pegasus magazine fall 2013

ISSUE 6 / FALL 2013THE PEGASUS SCHOOL

What do

Think?YOU

MISSION STATEMENT

The Pegasus School is dedicated to academic excellence and to the development of lifelong learners who are confident, caring, and courageous.

COMMUNITY VALUES

Our students learn best, and develop the skills they need to pursue their dreams, in a community that is:

• Diverse, collaborative, and vibrant

• Serious about academic life

• Rich in opportunities

• Nurturing of the gifted student

• Engaged in the world outside the school

PORTRAIT OF A GRADUATE

• Academically Confident

• Well Balanced

• Critical Thinker

• Exceptional Communicator

• Collaborative Leader

• Responsible Citizen

• Environmentally Conscious

• Technologically Adept

• Economically Astute

• Versed in the Arts

• Globally Aware

PEGASUS STUDENTS love to learn, to be challenged, and to work hard; they are bright and motivated; they are joyful; they grow in both intellect and empathy.

PEGASUS TEACHERS love to teach; they are flexible, creative, collaborative, and innovative; they foster each student’s individual gifts and passions; they educate the mind and the heart.

PEGASUS PARENTS value education; they work closely with the school in a partnership based on thoughtful communication and mutual respect.

2 THE PEGASUS SCHOOL

Fall 2013

www.thepegasusschool.org

EDITORIAL BOARD

Nancy Conklin, Director of Admission

Rick Davitt, Photographer

Sue Harrison, Director of Advancement

Karla Joyce, Writer

Shalini Mattina, Assoc. Director of Advancement,

Marketing

Nancy Wilder, Middle School English Teacher

John Zurn, Head of School

WRITERS

Karla Joyce

John Zurn

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Jennifer Aguilar

Jamie El-Erian

Karla Joyce

Jean Kawahara

Mike Mulroy

Jonathan Stark

Tricia Starkenburg

Marrie Stone

Ellen Williamson

ART DIRECTION AND DESIGN

Shalini Mattina

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Rick Davitt

PRINTING

Orange County Printing

Pegasus Magazine is published twice yearly by the Office of Advancement at The Pegasus School. It is archived at thepegasusschool.org/about/publications

We welcome your feedback! Please address queries and comments to Shalini Mattina [email protected]

Table of Contents

FEATURES 20 Think About It

25 Homework

28 The Art of Narrative

30 If You Build It, They Will Come

ALUMNI

PEGASUS NOW 5 Head’s Message

6 At the Heart of

8 Program: Writers Workshop

10 Distinguished Speaker Series: Sal Khan

12 Faculty Focus: Remy Carl

16 New Middle School Electives

18 Program: The Age of Apps at Age Ten

40 Calendar

34 Those Who Soar

37 Alumni Connections

PEGASUS MAGAZINE FALL 2013 3

“We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.” – Carl Sagan

The terms “critical thinking” and “critical thinking skills” are used so frequently

in education that they risk ubiquity. But, maybe that is the idea. The notion that

we teach students how-to-think, like it is a subject, misses the point. We teach

students how to track down answers to their own burning questions, how to

compare and contrast reams of information, how to synthesize and evaluate and, ultimately, make decisions. If we make this process

reflexive, we educate for life.

How do we do this?

In this issue of Pegasus Magazine, the concept of critical thinking is defined and examined from every angle. Karla Joyce tackles the

topic from the perspective of inside the classroom. Through conversations with teachers in our primary, lower, and middle schools, she

identifies clear developmental stages students pass through as they develop their critical thinking skills.

Of course, thinking doesn’t stop at the end of a school day. Marrie

Stone picks up the torch outside the classroom as she follows Pegasus

families into their homes for a look at how we can foster critical-

thinking skills in everyday living. And Jonathan Stark makes the

case for invention as the ultimate model of critical thinking; his

inside look at Adam Stockman’s DreamLab exposes the vitality at

play when thinking happens.

Thinking critically involves identifying the relationship between

subjects, and we mimic this in the development of our curriculum.

Jennifer Aguilar outlines the wide array of offerings among our

new middle school electives- classes specifically designed to

address unique curiosities. And Tricia Starkenburg shares with

you the exciting new primary school program called Writers Workshop, where our earliest learners are being given the vocabulary

and the opportunity to think critically.

This opportunity to reflect, to evaluate, and to create permeates the student experience at Pegasus. It shapes the character of our

children and defines a lifestyle of thoughtful insight and purposeful action. It is the reason our students are so well received at area

high schools and the reason they will find themselves attracted to leadership roles in their future communities.

HEAD’S MESSAGE


ThinkingaboutThinking

John Zurn

Head of School

At the Heart of Pegasus by Karla Joyce

Early last spring, Olivia Barkhordar was bouncing along the blacktop in a pack of fourth grade girls, happy as ever. Nobody would have noticed the enlarged lymph node the size of a

marble in her neck; in fact, she had to crane significantly to bring it out. Her teacher, Jennifer Green, was one of the first to spot it. Lisa Arangua, Olivia’s mother, rushed her to the pediatrician, but really, they would say now, it was unclear, asymptomatic. And the doctors concurred, associating it with Olivia’s waning sore throat. Olivia quietly asked: “Do I have cancer?” No, said the experts, after myriad tests for lymphoma failed. But the lymph node and Arangua persisted. When — a whole month later — an ultrasound came back stamped urgent and a biopsy followed, Olivia’s fear was confirmed: she had papillary thyroid cancer. During spring break, UCLA surgeons removed 100 cancerous nodes from her neck. The disease was ultimately identified as a very rare variant called diffuse sclerosing papillary carcinoma (DSPC), and Olivia endured radiation, days in isolation and a whole host of demons that kept her painfully awake for months.

“I Feel Protected”It had been Olivia’s idea to go public. Days after the diagnosis Karen Hurst, the Pegasus nurse, sat Olivia down like a daughter and said, frankly: let’s talk. How did she want to manage this? Should they tell her classmates? Nobody would expect communicating cancer to be easy at any age; at age 10, it seemed inconceivable. But Olivia insisted. Hurst orchestrated a grade-wide sit-down with Olivia and Arangua facing sixty kids and their teachers, all rapt and unmistakably compassionate. They described the disease, the procedures, treatments and prognosis, answered questions, shared fears, and yes, cried. In general, there is a mystery to cancer. But when a fourth-grade brain wraps itself around the concept, facts jumble, distortion spreads. Stopping it, like a bodyguard, was Robby Keilch, fellow fourth grader. Robby and Olivia had been fast friends since preschool, always classmates but more: they were in sync. If Olivia was hurt, he was there. He ran interference, dismissed chatter, and delivered news as it happened on a need-to-know basis. He visited her in the hospital and joined her in isolation, via Skype. There was tremendous peer support and a devoted ring of friends, but Robby was there. Post-surgery, Dr. Shreeti Patel, Pegasus parent, took a knee to ask Olivia face-to-face just how she felt. Olivia thought first, then answered: “I feel protected.”

The Army of AngelsPatel is just one of a group of adults who, from the outset, supported Olivia and her parents with tenacity. Extended family and close personal friends were in this camp, as well as a collection of Pegasus parents and teachers so armed with compassion and purpose that Arangua dubbed them her Army of Angels. Fellow Pegasus parents and longtime friends, Lisa Argyros and Angie Karahalios, carried Arangua emotionally, calling her daily. Karen Hurst was the back-up mom, and Kelly Townsend, parent, the mobilizer. Second-grade teacher, Sharon Goldhamer, donated a laptop for the Skype sessions during isolation and third-grade teacher, Vicki Olivadoti, visited regularly. And, fifth-grade teacher and friend, Keri Gorsage, monitored Olivia’s seamless return to campus.

The dictionary defines community as a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals. This mayor may not include friendship. Typically, these two pages of the Pegasus Magazine feature a collection of stories about individuals in our community that — together — say who we are. The portraits that follow are different, however. They are not separate. They don’t celebrate individualism, personal achievement, or quiet dedication. Instead, they bear witness to the intense friendship that bubbles below the surface of the Pegasus community.

This is the heart of Pegasus.

Snapshot of a Community

Olivia’s Story


The family was optimistic. “We had nailed the surgery,” Arangua says. “We were in the hands of the extraordinary physicians at Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA.” But anxiety held on, a consequence of cancer treatment that Jamie El-Erian, friend and Pegasus parent, knew well. El-Erian had lost her father to cancer the week Olivia was diagnosed. Her experience with the specialists at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston had been so impactful that she urged Arangua and her husband to consult with them, for peace of mind. Patel, herself a physician and advocate of extensive research, identified and contacted experts in papillary thyroid cancer at New York’s Sloan Kettering and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The team at UCLA willingly expanded to include these new parties and, together, they determined that Olivia’s impending protocol was not efficacious for children. It was innovative, but it would have been ineffective for Olivia. “We really could have blown it,” says Arangua. In the battle against cancer, it’s good to have an Army of Angels.

Flat Olivia Travels the WorldWhile doctors were redefining how to treat children with this form of cancer, Kelly Townsend was busy keeping Olivia connected. She devised a scheme to bring friends to her in the hospital in isolation over the summer. With vanilla card stock cut into the shape of a doll, she created the Flat Olivia. Classmates, teachers, friends and family all dressed up their “Flats” and packed them safely into suitcases for some far-flung adventures.

Pictures of Flat Olivia popped up daily from places like Palm Springs, Cabo San Lucas, New York City, and Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, where Mrs. Green was giving birth. (Flat Olivia was in the delivery room.) And, thanks to the Argyros family, the “Flats” made impressive friends. While in Washington, D.C., Flat Olivia was photographed with General Colin Powell, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and Buzz Aldrin. And — because she is just a kid — Brad Pitt.

Olivia is back at school, in step in fifth-grade and moving forward. Her health is strong, math is hard, and there is a fishtail, rainbow-loom bracelet waiting to be mastered. But Olivia carries with her the substance of her experience. She has the comfort of knowing that there are many mothers, standing behind her own; there are scores of friends who love her; there are strangers, in distant locations, willing to work on her behalf. And there are angels around every corner in our Pegasus Community.

