THE WINDY CLASSROOM

Go ahead, I dare you. Try to wipe the grin off your face while eagerly grasping a vibrant silk parachute handle.  Especially while flanked by classmates equally thrilled to be sharing in such a wildly appealing pastime.  Think back and admit it, friends.  When you walked into the gymnasium and realized your PE teacher had dragged out that lovely colorful apparatus, all of your accumulated dread of sit-ups left your brain and was immediately replaced with unbridled enthusiasm.

 It was the same when the PALS club got together last week for a favorite springtime activity.  Early Childhood students and Middle School students approached their shared activity with equivalent fervor.  The older students, referred to by their teachers as “Big Pals” are more than twice the age of their small accomplices (the “Little Pals”). The Big Pals took the lead and their five-year-old counterparts shadowed accordingly.  

It was positively adorable.

The first difficulty came for the Big Pals before they even reached the room for play.  They were attempting to quietly travel to the other side of the building to meet their Little Pals and let’s just say the struggle was REAL.  “PALS” is an activity for some of the Middle School students during the final period of the school-day each Monday.  It is a wildly popular option which allows the older students to make friends with some of the youngest Penn View students.  The opportunity is always scooped up quickly by 8th grade girls during signups.  Eighteen girls strong and not a single 8^th grade boy!  This gaggle of eager adolescents has so much trouble not speaking in the hushed elementary hallways, their teacher Lisa Reichley tells them to put a fictional marshmallow into their mouths.  She does the same. This leaves them all with chipmunk cheeks; the wide-eyed group sounding convincingly similar to the dull but persistent hum of a large clumsy bumblebee. The bumblebee hum is certainly preferable to the shrieking enthusiasm of agitated hyenas (which was the sound signaling their approach just moments before they pretended to be stuffed with marshmallows). 

The Little Pals were seated in a circle and wearing their jackets when their big friends arrived.  Mrs. Reichley greeted the small group.  “I brought your Big Pals!”  Fervent waving ensued and hugs soon followed. 

A second difficulty came when it was reasoned that the weather was being uncooperative.  Though the Little Pals were decked out in adequate attire for the elements, it soon became obvious that the Big Pals would freeze to an undesirable stiffness in the raw rainy chill.  As the oldest and most revered students of Penn View, most of the eighth graders arrive at school in April too suave for a jacket. Another noisy journey in the hallway to retrieve the few available coats scrunched into lockers was not an effective solution.  So in the interest of staying warm and dry, the decision was made to play with the parachute indoors.

Recall your own PE parachute experience.  You might remember that this activity can happen very effectively in a large gymnasium. A regular-sized classroom, however, was another situation entirely. Desks and cabinets were moved to the perimeter of the classroom and the colorful parachute was unrolled.  Anticipation was off the charts.  Handles were clutched and Mrs. Reichley’s instructions were clear.  “Just go up as high as the Little Pals' arms can go.”

With the first ballooning of the parachute, every lightweight item which was not firmly attached to EC teacher Mrs. Ness’ desk took flight.  A multitude of paper adornments affixed to classroom walls began flapping riotously, as if cheering on the group’s antics with zealous celebratory patronage.  It was like being inside a wind tunnel, which amplified the already unbridled enthusiasm of the students.  Adrenalin was pumping and many of the Little Pals could not keep their feet anchored to the floor.  They were hopping around like tiny rabbits as they held tight to the parachute handle.

It was time to mix things up.  At the teacher’s instruction, the Little Pals climbed beneath the parachute and huddled together on the floor in the center.  They were giggling nonstop.  

Perhaps the most amusing portion of this exercise was watching my helpful photographer (Marketing Director Kathy Gordon) as she crouched under the parachute with all of the little people. 

The woman will do anything to get a good shot!  

When the Big Pals lifted their arms, a mass of laughing, clustered children could be seen, hair standing on end with static electricity. 

“Let’s try that again with slightly less violence”, Mrs. Reichley was heard to say.  The Little Pals clearly loved it when the parachute landed on their heads.  Soon, the groups switched places, the excited Little Pals keen to drop that parachute onto their hunkering Big Pals. 

Just when I thought things couldn’t get any more stimulating, the students began to play a game called Cat and Mouse.  Three Big Pals were chosen to be mice under the parachute and three Little Pals were chosen to get into the center of the parachute on hands and knees to tag the mice.  Reminders were given.  “Tag the mouse, don’t jump on the mouse….”  

Everyone else took position to lift and lower their portion of the parachute to make waves.  

The wave-makers took their job very seriously, working up a serious sweat and causing an imposing storm upon that silk sea.  

While Makenna, Delaney and Cedar scrambled under the parachute accumulating an imbalance of electrical charges on their skin, little cats Ben, Micah and Ainsley scampered about attempting to flatten the mice. 

Delaney admitted it was a little bit scary to be crawling furtively under the parachute with tiny cats in hot pursuit!  

I am sure the second graders were wondering what on earth was going on across the hall as the raucous group's thunderous amusement and squealing was barely muffled by the classroom walls and door. 

