Crescent School | 2365 Bayview Ave. Toronto, ON M2L 1A2 | 416.449.2556 | www.crescentschool.org

Volume 16 Issue 2 October 5, 2012

WHAT? ANOTHER LOW FLYING PLANE OVER CRESCENT?YOU BET! CENTENNIAL CELEBRATIONS ON HOUSE DAY!

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CENTENNIAL CELEBRATIONS NEWS

Upper School faculty member Mr. Jansen has had the pleasure of taking not one, but now two aerial photo-

graphs of the School and Crescent students.

Back in 1992, to mark Crescent’s 80th birthday, Mr. Jansen flew (with his Nikkormat EL and roll of Tri-X) with Headmas-ter Tansey, and with Mr. Roberts’ brother Mr. Alan Roberts at the controls, in a rented Cessna 172, out of the Island Airport.

Twenty years later, Mr. Jansen is using a DLSR camera and flew out of what is now Billy Bishop Airport (formerly the To-ronto Island Airport) with Crescent’s event coordinator, Ms. Christa Hancock, with her father Mr. Don Hancock at the controls (the left seater) in the family’s plane, which they use to travel to the cottage.

“Both experiences were incredible,” Mr. Jansen says. “In 1992 it was very windy. Flying when it is that windy can make you feel woozy—I felt sick the whole way, until we got to the School, and I had something on which to focus [pun intend-ed]. We were using walkie-talkies to let everyone know we were in position and ready to go—I got a perfect shot.”

And they were lucky they got that shot. When they returned to the Island Airport, the tower cleared them for landing and the fellow at the plane rental told them if they had delayed their flight for a minute or two that afternoon, they wouldn’t have been allowed to go, as the wind had become too strong. “Mr. Robert’s brother Alan is an excellent pilot who did a great job—especially under those conditions; with such high winds,” says Mr. Jansen.

But Friday was perfect. The Hancock’s Cessna 180 is a float plane—call sign CGDRT (Charlie-Golf-Delta-Romeo-Tan-go). It took a couple of minutes to get the plane in the wa-ter, and then four minutes to fly to the School. Mr. Hancock learned to fly when he was a teen, and had a pilot’s license before he was issued his driving license. His father (Ms. Han-cock’s grandfather) was a Spitfire pilot and taught his sons to fly.

As a rule, planes can’t fly below 1000 ft over residential neigh-bourhoods. Permission is required, and is granted or denied only at the exact time while flying when the plane is in the air. When Mr. Hancock radioed Buttonville Airport (Crescent is in Buttonville’s air traffic control space), CGDRT was OK’d to fly under 1000 ft; they then descended and circled over the School as students ran to get into formation. Mr. Jansen took some great shots before they turned around and flew back to Lake Ontario.

By the time Ms. Hancock and Mr. Jansen returned to Cres-cent in the car, Mr. Hancock, his wife and the family dog were already in Haliburton, pulling up to dock at the cottage.

“Friday was great,” says Mr. Jansen. “And what was even more interesting was that I just about managed to take every form of transportation in that one day: bus, streetcar, ferry, plane, car and bicycle. Pretty cool, don’t you think?”

It is all very cool! A special thank you to Mr. Hancock for taking the time to fly Mr. Jansen over the property to make House Day, part of Crescent’s centennial celebrations, an-other fabulous event.

Mr. Jansen’s view of Toronto’s waterfront, Mr. Hancock and Christa, while on the water before take off (left) and his aerial photograph from 1992 (right).

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At Crescent, the parent association volunteers are off to a fabulous start.

There are many programmes and activi-ties well under way.

The CPA likes to ensure the parents at Crescent meet each other and connect. To that end, the GRADE PARENT PRO-GRAM has been launched. Tara Borg, our Chair, and her team of Grade Parents are organizing evening socials this term for every grade. Attending your grade social is a wonderful way to meet some of the parents in your son’s year. If you have not yet heard about your grade party de-tails, you will do so very soon.

The LOWER SCHOOL HALLOWEEN PARTY, is a fun family event you won’t want to miss. Joelle Corona, and her team are planning a haunted house and old-fash-ioned carnival games. There will also be some surprise performances! If your son is in the Lower School, make sure you mark this date in your calendar.

In early November the CPA will be ask-ing the Crescent community for dona-tions of gently used coats, boots and warm clothing (ie: hats, gloves, sweat-ers). This is our annual COAT AND BOOT DRIVE. Liz Kennedy and her team col-lect these warm articles of clothing and deliver them to parents and children at Firgrove and Willow Park schools. Many of these families are new to Canada and as such are not yet prepared for our Canadian winter. Please do have a look through your closets to see which warm articles of clothing your family no longer needs, and bring them to the school dur-ing the designated drop off period.

