The Pingry School

Indeed, reading is a passion of Sophie's, and one she feels empowered to explore at the Lower School. "I love fantasy and mystery and novels and realistic fiction—really, any books, just not biographies," she explains, matter-of-factly. By extension, she also loves to write, and recalls a 24-page work of realistic fiction that she penned last year in Mrs. Sherman's writing class, of which she is particularly proud. "I just loved her class. I wrote this story about a girl, Natalie, who has a twin sister and moves to a new school. Her experience was awful, nothing like mine at Pingry. To build suspense, I had to break her leg, she got bullied, her sister was rude to her. But in the end, she survived," she says, smiling at the memory of the plot line she designed. 

Sophie also loves to act, and was thrilled to perform in the school's staging of Seussical, Jr. last spring, in which she played a Wickersham brother ("a monkey that makes trouble," she explains). This year, as a fifth grader—her last on the Short Hills Campus—she can't wait to perform in A Year with Frog and Toad. And she is excited to dig in to the reading and writing projects in Dr. Pearlman's Language Arts class. What does she enjoy most about being a Pingry student? "I really like the community, how everyone helps each other out, and all the challenges," she says. "I also really like the new gym—it has a rock wall and cargo net!" 

A turning point in Leo's love of math came in the Lower School, when Math Specialist Verna Lange encouraged him to join the school's Math Team. "That's when I really saw more of math, more than just what's taught in classrooms," he recalls. "The problems really interested me. They were problems I never saw before, and it really showed me different ways of solving them."

A Pingry lifer, he helped co-found, with three friends, the Middle School Math Center, a place where he can tutor peers in the subject he's so passionate about. "I remember teaching a student how to expand x plus y squared. They were making the same mistake I used to make, so I told them to use the FOIL method—first, outer, inner, and last. I learned that trick in sixth-grade algebra. It felt good to be able to share it."

Leo plans to continue playing tennis and basketball for Big Blue when he transitions to the Upper School, and looks forward to competing in the Upper School Math League (he has competed with them three times already, as an eighth-grade student). "I think Pingry offers a lot of opportunity to do different things," he says. "I doubt that a lot of other lower and middle schools would have a Math Team. If I didn't join that team, I don't know where I would be."

Growing up with an older brother who often recruited her as his wrestling partner, Kaley learned a few things about the sport and wanted to give the team a try. Mr. Sullivan’s response? Join us! Being the only girl on the Middle School’s team didn't bother her a bit. “I kind of liked that I was different from everyone else,” she says. “In the end, I was part of a team, so, boy or girl, it didn't really matter; we were all in it together. And all the boys are my friends.”

Also a ballerina since the age of two (she recently had to give up dance due to a full schedule), Latin class with Mrs. Kelleher—the fun discussions and her crazy homework assignments—and science class are among her favorite academic subjects. For the cheerful, rising Upper Schooler, it’s hard to pinpoint what she loves most about Pingry.

“There are so many things,” she says. “It's diversity, the teachers, all the activities. I just love it here."

“I’ve been teaching for over 40 years and I’ve never seen a Kindergartner tackle a 1,500-piece puzzle,” said Mrs. Previti. “They begged us to let them do puzzles instead of go out for recess. They were like ants!” (As a point of comparison, she adds, 100- to 200-piece puzzles are more the norm for this age.) Every day after lunch, during activity time, the boys worked, calmly, cooperatively. First they sorted the pieces into containers by color, each student took a color, and they got to work assembling the borders. The brain-bending interior soon followed. At one point, without uttering a word, Colton and Max switched places so they could better access their parts of the puzzle. Pieces were readily exchanged, as needed. Arguments never broke out. When a comrade expressed interest in joining the group, he was quickly absorbed, and made a “puzzlemaster-in-training.”

A longtime puzzler herself, Mrs. Previti related easily to her students’ passion. When her grandson received a holographic puzzle as a gift and found it too challenging, she spent days staying up past midnight to finish it, and surprise him.

Each year brings a new crop of Kindergartners with new interests and infatuations. Mrs. Previti won’t soon forget her Puzzlemasters. “It all started with a single puzzle, but it evolved into an enrichment class,” she mused. “It was just an activity, and then it became so much more.”

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He wanted to wrap up a project on conflict dialogue that he was working on for Dana Sherman’s writing class (banter with his older brother Daniel ’22 provided ideal fodder). Then there was an expository essay on character traits that he was ready to dive into, also for Mrs. Sherman’s class. When those assignments were complete, he could settle in to Jon Krakauer’s 1997 bestseller Into Thin Air, the gripping account of the 1996 Mt. Everest disaster. He had begun the 400-page book three days earlier, and only 150 pages remained.

Thomas, who began Pingry as a fourth-grade student, has always enjoyed reading and writing. But, he admits, if it weren’t for Mrs. Sherman’s writing class—a new offering in the Lower School, and part of the students’ comprehensive language arts curriculum—he probably wouldn’t write on his own.

It also helps that Pingry teachers collaborate, with intention. So, when Dr. Pearlman began reading Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH with Thomas’s class and discussing the concept of character traits, Mrs. Sherman segued into a related creative writing assignment, asking Thomas and his classmates to describe, in detail, a character of their own imagining.

