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

tales of her school life, bumping into her Book Buddy on the
street, only to hug her, grab her, drag her over, and gleefully
explain to me, “She’s the girl who wrote the book about me.”
Eighth-grade science students are now teaching sixth graders
about water monitoring, as well as meeting with pre-kindergarten
and kindergarten students every five to six weeks. They assist the
younger children with some of their projects but also use them to
examine Piaget’s theories of cognitive development, sending a copy
of their science reports to the children’s teachers, as well as their
own teacher, at the conclusion. Twelfth-grade psychology students
also meet with pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students to
observe and record their behavior. They use this time together for
everything from verifying (or disproving) the hypothesis that girls
talk more than boys at a given age (using time-sampling observation),
to determining inter-rater reliability, to Piagetian conservation
studies. Additionally, individual Upper School students regularly
come to the Lower School both for Service Days and for up
to five weeks for Senior Projects.
So in its larger catchword sense, Book Buddies is: a way to
show children the rewards of teaching; a half-hour solution to
projects that would take a teacher an afternoon; many sets of extra
hands and loving arms for Halloween parades; an incentive for a
younger child to work really hard for a big Book Buddy; an incentive
for the older child to live up to the expectations of a heroworshipper;
a cure for the grade-level pecking order that exists at
so many schools; a bridge between the campuses; and a powerful
and effective way to emphasize community and service.
Lee Gratz ’11, Drew Kopicki ’11, Mac Melman ’13, and Harper Estey ‘13
FEATURES – CURRENT STUDENTS
Alex Sheltzer ’11, Alexander Portnoy ’20, and Alex Smith ’20
Perhaps most importantly, Book Buddies builds
friendships that would not otherwise exist within
our community. Consider the first grader who was only having
five friends for a special birthday treat and requested that his
fifth-grade Book Buddy be one of them. When the older child
accepted and came, the mother repeatedly thanked him and told
him how kind he was to come, until he replied, “I wanted to be
here.” And guess what he brought for a present? A good book.
DIRECTIONS Fall 2006 / Winter 2007 49