This term, we have also launched many of our fundraising initiatives. Now that the CPA SCHOLARSHIP pledge has been fulfilled and awarded, all CPA proceeds will be donated to the Great Boys cam-paign which includes our new state-of-the-art library, and promises to be a won-derful learning space for all of our boys.

Theresa Burke is making a special effort to break all sales records of MAGAZINES AND GIFT WRAP this year. If you have not done so already, please place your orders and help her achieve her goal!

At the COYOTE’S DEN, CPA Den Chair Jennie Ferguson, is working to ensure that everyone who would like to work a shift in the Den is able to do so. She, along with the Den Manager Cathy Macdonald, and their team of 60 volun-teers are working together to create a fun, lively environment where Crescent parents can come together to volunteer and meet each other.

The HOLIDAY SALE, is also an important fundraiser at the school. Laurie Foote,

our Holiday Sale Chair, and her team are planning a creative event for us this year.

The HOLIDAY SALE COCKTAIL PARTY, which is sponsored by the CPA for all Crescent parents, is on Wednesday, Nov. 21, and is always a lovely evening. It pro-vides a social opportunity for all parents to come together before the end of term.

The Holiday Sale on Thursday, Nov. 22, and is a terrific opportunity to pick up gifts for the holidays. It is also a very ex-citing day for our boys to shop for family and friends.

There is a great deal happening within the CPA, and this is only the beginning. Please keep checking the Green Room for ways to get involved in the types of events you enjoy.

The CPA wishes you all a Happy Thanks-giving weekend with family and friends and we look forward to seeing you back at school after the break.

—Mary Wellner, CPA President

FALL TERM CPA EVENTS AND DATES

• Grade Parent Socials through October/November• Magazine & Gift Wrap through October/November • LS Halloween Party Thursday, Oct. 25• Coat & Boot Drive mid October – mid November• Holiday Plant Sale through November • Holiday Sale Cocktail Party Wednesday, Nov. 21• Holiday Sale Thursday, Nov. 22• Coyote’s Den Volunteer all year!

CPA NEWS

FALL LINE-UP OF EVENTS—Crescent Parent Association

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SCHOOL MESSAGES

In the hallway this week, I watched a happy and contented group of boys return from intramurals going in one direc-

tion, at the same time a different group of boys (equally happy) returned from Innes Field after their soccer game. They passed each other at their lockers and chatted to the teachers in the hallway about how their different after school activities had gone. It was well after 4 p.m., yet none of the boys were in a hurry to leave. I am proud to say that it was clear that the boys feel at home at their school, Crescent School.

It is a remarkably sophisticated world of relationships that our boys navigate each day. They are growing up here, learning the subtle differences in relationship between being a student in someone’s class and being on a team that same teacher coaches. They are learning to adapt to the “rules” and conduct required by different teachers in different courses in different spaces.

When you think about it, relationships and friendships at school are remarkably complex. Boys have best friends, new friends, friends from teams and activities, and friends as class-mates. There are friends you hang out with at recess, friends you have play dates with, and friends that you do everything with.

They have teachers as form teachers, subject teachers and coaches. They know teachers from the Lower School, Middle School and Upper School. Then there are teachers that are all of those things, and may also be a teacher that they have traveled with on a choir trip, hockey or sports trip or field trip. At this point, I haven’t even mentioned all of the other people they know that work at our school: the facilities staff, the kitch-en staff, office staff, etc.

Do we teach relationship here? Not overtly, but I would say that we model one another, and for our boys, our core values and the Golden Rule. We share our stories with our students, and build our classrooms based upon trust, talking about what it means to be a good friend and a trusted classmate.

Between what you are doing as parents at home, and what we are doing here at School, it seems that we are getting it right. Like the boys in the hallway chatting about their games dem-onstrated, it is our goal to have the boys feel connected to everything, and everyone, at the School. It may not show up on a report card, but helping our boys to figure out the mysti-fying nuances of relationships is a crucial part of their journey to becoming men of character.

—Dr. Boyes, Head of Lower School

From the Middle School

As I try to think back 20 years into my own past, I find myself in M. Dubois’ grade 8 class at École St. Joseph in

Penetanguishene. I’m looking to recall details from my past during those very awkward and challenging times.

I remember being afraid of failure, especially in front of my friends or being afraid of this guy named Spencer who used to push us around and make fun of us; I remember making poor decisions, which often landed me in the principal’s office, be-cause I wanted to fit in and be liked; I remember playing ball hockey and baseball with M. Dubois at recess, or drawing the logos of the 21 NHL teams on my binder; I remember Sylvia Belcourt and how she would tease me, and then would ask me on a date to the Pen Theatre.

The only memories regarding actual learning were a few his-tory lessons, which I loved, and Mme. Leblanc’s class where she taught us how to organize our binders, how to take notes and the importance of working hard. In short, I don’t remem-ber the content but only the learning skills and I’m sure many

of you find yourself with the same types of memories.