Flat Olivia in Palm Springs with Chase Harvey

Flat Olivia with Lisa Argyros (L), Brad Pitt, and Julia Argyros (R)

Olivia’s Army of Angels


Karla Joyce is a Pegasus parent and contributing writer for the Pegasus Magazine. Contact: [email protected]

PROGRAM

Ask Nancy Larimer’s kindergarten class, “Who here is

a writer?” and you will see every hand shoot into the

air. Ask Sandy Deering’s pre-kindergarten class, “If you

have a great story to tell, give me a thumbs up,” and you will see

every student give not one but two thumbs up. Observe Sarah

Hurwitz’s kindergarten class during free-play, and you will see

clusters of students discussing their story ideas. Something new

and exciting is infecting the primary school. And that something

is Writers Workshop.

What exactly is this Writers Workshop that makes primary

school students cheer and ask for more? At its core, Writers

Workshop is a program that teaches kids from the earliest ages

to be writers. Students brainstorm story ideas, organize their

thoughts, write and write some more, revise and revise again,

and finally publish a finished piece of work.

Founded 30 years ago by Lucy Calkin at Columbia

University, Writers Workshop has helped thousands of teachers

transform their writing curriculum. Tashon McKeithan,

Primary School Director who joined Pegasus in 2012 with

extensive experience in Writers Workshop, encouraged primary

school teachers to try the program last year. “I suspected

Writers Workshop would fit well with the Pegasus gifted


by Tricia Starkenburg

The Writers Workshop, at Work, at Pegasus

Mouths of abesOut of the

curriculum,” says McKeithan. “By its nature, Writers Workshop

is differentiated. The program works for writers who are writing

well-above grade level, as well as for writers who are just

beginning. It meets each writer at her level and then continually

stretches and challenges her.”

The primary school faculty experienced immediate results.

“Students who had no previous interest in writing were

suddenly writing pages and pages,” shares Hurwitz. “And during

a single session I showed a more advanced writer how to add

spaces between his words and a beginning writer how to label

his pictures with beginning sounds.”

Such positive results led the primary school division to

embrace Writers Workshop this academic year with one

modification. Instead of starting in kindergarten, Pegasus is

starting in pre-kindergarten. “It’s a risk,” states Deering. “But we

believe our students are ready.”

The risk appears to be paying off. “I have students ask me

during recess when the next Writers Workshop will be,” says

pre-kindergarten teacher Traci Lappin. “Other than free-choice, I

don’t recall students ever asking about a specific subject.”

“My students cheer every time it’s time for Writers

Workshop,” says Deering. The pre-kindergarten team agrees that

their students connect with Writers Workshop in part because

the program taps into each writer’s passions and imagination.

“A pre-kindergartener who is obsessed with airplanes can write

about airplanes every day,” says Deering, “and a writer who is

passionate about fairies can write about fairies every day.”

Recently, Jennifer Green’s fourth grade class witnessed first-

hand the power of Writers Workshop when they participated

in their pre-kindergarten buddies’ first ever publishing party. A

core Writers Workshop activity, story publishing occurs several

times a year. Each writer chooses his favorite story, makes final

edits, titles his story, designs a book cover, creates a title page,

and finally publishes his book. The class then throws a party

to celebrate both the writer’s published work and the writer

himself. “We wanted to make our first publishing party extra

special by inviting our fourth grade buddies,” says Deering.

“Sandy and I knew the publishing party was a great idea

for a buddy event,” says Green, “but we had no idea what a

tremendous success it would be.” Before the party, Deering’s

class practiced and practiced reading their stories out loud,

and Green’s class practiced listening attentively and providing

positive comments. All the practice paid off.

Each pre-kindergartener and first-time author confidently

and proudly read her published story to her fourth grade buddy,

and the older buddy listened intently and praised her work.

“Every single student in the classroom was engaged,” says Green.

“No one wanted the party to end.”

Green states the positive experience continued back in her

fourth grade classroom. “My students couldn’t believe what

creative and confident storytellers their pre-K buddies were,”

she says. “More importantly,” Green continues, breaking into a

big grin, “my students asked when they could write their own

stories.” Green looks forward to celebrating more publishing

parties with Deering’s class this year. “It was a huge win-win.

It was one of those authentic teaching moments you can’t plan,”

says Green. “It just happened.”

Yes, Writers Workshop is definitely infecting primary

school. It’s infecting it with the joy of writing.

Tricia Starkenburg is is a Pegasus parent and contributing writer for the Pegasus Magazine. Contact: [email protected]


... students connect with Writers Workshop

in part because the program taps into each writer’s passions and imagination.


Meet

by Jamie El-Erian

Founder and Executive Director,Khan Academy

ON OCTOBER 12, 2013, THE PEGASUS SCHOOL HOSTED SAL KHAN, THE VISIONARY

BEHIND THE EPONYMOUS, NON-PROFIT EDUCATIONAL WEBSITE, KHAN ACADEMY. With over 300 million people in 216 countries in over 24 languages viewing his videos, Khan Academy is well on its way toward achieving its ambitious mission: to provide a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

If you open today’s newspaper, you will find the United

States ranked 14th in reading, 25th in math, 17th in

science and an abysmal 22nd in high school graduation

rates, as compared to the top 27 industrial nations

worldwide. This is equally troubling given that the

United States spends an average $10,000 per student each year

(about $1.3 trillion annually) on education. Our high school

dropout rates hover close to 30% (1.2 million students a year)

correlating to double the national average unemployment rate

for those under 24 years old. Perhaps more dire, studies show

that 75% of all crimes are committed by high school dropouts,

with incarnation costs of approximately $31,000 per year.

Combine that figure with lost tax income and you have a total

annual societal cost of $1.8 billion…for our dropouts, alone.

That’s the bad news. Here is the good news.

Brilliant minds are working to solve these problems

here and abroad, and they are making a difference. The new

kid on the educational block is Sal Khan, who is graciously

celebrating his 37th birthday and vision for the future of

education with Pegasus and our local community. What Sal is

doing in education is a game changer.

Sal has three degrees from MIT in Math, Electrical

Engineering and Computer Science and an MBA from

Harvard. He is listed in Fortune magazine’s ‘40 under 40’ (the

40 most influential people under the age of 40), has been

profiled twice on ‘60 Minutes,’ and has been named by TIME

magazine among the ‘100 Most Influential People in the

World.’ He has received grants from the Gates Foundation,

Google, The Broad Foundation and Oracle, been awarded

the Microsoft Tech Award for Education and been invited to

speak at a TED conference by Bill Gates (who admitted to

using the Khan Academy to teach his own kids).


A little history about Khan Academy. In 2004, Sal began

tutoring his cousin Nadia in algebra. By 2006, due in part to

Nadia’s wild success, he starting uploading tutoring sessions

to YouTube for his other cousins. People — many more than

his cousins — started watching. In 2009, Sal quit his day job

as a hedge fund analyst to start Khan Academy, a free online

site offering educational videos to

everyone, everywhere. His site has

over 4500 videos, teaching kids

from kindergarten through 12th

grade subjects ranging from math,

sciences, economics, and finance to

history and the humanities. These

lessons are paced to an individual’s

needs so that basic concepts can be

understood deeply, with no gaps,

allowing greater mastery of more advanced material.

Let me share how the Khan Academy has affected my

life. Last month, I went to Arkansas to see my nieces and

nephews. In my own household, we had been visited by

the ghost of subtracting negative numbers, so when I arrived in

Arkansas I asked the kids, casually, over dinner: ‘What is

negative 3 minus negative 3?’

I got back two blank stares, one “negative six” and a

“zero.” It had been a long time since I thought about negative

numbers, so I wasn’t exactly sure which one was correct.

We loaded up two iPhones, one iPod, an iPad and a Kindle

with the app and looked for pre-algebra. Khan Academy has

eleven videos on positive and negative numbers, two of which

are dedicated to subtracting negative numbers. Within five

minutes we had watched the relevant video, and I repeated

the question:

‘What is negative 3 minus

negative 3?’ and an enthusiastic

‘zero’ came back, even from me!

Four kids, five minutes, and the

confidence to last a lifetime. My

nephew said, “I wish Sal Khan was

my teacher.” I shot back: ‘Sal Khan IS

your teacher! He’s YOUR teacher!’

We live in a wonderful time. All

of my grandparents were born and

raised in rural Arkansas. They received their entire education

in one room, grades one through twelve taught by a single

teacher. In my lifetime, I am seeing this concept come full

circle. Khan Academy has captured the concept of the one-

room schoolhouse and reimagined it online as a virtual One-

World schoolhouse, where everyone, everywhere, at anytime

has access to a world-class education…for free.

This concept is changing the world.

Jamie Walters El-Erian is a Pegasus parent and attorney. She is married to Mohamed El-Erian.

Brilliant minds are working to

solve these problems here and abroad, and they are making a difference.


FACULTY FOCUS

by Mike Mulroy

Remy CarlMysteryand the

Pegasusof

2000 B.C. – Algebra is developed by the

Babylonians.

1923 – The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran, is

published.

1971 – John Wooden teaches Bill Walton

how to put on socks and tie shoes.

1984 – Dr. Laura Hathaway founds The

Pegasus School.

2005 – U.C. Berkeley wins NCAA Women’s

Rowing Championship

2010 – Remy Carl accepts a job in Middle

School at Pegasus.

2013 – Sal Khan presents at the Pegasus

Distinguished Speaker Series

What do these events have to

do with each other? Lots of

unknown variables in that equation.

Imagine you are a teacher, with the

task of solving an equation containing

approximately 20 pre-teen variables, all

with different learning styles; half of them

thinking they know more than they do

and the other half not yet fully confident

in their intellects. Tough problem to solve.

Fortunately, Pegasus teems with solutions

to this problem — the school’s teachers.

This article is about one of those teachers

who not at all ironically teaches Algebra:

Remy Carl.

But what does it mean to teach? Gibran’s prophet speaks of

teaching:

“No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep

in the dawning of our knowledge.”

“The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his

followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his

lovingness.”

Does Algebra lie dormant in the child’s mind, waiting to be

released? Did the ancient Babylonians invent Algebra or

discover it?

