"We prepare students to engage in the world that is and to help bring about a world that ought to be."
Lower School Post Office Gets Ready for Business
This April, Grade 1 students will learn the ins and outs of the postal service by running their own internal mail system for Friends Seminary.
Members of the School community can purchase stamps from the students’ “service window” during their “Official Service Window Hours.” They will also sell envelopes for one cent each. Students and staff can then drop their outgoing mail in a large mailbox situated on the second floor landing. The children will collect and deliver mail once each day.
The students based the topics of their stamps on the School’s Peace Week theme: Changemakers. The images on the stamps represent people who have made the world a better place by seeing a problem in their community and creating a solution. Each child created a pencil drawing of their subject, which Julie Stein and Jennifer Wittmer then traced in marker. Jennifer and Julie scanned each child’s drawing into the computer in order to compile all the stamps onto one sheet. After further discussion and research, each student wrote a brief description about his or her topic.
The students are honing reading, writing and math skills as they engage in the month-long post office simulation, while the all-School scope of the project has brought together the community.
At the post office kick-off on Tuesday, April 1, teachers and staff gathered in support of the project for the second annual Stamp Cutting Party to cut out the students’ stamps.
On Wednesday, April 2, Lower School students revealed a secret stamp created in honor of Lower School Head Teri Hassid, a true changemaker, who will retire at the end of the school year after a successful career at Friends.
“It's an honor to be included as a changemaker,” said Teri, “I can only be a changemaker with the support of the Friends community.”
Maggie Doyne’s Peace Week visit also inspired the class. The post office will donate all proceeds to Kopila Valley Children’s Home & School in Nepal.
Starting April 7, the post office will be open for business. Official service window hours:
Monday 8:30 to 9:30 AM
Tuesday 8:30 to 9:00 AM
Wednesday 9:45 to 10:30 AM
Thursday 8:30 to 9:00 AM
Friday 8:30 to 9:00 AM
Friends Seminary actively promotes diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism in all its programs and operations, including admissions, financial aid, hiring, and all facets of the educational experience. To form a community which strives to reflect the world’s diversity, we do not discriminate on the basis of race or color, religion, nationality, ethnicity, economic background, physical ability, sex, gender identity or expression, or sexual orientation. Friends Seminary is an equal opportunity employer.
Friends Seminary — the oldest continuously operated, coeducational school in NYC — serves college-bound day students in Kindergarten-Grade 12.
