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2006-2007 Fall/Winter Directions - Friends' Central School

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tales of her school life, bumping into her Book Buddy on the<br />

street, only to hug her, grab her, drag her over, and gleefully<br />

explain to me, “She’s the girl who wrote the book about me.”<br />

Eighth-grade science students are now teaching sixth graders<br />

about water monitoring, as well as meeting with pre-kindergarten<br />

and kindergarten students every five to six weeks. They assist the<br />

younger children with some of their projects but also use them to<br />

examine Piaget’s theories of cognitive development, sending a copy<br />

of their science reports to the children’s teachers, as well as their<br />

own teacher, at the conclusion. Twelfth-grade psychology students<br />

also meet with pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students to<br />

observe and record their behavior. They use this time together for<br />

everything from verifying (or disproving) the hypothesis that girls<br />

talk more than boys at a given age (using time-sampling observation),<br />

to determining inter-rater reliability, to Piagetian conservation<br />

studies. Additionally, individual Upper <strong>School</strong> students regularly<br />

come to the Lower <strong>School</strong> both for Service Days and for up<br />

to five weeks for Senior Projects.<br />

So in its larger catchword sense, Book Buddies is: a way to<br />

show children the rewards of teaching; a half-hour solution to<br />

projects that would take a teacher an afternoon; many sets of extra<br />

hands and loving arms for Halloween parades; an incentive for a<br />

younger child to work really hard for a big Book Buddy; an incentive<br />

for the older child to live up to the expectations of a heroworshipper;<br />

a cure for the grade-level pecking order that exists at<br />

so many schools; a bridge between the campuses; and a powerful<br />

and effective way to emphasize community and service.<br />

Lee Gratz ’11, Drew Kopicki ’11, Mac Melman ’13, and Harper Estey ‘13<br />

FEATURES – CURRENT STUDENTS<br />

Alex Sheltzer ’11, Alexander Portnoy ’20, and Alex Smith ’20<br />

Perhaps most importantly, Book Buddies builds<br />

friendships that would not otherwise exist within<br />

our community. Consider the first grader who was only having<br />

five friends for a special birthday treat and requested that his<br />

fifth-grade Book Buddy be one of them. When the older child<br />

accepted and came, the mother repeatedly thanked him and told<br />

him how kind he was to come, until he replied, “I wanted to be<br />

here.” And guess what he brought for a present? A good book.<br />

DIRECTIONS <strong>Fall</strong> <strong>2006</strong> / <strong>Winter</strong> <strong>2007</strong> 49

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