Carl speaks of John Wooden’s “Pyramid of Success.” The

middle block on the bottom row says “Loyalty — To yourself

and to all those depending

upon you.” Coach Wooden

said, “Loyalty is part of human

beings’ higher nature. It is also

part of the nature of great teams

and those who lead them. The

power of Loyalty is the reason

I placed it in the center of the

Pyramid’s foundation.”

Carl is loyal, fiercely loyal,

to her students — perhaps at

a time in their academic lives

when they need it most. She

ascribes her teaching success

not to her prowess in Algebra,

but rather to her ability to convince her students that she wants

them to succeed. I am reminded of that oft-repeated question,

“Why do I need to learn this; it’s not like I’m ever going to need

to know it.” So, what do the 12-year-olds really learn in seventh

grade Algebra? Generalizing, what do Pegasus students really

learn at Pegasus? They all, of course, work through a multi-year

curriculum chock-full of interesting facts and theories. But while

the subjects covered are generally the same, the discoveries are

quite different. The teacher plays a critical role here, but each is

really a guide. Going back to the Gibran quotation: it is really

about unlocking something already within. There is humility in

all of this — Pegasus students are not invented; they are discovered.

There is an important social aspect to the student’s journey,

which Carl recognizes. The challenge for the teacher, per

Gibran, is not to impart wisdom but to awaken the student by

demonstrating faith in the student. Try that in a group setting

with 20 different personalities and a need to move the class

through an established curriculum. Who better to get a team to

work together than the All-American coxswain on a Division I

champion rowing team? The metaphor from coxswain to teacher

is just too perfect; I half expected the desks in her classroom to

be set up in the shape of an 8-rower shell. But no, desks were

simply partnered together so that, according to Carl, “no student

would be alone.”

I happened to sit next to Carl at the Sal Khan Distinguished

Speaker Series event in early October. This personified reminder

of my looming deadline made it hard to focus on the lecture.

I heard enough though to drift off and daydream about it. I

give titles to my daydreams and call this one “Education Trek

2.0 — The Wrath of Khan.” I imagined a conversation I could

have had millions of years ago with a particularly cold-blooded

Tyrannosaurus Rex. I told

it that a comet was coming

and its smashing into Earth

would lead to the extinction

of the dinosaurs. T-Rex was

unhappy with this news and,

over my protestations about

my being just the messenger,

the daydream ends with me as

afternoon snack.

Still daydreaming, fears of

things far worse than T-Rex

emerge. Fear of a world of

children being educated at

their home computers, alone,

with the desks still paired together in Carl’s empty classroom.

Fear of parents avoiding both the financial burden of a great

education and the many ills of underperforming schools. Fear of

arguments about efficiency. Can a computer screen provide faith

and lovingness?

It was good that I had interviewed Carl prior to the lecture.

It was good that I sat next to her during the lecture. It helped me

get through it and not think of Pegasus as some sort of ancient,

mythical creature on the way out but rather as a critical force

in the lives of so many children and one that will be even more

critical in the years ahead. For these reasons, I give thanks

to Carl and all the teachers who everyday help our children

discover their inner Pegasus student.


Mike Mulroy is the proud Pegasus parent of Alden (5th) and Michael (Pre-K). Contact [email protected]


THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

The phenomenon whereby one tiny event - the butterfly

posing, wings frozen for inspection - can have large effects

elsewhere...like minutes later, when the child asks her teacher,

“Do butterflies have brains?” or “How long will that butterfly

live?” and the universe opens.


An aerial snapshot of the Pegasus campus on any

given day might suggest that primary, lower,

and middle school students mingle consistently,

like one big family. And, if the confidence and familial

conviviality of the greater student body is any indication,

they do. But zoom in on the hub of lockers at the east end

of the Quad, where clusters of preteens gather north and

scatter with direction, and the distinctness of the middle

school experience appears.

The editors at Pegasus Magazine asked me to investigate

the recently launched, massively expanded Electives

Program available to sixth through eighth graders. As

a parent of younger kids, I entered blindly. In a word,

middle school is invigorating...a place that feels youthfully

energetic, where teachers sport gnarly (a.k.a. cool) facial

hair and kids, the air of independence. They’re still kids,

but there is a palpable difference from the fourth and fifth

graders around the corner. According to Joe Williamson,

the middle school years are a time when students “branch

out, explore their interests, and take everything to the

next level.”

Sure, middle school students must manage the newness

of lockers, intensified academics, and rotating schedules,

but they are still shrouded in the comfort of Pegasus —

a place most have known exclusively for years. Freed from

physical transition anxiety, these students can “channel

their creativity and curiosity and, ultimately, emerge with

the ability to think critically,” says Adam Stockman. But

how do we facilitate the journey? “One way is building their

confidence,” adds Williamson, echoing the independence

program launched in third grade, when parents agree to

step away from homework and place the onus of success and

failure (or, learning) on the student. Another way, in Middle

School, is through electives.

Last year, middle school director, Joe Williamson, set

out to expand his electives curriculum to tap the thinking

REVIVALTINKERINGthe of

New Middle School Electives Designed to Make Things Happen

by Jennifer Aguilar


skills required in “making,” a buzzword for invention and

the application of technologies, including (but not limited to)

engineering-oriented pursuits. To augment a slate of proven

offerings, like Writers Workshop, Performing Arts, and Debate,

Williamson asked each of his teachers to come up with a new

elective course, stressing one essential guideline: “Make it

something you are passionate about.”

Apparently, seventh grade math teacher, Dustan Bridges,

is passionate about CO2 Dragster Cars. Bridges affectionately

describes his new elective as “Pinewood Derby on steroids” and

his enthusiasm is infectious; over 20 students signed up. In this

one-semester course, kids take a rudimentary kit consisting of

a wood block and wheels, and design and build a small racecar

powered by a CO2 cartridge. Students learn about mass, inertia,

friction, thrust, aerodynamics, and Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion,

but the real draw is speed. Longtime Pegasus science teacher

Rob Grant, who taught a similar class before his passing in 2008,

inspired Bridges.

Equally popular is Stockman’s Dreamlab, a course-like

“experience” that draws heavily from the “maker” movement,

a technology-based extension of D-I-Y culture. Dreamlab

is a “venue for student-driven learning and tinkering,”

says Stockman, “using tools such as a 3-D printer and

microcontrollers.” He sees Dreamlab as a throwback to the

1960s and earlier, when every kid in school had to build a simple

electrical circuit. “In a time when we have access to so much

technology,” says Stockman, “the irony is that we have little

understanding of how these devices are built or how they work.”

Science teacher Julie Warren designed a Simple Mechanics

elective based entirely on Rube Goldberg, a cartoonist who

imagined and drew extraordinarily complex machines that

accomplished very simple tasks. In this one-semester course,

students work in groups of three to create machines using

mechanical, chemical and/or heat energy transfers to accomplish

simple goals, like opening a window, making a paper airplane

fly, or turning on a light.

Many of the new electives promote a revival of tinkering

that, according to Williamson, has become a lost art. “It’s the

cornerstone of invention!” Tinkering capitalizes on the innate

tendencies of children to figure out by fiddling, who learn

by doing. “For years,” Warren says, “parents of her students

watched their kids race home to work on a project, getting lost

in the process of building and testing to achieve a simple result.”

The Rube Goldberg elective is a structured outgrowth of her

curriculum.

Not all of the new electives involve technology, but they are

all driven to tap critical thinking skills operable in identifying

problems and creating solutions. Middle School Spanish

teacher, Valerie Harelson’s Marketing elective exposes students

to mainstream advertising and, by comparison, marketing

techniques particularly effective in raising awareness of a cause.

Remy Carl’s offering is Textile Arts, “a practical class focused

on life skills like: sewing a button, communicating, following

instructions, and making mistakes.” First lesson: knitting.

Williamson sees great potential for the new electives to

grow into a strong and successful program. “We have teachers

who are strongly connected to their subjects, many motivated to

seek continuing education to expand their knowledge. We have

students feeding off this energy. And we have the added bonus

of: no grades!” Williamson hopes that future waves of electives

will be student-initiated and created deliberately for unique

interests. In the meantime: Students, start your engines…

Freed from physical transition anxiety, these

students can ‘channel their creativity and curiosity and, ultimately, emerge with the ability to think critically.’

Jennifer Aguilar is the Pegasus parent of Noah (5th) and Sabrina (3rd). She designs and assists with the copywriting of marketing collateral for Communities for Cause (CfC). Contact: [email protected]


PROGRAM

The Age of

at Age TenTechnology that Changes How We Work, How We Teach, How We Learn

by Jean Kawahara

After a limited pilot program last year, fourth

through eighth graders are swapping Word, Excel

and Power Point for Google Apps for Education,

a cloud-based suite of software applications for

email, word processing, spreadsheets and computer slide

presentations. Although the basic functions have remained

the same, the change is just as exciting in the academic setting

as the professional world. Teachers and students are reveling

in the interactive capability that Google Apps affords, and

the newfound ease in editing, saving and submitting their

assignments.

Have Internet, Can Work!Front and center among the applications is Google Docs, a

word processing program that allows for online collaboration.

Gone are the days when the only means of seeing a student’s

work was when it was either printed or emailed to the

teacher. Now, students share their work file with

their teacher, enabling the teacher to open,

read and comment on — or even revise — the

students’ work online, sometimes while it’s still

in progress, allowing them to make sure that

they are on the right track. Collaboration among

students on group projects is also much easier, as they

can work on the same document or presentation

file simultaneously, and see and respond to each

other’s additions and revisions in real time.

Switching to Google Docs also has

meant that students no longer

have to worry about when

or where they saved their work; it is saved automatically to a

globally accessible drive, a.k.a. the cloud. Those frustrating days

of forgetting or losing the flash drive that contained all of one’s

assignments are gone. Instead, students can always access and

edit their work on school iPads, home PCs, even smartphones.

Jim Conti, middle school teacher and debate coach, was one

of the early adopters of Google Docs. He raves about how the

application enabled his debaters to brainstorm together as never

before, but he finds the same advantages for his eighth grade

social studies classes. Not only does Google Docs make it easier

for his students to work together on a project, the color-coded

revisions history feature allows him to see clearly what each

student contributed to the assignment codes. This transparency

extends to individual assignments, as well. Whether a student

has worked on an assignment consistently for two weeks or

began the night before, it will be documented on the revisions

history and irrefutably clear to the teacher. The dog

did not eat the homework!