Click link here to enjoy some of the excitement for yourself:  

In retrospect, I should have offered to help Mrs. Ness reattach her classroom decorations after those impressive wind gusts subsided.

I suspect the PALS will be smiling over their wonderful blustery memory for years to come.

  

DANCING NAPKINS

Penn View alumni Brooks Inciardi in his memorable role as Lumiere
for Dock's performance of Beauty and the Beast in 2011

Relishing the enthusiastic and delightfully unruly antics of the candlestick Lumiére has for years been my favorite part of the musical Beauty and the Beast.  

Calvin Derstein as Penn View's beloved candlestick

But last month I gained new appreciation for a portion of the performance I had never before paused to consider.  The process behind napkins who know how to DANCE.

Penn View’s Drama Department prepared a wonderful presentation of Beauty and the Beast, Jr for enthralled crowds at the beginning of March.  One month earlier, our Family and Consumer Science instructor Melanie Baker took on the challenge of creating thirty skirts which would enchantingly transform thirty ordinary (albeit brave and rhythmically gifted) middle school students into thirty fabulous dancing napkins.

Having not an ounce of ability in the area of sewing, Mel's task is something I could never have accomplished in my wildest dreams.  Which is part of the reason I was intrigued to the point of volunteering my assistance when I heard she was looking for helpers! I had to see it for myself.

Not feigning skills I lack, I was forthright with my lack of sewing competency.  I advertised myself as unskilled labor and told her I was willing to learn or accomplish whatever mundane task she wanted to assign.  Still, she gave me the benefit of the doubt and when I arrived she remained in hopeful optimism that I would in some way touch a sewing machine.  

There were instruction sheets, handcrafted patterns, and foreign objects like bobbins….  
There was expectancy on her face.  But, nope. 

It didn’t take long before I was wisely steered away from the sewing machines and put to work on the far side of the room.  My task was to pin a long rectangular pattern to white cotton and cut out long strips of fabric. Some loser in Ancient Egypt did the same trivial thing for countless mummified remains.

The long fabric tails would become waistbands for skirts once placed into the hands of people who actually know how to thread a needle on a machine.  People like the three talented Middle School students who volunteered their time to help and had more awareness about making a garment than the school nurse who has had more than half a century to glean that knowledge.  

Mackenzie Smith, Ruth Michel and Olivia Yetter created skirts with admirable confidence while I was applying Bandaids (yes, plural) to the pinholes I had inadvertently poked into the tips of my fingers. Of course the skirt fabric had to be white….

Student Mackenzie Smith and PE teacher Cheryl Ryder turning fabric into twirling masterpieces 

Administrative Assistant Bonnie Miller
pressing a skirt

While several of my coworkers were displaying the skills of a seamstress, their machines humming complicated quartets about the superiority of their needlework skills…I was sweating (I kid you not) and trying desperately not to make a mistake while I cut out my long simple strips. I'm not to proud to say I was eyeing the clock... just like I watched it when I was 15 years old and trying to complete a two hour shift of babysitting for the world's angriest toddler.  But that's a story for another day.

Band Director Shelley Berg along with Ruth and Olivia
(two of our magnificent student seamstresses). 

Science teacher and resident choreographer Lisa Reichley worked with the napkins until they were dancing like The Rockettes.  

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE! 

The show was marvelous. Earned or not, I felt satisfaction knowing that the waistbands holding up those skirts were cut with my very own quaking hand.  

DRESS REHEARSAL FOR THE DANCING NAPKINS

So I guess one could say Penn View’s sewing project had a true Disney finish.  Mrs. Baker was a heroine. The dancing napkins were truly spectacular.  Even my fingertips lived happily ever after. 

SWEET SPOT

Lunchtime was a much different experience when I started working at Penn View fifteen years ago.   Our school community was housed in a relatively dated building with no cafeteria at all.  Tucked in the small corner of a rather obscure hallway sat a beloved freezer which contained several ice cream confections for purchase.  Eager students would bring their quarters in trade for an ice cream sandwich or Popsicle to cap off the packed lunch they had just consumed in the classroom.  It is the stuff of legend!  My son and his peers enjoyed hours of wonderful lunchtime hangman on dusty chalkboards with volunteer lunch parents. Yet they claim deprivation upon seeing the beautiful cafeteria and delicious food now served at their alma mater.  I’ve heard Penn View graduates in their late twenties and early thirties telling the stories of having to “eat lunch at a desk!”  just as those of us in preceding generations recall with drama the torture that was walking to school…in the snow drifts… for miles and miles…..

One of the classrooms in Penn View's former building.  We LOVED those chalkboards!

Noontime frozen treats were a big deal when I was in school and remain just as popular with the Penn View crowd.  My own memories involve a small portion of vanilla ice cream in a soft folded paper dispenser that could be squeezed with great satisfaction into one’s mouth.  This delicacy was called a “squeezie.”  At the risk of dating myself, I recall this treat costing me a WHOLE NICKEL.  A friend reminded me recently that our pal Susie Johnson would purchase one of these confections every single day.  She’d methodically bore holes with her milk straw and douse the entire product with chocolate milk in an effort to transform the flavor from boring old vanilla.