Throughout the Middle School, you will hear the faculty and your sons talk about the importance of having a growth mind-set where the brain is similar to any other muscle in your body; the more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes. If you have time, I recommend that you look at Carol Dweck’s research on the growth mindset. You will hear plenty of conversation around the process, or journey of learning and with less focus on the product of learning. The corner stones of this journey are learning skills and work habits.

These learning skills are vital for the success of our boys in education. Without them, they will struggle in the Upper School and in the real world outside of the walls of Crescent. You may have seen these skills outlined on your son’s report cards. They include responsibility, organization, independent work, collaboration, initiative and self-regulation. The Ontar-io Ministry of Education outlined them after much research and findings from Human Resources and Skills Development

From the Lower School

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Canada (HRSDC), the Conference Board of Canada, and from such international organizations as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). These learning skills also fit well with Crescent School’s core values of respect, responsibility, honesty and compassion.

All of the learning skills hold equal weight in the Middle School, however some skills attract more attention than oth-ers, and vary from grade 7 to grade 8. In both grades, there is much focus on responsibility and organization. In grade 7 there is more need to focus on collaboration and self-regulation. In grade 8 we try to turn our focus to independent work and ini-tiative skills. Every student in the Middle School is unique, and each will have unique benchmarks for their learning skills. The support needed to improve the learning skills will therefore vary amongst each student and they will receive different op-portunities and feedback from the faculty.

You can also offer your support at home, guiding your son to improving those learning skills that he is having the most dif-ficulty with. Please see the Middle School Academic page in

the Green Room for more information regarding each of the six learning skills, or you can contact your son’s mentor. If we all work together, your son’s academic journey will be less ardu-ous and he will be better prepared for Upper School.

As a parent who now has the privilege of going through my child’s report card, I try to focus on the feedback that deals with my son’s journey of learning; his work ethic and his de-velopment of the Learning Skills. However, my attention is automatically drawn to his marks from force of habit. I do my best to fight this urge, and my conversation with him should solely focus on those comments that speak to his work ethic and areas of growth with his learning skills.

In the end, I know that if my son has developed his learn-ing skills appropriately and if I promote and model a love for learning, I know my son will have a wonderful journey through school. I also understand that he may not be able to recall all of the content that was taught in class, but I hope that he acquires the skills necessary for his future.

—Mr. Dion, Assistant Head of Middle School

Mr. Dion composed this graphic for Middle School using Wordle—Mr. Dion loves Wordle! What is Wordle? Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. Clouds can be tweaked with different fonts, layouts, and colour schemes. The images created with Wordle can be used in any way—print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with friends. Go to wordle.net to make a Wordle of your own!{ {

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Several new parents to the Upper School have asked about social opportunities for the boys throughout the year. This

seems to be a good forum in which to answer those queries by describing the specific events and outlining the range of activi-ties available to all boys in the Upper School.

We host three dances during the course of the year: the grade 11/12 Semi-Formal is later this month, on Friday, Oct. 26. During the winter we host a grades 9/10 dance, and in early May the Senior Formal takes place at an outside venue. The first two dances are on school premises in the CCL Orchestra Lobby, and they operate under the same rules: doors open at 8 p.m. and close at 9 p.m. with no in/out privileges; they end promptly at 11:30 p.m. All school rules, of course, apply and the dances are supervised by teachers. Police are also present.

Our boys are also invited to the dances hosted by all the local girls’ schools: Havergal, St. Clement’s, BSS and Branksome, and often by girls’ schools further afield like St. Mildred’s-Lightbourn in Oakville. We are allocated a number of tickets and they are sold at lunch by the Prefects, on a first come first served basis. They are run under the same set of rules as our dances; these rules are set by COSSOT (Conference of Single Sex Schools of Toronto) and are consistent across all member

schools.

So you can see that there are ample opportunities to attend dances; a particularly dedicated young man could attend at least five over the course of the year.

However, in my view, dances are not the best events at which to meet and mingle with girls; they are noisy and tend to be characterized by social pressures and hormones. There are a variety of other co-ed activities that boys may find more con-genial: there are several Outreach activities hosted by various schools during the year, such as our own Race for Dignity (pic-tured is 2011 R4D with Havergal and Crescent students in the Field House) in which the girls’ schools participate; there are arts events at all the schools like our Coffee House and Benefit Concert to which we invite Havergal; there are Business Club competi-tions, events such as the Model UN, and there are a number of athletic opportunities, like the HaverCrest ultimate team.

All of these offer the opportunity to work alongside girls in a positive atmosphere on activities focused on shared interests, and I encourage you to discuss the range of activities with your sons; they will hear about them as they come up, in Assembly and Mentor Group.