HAPARA: Transparency, Accountability and SecurityEvery parent knows that monitoring one

child’s computer usage can be a daunting

task. How then can Pegasus teachers

supervise an entire classroom of students on their

laptops and iPads? Enter the Hapara Teacher Dashboard.

Initially developed in collaboration with teachers in

New Zealand, Hapara (the Maori word for

“daybreak”) is a management

system that layers on top


of Google Apps, allowing teachers to get a bird’s eye view of

students’ activity in all the Google applications. Hapara provides

teachers and parents with an added degree of transparency,

accountability and security in the face of increased online

activity.

Hapara organizes each class by student and

subject, and students merely drop their work into the

designated folder for each class or subject. Teachers can

see at-a-glance on their onscreen “dashboard” the

status of every assignment for each student, including

when the work was revised and by whom. This

dashboard view also facilitates teacher input, as class

assignments can be easily opened, reviewed and commented

upon from a single screen.

The Hapara dashboard helps teachers ensure that students’

online activity is efficient and appropriate. When students are

at work on their iPads, teachers can use the dashboard to see the

browser tabs and open-screens on each student’s device, alerting

them if a student is viewing inappropriate content or is simply

off-task. Teachers can also see what files or links students may

have shared with each other and, if necessary, monitor emails

sent through students’ Pegasus Gmail accounts.

Jennifer Green, fourth grade teacher, gushes about how

the program has enhanced her ability to manage her students’

work and help them navigate the freedom and responsibility of

their new school laptops. Hapara makes it easier for Green to

track down missing computer files, monitor students’ progress

on assignments, and send emails to some or all of her

students at the same time. She has even been known

to startle a wayward student to attention with an

instant message, alerting him to the fact that he had

been caught browsing the Internet — thanks to

Hapara. When asked whether the need for constant

monitoring might threaten to overwhelm her other

responsibilities, she smiles. “Once the kids know I can do this, I

really don’t need to use it anymore.”

These high-tech tools are dramatically affecting our lives,

and they are making our work efforts more efficient and

collaborative. What remains to be seen, however, is how this

different level of interaction between student and teacher and

heightened efficiency, from such a young age, will influence the

lives of our children and, by extension, our future.

Jean Kawahara-Dunlavey is the Pegasus parent of student Corinne (5th) and alumni Brett (’10) and Grant (’13). Contact [email protected]

FEATURE


I confess. When it comes to my childrens’ education, I hover.

I don’t taint their homework with stealth forty-something

insight, but it’s a calculated restraint. Instead, I read

pedagogy, the various methods and practices of teaching, and

follow its trends like a diet.

Around the time we entered Pegasus, I discovered

Bloom’s Taxonomy. Back in 1956, an educational psychologist

named Benjamin Bloom designed a classification of levels of

intellectual behavior in learning. He started with knowledge,

comprehension, and application, then progressed to the higher-

order thinking skills: analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

During the mid 90s, a new group of cognitive psychologists

re-envisioned this progression with 21st-century relevance:

remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating.

It seemed logical, like a snapshot of the developmental stages

that occur during elementary education and beyond. It is also

a framework from which emerge the concepts of critical and

creative thinking.

PRIMARY SCHOOLRemembering & Understanding

Theory aside, anybody with a four-year-old knows that kids have

an innate desire to understand why things happen and how things

work. Thinking is driven by the questions we seek to answer,

but to answer questions, we need information. Kristen Brady,

lower school learning specialist, points out, “The little guys

can’t reflect because they have less prior knowledge.” Although

critical thinking is most applicable to higher-order thinking, it

is how we transmit knowledge and coax understanding in these

youngest students that sets the stage for future thinkers.

According to Brady, there are key techniques that teachers

use to build students’ critical thinking skills at every stage of

development, starting early:

Open-ended Questions. Nancy Larimer, kindergarten teacher,

admits that the Socratic approach at this age relies more on

closed-ended questions, a fact-based question format that limits

respondents with a list of choices, “because we’re building

POP QUIZ:WOULD YOU RATHER YOUR CHILD GROW UP TO BE AN A-STUDENT OR A THINKER?

As a parent of twin fifth graders, I would answer: thinker. I think. But, backpedalling: a high GPA will serve them better on college applications. I think. Backtracking still: surely the ability to go beyond academic performance and create solutions will give their lives

greater meaning. Wait. Are they necessarily mutually exclusive? Is this a trick question? Am I failing?

So much has been written on the subject of critical thinking and thinking skills in childhood education that it is now ubiquitous, something assumed to be integrally woven into every classroom experience from kindergarten through college. Is it?

How does a five-year-old think critically? How are my eleven-year-olds learning to think creatively within the fifth grade American history curriculum? And how will my soon-to-be middle school students translate these critical thinking skills into the kind of

constructive thinking that transcends high-volume high school academics?

It is in this fog of not-knowing and questioning candidly — also known as thinking — that I ask educators from the Primary, Lower, and Middle divisions to discuss thinking…one developmental stage at a time.

ThinkABOUT IT

Teaching Students HOW to THINK...Critically, Creatively, Constructivelyby Karla Joyce


basic knowledge.” But open-ended questions exist. “We talk

about social skills in kindergarten and we do that through

books.” In every story there are opportunities for reflection, via

questioning. “I’m asking kids to put themselves in somebody else’s

shoes.” (And to the fifth grader: “How would the Revolutionary

War have been resolved without the support of other European

countries?” Research, compare and contrast, posit, defend. In

both cases: think.)

Patterns and Connections. Some kids see patterns naturally;

others learn to spot connections. Either way, it’s a critical

thinking skill that can be honed daily at a very young age.

Larimer turns her Friendly Frogs’ calendar time into a rousing

game of patternmaking. “Give them a grid with numbers, a

hundreds chart or basic calendar, and the options are endless.”

Older kids, says Brady, are challenged to “connect the content

between their classes and recognize how the content of these

classes relates to issues in their lives in meaningful ways.”

Categories and Classifications. Organizing information into

categories develops analysis, discrimination, comparison, and

logical thinking skills. Larimer can find myriad ways to simply

seat her kids on the carpet each day, grouping long hair or short

hair, boys versus girls, or blue eyes and brown eyes. “It helps

them see similarities and differences, and that there is no one

right way or wrong way of categorizing.”

Group Work. “Group work is essential,” explains Denise

Lessenger, second grade teacher. At higher thinking levels,

collaborative work breeds flexibility, an ability to apply

divergent opinions and the suspension of judgment, biases and

egocentrism. Starting early matters. “We regularly work in

groups,” says Lessenger. “Today, we sorted and categorized the

working parts of a community. Each group produced a book,

identifying their findings, such as places to learn, work, get help,

play, worship, buy, one page at a time.”

LOWER SCHOOLApplying & Analyzing

This is a developmental stage when the brain is taking in

massive amounts of information and the sourcing of research

material, as a newfound skill, takes center stage. Despite rich,

curricular opportunities to weave thinking-outside-the-box

into the assimilation of knowledge, there is a hard reality to

facts. Shannon Vermeeren, fifth grade teacher, laments that her

students — particularly the ones who have typically achieved

at high levels — are so driven to get right answers. One student,

upon receiving 87% on his first researching assignment, sobbed,

“I’m just not good at this!”

To address this roadblock, the fifth grade team strives

daily to challenge students to tap that four-year-old’s instinct

to question everything, but at a higher level. “Fifth grade is a

challenging year,” says Vermeeren. “It’s not harder because of

increased workload or academic content. It’s harder because we

are expecting the students to think in different ways.”

In a unit this fall, Vermeeren’s fifth grade students studied

the Lost Colony of Roanoke, a puzzling mystery in American

history in which 115 English settlers disappeared without a

trace. Vermeeren posed the question: What happened to them?

(Only theories exist, with clues pieced together from recently-

unearthed maps and three letters carved into a tree at the time.

But there is no certainty, no real proof, and no right answer.)

Working in groups, kids could answer in one of three ways:


Sure, we need to guide some kids

more than others. But at a certain point, we need to stop handing out answers and just say: THINK. They can do it.

via straight news article, based on evidence; tabloid article,

stemming from the most salacious speculation, or; fictional

narrative, from the perspective of the tree. The energy in the

room screamed: Are we being graded on this? What if I didn’t get it right?

The fact that this stage of learning-through-research exists

in a digital format presents its own critical thinking challenges.

A text here or there may be required for citation, but the bulk

of kids’ sources will be web-based. By necessity, according to

Brady, running parallel to the lower school academic curriculum

is a steady exposure to the three D’s: digital literacy (the ability

to discern the veracity of online sources), digital citizenship

(thou shalt not plagiarize), and our digital footprint.

Vermeeren insists that while all kids aren’t wired to analyze

data, make connections or solve problems at the same pace, they’re

all capable of getting there eventually. “Sure, we need to guide

some kids more than others. But at a certain point,” she says, “we

need to stop handing out answers and just say: THINK. They can

do it.”

MIDDLE SCHOOLEvaluating & Creating

Full disclosure: my attentiveness to pedagogic process has

waned of late, replaced by a busy schedule. The scope of my

girls’ learning extends far past my ability to lace bigger-picture

implications into every assignment. Maybe I’m just letting go.

Over the years, our dinner table conversation has moved from

questioning to reporting to argument to now, a more thoughtful

discussion; it’s practically adult-like. But it’s more than age. It’s

the natural progression toward higher-order thinking, and it

blossoms in middle school.

At this age, students should have a strong enough foundation

to deliberately apply the skills of analysis, problem solving,

critical thinking, organizational proficiency, research prowess,

and confidence in presentation. These skills are most visibly on

display in competitive debate. Debaters, led by eighth grade

teacher Jim Conti, learn the four building blocks of an argument:

assertion, reasoning, evidence, and impact.

