Students were political canvassers, escape room artists, physicists, fashionistas, inventors, thought leaders, collaborators, activists, change agents, and boat builders, among many other identities, during Project Week 2019.
Pingry
Brad Poprik
Mathematics Department Chair
Making math relatable is a strategy that Brad Poprik has employed since he began working at Pingry, when he taught Intermediate Algebra. A back-to-students, blackboard lecture wasn’t going to help them to learn the material, he knew. He had to speak their language. “A couple of kids in the class ran track and I used rate of change and slope to explain how fast they were running. A few other students were in drama, and I remember introducing the topic of conditional probability by discussing the likelihood of them getting selected for a specific role both before and after a callback,” he recalls. “If I make it a concept that that they experience in their daily life, suddenly their eyes sparkle, and you know they understand.”
It’s a strategy he spent several years perfecting, even before he arrived at Pingry. Mr. Poprik’s first career was on Wall Street, as an early trader of credit derivatives. Their arrival on the financial markets scene coincided with Mr. Poprik’s. As a recent business school graduate, he was called upon to explain them—to graduate students at NYU, Columbia, and Wharton (his own alma mater) as well as to new hires in the firm he worked at. “I liked being able to break down a complex subject to the level of the people I was speaking to, so that they wanted to learn about it and could understand and relate to it. That’s what you do when you’re a teacher.”
Naturally, it wasn’t long before Mr. Poprik found his way into the classroom. By emphasizing applicability and logic over straight mathematical theory, he prefers to start with the problem, only then layering in the math and leading his students to the answer. So, it’s not surprising that many of them find connections to math in their other courses. Take, for example, the boy who passionately explained to Mr. Poprik a conceptual framework he designed to apply calculus to history, and analyze troop movement during wartime.
“I feel unbelievably fortunate for the kids we teach at Pingry. They have such an innate intellectual curiosity that is so refreshing to be able to engage with on a daily basis. You never know what kinds of questions they will ask or observations they will make,” he remarks. “It can make your day because the next thing you know, you want to know the answer!”
Nate Hefner
Class of 2019
As a Peer Leader, vice president of FYISci (a Pingry organization aimed at making science understandable), co-chairman of the school’s Model UN program, co-captain of the Varsity Football Team, and captain of the Varsity Baseball Team, Nate Hefner ’19 is busy. And that’s just how he likes it. “That’s when I put my best work forward,” he says.
Interestingly, if you were to ask Nate’s classmates, they would say he is first and foremost an athlete at Pingry—a three-sport athlete, to be exact (football, basketball, and baseball). “But that’s what’s special about Pingry; everyone has many different identities here.” He rattles off the English classes and teachers he has had over the last three years—faculty, he says, with whom he has felt most connected. “I had Dr. Cottingham for English 9, and will have her again my senior year for Magical Realism and World Lit. I love to visit her office and just shoot the breeze,” he says. “I might end up writing my college essay on a multimedia project I did for Mrs. Grant in English 10. And last year I had Mr. Lear for Ethical Dilemma, which forced me to think outside the box, both in the classroom and while writing essays. That was a really interesting, thought-provoking class.”
Nate had considered playing baseball in college, but feels that academics are more important to him. “I might walk on a team, but I want to focus on my studies,” he remarks. “I don’t think I would have had this mindset if I hadn’t come to Pingry. I don’t think I would have been able to pursue all of my many different interests. The experience here is like nothing else.”
Olivia Lai
Class of 2019
Olivia Lai ’19 will tell you she considers herself a math/science student. But, during her junior year, she took a second-semester English class—Ethical Dilemmas with Mr. Keating—that made her rethink the humanities. “We read Death and the Maiden, The Elephant Man, Killings, and No Country for Old Men, among other books, and then we watched the movie versions, and discussed,” she says. “It’s just really interesting how he runs the class. We talked about the dilemmas that took place in the book, and a lot of times he went off on tangents and we’d end up talking about worldly situations or things that relate to our own lives.” Towards the end of the semester, Mr. Keating assigned an article on genetic engineering. Olivia enjoyed it so much, she wrote her final paper on it. “There’s a huge ethical piece in the science world—picking that apart in class was really exciting,” she says.
A varsity starter on the lacrosse team since her freshman year, and co-captain her senior year, Olivia is equally animated when talking about her teammates and playing for Big Blue. In the pivotal, state sectional finals against Mount St. Mary’s her junior year, she scored in the fourth quarter to tie the game, and clinched her 100th career goal in the process. “That was a really special moment for me,” she remembers. Moments later, the team celebrated a victory, their first state sectional championship in more than a decade.
