At first, Jean-Gabriel “Gabe” Lacombe couldn’t quite get the hang of the sport he now captains. “I didn’t like [hockey] in the beginning…I couldn’t skate very well,” he admitted. Lacombe was 2 years old when he started skating.
His father encouraged him to keep at it and, eventually, “all my friends started liking hockey so I felt like, ‘I might as well start playing,’” he said. The rest is history.
On a blustery day in late fall, science teacher Paul Rutherford herded a class of physics students onto a school van. While Rutherford clambered behind the steering wheel, the students put blindfolds over their eyes.
The van started moving. Could the students tell how fast the bus was going? Rutherford asked. They could not. He turned a corner. Suddenly, his passengers could feel the movement, even if they couldn’t see it.
The students had just learned a lesson in the physics of motion, and had learned it in a way that kept them actively engaged.
Science Department Head Bill Berghoff relishes this type of hands-on learning. By next year, he hopes to see quite a bit more of it happening around campus.
“There’s going to be a lot of physics experiments, a lot of light and sound and dropping objects,” he said, adding with a grin, “There’s going to be lots of weird stuff going on, I think, next year.”
There’s nothing like the experience of a live audition—part improvisation, part performance, and all nerves. And when the auditions are for places in district ensembles, competing against music students from four counties, the stakes are even higher.
Five students from The Williston Northampton School took on the challenge of such auditions earlier this year when they went to the Western Massachusetts District Festivals, held at Westfield State University and sponsored by the Massachusetts Music Educators Association.
“If you had one wish in the world what would it be?”
Luma Mufleh’s grandmother used to ask her this when she was a child. Mufleh’s response was usually a new toy or soccer cleats. Then she would ask the same of her grandmother. “Her answer was always the same,” said Mufleh. “’I wish everyone in the world would have clean drinking water.’”
Speaking in the third annual Sara Wattles Perry ’77 Lecture, Mufleh told the story of her privileged childhood growing up in Amman, Jordan; hitting rock bottom twice after her parents cut her off financially; and how a wrong turn led to the first private school in America dedicated to the education of refugee children.
“I made a wrong turn.”
On what seemed like a normal day in Clarkston, Georgia, Mufleh made a wrong turn and encountered five boys playing soccer in a parking lot. She watched them and remembered the pickup games she had played with her brothers in Jordan.
All across campus, groups of students were busy Wednesday morning signing cards to people they did not know. “Happy Holidays,” they wrote, “Thank you for keeping us safe. Thank you for your service.”
Before turning to topics such as exams and the upcoming holiday break, students took a few minutes during advisor meetings to remember members of the military and write them messages of thanks.
The cards were part of the Holiday Mail for Heroes Program, an annual event organized by the American Red Cross. Collected between October and December, the cards are eventually distributed to military installations and veterans hospitals, according to the Red Cross website.
This is the second time Williston Northampton has participated in the program. Last year, during an effort coordinated by Maddy Stern ’14 and Ben Wheeler ’14, students signed roughly 300 holiday cards for service members. This year, Stern and the junior class officers once again spearheaded the effort.
“I believe this program is important to participate in throughout the entire year but especially surrounding the holiday season,” Stern wrote in an email. “It is important for the Williston Community to remember that this isn’t only the brief three weeks before winter break, but also the time of the year meant for reflection and contribution to others.”
Stern said that she was anticipating sending around 150 cards to soldiers stationed overseas this year.
“Hopefully, by exchanging a fraction of our day to write a small note to a soldier, Williston students can not only help brighten the soldier’s day, but gain a sense of perspective and selflessness, which this busy season is truly about,” she wrote.
In his advisor meeting with Associate Director of Admission Derek Cunha, senior Thomas Walsh was wishing military personnel a “safe and happy holiday season,” he said.
Down the hall, Julia Krupp ’15 was also writing out a holiday card, while others in her advisor group decorated their messages with stars.
“Thank you so much for all you do. You’re amazing and a total hero,” Krupp said, reading aloud what she had written. “Sorry you cannot be with your family during the season, but I’m sure they are so proud.”
