Students and teachers at the Laboratory Schools have distinguished themselves in many ways, both by their academic achievements and their contributions to the community. Parent volunteers have also contributed greatly. Here are some recent examples:
National Merit Semifinalists were seniors Nora Becker, Michael Chandler, Sarah Craig, Samuel Gershman, Jessica Heyman, Jessica Hung, Olivia John, Terese Lantos, Nuala McCullagh, Hui Tang, and Benjamin Zimmer.
National Merit commended students were seniors Jo Burgess, Alex Chiu, Rebecca Diamond, Zachary Frey, Isabel Gabel, Ruth Grossman, Ross Knorr, Russell Kohn, Deanna Lesht, Charles Long, Rashmi Singhal, Ethan Stillman, Ryan Sturgill, Lloyd Sullivan, Natalie Vokes, and Leah Walsh.
Senior Karin Brummell has been named a semifinalist in the National Achievement Scholarship program for outstanding African-American students. Seniors Keir Harris and Chris Hemingway received commended status.
Senior Elisa Lomnitz was named a National Hispanic Scholar, a recognition made through the National Merit Scholarship Program.
Lomnitz received second-place recognition and a $3,000 scholarship in the McDonald Douglas Aspiring Portrait Artist Contest. Senior Jessica Bauer was a finalist in the contest.
These seniors were named Illinois State Scholar Finalists: Nora Becker, Jo Burgess, Michael Chandler, Jorn Cheney, Alexander Chiu, Michael Constantinides, Sarah Craig, Rebecca Diamond, Alexander Faraone, Zachary Frey, Isabel Gabel, Samuel Gershman, Jacqueline Greaves, Ruth Grossman, Maeve Hall, Julia Halpern, Jessica Heyman, Jessica Hung, Andreas Jeninga, Olivia John, Patrick Kamberos, Ross Knorr, Terese Lantos, Samuel Larson, Rebecca Levine, Feng Li, Elisa Lomnitz, Charles Long, Nuala McCullagh, Nathaniel Meadow, Evan Moore, Allen Nelson, John Oxtoby, Andrew Pippin, Matthew Rosenberg, Nicole Rosner, Shilpa Rupani, Fei Sha, Rashmi Singhal, Ethan Stillman, Ryan Sturgill, Lloyd Sullivan, Hui Tang, Nicolas Turek, Natalie Vokes, Leah Walsh, Jessica Walters, Ryan Werder, and Benjamin Zimmer.
Senior Jessica Hung has been named a winner in the National Council of Teachers of English annual Achievements in Writing contest. Consideration was given to those who submitted a two-hour timed writing sample on a theme related to "learning from life's experiences," as well as an untimed writing sample that exemplified their best work.
Junior Heather Olivia Belcher and her mother, Janice A. Knox, collaborated on a book of photos, Chicago's Loop: Then and Now, published by Arcadia Publishing, Chicago. The books include a collection of more than 100 historic images of Chicago, coupled with contemporary photographs.
The Chicago Fire soccer team named senior John Oxtoby to its boys' high school All-State, All-Academic team. He was among 22 students who received the honor statewide.
Teachers share talents
Florence Vaughan, Middle School science teacher, will be giving three presentations at the National Science Teachers Association national meeting in Philadelphia in March. Her presentations will be "The Martian Sun Times," "The Art of Science," and "May the Forces Be with You." The programs will present ideas for teachers who are new to teaching earth science and will be presented with fellow Middle School science teacher Debra Kogelman.
Beverly Biggs was co-chair of the National Association of Independent Schools' People of Color Conference held in Chicago in December. A number of faculty and high school students also attended. The Middle School choir performed, as did the Lower School Classical Indian Dance class from the After School Program. "One of the purposes of multicultural education is to celebrate our differences while building communities of inclusion and acceptance," Biggs said. Teachers at the conference visited Chicago area schools, with the Lab Schools being the most popular choice.
English teacher John O'Connor, who is also a singer, performed at the Chicago Humanities Festival this fall and performed holiday concerts for senior citizens in local housing projects as part of the Mayor's Office of Special Events. He was a featured performer at Tellebration, a story-telling festival.
O'Connor and three other Lab teachers were included in the 2002 edition of Who's Who Among American Teachers. The other teachers were Earl Bell, U-High history teacher, David Harris, Middle School humanities teacher, and Ilse-Sibylle Sonnenberg, German teacher.
