Friends Select School |
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Professional Meeting Description
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Friends Select is a coed K-12 independent Quaker school in center-city Philadelphia. The school has 511 students and 65 faculty members - I estimate that the Upper School includes about 200 students and 30 faculty members. The majority of students are Caucasian, although there are significant populations of black, Asian, and Hispanic students. Teacher population appears to be more skewed toward white females. Parents appear generally to be very involved in students’ academic success and in relations with teachers. I’ve heard of many situations in which parents have stepped in, convincing teachers to allow their children to make up assignments. Teachers, in turn, know much about their students’ personal lives and often discuss together a student’s situation and how best to help him or her. The school tries to foster a sense of community through weekly meetings (called Devotions), Meetings for Worship, advisory meetings, and options such as peer tutoring. All of the French classes are fairly small, ranging from eight to twelve students. It was surprising to me that all of these classes have an equal or greater number of boys than girls (all the French classes I’ve ever taken have had far more girls). Their racial composition seems to reflect that of the school: French 1 (4 white, 4 black, 1 Hispanic, 2 Middle Eastern, 1 biracial), French 2 (8 white, 2 black), French 3 (8 white, 1 black), French 4 (6 white, 1 black, 1 Hispanic). Many students have experience outside the U.S. – two are foreign exchange students from Germany, three have French parents, and many have traveled in France and Québec. All classes took written exams right before I arrived at Friends Select – midterms for those in Upper School – and received them at the beginning of my visit. The students all acted very concerned and curious about their grades, and much sharing of and asking about grades occurred before and after class – especially among the younger two classes. It appears that number or letter grades are the main assessment of success, but students participate willingly in non-evaluated learning as well. Many revise tests or assignments whether it will give them extra credit or not. They talk about (or in) French at times when it’s not required, and recognize the francophone countries studied in class as places it would actually be “cool” to learn about or visit. For three weeks (beginning the last week of my time at Friends Select), four French exchange students visited the school. Five of my French students hosted these students, and showed enthusiasm throughout the semester about this opportunity.
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