Horace Mann - Spring 2017 - 24

HORACE
MANN
SCHOOL

News of the School

JOURNAL

Happening at Horace Mann School

ife at Horace Mann School is ever-active, as students and the greater HM community of faculty,
administrators, staff, parents and HM alumni engage in an education that often leads beyond the
school's walls, through Service Learning, science research, artistic and athletic endeavors and
more. Articles about HM activities appear on the News section of HM's website, www.horacemann.
org. The website's "Media Gallery" features vivid photographs of events and activities in every HM
Division, and at the John Dorr Nature Laboratory: https://www.flickr.com/photos/141038450@
N03/albums. To follow HM's athletic teams visit the exciting student-initiated and run HM Lions Report
on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HMLionsReport, on Youtube: https://www.youtube.
com/user/HMLionsReport, and on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HMLionsReport. Varsity and Junior
Varsity Team scores, schedules and standings can be found on the HM website menu at "Athletics."
The HM Upper and Middle Division Music Departments post pictures and videos of concerts and
performances at HoraceMannMusic.Tumblr.com. Alumni and HM's current and former parents can
subscribe to The Record, now in its 114th year, by contacting the weekly's staff at record@horacemann.
org. Student publications have always been a prominent part of HM life, and continue in importance
today. More than half of HM Upper Division students work on one or several of the UD's 24 registered
publications. Along with the Manuscript and other literary magazines, these publications today cover
politics, international affairs, science, math, women's issues, food, technology, film, fashion and more.
HM student publications are regularly honored by various national scholastic press associations. A
number of HM student publications can be found at http://www.horacemann.org/page.cfm?p=210.
We report, here, on just a few recent events and initiatives at Horace Mann School.

HM's All-School Production of A Midsummer Night's Dream
Brings the Horace Mann School-Royal Shakespeare Company
Teaching Partnership to the Stage

ith a cast of 280 students from Horace Mann
School's Nursery through Upper Divisions,
and over 50 teachers and staff members
from each Division involved, HM's all-school production of
A Midsummer Night's Dream on February 8, 10, and 11, 2017
brought the school a series of performances that will be remembered for years to come. But, in the case of this production, to paraphrase Hamlet, "The play was" not "the thing."
Rather, the purpose of producing this celebrated
William Shakespeare comedy was to give HM students
studying Shakespeare through the pedagogical practices
developed by England's Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)
the opportunity to experience the power of their learning
through performance. The production also provided the
entire HM community with insight into how this technique
takes hold. As reported in the Summer 2016 issue of
Horace Mann Magazine (https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/recreative/horacemannmagazine_summer2016/index.php#/6) in 2015 HM launched an ongoing partnership
with the RSC's Education Department. This partnership
brings the esteemed company's "Rehearsal Room/StandUp for Shakespeare" method of teaching the Bard's works
to HM's K-12 classrooms, as the students' Middle and Upper
Division English teachers, together with Nursery and Lower
Division classroom teachers, explore the RSC's transformative teaching techniques, and employ them in exploring
Shakespeare with their classes.
A core group of HM teachers is studying the RSC's "on
your feet" approach to reading and learning Shakespeare

Horace Mann Magazine Spring 2017

with the company's actor-educators who come to HM for
three-to-four-day Continuing Professional Development
(CPD) visits four times a year. The HM-RSC program includes
at least one two-week residency by a director from the RSC,
and one broadcast a year of an RSC-performed Shakespeare
play to an entire grade, with students participating in talkback discussions with an actor and a Shakespearean scholar
or director. There's also a summer acting intensive program
for students from HM and other schools. In addition, the
HM-RSC teaching core travels to the RSC's education center
in Stratford-on-Avon, where Shakespeare lived and worked
some 420 years ago, for intensive training that later helps
them transmit their learning to their colleagues. The HM-RSC
partnership engages the greater HM community and others,
as well. HM has hosted RSC-led workshops for the school's
parents, for students in the Summer on the Hill (SOH)
enrichment program for public school children at HM, and
for teachers from schools throughout the New York area.
Performing a pedagogy
The active RSC perspective toward appreciating
Shakespeare's work as living texts that resonate today was
evident during HM's "Midsummer" in the students' line
delivery, gestures and animated-with-understanding approach to the play that so illuminated this production.
The production's purpose aside, HM's A Midsummer
Night's Dream presented to its packed audiences a breathtaking theater experience. It showcased the ingenuity of
the play's director, MD and UD Theater Arts teacher Alexis

http://www.horacemann.org http://www.horacemann.org https://www.flickr.com/photos/141038450@N03/albums/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/141038450@N03/albums/ https://www.facebook.com/HMLionsReport https://www.youtube.com/user/HMLionsReport https://www.youtube.com/user/HMLionsReport https://www.twitter.com/HMLionsReport http://HoraceMannMusic.Tumblr.com http://www.horacemann.org/page.cfm?p=210 https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/recreative/horacemannmagazine_summer2016/index.php#/6 https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/recreative/horacemannmagazine_summer2016/index.php#/6 https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/recreative/horacemannmagazine_summer2016/index.php#/6

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Horace Mann - Spring 2017