Virtual Anna

Hello and welcome to Northfield School of the Liberal Arts!

My name is Anna Hetherington, and I am proud to say that by the time I graduate in May, I will have attended Northfield for four years. These four years have been by far the best four years of my life. There is no better way to experience Northfield than to walk through a whole day, so let me take you up the concrete stairs, onto the dock, and through the glass doors into what I like to call “my home away from home.”

Orchestra: (7:45-8:15)

I arrive at Northfield at 7:30 every morning for Orchestra. I consider this absence of thirty minutes of sleep a blessing, for I get to start every day off by playing the cello and participating in the happy, albeit sleepy, community of the high school orchestra. The whole orchestra consists of ten people.

A wonderful thing that we do in Orchestra is play bluegrass every Wednesday morning. We gather in the lunchroom with our mandolins, guitars, violins, upright bass, and me with my cello. Every Wednesday morning, waffles are sold and familiar and unfamiliar faces gather to listen to our music. We play songs like "Jacky Tar," "Jerusalem Bridge," and "Ashokan Farewell" for the breakfast-eaters.

I want to point out the wonderful opportunity that all students have to participate in Orchestra or Band. I began playing the cello a little over a year and a half ago, the spring of my sophomore year. But just because I started later than many players in our orchestra does not mean that I am less involved. Our director, Mrs. Feryok, puts the newcomers right beside the old-timers in the high school orchestra. Had I not been surrounded by such an encouraging group of people and been given such a welcoming opportunity, I might have never even picked up the cello. And now practicing and performing is one of my favorite activities.

Mrs. Feryok always starts class with a scale of some sort and today, we play a two octave G scale in a three-part round. We then proceed to practice Ballata, from Rigoletto, music by Guiseppe Verdi and arranged by C. N. Rabinowitz. Five minutes before class is over, Mrs. Feryok passes out some Christmas music for us to sight-read, then sends us off to Convocation.

Convocation: (8:00-8:55)

In Convocation, students are led in a prayer by Mr. Graf, the headmaster. We recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and then the Seven Simple Rules, which represent the Constitution of Northfield. The next fifteen minutes are always filled with something different. Because of Orchestra, I always miss at least the first ten minutes of Convocation, so sometimes I don’t understand what is happening.

Today, I walk into the room to find a student’s mother, Mrs. Larson, reading "Notes on Dialogue" by Stringfellow Barr. Barr was the president of St. John’s College, and established the Great Books curriculum there. (The Great Books include texts that either shaped western civilization, or are representative of western civilization. The list was compiled by Mortimer J. Adler.) After these first fifteen minutes, the scheduled lesson begins. Normally on Mondays, Ms. Grace Langness or Ms. Emily Langness, or Ms. Erin Sundquist, or Mr. Coleman gives a presentation on art, communication, music, or literature from a period in history. However, today Jordan Entz, Northfield Class of ’10, screens a movie that he made about Northfield. The movie runs about thirty minutes.

Afterward, Mr. Graf comes up to the front of the hall, as he always does, and reports the latest news. When a game is announced, the whole hall shakes from the stomping and yelling of the Northfield chant: “Let’s go, Northfield! Let’s go!”

Capstone History: (9:00-9:55)

My first academic class of the day is Capstone History. I have three Capstone classes, which are classes that only seniors—also known as the graduates—are allowed to take. The classes are designed to bring out as much of the student’s rhetoric as possible. For example, for History recently, the class gave a presentation in Convocation on the concept of justice. We researched, interviewed, and spent a fair amount of time in the logic stage, discussing. Then we were asked to share with others the fruit that we had gathered, so we organized the presentation.

Today, Mr. Spurgeon reminds us of the upcoming community history project. We went into his office and he showed us how to access the online database, the Andreas Cutler Histories of Kansas. The wonderful thing about the community history project is that we will have to go out into the community that we are researching and meet and talk to people outside of Northfield, which prepares us as graduates to go out into the “real world.” The assignments at NFS always teach you more than the academic lesson; they teach you what is essential to living.

Back in our seats, we begin to discuss Isaiah Berlin’s essay "Equality." This discussion leads to many other discussions, as do most conversations at Northfield. We talk about what the founding fathers meant by stating that “all men are created equal”; we talk about fear as a motivation, and we talk about the danger of stereotypes.

Capstone Literature and Composition: (10:00-11:05)

I and a few of my classmates start off Capstone Literature by singing, “It’s craz-craziest time of the year!” That sums up the phase of the school year that my Capstone Literature class is beginning. We are starting to prepare for the Christmas show, which we will perform for the school in the middle of December.