When Olivia first came to Pingry as a freshman, she wasn’t quite as sure-footed. She recalls feeling scared that she would feel separate from the “other kids,” students who had been here longer. “But, there were no barriers at all. It was extremely welcoming.” Three years later, what about Pingry most inspires this scholar athlete? “There are so many different people who have so many different interests and come from so many different backgrounds here. There’s so much you can take away from the people you meet. That’s happened for me at Pingry.”
Carol Mahida
Form III/IV Dean of Student Life, Upper School English teacher
“I never saw myself as just a teacher, and that’s partly what drew me to Pingry,” says Carol Mahida, who, just two years after arriving at Pingry as a Grade 6 English teacher, became the Upper School’s Form III/IV Dean of Student Life. “Because this is a bigger school—it’s a community college in many ways—so much is going on, and it allows for more opportunities outside of teaching.” As Dean of Student Life, her days are filled with teacher meetings, planning grade-level events and other initiatives, and checking in with students. “I love being able to impact students outside of my classroom,” she adds. “I don’t think I’d be in the position I am at another school.”
Make no mistake, Ms. Mahida, who also teaches Grade 9 English, still cherishes her time in the classroom. During her first year with freshmen, she recalls feeling thrilled by how much they grew between September and June. “When I read their final exams I got emotional thinking of who they had become at the end of year,” she recalls. “Holy cow! In two hours you just wrote an essay on Othello that we only took three weeks to cover. I was so proud of them.”
English is a second language for Ms. Mahida’s Korean mother, and, having grown up in rural Oklahoma, her father didn’t finish college. During a childhood spent in South Carolina, she witnessed them struggle to fully express themselves. Now, she harnesses the memory so that her own “kids” won’t have to struggle with self-expression. “I really love being an English teacher because being able to write and express yourself gives you freedom that you wouldn’t otherwise have,” she says. “I want my students to feel free. Effective self-expression is a tool they can use to advance whatever cause they choose to be a part of."
Jason Murdock
Middle School history teacher, Admission Counselor, Head Coach of Boys' Varsity Basketball
As a high school student, Mr. Jason Murdock remembers visiting local elementary schools, speaking with students about the importance of leadership and lessons learned through hard work and dedication. “I knew then, as a high school basketball player, that the combination of sports and education was a field I wanted to pursue,” he recalls.
A two-time all-state selection and Central Jersey Player of the Year in high school, Mr. Murdock would go on to a successful collegiate career at Providence College, including an appearance in the Elite Eight in the NCAA Tournament, followed by six years of professional play overseas. When he broke his foot on Yao Ming’s size 22 shoe during a game in China, which required three surgeries over the course of a year to correct, he was forced to rethink his future.
“It was the end of my professional career, but it was an opportunity to pursue a different career in education,” he remembers.
Now a Middle School history teacher, Admission Counselor, and Head Coach of the Boys’ Varsity Basketball Team, Mr. Murdock has been making an impact on Pingry students, in various capacities, for a decade.
“I’ve always viewed education and coaching in terms of developing young students or athletes, providing them with a set of life skills that will take them beyond the walls of Pingry—how to be part of a team, how to work hard through adversity and demonstrate resilience, how to be proud of accomplishments and appreciate those moments. It’s gratifying to see young people develop into their full potential,” he says.
Indeed, he shares the story of a prospective Middle School student he met with in the Admission Office many years ago, who, along with his family, voiced concern that Pingry would be too difficult for him. Sitting with the student, allowing him to share his strengths and weaknesses and discover that he had more to give than he thought, is what Mr. Murdock cherishes most in his work.
“Six years later, seeing that same student walk across the stage at graduation, knowing that he had challenged himself and grown every day, that was special.”Kaley Taylor
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.”
Mike Coakley
Middle School English teacher
Despite early interest in pursuing teaching, when Mr. Coakley was a senior in high school, an English teacher and mentor dissuaded him from formally pursuing education, advising instead that he choose a course of study that fed him artistically. By this teacher's reasoning, if Mr. Coakley later landed in education, his experiences would make his teaching that much richer.
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 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.
Now a Form I Team Leader, overseeing Form I programming and faculty, what does he enjoy most about being a Pingry teacher?
“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.”
Morgan D'Ausilio
Upper School science teacher
How does a biochemistry PhD student—one who was just wrapping up her tongue-twisting dissertation, FMNL3 FH2-actin structure gives insight into formin-mediated actin nucleation and elongation—end up in a high school science classroom? For Morgan D’Ausilio, the reasons were many.First, there was the influence of her mother, a lifelong elementary school educator. Then, there was her natural love for teaching. Dr. D’Ausilio had always enjoyed the instructional requirements of her graduate and postdoctoral work, but knew she didn’t want to run a lab, so university teaching out. Finally, at a hiring conference in Boston in 2012, Pingry presented her with a singular opportunity: design a class, however you wish, that introduces students to the process of scientific research.