—Mr. Lowndes, Head of Upper School

From the Upper School

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PROFILE

New Director of Communications and Marketing

Where were you before Crescent?I started in advertising, and then moved to the education sector, working at York University.

I come from a very client-focused background, and am excited about working this into the way things are done here within Crescent’s communications and marketing department.

How are you liking it at Crescent?Genuinely loving it. My team is great and the faculty and staff are welcoming, and are highly professional.

As well, parents have been eager to meet me, share their ideas and help me get acquainted with Crescent. Coming into our centennial year has been a great time to start—the excitement and events have been amazing.

How was the soccer game on Friday night?Wow—David Young is awesome! And Mr. Roberts too. I had a great time, and was so impressed with the enthusiasm, and level of play shown by everyone.

The parent turnout was fantastic, and it was a gorgeous night to be out and running around Innes Field. I am glad I was there.

What’s your favorite thing about Crescent?Our mission and values. They are much more than a campaign, they are really lived and breathed by everyone here. It is inspiring and makes you feel great about working in such an outstanding environment.

Describe the perfect day at Crescent.The perfect day at Crescent would

include a traffic-free commute, and then an available parking spot right in front of my office. Other than that, life at Crescent is pretty prefect!

If you changed professions, what would you do?I would be a rockstar. Without dating myself... I am a hugh Van Halen fan and play in a cover band on the weekends.

Big fish in a small pond or small fish in a big pond?Small boat on a medium pond.

What are you afraid of?Piranhas. Don’t think I am going to find myself in danger anytime soon, but you never know what could end up in Lake Ontario with climate change!

What is your greatest joy?Seeing my children laugh, and scoring a parking spot in front of my office. And playing Eruption.

If you were a professional athlete who would you be?While I hesitate to say Lance Armstrong, I am gonna stick by my man and support the guy. I have always been in awe of what he has accomplished, and don’t think the current situation should diminish his achievements, or his battle with cancer.

What changes have you seen during your career?Well for myself personally, less hair, and learning not to take myself too seriously.

If you could change one thing about Crescent, what would it be?Changing the reference of where the mar/comm office is located from the Garage to the Cottage!

You receive emails from the Head of Schools, the Headmaster and now from a fellow named Clay Browne. Meet the new guy, and find out a little more about our new Director of Communications and Marketing. You may have seen him at the parent/staff soccer game last Friday night (pictured).

BEAR week plays an important role in determining the student culture

for the rest of the year. For this year’s Grad Class, the school culture of re-spect, communication and language has become a paramount goal.

The Grad Class spent three days of BEAR week at Camp Onondaga. On the first day they rotated through teacher led workshops on: mentor group, the Grad Class legacy, communication skills, and themes to focus on this year.

On the second day, the boys led their own discussions. They began with goals about pumping up School spirit, and in-creasing fan attendance at games. But as they dove deeper into their discussions a clear theme began to emerge.

Members of their community, other stu-dents, had been negatively impacted by the language of their peers. This culmi-nated in a powerful and transformative discussion in which the Grad Class com-mitted to changing the School culture and eliminating verbal slurs; particularly slurs related to sexuality. Having worked

with the Prefects for several years, this is by far the most ambitious goal that I have seen the boys set for themselves. It has more potential than any leadership speaker, or bullying program could ever boast to have.

The key counsel that we as the adults tried to provide was that for this goal to succeed, it will need to be owned by the boys. The faculty and staff cannot do this by adding more rules or policing. This needs to be modeled and lived by the Grads.

Head Boy Jack Hayward spoke at As-sembly Monday morning to talk about the kind of community that the Grads have envisioned, and about some recent behaviour by the grade 9 boys. This provided the momentum for Tuesday’s Mentor Group meetings which was, in my experience, the most powerful and important Mentor Group since the pro-gram’s inception.

The Grads began to roll out their vision to the other boys. They engaged their individual Mentor Group in a discussion

to establish the new normal, where ver-bal slurs are not “what we do here.” The Grads are prepared to set the example, and we have already seen a difference in the halls. They are also prepared to hold each other, and the younger boys, accountable for their tone and commu-nication.

Never before has there been such a criti-cal mass rally around such an important issue. I notice that often people struggle to see the physical appearance of char-acter development at the School. In my opinion there has never been a more powerful vehicle for developing char-acter than the initiative started by the Grads this year.

As adults we would name this process as empathy building. In School terms we would say that we are furthering our core value of respect. Most importantly the boys are passionate about an issue and are demonstrating the courage to do something about it. This is truly Charac-ter in Action.

—Mr. Dubrick, Director of Character and Leadership

CHARACTER CORNER

great picture!

photo courtesy of grade 11 student Tom Cartotto—Wednesday’s senior D1 soccer practice.