According to Conti, an assertion is

a claim about the world, a stance on an

issue, or a simple statement, but it is not

an argument. Adding reasoning, (Conti

calls it “the because part”), is essential to

making arguments. And since debate

by its nature involves an opposing

viewpoint, providing proof — solid,

researched evidence — of the reasoning is essential. Finally,

the argument needs impact. “Who will really care about your

assertion?” asks Conti. “Whom will you affect?”

Whom will you affect? The question lingers.

This template, which integrates what students have learned

while forcing them to learn more broadly and in greater depth

than they would otherwise, isn’t reserved for extracurricular

debaters. “I purposely weave the debate format into my history

classes,” says Conti. “Kids are encouraged to make assertions,

offer a reason for the assertion and defend the assertions with

evidence both in writing, via a paragraph, and in discussion.

One student may view a concept — like the One Child Policy in

China — through a certain perspective,

while another may see it in a totally

different light. Both have to think

critically, using assertions, reasoning, and

evidence, to defend their perspective.”

My interest in education persists, and I

follow with fascination the likes of Sal

Kahn and others who are redefining how

we learn and, by extension, how we think. But I am also at ease

turning-over my twins to educators so clearly apace in their own

thinking evolutions, like Vermeeren.

“All of the 21st-century skills are important,” she says,

“but critical thinking is the game changer. This generation

is technologically astute and will graduate with a global

perspective and reasonable economic literacy. But the catalysts

of change will be the thinkers, those who can recognize

problems, analyze and understand them at their core, and come

up with creative, realistic solutions to solve them. We owe it

to our students, and ourselves, to do our best to develop these

skills in every single student.”


...the argument needs impact.

‘Who will really care about your assertion?’ asks Conti. ‘Whom will you affect?’


An aerial snapshot of the Pegasus campus on any

given day might suggest that primary, lower,

and middle school students mingle consistently,

like one big family. And, if the confidence and familial

conviviality of the greater student body is any indication,

they do. But zoom in on the hub of lockers at the east end

of the Quad, where clusters of preteens gather and scatter

with direction, and the distinctness of the middle school

experience appears.

The editors at Pegasus Magazine asked me to investigate

the recently launched, massively expanded Electives

Program available to sixth through eighth graders. As

a parent of younger kids, I entered blindly. In a word,

middle school is invigorating...a place that feels youthfully

energetic, where teachers sport gnarly (a.k.a. cool) facial

hair and kids, the air of independence. They’re still kids,

but there is a palpable difference from the fourth and fifth

graders around the corner. According to Joe Williamson,

the middle school years are a time when students “branch

out, explore their interests, and take everything to the

next level.”

Sure, middle school students must manage the newness

of lockers, intensified academics, and rotating schedules,

but they are still shrouded in the comfort of Pegasus —

a place most have known exclusively for years. Freed from

physical transition anxiety, these students can “channel

their creativity and curiosity and, ultimately, emerge with

the ability to think critically,” says Adam Stockman. But

how do we facilitate the journey? “One way is building their

confidence,” adds Williamson, echoing the independence

program launched in third grade, when parents agree to

step away from homework and place the onus of success and

failure (or, learning) on the student. Another way, in Middle

School, is through electives.

Last year, Middle School Director, Joe Williamson, set

out to expand his electives curriculum to tap the thinking

HOMEWORKby Marrie Stone

How Pegasus Parents Inspire Critical Thinking Outside the Classroom

IN AUGUST 2011, PEGASUS MOTHER JILL FALES

FOLLOWED THROUGH ON A DARING DECISION.

INSTEAD OF SENDING HER FOUR CHILDREN

BACK TO SCHOOL IN THE FALL, SHE LOADED

THEM INTO A MINIVAN AND SET OUT ON THE

GREAT AMERICAN FIELD TRIP, A THREE-MONTH

ADVENTURE OF ROAD-SCHOOLING ACROSS THE

UNITED STATES. Her children ranged in age from 6 to 14,

two boys and two girls, each with his/her own personalities

and enthusiasms. Fales managed to cover math, science,

literature, history, and countless other topics all through

hands-on experiences, real-life applications, and personal

encounters with people, museums, farms, national parks,

battlefields, rivers, libraries, mountains, and more. Each of

the twenty-seven states they visited offered a unique piece

of the American puzzle.

The backbone of Fales’s strategy was to bring learning

home by leaving home. Fales turned the country into an

interactive classroom and every person they encountered

into a teacher. The challenge, of course, was educating four

children of different ages and genders, and making a love of

learning part of their DNA. She accomplished this largely

through letting her children’s curiosities drive the learning,

asking open-ended questions, and fostering an environment

of consistent critical thinking.

Continued on page 26

(L-R) Heidi & Annika Tufo explore a friend’s home backyard pond full of water plants and critters.


CRITICAL THINKING DEFINED“Critical thinking” has become a buzz-phrase among

educators, and while most parents agree it’s an essential

skill, many still struggle to define it. According to Elizabeth

Shaunessy, Ph.D., in an

article she wrote for Duke

University on Enhancing

Critical-Thinking Skills in

Children: Tips for Parents,

critical thinking is

“nonlinear, open-ended, and

complex thinking; it allows

for multiple responses,

unspecified answers,

various perspectives

and interpretations,

and recognition of order

among chaos.” Simply put,

critical thinking focuses on

teaching the student how to

think, not what to think.

Examples of how

Pegasus teachers apply these

skills in their classrooms

abound, but what happens

when students go home? While not every Pegasus family

is prepared to take to the road for three months, there are

endless ways to enhance these skills in everyday, fun ways.

Pegasus parents, with their vast body of experiences and

expertise across diverse fields, are a largely untapped resource

of inspirational ideas.

THE SOLE CHALLENGEIn February of this year, Sugata Mitra, Professor of

Educational Technology at Newcastle University in the UK,

presented a TEDTalk revealing his intention to build a School

in the Cloud, a learning lab allowing children anywhere in the

world to engage in intellectual adventures by exploring and

collaborating online. Mitra introduced the SOLE Challenge, a

Self-Organized Learning Environment that can be created in

schools, at home, or anywhere there’s a broadband connection

and a group of curious children.

The SOLE approach depends on asking big, open-ended

questions: When did the world begin? How will the world

end? What happens to the air we breathe? What is a soul? Can

animals think? Stimulating a child’s natural curiosity and

giving them encouragement (letting learning happen) instead

of threats (making learning

happen) creates an environment

of contagious wonder.

Using this approach, Michael

Weber, a Pegasus parent,

magician, and consultant,

inspires his children to explore

many of life’s tricky questions:

what causes waves in the ocean,

the origins of cursive and, on a

practical note, exploring how

rubber stamps are made (which

led to Xander, his third grade

son, producing self-stamped

thank you notes for a birthday

party). “I like to model quick

lessons that don’t take too long,”

says Weber. Having discrete

tasks that can be accomplished

quickly is satisfying to children,

particularly young children. It

keeps them engaged and motivated.

“The art of accomplishment is the art of finishing things.

If you can model finishing things, actually completing a task,

you’re already ahead of most people,” Weber says.

MINING YOUR OWN PASSIONSSharing your own enthusiasms will help your children

connect to your passions and model critical thinking skills.

Some families engage their kids over the stock market,

investing money on their behalf so they can track the trends.

Others bond over reading the Sunday morning New York Times

or the Wall Street Journal, all the while stimulating discussion

through open-ended questions and soliciting opinions about

what’s happening in the world.

Our family dissects electronics. When a computer,

television or cell phone dies, we disassemble it piece by piece,

talking about what makes the device work and the art

of design.

The Fales children (L-R: Sally, Wyatt, Janey & Payton) role playing at Yorktown while learning about the battle of Yorktown! It was fun to imagine the battle between the Americans and French versus the British troops while running up and down the trenches.

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More information often begets more curiosity; one

question leads to others, and the process of critical thinking

spirals more deeply.

THE IMPORTANCE OF MENTORS In addition to asking your child open-ended questions,

eliciting conversations around the dinner table and hearing

their opinions, giving children access to mentors in subjects

that interest them will cultivate their curiosity. As a child,

Weber says he was surrounded by mentors — intellectually

engaged older adults who allowed quiet kids in the room. His

childhood exposure to sleight-of-hand legend Dai Vernon was

a major influence in the trajectory of Weber’s career in magic.

Weber now plays that mentoring role every chance he

gets, and he advocates the practice of seeking out experts

in any field. “It’s important to demystify the experience of

success,” he says. Professionals are often generous with their

time if you have an interest in their subject. Talking to them

helps children understand that success and achievement aren’t

reserved for the rich and famous.

“Approaching people with authenticity will garner their

respect. Being mindful of where your path intersects theirs is

helpful,” says Weber. “Once they see you’re further down the

path, they’ll listen to you.”

Mentors are everywhere. They don’t have to be educated

experts. Ask the Fales family. Nearly everyone they

encountered on their three-month sojourn taught them

something important, whether in the corn fields of Iowa using

complex math to determine gross and yield, or reenacting the

lunch-counter sit-ins from the Civil Rights movement at the

Smithsonian, or chatting with a WWII fighter pilot.

Many parents make the mistake of believing their tuition

dollars buy them out of engaging with their children on tough

intellectual topics. Opportunities to elicit critical reasoning

skills abound and, within the conversation, there’s the chance

not only to inspire thoughts and ideas, but to connect with

your child, ignite your own curiosities, and create a lifelong

love of thinking.

Students from the Pegasus Robotics team receive hands-on experience using the da Vinci Si Surgical System, thanks to parent physician, Dr. Reginald Abraham, who arranged the lesson.

Kai Kasserman & Jack Makler engage in conversation with an bladesmith from the Renaissance Pleasure Faire and learn how armor was constructed during the Medieval period.

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Marrie Stone is the Director of Public Affairs and co-host of “Writers on Writing” at KUCI, 88.9 FM and the mother of Haley Rovner (’15). Contact: [email protected]


FEATURE

Most of us can recall, perhaps

viscerally, the process of

selecting a school for our

children. You may remember your first

visit to the Pegasus campus, being

greeted by the front office staff, meeting

the admission personnel, touring the

classrooms. You weren’t merely handed

a fact sheet about the school (though

that information likely weighed into

your decision). Instead, you were taken

on a narrative journey of the school, starting wherever your child

would start, and imagining all the years before you. You heard

the story of the school, including Dr. Hathaway’s vision. You

were allowed to picture your child inside her classroom, what

she would learn, who she would see, how she would play, the

sights, sounds, smells, and textures of her day. You established

an emotional connection to the place where your child would

spend the majority of her waking time. The guided tour of the

campus provided the setting, and it allowed you to put your own

small character inside the world and

imagine the plot of your child’s untold

story.