“I didn’t even realize such a class was possible in a high school. I interviewed at other schools and they didn’t have anything like this, or the resources to support it,” she says. “With Introduction to Scientific Research, I have the freedom to teach whatever and however I want. I feel like I get to teach kids everything I wish I had learned before grad school.”
And so she does. Far from a traditional exam-based course, the class is open-ended, by her design, so students are forced to figure out a lot on their own. At the start of the semester, she assigns them a pool of proteins, whose functions are all unknown, and asks them to work together to identify what they do. “This is novel research,” she explains. “My students really learn that science is a process and you fail a lot. The ability to be a good scientist is the ability to bounce back from your failures. That’s something many of my kids are exposed to for the first time in this class. They have to trouble shoot and repeat the experiment, that’s not typically something you see in a high school.”
By all appearances, her students are equally enthusiastic about their own freedom to investigate. Her first year at Pingry, when she had to defend her dissertation, one of her students drove all the way up to Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire to watch. “Their genuine excitement for learning is so impressive and motivating,” she says. “From the beginning, I knew if I taught them cool and interesting things, they would be just as excited as about them as me.”Yi Hao
Chinese language teacher
Chinese teacher Yi Hao’s route to Pingry was a circuitous one—and that is precisely what makes her a treasured member of its faculty.A mechanical engineering student in China, she relocated to the U.S. for a banking job after college, and moved on to a position in computer programming. She then pursued a master’s in computer science from NYU, and joined a start-up, where she did project management work. Juggling family life and career demands, she decided to change her course. With both of her daughters enrolled at Pingry at the time, she became increasingly involved in campus life, substitute teaching for one of the Chinese teachers on a number of occasions. When Pingry was in search of a second full-time Chinese faculty member, they immediately turned to Mrs. Hao.
“I never imagined I would be a teacher, but I have no regret at all,” she recalled. “Pingry is a very uncomplicated environment in that all hurdles are stripped away; teachers can really focus on being productive.”
After five years teaching at Pingry, the eagerness and interest level of the students still impress her: “They ask questions that even I, as the native speaker, don’t know the answer to!”
Mrs. Hao has also become a cultural ambassador for the school, leading faculty and student trips to China, organizing Pingry’s annual Chinese New Year celebration, and rallying Pingry’s Asian community to share their perspective. She treasures this sort of human interaction and impact, which she doesn’t feel the computer science field would have afforded her to the same degree.
“Helping students to acquire language skills is the critical part of my job, but being able to influence them in other ways is so meaningful,” she says. “Helping them to understand another culture—how another human being experiences life differently—really helps them to learn about themselves.”
The Puzzlemasters
with Kindergarten teacher Judy Previti
It all started in January, with a 200-piece puzzle featuring American presidents. When the five industrious Kindergartners blew through it—and nearly 20 just like it—in a matter of four short months, their teacher, Judy Previti, knew it was time to up the ante. The five “puzzlemasters,” as they like to call themselves, asked for—and Mrs. Previti supplied—a 500-piece puzzle. Nicki, Colton, Rishi, Max, and Lucas finished it within a week. Next up: 1,000 pieces. Done in two weeks. The 1,500-piece Mickey Mouse puzzle they polished off just before the end of the school year, in about three weeks.
“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.”
Rebecca Sullivan
visual arts teacher, middle and upper school
In 2012, when Ms. Sullivan arrived on Pingry’s campus, what struck her most wasn’t what was inside the building, but what existed outside. “I was so excited by its physical place, the land, the forest, the overall surroundings. For a visual arts teacher, Pingry inhabits this incredibly rich space.”
Fittingly, Ms. Sullivan is co-director of the Green Group and Outing Club, and she teaches Pingry’s Environmental Art class, one of the only K-12 schools in the country to offer such a course. Her task? Attuning students to the wonders of nature, and the ways in which their nearly 200-acre campus can serve as their palette. A few years ago, Pingry supported her participation in a summer residency in Italy on “best practices” for environmental artists. Not long after, she spearheaded the construction of Pingry’s first outdoor classroom, and worked with other members of the faculty and students to create a multi-purpose campsite in the woods, complete with five tent platforms, which can sleep up to 20 people, and a hiking trail, four-tenths of a mile long.
