Bank Street College of Education on Friday, March 6, 2009.
An esteemed colleague, friend, mentor, and inspiration to many, Elsbeth Pfeiffer was the founder and Chair of the Bank Street Special Education program, as well as founder of both the College's Child Life and Museum Special Education programs. She retired in 1995 after twenty-nine years at Bank Street. Her legacy continues to enrich and enhance the lives and work of faculty, students, staff, children and all who are or have been connected with Bank Street.
The memorial celebration was introduced and moderated by Bank Street Trustee, Margaret L. Stevens, '77, who was an advisee of Elsbeth's. After President Elizabeth D. Dickey spoke in appreciation of Elsbeth and her work, a series of speakers provided personal and professional reminiscences of Elsbeth and detailed the impact she had on their lives. They were Georgi Antar '76, Rosaleen (Rusty) Horn '74, Margaret (Peggy) McNamara '78, Patricia Weiner, Claire Wurtzel '77 (who spoke for Deon Hilger '79), and Jon Snyder, Dean of the Bank Street Graduate School. Music for the program was performed by Bill Wurtzel on guitar. Read more >>
An eager crowd gathered at Bank Street on Thursday evening, February 5, 2009, to participate in the Bank Street College Alumni Association's most recent event in its Rediscover and Reconnect Series, a Storytelling Workshop for educators.
After an introduction by BSCAA President Jesse Pugh, three storytellers (all Bank Street graduates), Labia Abdur-Rahman '93, Amadoma Bediako '93, and Kim Thurman '95, demonstrated and explained storytelling techniques and how to use storytelling for educational purposes in the classroom. Read more >>
The Bank Street College Alumni Association (BSCAA) held its twelfth annual alumni awards ceremony on Thursday, October 30, 2008, in the Evelyn Rome Tabas and Daniel Tabas Auditorium at Bank Street College of Education.
Jesse Pugh, President of BSCCA, introduced Bank Street's new President, Elizabeth D. Dickey, who welcomed the overflow audience, and thanked the BSCAA leadership for its activities and initiatives on behalf of the Bank Street community. She said how impressed she was that two of the three awards were "going to our faculty members, as exemplary models of what Bank Street is about." She concluded by noting the transformative possibilities of a new administration, "particularly as it affects children and families," and that she expected that "Bank Street will be one of those voices at the table as new educational policy is developed." Read more >>
On the evening of November 12, 2008, Bank Street President Elizabeth D. Dickey traveled across the Hudson River to meet New Jersey's Bank Street alumni, donors, and the classroom teachers who participated in Bank Street's twelve-year New Beginnings Project to revitalize the Newark public schools. The reception was held in Newark's New Jersey Performing Arts Center.
In her welcome, Beverly "Bev" Walsh '87, a former president of the Bank Street College Alumni Association (BSCAA) and a New Jersey resident, announced that she is organizing a Bank Street New Jersey alumni group. She observed that more than 700 graduates of the Graduate School and the School for Children live in New Jersey, as do hundreds more who have taken courses at the College and understand why it is such a special place. "We consider them our alums, too," added Ms. Walsh. She was encouraged that Bank Street's new president, Elizabeth Dickey, wanted to build on Bank Street's already considerable work in New Jersey. "There is so much more good to be done in helping New Jersey schools, children, and families," she said. Read more >>