“Every year, with every teacher, my writing improves,” he remarks. “Every teacher is different, and I learn so much.”

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In seventh grade, he and a friend wanted to launch a Middle School math club. He had worked hard to test out of his seventh and eighth grade math courses, and was one of six in his class to earn admittance to higher-level, more challenging ninth grade math with Ms. Thuzar. Proud of his accomplishment and brimming with excitement over complex geometry proofs, starting a math club seemed like the perfect outlet to his enthusiasm. While the two friends conceived of the idea too late in the school year, they were encouraged to try again the following year. Lower School math specialist, Verna Lange, even agreed to help them.

A piano player since the age of 4, he also grew curious about Pingry’s formidable organ, housed in Hauser Auditorium. No matter that no student had ever before played it (it was the sole instrument of Juilliard-trained Music Department Chair Dr. Andrew Moore). One day he approached Dr. Moore with his curiosity, which was warmly accepted, and now, every Thursday, he receives a private lesson from the teacher.

“I definitely know I wouldn’t get to do these things in another school,” he says. The math-minded musician who is also an athlete—he plays lacrosse, basketball, water polo, and squash at school—says Pingry inspires him. “I’m surrounded by a lot of people like me, or much better than me, and that drives me to work hard, and have fun!”

So, after college, he headed West, where he earned a master’s in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona while serving as editor-in-chief of their literary review. He then worked for a year at Johnson & Johnson, where he served as Quality & Compliance Communications Specialist. In 2015, Pingry’s Office of Institutional Advancement was looking for a writer to help wordsmith its many communications, from donor impact stories to Campaign appeals. He landed the job, and delighted in working in an educational environment. Not a year later, when the Middle School was looking to fill a vacancy, the “front lines,” as then-Headmaster Nat Conard has called it, beckoned. In the fall of 2016, he had his own classroom, as a Grade 6 and Form I English teacher.

“When I transitioned from Advancement to teaching, it was an opportunity to go from writing about Pingry's best qualities—its emphasis on community, inquiry, and collaboration—to actually rolling up my sleeves and doing the work of engaging students,” he says. He was on the front lines indeed, and he was loving it.

What does he enjoy most about being a Pingry teacher and dean?

“Pingry provides not only an education—any school can do that—but also a space for teaching students how to be stewards of that education,” he replies. “It’s not just, ‘Here are the tools to succeed in the world,’ but also, 'How are you going to brandish those tools to better your community?' As an English teacher, you get to push students to step outside themselves and imagine the lived experience of others. You get to remind them, and yourself, that before we are students and teachers, we are world citizens and human beings.”

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The summer before he began at the Lower School he thought hard about his lesson plans and the curriculum, unsure of the ground he would be able to cover. But the moment he arrived it became clear to him that he would be able to do a lot; the possibilities excited him. “The focus on creative education and the student dedication here are to a level I hadn’t seen before.” What’s more, he says, relationship building—among teachers, students, administrators, and parents—is a priority. “Pingry gives me the freedom, support, and ability to explore my creativity as a teacher. I’m excited by the lessons I teach, and my energy is visible to the kids.”

His lessons of experiential learning are cases in point. One spring day, for their unit on Ellis Island, he asked students to arrive at school wearing the clothes of the country they’re “immigrating” from, and carrying an old pillowcase or suitcase filled with only essential belongings. As immigrants aboard a “ship” (Pingry’s outdoor loading dock), they were simulating the Atlantic crossing to New York. “Half an hour into the ‘ride’ there are always one or two kids who come up to me and ask, ‘Are we there yet?’’’ Mr. Haber recalls, chuckling. “’No,’” I answer. “’It’s another two weeks, actually.’ We had been discussing this period of history for several weeks, but it always amazes me that sitting on a piece of concrete for two hours can teach kids so much more than simply sitting in the classroom.”

Whether it’s teaching the immigrant story in this way, taking to the woods of the Lower School, charging his class with a shelter-building exercise for their Lenape Indian unit, or asking them to don wigs and role-play Revolutionary War-era debates in Independence Hall, at Pingry, Mr. Haber is the designer of his class’s best lessons.

It’s that same collaborative, interdisciplinary focus that allows her to engage her Kindergarten class in STEAM projects (STEAM projects are routine in later grades, but she wants to see them trickle down to her youngsters as well). As an example, using the book, Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats, she brainstormed with her kids how they could “save” a snowball; that is, prevent it from melting. After detailed discussion, experimenting, and prototype-building, the class presented their findings at an all-school meeting. “It really took a village,” remarked Mrs. Udeshi. “The art teachers, the tech teachers, and the Kindergarten team were all involved, and to see kids who were non-readers at the beginning of the year competently read and present their work to the entire school was really remarkable.”

These types of creative, cross-disciplinary projects are what excite her, and keep her passionate about her work. “We, as Pingry teachers, get to choose what we think is best practice. We are constantly questioning, bouncing ideas off each other. It’s truly a talented group of faculty.”

During an “open house classroom” for prospective families recently, a parent asked, "Would you still teach if you won the lottery?" Without hesitation, she answered yes.

*Mrs. Udeshi is currently on paid family leave.

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