Middle School Principal David Feldman has been awarded an E.E. Ford Fellowship by National Association of Independent Schools to participate in their leadership program. He is among 50 independent school administrators nationwide to receive the recognition. He will participate in professional development seminars at the next two NAIS conferences and in a summer program in Alexandria,Virginia in June.
News from the classrooms
Students in the classes of Susan Lesher, fifth grade teacher, and Lisa Washington, Nursery and Kindergarten, were filmed as part of WTTW's Money Farm programs. The minute-and-a-half segments were filmed in various schools to teach children about money. In Lesher's class, for instance, students held a bake sale to illustrate how students can raise money through a project. The students baked and sold dinosaur-shaped cookies to raise money for Project Exploration, a science-based education program.
Lab students now have the opportunity to pursue their interest in Computer Science at the AP level. Computer Science Department Chair Marty Billingsley began teaching an AP Computer Science class in the autumn quarter. "Though students learn programming language, it is not a programming class," Billingsley said. "Learning programming enables us to address higher-order computer science concepts like algorithms and data structures expressible in any programming language."
Second-grade teacher Eli Johnson is working with parent Deona Thomas as well as other parents to implement an African American History curriculum through the after
Ongoing efforts to build a strong, collaborative relationship with Apple Computer took another step forward in October when Apple's Midwest Education representative conferred with foreign language teachers Randy Fowler and Marianne Zemil. Curt Lieneck and Rob Koontz from Information Technology also participated. The group first met last spring to begin developing a staged multi-year proposal for replacing obsolete language lab facilities with flexible, powerful, customizable multimedia resources that better meet students' and teachers' instructional needs. While research continues, the group is working on ways to use software to upgrade the lab. Lieneck reports that other departments are also expanding their use of technology, including mathematics and the Middle School Humanities program.
German teacher Ilse-Sibylle Sonnenberg reports "My fourth-graders put on their play 'Craftspeople and other Professions.' The two new German students, Peter Hoganson and Jefferson Brehm did an outstanding job. One of Peter's parts was the bouncer. He was funny and made everybody laugh. Jeff played the gardener and the director of the zoo and the auto mechanic. He too did excellently."
Volunteers for pretzel sales this year are Lab parents Lauren Miller and Terri Hardt and Lab grandmother Sahver Aykul.
On December 6, German students took part in Saint Nikolaus Day in third- and fourth-grade German class. Peter Sonnenberg and sophomore Ray Padgett played Nikolaus and Knecht Ruprecht was Nikolaus' assistant. The children sang songs, recited rhymes, and answered questions in German for Nikolaus. Parent volunteers for the event were Wendy Griswold and Lisa Guynn.
Seniors attended two speeches downtown at the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. In October students heard the German ambassador to the United States and in December they listened to the publisher and editor-in-chief of the German newspaper Die Zeit. German students attended a cabaret (Dada art and Surrealism) at the German Cultural Center on December 5.
U-High Science teacher Mark Dreessen has been sharing his experiences from a summer project at a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute whale tagging expedition in Canada's Bay of Fundy. He was there for a week and saw two northern right whales, among many other species. The northern right whale is an endangered species.
Dreessen also reports that artist Gabriel Villa is working on a mural about the history of science on the third floor of U-High. The mural panels begin about 500,000 years ago and continue through 1800. Villa is working on the third 20-foot panel, which will cover 1800 to 1900.
Three teachers have been nominated for this year's Golden Apple Foundation award: first- and second-grade teacher Carol Brindley, second-grade teacher Kathy Piane, and first-grade teacher Jason Scheetz.
Susan Sheldon, Community Learning teacher, reports that sophomores have been developing relationships with first- and second-graders at Lab through activities such as pumpkin carving, holiday cookie decorating, and sharing vegetable soup. U-High students also provided 120 gifts for 60 less fortunate children through ChildServ, a nonprofit agency. She also reports that 114 sophomores have been volunteering at 25 different service agencies in the Chicago area through the Community Learning program.
Jackie Rapp, Director of the After School Program, reports that U-High juniors have initiated a Big Brother/Big Sister program with first- and second-graders. They have visited the Museum of Science and Industry together, held a pizza party, and are planning other activities, such as skating on the Midway, bowling, and a tie dye and candle making event for Valentine's Day. The U-High Service Corps and after-schoolers made potholders in December for a shelter for abused women.
Congratulations and best wishes!
Second-grade teacher Eli Johnson and Doug Domenick were married on November 16. Community Learning teacher Susan Sheldon and Jayson Graves were married on November 23.