Flash forward forty-odd years.  Penn View cashier Lisa Nice reports that just like my childhood friend Susie, there are several students whose lunch is not complete without a visit to the ice cream freezer. 

Sweet second grader Evie LOVES her ice cream.  She is, after all, a Rosenberger’s Dairy descendant. 

Delicious ice cream is probably part of her genetic makeup!  Besides that, it’s portable and IT’S PINK.

It is entirely possible that the two biggest ice cream sandwich fans in the building are eighth grader Sam Vervoort and last year’s Interim Executive Director, Dr. Don Steiner! 

 

Dr. Steiner (pictured above) might try deny his ice cream sandwich attachment, but we have lots of witnesses who are willing to testify…. 

Kaleb thinks cones are definitely the way to go!

Dr. Lore, caught with a cone.

Food Services Director John Anderson does an outstanding job finding healthy options and alternatives for our cafeteria.  He says, “Fortunately, there are some better choices available today.  Delicious possibilities without all the extra calories and saturated fat we ate when we were children.”

Wikipedia describes “sweet spot” as the place where a combination of factors results in a maximum response for a given amount of effort.  But I contend, a “sweet spot” can also occur in the middle of an ordinary school day with a detour for frosty contentment courtesy of Penn View cafeteria's well-appreciated ice cream freezer!  

WE LOVE GRANDPARENTS!

Grandparents can be wonderful for hugs, support, wisdom, and let’s be frank…indulging their grandchildren. Here at Penn View we are grateful and honored to be beneficiaries of time given by some of these special people. It just doesn’t get any better than grandparents who cheerfully volunteer their presence at school! 

We have amazing parent and aunt volunteers too. Though there are many helpers for whom our school community is sincerely thankful, we’d like to shine the spotlight on two established standouts in this month’s blog. Their faithfulness as volunteers is a true gift to us.

Linda Dariano (better known in these parts as “Mrs. D”) is the embodiment of sunshine on two feet. She can regularly be seen in the hallway reading books with kindergarten students. Even perching on a miniature student chair in the occasionally chilly hallway for these readings does not dissuade her passion for helping our newest readers. 

The kindergarten teachers and students find her to be amazing.  As teacher Melissa Quirk reports, “Seldom do grandparents come in to read in the hallway with our kindergartners, but Linda does. She is so sweet and willing to help out. She always has a smile.”  

This is the second year Mrs. D has read stories with our students.  When she heard there was a need, she jumped at the opportunity.  Six of Linda’s grandchildren currently attend Penn View and love to see their grandmother’s face in the hallway at school. They also enjoy harassing her for gum from her purse but that is a story for another day! :) 

"Mrs. D" and her wonderful collection of  Penn View grandchildren!

After a move to our area six years ago, Peggy Deily happened to drive her car past a sign advertising a Penn View Open House. Attending the event, she decided to offer us some precious volunteer hours. She shares, “I was willing to volunteer somewhere but I sure am blessed to be at Penn View.” It has been six years since Peggy found us and she appreciates the freedom to share her faith as well as her gifts in teaching. Stopping to pray with a struggling student is a privilege she does not fail to appreciate.  

Peggy came to us after retiring from the Reading School District with a wealth of experience in special education. It was time for her husband to retire and even though she wasn’t ready to leave teaching, she followed suit.  She and her husband enjoy five grandchildren. Though her own grandchildren are not students on our campus, she maintains wonderful connections with the children of Penn View. 

Peggy LOVES travel and unlike many of us- she adores snow!  She is such a regular presence in the lives of Penn View elementary students, it is hard to remember she is not actually on payroll. Peggy is a regular Energizer Bunny, jumping in with unbridled enthusiasm wherever she is needed. The teachers who work alongside her have noted her patience and her willingness to take on whatever job needs doing. No task is too small or too large. 

Our teachers appreciate Peggy’s enduring smile. When asked if there are any words they’d like to share about Peggy, one teacher reported, “I could go on forever!” 

Peggy’s quick response and efficient project completion make her an invaluable part of the Penn View team.  She leads book clubs for advanced readers in our elementary school. Peggy tutored some of our international students and spends time catching up students who missed work due to absence. She uses her gifts to reinforce math concepts when someone is having difficulty. In a pinch she has even helped in the nurse’s office with vision screening. 

First grade teacher Gem Miller sums it up this way. “Peggy Deily should be sainted for all of the work she does here!”  

Peggy is focused on her personal mission.  One morning recently, she shared the tattered piece of paper she carries with her at all times. Why I Volunteer:  “Whoever serves should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 4:11b

We are so thankful for the assistance and influence these amazing women provide as they interact with our school community.

In November 2013, a special photograph was taken of our entire school community.
Ever the adventurer, Peggy ascended inside Bergey's Electric cherry picker,
fulfilling a bucket-list dream.  

If you have hours to share and would like to join our remarkable volunteer team, contact Jennifer Crissman (215-723-1196, ext 1304 or jcrissman@pennview.org )