Stories are how we create meaning.

In a world abuzz with more information

available than ever before, coupled

with technology that severely

compromises our attention spans, the

power of crafting a well-told story is an

increasingly rare skill.

In an article for CNNMoney, Douglas

Warshaw writes about Nate Silver joining ESPN as an expert

on how to use data to tell stories. He observed, “In order to

communicate—in order to truly move audiences, whether they

be one person or millions—data still need narrative, because

people are hardwired to be moved by emotion.”

Paul Smith, consumer research executive, corporate trainer,

and author of Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives

that Captivate, Convince, and Inspire, built a career on investigating

how companies can connect with, inspire, and motivate change

As early as pre-kindergarten,

students stand up in front of their class, share something from home, and tell their story.


in their clients and employees. Regardless of whether you’re

talking to the board, your boss, a subordinate, or a client, his

conclusion is this: the difference is storytelling. The ability to

tell a compelling story, one that makes an emotional connection

and influences human behavior, has been identified as one of the

essential traits for 21st century success. As Warshaw claims,

“Narrative is not just how we discuss the world, it’s how we

interpret it, how we bundle our neurological impulses and

responses to make sense of our immediate environment, which

has far too many data points for us to ever live solely by the

numbers.”

Opportunities for teaching effective storytelling abound

at Pegasus. As early as pre-kindergarten, students stand up in

front of their class, share something from home, and tell their

story. No wonder by the time students reach the Debate Team

in middle school, with all those years of emphasizing public

and persuasive speaking, they dominate over other leagues. Our

teachers have mastered the fine art of story and give students

every opportunity to cultivate their own. But how can parents

encourage and reinforce these skills at home?

IDENTIFY THE THEME. Children often tend to lose the big

picture when formulating their story. They’re easily distracted

by irrelevant tidbits and tangential facts. If your child suffers

from this common problem, wait until he completes his tale

and then ask questions. Can he sum the story up in one or two

sentences? Why was it important to tell you? What did he hope

you’d get from it? This exercise will help him settle on the theme

or purpose of the story, and what it meant to him.

PROMOTE EYE CONTACT AND BODY LANGUAGE. Lower

and middle grades are self-conscious years. Often children

haven’t found their confidence, or they lack experience engaging

with groups or adults. Reinforcing eye contact and effective

body language with acknowledgement and praise is a great way

to solidify those important skills.

MAKE THE AUDIENCE CARE. Filmmaker Andrew Stanton

(Toy Story and Wall-E) in his TEDTalk on The Clues to a Great Story,

says, “Storytelling is joke telling. It’s knowing your punch-

line, your ending, knowing everything you’re saying is leading

to a singular goal, and ideally confirming some truth that

deepens our understanding of who we are as human beings.

Stories affirm who we are. And nothing is a greater affirmation

than when we connect through stories and allow ourselves to

experience the similarities between ourselves and others, real

and imagined.” After the story is finished, share with your child

the parts you found the most interesting and engaging, the bits

you connected to the most.

ENCOURAGE POINT OF VIEW SHIFTS. There are few

better ways to build empathy in your child (or yourself) than

retelling a story from another person’s point of view. Forcing

your child to crawl inside the clothes of another, sleep in her bed,

and dream her dreams will widen her global perspective and get

her outside her own head. PBS icon Fred Rogers always carried a

saying from a social worker inside his pocket that said, “Frankly,

there isn’t anyone you couldn’t learn to love, once you’ve heard

their story.” Stories not only have the power to change the mind

of the listener, but of the teller, too.

Stories have the power to persuade, to inform, to relate, and

to identify. Just as Pegasus tells a compelling story on that

initial tour as a “safe place to be smart,” our students will use

narrative to tell their own stories as they apply to high schools,

colleges, and beyond. They will use storytelling to connect with

friends, spouses, employers, and competitors. They will create

bonds, strike deals, build bridges of understanding, and reach

compromises, all through the power of narrative. They will have

the ability to cut through the noise of information, technology,

and life served in bite-sized chunks to establish connections and

make meaning. The British playwright William Archer said,

“Drama is anticipation mingled with uncertainty.” Narrative is

the stuff of life.

There are many modern examples of innovation success

stories having started as hobbies, or hours of tinkering

in a garage. The most notable link: they started outside

the classroom. About a year ago, Teacher Adam Stockman, Pegasus

parent Dwight Decker, and Head of School John Zurn, crafted

a plan to create that captivating, chock-full-of-stuff garage at

Pegasus. It would be a room stocked with the right tools for

students to, as Stockman puts it, “uncover their passion for

something, and relentlessly pursue performance in that thing…

toward a novel conclusion.”

Zurn describes Dreamlab as the perfect forum for students

to pursue interests at a deeper level, convinced that they could

gain a more profound understanding if their passions about

a subject compelled them to physically create something.

“Essentially, Adam is teaching a kind of creativity that, in the

past, people honed outside a classroom setting.”

INNOVATION IN LEARNINGCertainly, Stockman, Decker, and Zurn shared a common

interest in bringing a new learning environment to The Pegasus

School. But the road from vision to fruition happened as the


FEATURE

IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COMEPegasus Creates Cutting-Edge ‘Learning Space’ with the Launch of

by Jonathan Stark

How frequently do we see people create new products or solutions to societal problems? Impatience with the

status quo and the pace of change is accelerating at a fantastic rate. As parents, we need to ask ourselves:

Are we preparing our children not only to live in a dynamic world, but also to shape it?How well will our children be prepared to answer the call: INNOVATORS WANTED?

Until recently, we lacked the vocabulary to even identify the common traits of an innovator. Innovation was

pervasive, but was neither tangible nor accessible. Then scholars such as Malcolm Gladwell, in his book

Outliers, gave us insight to how Bill Gates could build a Microsoft, Larry Page and Sergey Brinn could grow a

Google, Elon Musk could create Ebay and Tesla. With this glimpse into the process of innovation, educators

have rallied to recreate it, to give young, curious minds the setting to foster invention.

Three people in our community, each with idiosyncratic ‘impatience’ and vision, have come together

to create a unique, inventors’ environment at The Pegasus School, to tap the passion and latent traits of

innovation for Pegasus students in an age-appropriate setting.

It’s called DreamLab.


The

n

No

w

result of three divergent talents: Stockman’s passion for creating

this type of learning space for his students, Decker’s track

record of promoting innovative learning at Pegasus (it was

Decker who brought ST Math to the school), and Zurn’s capacity

to bring them together. “Adam was driven to make this happen,”

says Zurn, “and Decker was the perfect catalyst for Stockman to

realize that passion.”

The initial blueprint for DreamLab was a STEM-focused

environment, designed, says Stockman, to “expose students to

information they need to conceive and create their own ideas.”

Stockman started by researching the Maker Movement

and designed DreamLab using

the “Maker Space” as a model.

Maker Spaces have traditionally

been a space for engineers and

hobbyists — who don’t have

access to a garage, packed with

electronics and tools — to either

make electronic devices or

embed electronics into physical

things. Recently, Maker Spaces

have gained popularity thanks

to educational vanguards like

Sylvia Libow Martinez and

Gary Stager, authors of Invent to

Learn: Making, Tinkering, and

Engineering in the Classroom.

Martinez and Stager hail Maker

Spaces as the future education

space for kids to “invent to learn

and learn to invent.”

Decker cautioned

Stockman, that while the

engineering focus has merit, it is too narrow. Being a technology

executive himself, Decker saw how electronics can hatch

so many ideas, but he felt strongly that limiting DreamLab

to electronics narrowed the scope of thinking, and put an

unnecessary constraint on the scope of ideas students might

want to pursue.

Articulating the overall objective for DreamLab, Decker

explains, “the goal isn’t necessarily to create more engineers, it’s

to create more and better innovators. In order for our children to

succeed in the future global workforce, they will need to be the

best at expressing unmet needs, solving problems, and thinking

differently.” He adds, “The goal isn’t to make a product. It’s

knowing how to make one’s dreams.”

PROOF OF CONCEPT: DREAMLABStockman and Zurn embraced Decker’s notions, and DreamLab

developed into more of a student-centered innovation engine

than a true technology lab. Zurn explains the difference from

an education perspective: “We already promote discipline in our

students the traditional way. We push them to work harder in

the classroom and to do more homework, but this is all external

motivation developing discipline.” Simply adding a technology

focus doesn’t make something

innovative.

Zurn clearly identifies the

traits of successful innovators in

a way that Pegasus students can

emulate. “If I can describe two

things that make up innovation,

it’s passion and discipline. If we

can first help students find their

passion, then the discipline

is self-generated. Passion

motivates the critical thinking

required to overcome challenges

— the challenges of grasping an

interest and taking it farther,

making it better, making it

your own.”

Stockman shares a similar

description. “Passion is simply

the relentless pursuit of an

interest,” he says. Creating

DreamLab had just become its own proof-of-concept: Stockman

had pursued a passion and possessed the discipline to create

something novel in DreamLab itself. Now it was time to go Live

with sixth- through eighth-graders.

“Finding a Pegasus student’s interest isn’t the hard part,”

says Zurn. “To separate interest from passion, we had students

ask themselves the tougher question: ‘How willing am I to devote time

and attention to this?’”

(When the answer comes back — very willing — the next

step is to find what the student needs in order to fulfill his or

her passion. This is where things get interesting.)


DREAMLAB AT WORK (AND PLAY)Despite the fact that DreamLab just opened its doors this past

September, there are already a host of projects Pegasus students

are pursuing. A few examples are:

• One student wants to create a power generator from the

force of water flowing through a rain gutter;

• Another student is printing t-shirts and has created a

working e-commerce website to sell his creations online;

• Students are hacking into remote-control cars and

expanding control through computer programming;

• Other groups of students are building and programming

a robot;

• A student is creating a “theremin,” a hands-free,

electronic musical instrument that makes a signature

eerie sound, and has been used in horror and science-

fiction soundtracks since the 1930’s, and;

This is just a small taste of what’s already happening in

Dreamlab, and Zurn is excited.