More recently, she traveled with a group of Pingry faculty to Santa Fe for the Independent Schools Experiential Education Network (ISEEN) conference, exploring additional techniques for applying experiential teaching and learning to the classroom. The conference advanced her ability to incorporate STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) initiatives into the classroom. (She already teaches technology—digital filmmaking, Adobe Design programs, and 3D printing—in many of her arts classes.) This support of professional growth, and the school’s flexibility in allowing for cross-disciplinary collaboration and experimentation with curriculum, fuels her passion as a teacher, and as an artist.
“Pingry is a ‘yes’ school,” she notes. “If you have a good idea that you’re passionate about, you are given the tools you need to realize it.”
Thomas Yanez
Class of 2024
Thomas Yanez ’24 was eager for the school day to end, but not for the reasons an average student would have. He had 20 more pages of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH to read and notate for his language arts class with Dr. Joan Pearlman P ’89, ’92, ’96, and he was impatient to dig back in.
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.”
Sona Udeshi
Kindergarten teacher
In 2008, when Mrs. Udeshi began teaching Kindergarten at Pingry, it was the school’s collaborative spirit—its philosophy of sharing, among faculty and administrators—that most struck her. She had been trained in a social-emotional approach to teaching, known as building a “responsive classroom.” Once here, she was happy to discover that school leadership and her colleagues welcomed learning it from her. “It’s a teaching philosophy that I’m passionate about,” she said, “And here, at Pingry, I was given the opportunity to share it.”
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.
Jason Haber
Grade 4 Social Studies teacher
Mr. Haber knew that elementary school teaching was his calling from an early age. In fact, at just 18, he entered his college search knowing it. After an American Studies major with a concentration in the history of Education at Trinity College, a master’s in Curriculum and Instruction from Bank Street College of Education in New York City, and teaching experiences at public, private, and charter schools—in suburban and urban areas—he landed at Pingry. “From day one,” he recalled, “I knew this was going to be different.”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.
Miro Bergam
Class of 2019
“Pingry is such an accepting community, for all kinds of people. It has really helped me to thrive,” says Miro Bergam ’19, vice president of his freshman class. “I haven’t had to compromise on academics to work on my social life.”Ravenous with ambition and motivation, in his words, he was the 2015 winner of the nationwide Warren Buffet Grow Your Own Business Challenge, all before graduating to the Upper School. Out of a field of 5,000 competitors across the country, he was one of five finalists flown to Omaha to present his business idea—“Beyond the Books,” an online haven for learners of all ages looking for extracurricular knowledge—to the Oracle of Omaha himself. (His classmate was also a finalist, and yet another Pingrian was a semifinalist.) To be sure, Miro is an independent, ambitious learner. Academic compromise is not in his vocabulary.
And at Pingry, the varsity water polo player and science lover—he was the only freshman selected to the school’s science-based, research-oriented Journal Club—has found his home, along with many kindred spirits. “The upperclassmen really inspire me,” he says. “I’m looking up to my sophomore and junior friends who are achieving so much, and I want to keep that cycle going for others at Pingry.”
Christine Taylor
Upper School English teacher, Multiracial Affinity Group Leader
Every English teacher’s dream, said Ms. Taylor, is for students to complete their required summer reading, and then want to read more.Her period 6 freshman class last year was just such a class. It was the first or second day of the new school year, she recalled, and they were having an animated discussion about their summer reading. One girl raised her hand and asked if they could share books off the list. “That launched us into a big discussion about Go Set a Watchman, which had just come out; students began sharing off-the-list books and asking one another ‘Oh, did you read that? You should!’ They all wanted to be reading what their peers were reading,” she said. “It was a dream.”
Driven students aren’t the only highlight of Ms. Taylor’s Pingry teaching experience. The freedom to plan extracurricular activities—a particularly relevant play or performance, for example—is another. “At my previous school nobody really planned field trips because it was an insurmountable hurdle. Here, it’s easy to organize, and it’s supported.” Two years ago she started a creative writing class, and began leading an annual creative writing trip to Rutgers’ Zimmerli Art Museum. Here, students, guided by a faculty member from the National Writing Project, immerse themselves in a morning-long writing intensive, using the surrounding artwork as their point of reflection. Afterwards, the class has lunch in New Brunswick, giving them a chance to bond and discuss their writing.
Aided by small class sizes, classroom bonding is customary at Pingry. This is an important dynamic, especially when students are asked to share their poetry. (Establishing a Weebly website for students to post and share their work is another new initiative that Ms. Taylor recently launched.) It generated such a rich discussion, she spent two more weeks on the unit than intended, but, she says, it was well worth it. And, at Pingry, that’s all that matters.
Justin Li
Class of 2021
The opportunity to pursue—and even showcase—your interests, whether those opportunities already exist or need to be created. For Justin Li ’21, it is what he appreciates most about his Pingry education.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!”
