Religious Education for Secular & Observant Jews
Reciting Whitman on the Brooklyn Bridge, learning dance with Alvin Ailey
By Patrick Wall
On a recent Friday morning, the smell of baking challah bread filled the hallways of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School on West 89th Street in Upper Manhattan. Read more
Reunioning, My Way
Gentle reader, your diarist hates going to reunions of any kind—unwilling to measure the sadistic passing of time by smudges under familiar eyes, or to get trapped by well meaning semi-strangers making small talk.
So despite strict orders from one good friend from the Philadelphia High School for Girls (I tease her that I think of her as “Napoleon”), I never for a moment considered attending the recent reunion at a slick hotel in Philly. I did write a quick essay for the reunion website about my happy memories. I added one sentence about my clueless reaction to an event that took place freshman year. It seems that three of my friends had sex with a youngish, substitute (male) science teacher. One of the three girls told me about it right before French class. Instead of answering her, I opened my textbook and began reading. Read more
McCourt High School Recruiting Students
With Frank McCourt High School slated to open in September, administrators are starting the recruiting and application phase to assemble the first class of freshmen.
The high school, housed on the Brandeis High School campus at 145 W. 84th St. between Columbus and Amsterdam avenues, will be open to students in all five boroughs. Named after the late Pulitzer Prize-winning author who spent 29 years as a teacher, the new school will focus on communications and civic engagement. Read more
Founding Principal
Danielle Salzberg, a veteran teacher, administrator and builder of new schools, will be taking the helm at the newly announced Frank McCourt High School next fall. The application process for new schools occurs in February, after both the specialized high school round and the main round of citywide high school admissions are over. Students who are interested in one of the city’s new schools, like Frank McCourt, can fill out a special application during this final part of the process.
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Skeptical of New School
To the Editor:
As a former prize-winning student of Frank McCourt’s, I greeted Joel Klein’s announcement of the Frank McCourt High School with much skepticism and disbelief. I strongly doubt that such a school can produce first-rate journalists. Instead, I think those interested in journalism should seek mastery first of some subject, whether it is fine art, history or science, for example, before trying to write eloquently about it. Read more
Finally: McCourt HS
Before literary legend and longtime New York City public school teacher Frank McCourt died this past summer, efforts were underway to create a school in his honor. Now that plan has become a reality. On Oct. 6, the Department of Education announced that the Frank McCourt High School will open in fall 2010 as part of the Brandeis campus, on West 84th Street.
The small, selective school will eventually serve 432 students when all high school grades are added during the 2013-14 school year. McCourt was best known as the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Angela’s Ashes, but he also taught for 29 years, mostly at Stuyvesant High School. Read more