“If we can leverage our students’ passion and promote self-

generated discipline toward innovation,” Zurn says. “If we can

recognize that lack of satisfaction with the way things are today,

and support students’ courage to change it, then we have truly

given our students wings with which they can soar.”

THE FUTUREImagine what other Pegasus teachers might do, armed with the

knowledge that our students have a resource whose sole purpose

is to equip them with the courage and discipline to recognize and

realize their life passions?

Innovators Wanted? Innovators Found.

Jonathan Stark is the Vice President of printed electronics and new materials development at MFLEX, an Irvine-based technology manufacturing company. He is passionate about fostering the innovation process in others, and has used that passion to help create numerous start-ups and a new technology division in his current position. Contact: [email protected]

When Adam Stockman started his research to create what is now DreamLab, he found Edrication (a Maker Space, right in our back yard) and met his

“partner-in-crime,” Wess Gates. Gates had recently founded Edtrication, a Science and Engineering Education Company that provides affordable, accessible education and electronics hardware “to inspire one’s inner engineer.” His goal from the start was “to enable academically-trained engineers who were unable to apply the theory they learned in school.” Gates soon discovered that “all of the excitement in my classes came from non-engineers.” Teachers, parents, and kids were far more interested in what he was offering. One of those enthusiastic non-engineers in his class was Adam Stockman. “Adam came to me this summer to take Introduction to Arduino.” (Arduino is a simple, flexible, electronics circuit board about the size of a Hello Kitty wallet, designed to make electronics prototyping easier and cheaper for students.) When Stockman explained his vision for DreamLab, Gates was instantly inspired and agreed to be the technology resource Stockman needed. “I was amazed at how [Stockman] could take a totally complex idea and break it down for sixth graders,” says Gates. “I now come to every session.”

HACKING THE CLASSROOMThe best example of DreamLab for Gates happened recently. “I came into the class, prepared to assist in a lesson on microcontroller programming, but none of the circuit boards were out.” Instead, on the whiteboard, read a list of programming commands that Stockman had created. They were commands that could be used by the students to “program” a fellow student to dance. “He [Stockman] was essentially teaching the fundamentals not only of programming, but of writing program languages,” by giving the class a set of common instructions on how to choreograph and get one another to dance. Gates beams, “It was amazing to see the kids so engaged. When the bell rang for the next lesson, they actually moaned—they didn’t want to leave!” In that moment, Gates had witnessed the broader vision of DreamLab at work. “Not everyone needs to be or should be an engineer,” he explains. “Having the passion to be creative and solve problems, to have the inclination and courage create... That’s what we need more of.”

AN ENGINEER’S VIEW OF DREAMLAB


Legend has it that everywhere the god of Pegasus struck his hoof, an inspiring spring burst forth….

Haley Stark ’07 started

interning at a fashion designer’s

studio in midtown Manhattan

the day that she arrived at

NYU. She had no idea what to

expect from her freshman year

in college, but she knew she

needed an outlet for the artistic

passion she had discovered in

the fourth grade at Pegasus. In

no time, Haley was adding to

her resume.

New York University (and

NYC) had always been Haley’s

dream, despite having applied

to “a ton of art schools.” While

still a senior at Sage Hill School,

the vitality of NYU and its “essentially random” Media

Studies major captured her heart. Following her passion

proved successful. This field of study — coupled with NYU’s

proximity in the creative hotbed of NYC — has provided

Stark, now a college senior, the framework to thrive, both

academically and professionally.

Within the Media program Stark has focused on

psychoanalysis, East Asian media, and neural science… a

“mix” of courses that may not seem inter-related but has

contributed significantly to the work she is producing. Last

January, Stark traveled to Shanghai to interview media

professionals about government censorship and social

unrest. These interviews are the basis of an article she is

currently writing for the school.

Stark traces her love of all-things-artistic to her time

at Pegasus. She credits Mr. Mack’s art class, acting in the

fourth grade play, three years of Middle School visual arts,

as well as Japanese, science, and cooking classes later

on. Her time at Pegasus allowed

her to “come out of her shell,”

she explains, overcome extreme

shyness, and develop tremendous

confidence.

At Sage Hill, Stark took five

art courses in her four years and

was a member of both the literary

magazine and school newspaper

staffs. She had longed to paint,

but felt she couldn’t achieve the

level of expertise that matched

her vision, so she tried graphic

design. It clicked. She created

her own fashion “zines,” and

designed all Sage student event

posters for Prom, Multicultural

Fair and Bandapalooza. As a high school senior, she

joined Teen Vogue’s Generation Next program, where she

teamed up with the retail giant, O’Neill, to design a dress

and handbag for one of their spring collections. Looking

back, meeting those Teen Vogue’s editors turned out to be

a pivotal point in her future career in fashion publication.

Stark parlayed that first internship in NYC into a string

of professional experiences that would rival a 10-year

veteran’s. At PAPER Magazine, an indie publication in the

city, she designed and created materials for client events,

including HP, Target, Lacoste, and Nars. She interned for

fashion designer, Alexander Wang. And, ultimately, she

landed her dream job, in the art department NYLON. “I

instantly fell in love!” she explains. Haley has been with

NYLON for two years, advancing from intern to freelance

illustrator, to iPad designer, contributing designer, and now

senior designer. This current position gives her tremendous

design control, yet she still has time for side gigs: she is

Haley Stark ’07Senior Designer, NYLON Magazine

Those who Soar by Ellen Williamson

The Pegasus School has been an “inspiring spring” in the lives of these three alumnae, individuals who have taken the reins of unique opportunities and climbed tremendous heights…so far.


Alumna Kelsey Hennegen ’05

may have found herself at the

right place at the right time,

but it was her own, powerful

drive that got her there. After

a semester studying in India,

Hennegen returned to her

junior year at the University

of California, Santa Barbara,

looking for part-time work.

She accepted an internship at

a technology startup called

FindTheBest, a privately held

network of for-profit websites

that helps consumers and

businesses “make informed

decisions.” Within

four months, Hennegen transitioned into a revenue-

generating position and two months later she went

full-time. Having just a handful of college courses left

to complete she finished her remaining college courses

online and graduated a year early.

To this day, Hennegan credits experiences during her

nine years at Pegasus as truly formative on her eventual

path. Like Stark, she remembers that fourth-grade play,

as well as the fifth-grade States Fair and seventh-grade

English classes, but Coach Tyler’s lessons on character

had the most lasting impact. She can still hear the echo of

Coach, repeating his mantra: “Character is doing the right

thing even when no one is looking.” This philosophy was

fully absorbed by the time she left for boarding school,

where she served as community service officer, president

of Common Sense environmental action club, peer English

tutor, and participated in Model United Nations, Amnesty

International and Model Congress.

Hennegen equates her Middlesex experience to her

years at Pegasus, where teachers had caring relationships

with the students extending

beyond the classroom. In both

cases, she learned to channel

her drive to excel beyond the

grade, or personal advancement.

Even today, she strives to excel

as a gesture of gratitude to her

teachers, professors and mentors.

In less than two years,

Hennegen has gone from

novice to a full-blown integral

component of a major tech

company. Year one: she joined

the Revenue Operations team

and built out the affiliate

marketing channel. By February

of 2013, the young company

had grown to 50 full-time employees and was beginning

a Series B funding. With funding came international

exposure, new use-cases for the platform, and new

business development ventures, all of which needed

manpower to fuel the growth. At the right place at the

right time, Hennegen was asked to create and head a

new department, called Talent and Recruitment. In this

role, she is charged with building out a comprehensive,

cohesive, and scalable strategy to identify, vet, and

integrate “talent” for FindTheBest.

Much like the small educational communities she

has loved, FindTheBest encourages all of its members

to grow, develop, and thrive. Hennegen loves that her

colleagues are competitive, intelligent contributors, and

she appreciates having the good fortune (at her age) to

be surrounded by such engaged, passionate, and driven

people. Her company reminds her of the communities

at Pegasus and Middlesex. “It is not often that you find

yourself immersed in an environment of such unique

people from whom you can learn and grow.”

contributing to the redesign of Glamour and designing a

book cover for actor Jared Leto.

In her spare time, Stark attends classes, writes papers

and takes tests. She was chosen last year to be one of 15

members of the University Honors Leadership Seminar, a

class taught by NYU President John Sexton and the deans

of each school. She feels particularly fortunate to have

participated in this program, because “it allowed for the

funding for my research in Shanghai.” And as art director

of NYU’s photography magazine ISO, graphic designer for

several campus clubs, and photographer for NYU’s fashion

magazine HAZE, Stark’s schedule would exhaust the

Energizer Bunny.

Not listed in this lengthy list of achievements: sleep.

Kelsey Hennegen ’05Recruiter, FindTheBest


Pegasus faculty members,

Keri Gorsage and James

Swiger, remember Katherine Nagasawa ’07 as a

consistently gifted writer in

a community of extremely

talented students. “Katherine

was one of those extraordinary

students who leaves a mark

wherever she goes.” For

Nagasawa, her mark — as

a writer, and journalist,

and graphic designer, and

filmmaker – is intertwined

with her passion to help

underserved, inner-city teens

and foster business growth in

poorer, Latin American countries.

In her junior year at Northwestern University, Nagasawa

is majoring in journalism with a focus on Latin American

and Caribbean Studies. But, on any given day, one

might find her meeting with civic leaders and nonprofit

organizations around Evanston. Two years ago, Nagasawa

joined a student-run microfinance organization called

LEND that works to provide loans of up to $5,000 and

business development services to local entrepreneurs and

small businesses unable to secure capital from traditional

financial institutions.

“LEND has taken me out of the classroom and into the

community,” she explains. “By working with local artisans

and business owners, I’ve really

been able to appreciate this

place that’s temporarily home

for me.” In addition to helping

to secure funds, Nagasawa

has offered her graphic design,

marketing and filmmaking talents

to several LEND clients. She

designs logos, develops social

media campaigns, and shoots

and edits video.

