   | |||||||||||||||||
|
 
It was a delightful melding of purpose and entertainment as the school community
gathered at the Emerson Performing Arts Center to cheer the twenty contenders
for "Mr. Gunn 2006", a "beauty" pageant for males. The Community Service group,
who organized the evening to raise money for the Steven M. Reich Memorial Fund, managed a
varied program including competitions for formal wear, casual wear, beach wear
and talent. The judges were Jon Russillo, Athletic Director, Kate Merritt,
Associate Athletic Director and ...
[continued]
 The Gunnery faculty and several student run organizations on campus spend a good portion of the year planning a variety of social outlets outside the classroom and playing fields. "I am always encouraging the kids to try something new," said Kendall Adams, Head of Student Activities, when commenting on any planned activity. "Weekends can get very monotonous and routine if you let them. We really try to mix everything up," said Kendall. For the athletes, open skating and basketball, tubing and trips to hockey games are held. For artists, musicians, and poets, informal coffee houses are held and, trips to the opera are offered. Annual events include an opening of school orientation barbeque, an International Student Dinner and a Winter Carnival. Also, throughout the year, faculty members open their houses for barbeques and dinners. "Sometimes, all the kids need is a night hanging out on the couch watching TV in a living room," sad Kendall. "The little touches of home go a long way."
 
The knowledge and experience Jarrod Sisk acquired in a prior career in finance
and sales has come in very handy in his math and history courses at The Gunnery,
especially for the popular senior seminar in Mathematical Economics. Jarrod has
introduced new elective courses in the history department while enlivening his
math courses with real world examples.
A Connecticut native, Jarrod was a student at New Milford High School where total enrollment was 1,000. He began his college career at MIT, and soon realized it wasn't for him. "There were 1,000 kids in my class," he said. "After going there, I soon realized that when looking at any school, the big name of the school isn't important; it's what fits you." After two months at MIT, Jarrod transferred to Wake Forrest where he thrived in an economics program that focused on both the theoretical and psychological sides of the discipline. While in college, he landed a six month internship with the World Financial Center for Merrill Lynch which served as his first taste of corporate America. Upon graduation from Wake Forrest, he relocated to Charlotte, NC and worked for the Vanguard group managing mutual funds' accounts for two years. "Working there forced me to improve my communication skills," he said. "I had to force myself to talk to people on the phone. I also honed my writing skills there." After Vanguard and an additional nine-month stint at Equitable Life Insurance in sales, Jarrod realized the money-making, corporate environment wasn't for him. "I always had an interest in teaching. After speaking with my high school mentor, he referred me to the boarding school system. When I interviewed at The Gunnery, I took a quick liking to it especially the physical size of the campus." Since joining the faculty almost five years ago, Jarrod has been active in the Math and History Departments. In addition to the Mathematical Economics seminar (founded by Jarrod and former faculty member, Chad Cookinham), he teaches Introduction to Business, Introduction to Investing and History of Math. "It's not very often that you discuss the history of algebra," he adds. In addition to his heavy teaching load, Jarrod coaches J.V. Baseball and Varsity Soccer, is active with The Radio Club and serves as the Freshman Dean. "I help the freshmen when they first arrive here. I get them involved with the school socially and educate them in their study skills." 
On January 16th the First Congregational Church Meeting House on the Green
rang with story and song in celebration of the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. Deborah Calhoun of the Afrikan-American Cultural Awareness
Association brought the Sounds of Afrika ensemble for an evening of music,
dance, and old/new-fashioned storytelling.
Exhibits at the entrance of the church including ... [continued]  
Responding to a general decline in the writing and expressive skills of students,
both nationwide and locally, The Gunnery completely revamped its Writing Lab in
the fall of 2005. Formerly a weekly course period when students could bring
writing projects from their other courses to English teachers for help with
written expression and grammar, the Lab now seeks to methodically improve their
writing skills. Over the course of the year, students concentrate on three
different grammatical structures: the sentence in the fall term, the paragraph
in the winter and the essay in the spring. The exercises are progressive and
geared to the skill level of the student. The English faculty, who oversee
the writing labs that every student must attend, seek to overcome the variations
in preparation within the same grade level, including deficits in basic grammar
and limited vocabulary. To complement the writing lab efforts, long time
faculty member Margaret (Peg) Addicks leads a voluntary, no-credit weekly
class focusing on the origins of words. A specialist in etymology and a
former Latin teacher, Peg presents each class seven to ten SAT words along with
the official SAT definition. Students are required to look up the dictionary
meaning and use each word in a sentence to show an understanding of meaning.
Both the writing lab and the informal etymology sessions provide students with a basic but necessary skill for academic progress far beyond their high school and college years. At first, students may not see the importance of these sessions, but that attitude changes in the junior year with both the Junior Research Paper (JRP) and SATs on the horizon. The JRP is designed so that each junior has experience researching and writing a significant college-style research paper combining literature and history. In 2004 the SAT introduced an essay component which calls on the very skills the students have been practicing. "We want our students to concentrate on being in the present," said Chapin Miller, Academic Dean. "However, from day one, we want to instill in them the intellectual habits of a scholar." These habits will, eventually, lead to numerous long-term rewards. |
||||||||||||||||