At the same time, Nagasawa

works as a production assistant

Inspire Media Productions,

mentors inner-city teens through

Medhill Media, and leads tours

of Northwestern for prospective

students and parents. But her “baby” is this: she is in the

midst of writing a grant which will enable her to return to

Bolivia next summer. Nagasawa and a fellow journalism

student have proposed a timely and provocative

documentary chronicling the history of banana farming

in Bolivia and the “irrevocable impact” the United Fruit

Company and other large companies have had on small

co-op farms, their communities.

Nagasawa’s resume suggests someone twice her

age. But she is just a wise, compassionate, talented and

philanthropic college undergraduate. Her words of advice

for today’s Pegasus students: “work with friends, don’t wait

to grow up, be everywhere, explore!”

Katherine Nagasawa ’07 LEND

Ellen WIlliamson is the Associate Director of Advancement, Programs & Events. Contact: [email protected]

Those who Soar Continued


1999Brandon Carr is is an attorney practicing

in San Francisco. Brandon misses his

family in Southern California but is

enjoying the Bay Area and has recently

been recruited by Buchalter Nemer, a full

service business law firm.

2001Tracy Carr was recently hired as

an international flight attendant for

American Airlines, which received 50,000

applications for 1,500 available openings.

Tracy is based out of Miami International

Airport. Congratulations Tracy!

2002Taylor Beauchamp recently opened

the new store Charlie and Me in The

Cove shopping center Newport Beach.

Knowing that there’s nothing Newport

dog owners won’t do for their dogs,

Charlie and Me offers high end items

that appeal to the stylish dog owners

in her hometown. Taylor’s best canine

friend, French Bulldog Charlie, was her

inspiration for the shop. Opening the

store has allowed Taylor to develop a

career based on her passion for animals

and her keen eye for sophisticated

accessorizing. Charlie and Me recently

partnered with their neighbors at Classic

Kids Photography to host a Dog Parade

and Costume contest to benefit the Irvine

Animal Shelter. See what’s new at Charlie

and Me at charlieandme.us.

Jenny Hurst is an associate with Triage

Consulting Group in San Francisco.

She graduated from the University of

Pennsylvania in 2010 where she was

captain of the varsity gymnastics team.

She recently moved from Nob Hill to

Walnut Creek where she participated in a

mud run and keeps in touch with several

of her Pegasus classmates.

Shane Webster is a partner and COO

in the Venice Beach based SmartDeco

furniture company. Shane shares that

their product is very well designed and

despite being light weight, as it is made

out of corrugated cardboard, the furniture

pieces can all hold well over 300 pounds,

the perfect solution for college kids or

anyone just starting out on their own.

The brand has been around for a little

over a year, is gaining traction and was

featured in LA Business Journal’s 20 in their

20’s report. COO technically means that

Shane is doing a bit of everything from

brand strategy and running social media

to business development and customer

service. This unique young company is

creating a lot of interest in their market.

Check out their products and story at

smartdecofurniture.com.

2003Stuart Palley, photographing for the

Orange County Register has recently

collaborated with OCR Travel Editor

Gary Warner to produce two amazing

history lessons/travel logs on the century

old Lincoln Highway. Over two years

Stuart drove the Lincoln Highway, piecing

it together in the fragmented manner in

which it was created. 2013 has been a

busy year for Stuart as he received first

and second place in the Associated Press

Sports Editors awards competition while

working at the Columbia Missourian

newspaper at the University of Missouri.

Stuart won top awards against many

national professional publications. With

a BA and BBA from Southern Methodist

ALUMNI CONNECTIONS

Tracy Carr ’01 proudly displays her American Airlines wings. Her mom, Michelle Carr, wore similar wings when she was an international flight attendant in the ’80s.

(L-R) Hanalynn Hunt ’06 (Occidental College) and Lindsay Kish ’06 (Whittier College) are in the same conference and compete against each other twice per season.

Past student, Peter Seidner, and sister, Madelyne ’05, recently visit Pegasus for fifth grade sister Ellie’s CelebriTea.

ALUMNI CONNECTIONS

University in his rear view mirror, Stuart

is completing his MA project on the

Salton Sea for the University of Missouri

photojournalism program. To view a

sample of Stuart’s vast collection of photos

check out his work at stuartpalley.com.

Amazing work Stuart!

2006Brian Hurst will graduate from the

University of Pennsylvania in May 2014

with dual degrees in Economics and

Math. He is a four year catcher on the

varsity baseball team for the Quakers, a

member of Sigma Chi Fraternity, and has

accepted a position with Susquehanna

International Group, a proprietary trading

firm in Philadelphia, beginning after

graduation.

Hanalynn Hunt will be graduating this

year from Occidental College with a major

in Urban and Environmental Policy and

a minor in Kinesiology. Hanalynn has

had a wonderful career as a volleyball

player…from Pegasus, to Sage Hill School,

club volleyball with Fluid and then on to

Occidental, it has been a fabulous ride.

Pegasus classmate Lindsay Kish ’06 was

been right by her side until the girls went

to different colleges. Lindsay attends

Whittier College which is in the same

conference so the girls compete against

each other twice a season. Hanalynn

recently enjoyed spending the semester

abroad in Amsterdam with no fear of

being homesick since Pegasus alumna and

good friend, Jordon Team ’06, a senior at

the University of Virginia, was studying

in Barcelona! The girls took advantage

of visiting one another in their adopted

cities. Hanalynn reports how thankful

she is to continue making great memories

with friends from Pegasus.

2007Kennedi Varing is a junior at the

University of San Diego. Kennedi is doing

very well and loving life at USD!

2008Sloan Varing is a sophomore in excellent

standing at the University of Southern

California.

Austin Dix graduated as an honors

student from Newport Harbor High

School and will be attending University of

Colorado, Boulder in the fall. She plans to

major in science.

2010

Wyatt Robertson stopped by Pegasus

recently to catch up with faculty and

to meet Ellen Williamson, the new

Alumni Relations director. Wyatt, the

ASB president at Newport Harbor High

School, keeps busy with his presidential

duties, a full complement of AP courses,

and presenting at several middle schools

as a representative of YETA (Youth

Empowered to Act) working on the

Safe Schools campaign. He was selected

as a leader in the Red Shirt Internship

Program where he is currently working

in the emergency room at St. Mary’s

Medical Center. A Boys’ State delegate

and a National Merit Semifinalist as

well, Wyatt seems to not only manage

but to thrive on the demands of his

significant number of responsibilities and

commitments.

Matt Hurst has committed to run track

and field at Harvard University after his

graduation from Corona del Mar High

School in June 2014. Matt is the reigning

county champion in the 400 meters and

placed 2nd at CIF. He ranked 5th in the

state last year among juniors and 35th

among juniors nationally. Matt also runs

the 200 meter, where he ranks 5th in the

county and anchors the 4x100 and 4x400

relays. In addition to track and field, Matt

played lacrosse and basketball and ran

cross country at CDM. He is a member

of the National Honor Society and

volunteers for the Magic Shoe Foundation,

which reconditions donated shoes

and distributes them to needy athletic

programs. He is excited to head to Boston

next year and is looking for a warm coat!

2011Randon Davitt continues to have

success in the entertainment world. In

the last few months he’s appeared in a

Lifetime movie, booked a spot on the

Van’s Warped Tour, and spent time in the

studio working on a CD to be released in

early 2014. His blues trio, Chase Walker

Band, is receiving national recognition,

with a paid gig almost every weekend.

He has opened for Casey Abrams and B.B.

King, played the world famous Roxy in

Hollywood, and been a featured band on

a worldwide festival, Artists In The Plus

televised from The Village Recording

Studio where famous bands from The

Doors to The Rolling Stones to Lady Gaga

have recorded and performed. Randon is


Wyatt Robertson ’10 visits the campus to meet with new alumni relations director, Ellen Williamson.


a sophomore at Orange County School of

the Arts (OCSA) where he is excelling in

his honors and AP courses. If you want

to catch up with Randon’s activities

visit his websites: randondavitt.com or

chasewalkerband.com.

2013Jamie Ostmann recently returned to

campus to visit faculty and staff and

reports that she is enjoying being a part

of the Film Production Conservatory

at Orange County School of the Arts.

Jamie’s passion for film and chronicling

important experiences was a highlight

for middle school students this fall. Her

documentary that she made during last

years’ service trip to Costa Rica helped

double the sign-ups for the 2014 trip! In

addition, Jamie continues to participate

in the Wings for Crossover club on the

Pegasus campus.

Carly Perri was recently published in

Fountain Valley Home Living magazine.

Carly, a nationally ranked swimmer, is a

freshman at Fountain Valley High School

where she is following in the footsteps of

her brothers, Lee ’08 and Michael ’08.

The article Carly wrote was featured as

a two page spread in the Neighbor to

Neighbor section of the magazine and

expresses her thanks to two former

neighbors who are currently seniors at

FVHS. A top honors student-athlete,

Carly is, herself, the kind of person anyone

would be fortunate to have as a neighbor.

Lauren Fishman sent a message to the

Pegasus community that she is really

enjoying her freshman year at Sage Hill

School. Although Lauren is truly missing

teachers and friends at Pegasus she is

staying busy with school work, activities

and played on the varsity tennis team.

Jamie Ostmann ’13 visits with librarian, Mrs. Carin Meister. Brian Robert ’13 (J Serra High School) and Jack Pelc ’13 (Sage Hill School) came to support and cheer for the Thunder flag football team during the championship game at Tarbut V’Torah.

Sage Hill seniors, Ian Fries ’10 and Becky Lynskey ’10 returned to Pegasus to mentor kindergarten students as part of the Sage Hill Garden Collaborative service learning program.

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FSC logo

December 18

Winter Concert (Grades 1-5)

December 19

Pre-K Winter Concert

December 20

Grandparents’ and

Special Friends’ Day

December 23 – January 3, 2014

Winter Break

February 17-21

Intersession Week

March 15

Wig Out for Pegasus

Spring Benefit

March 21

International Earth Day

pegasus magazine fall 2013

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