But before we begin, Mr. Coleman quiets our minds by referencing the speech read to us in Convocation, Notes on Dialogue. He reiterates the lesson of “listening in order to converse.” This lesson is something valuable to remember as we begin practicing for the Christmas show, for often I have found that when I get an idea, I want people to listen, but with the Christmas show, everyone has ideas. The majority of these ideas are good and worth conversing about, which as Mr. Coleman reminds us, requires listening.

He also reminds us that in the Christmas show, our intention is to instruct through delight. That having been said, we quickly start organizing our ideas, writing our notes, and of course, laughing our laughs. Mr. Coleman and his wife have a new skit for us to run through today called “The Emperor’s Music Man-Trojan Horse.” I am cast as a Trojan and am told that I need to recite my lines with a Cockney accent! Heh, I find this to be trickier than I expected…

Study Hall: (11:10-12:15)

Today in Study Hall, I begin my “free time” by going to Convocation Hall and looking in the Syntopicon, the index of the Great Books, for Law. I hope to use this information in a coming paper for Mr. Coleman. After I examine the Syntopicon, I study Biology. I make sure that I understand everything that I can about electrons before Capstone Biology comes around.

Study Hall isn’t always a time for looking up topics in the Syntopicon and reading out of a textbook, though. Oftentimes it allows me to simply stop, gather my day, and organize everything that needs to be done into a tidy list. It is also my “communication” and “busy” hour. I have the flexibility to go talk to people, such as Mrs. Elder, about my Senior Project, or do the little, busy projects, like finding a piece of cardboard for the Christmas show, or giving box tops to Mr. Larson.

Latin: (12:50-1:55)

Latin is boring to watch today. But my mind sure isn’t bored. I am in the middle of a three-day-long test, in which I am translating the story of the Siege of Jerusalem. I have taken Latin for four years now, and every year, it gets harder. But I know that there are at least two reasons that I continue to take this elective class: Mr. Graf is a top-notch teacher (not to mention just a fun person to be around), and God gave me a love for languages.

When I am not taking a test, my only classmate, Noah, who is absent today, and I go through the textbook with Mr. Graf. So far, we have studied infinitives, indirect statements and questions, present active, perfect passive, and future active participles and subordinate clauses with the subjunctive, among other wonderfully confusing grammar concepts.

Capstone Biology: (2:00-3:00)

Capstone Biology comes next. Today we start out the day with some giggles, but quickly get into discussing electrons (the same ones I studied during Study Hall). I still don’t fully understand everything we discussed, but isn’t that the joy of learning? The words “electron shell,” “valence electrons,” “covalent” and “ionic bonds,” “electronegativity,” “polar,” and “nonpolar” are introduced. Mr. Burchfield draws the actual structure of a cell in order to help me and a few of my peers visualize electrons and their movement.

As I mentioned earlier, Capstone classes are meant to be classes of rhetoric. Just as my Capstone History class did a presentation on justice, my Capstone Biology class did a presentation on biological life. We spent some of the classes at the beginning of the year creating a piece of artwork, in which we all took equal responsibility. I spent most of my time researching and drawing organs, organ systems of the body and producers. The other elements of life that we drew were atoms, DNA, cells, organisms, consumers, decomposers, and ecosystems. We gave a presentation in Convocation, then displayed the poster in the hallway, along with a written explanation of what we had presented. Not only do I love being able to share what I have learned, but I also appreciate the fact that at Northfield, I am able to combine seemingly separate subjects, science and art, and create something beautiful, proving the woven intricacy of all aspects of life.

Choir: (3:05-3:45)

My last class of the day is choir. We start the class by singing “Happy Birthday” to one of the juniors. Then we practice “The First Noel” arranged by Dan Forrest; obviously, one of our Christmas pieces. We are still learning our parts in this song, so Ms. Hetherington is not yet able to work on the interpretation and dynamics, which I can’t wait to do! After the Christmas part of practice, the choir rehearses “A Jubilant Song” by Allen Pote. The choir almost has this piece memorized, so Ms. Hetherington works on accents and articulation. We are working on this piece, along with other traditional hymns, such as “Now Thank We All Our God” and “We Gather Together,” for the Thanksgiving program. Another Hetherington, Mrs. Rolaine Hetherington (my mom!), has come for Thursday Convocations and taught us many of these traditional hymns. We use these hymns not only for programs, but also run-outs to nursing homes and performances at private homes. These run-outs are often a part of Work Wednesdays.

Basketball: (4:00-5:30)

After school is out, I run to the locker room and change into my basketball clothes. It’s basketball season! We start practice today with a half-mile run, three suicides, and one sprint. Coach Spurgeon (yes, my Capstone History teacher) tells us to do lay-ups and shots for about eight minutes, right and left-handed. After those eight minutes, we go through our plays: “High,” “Swing,” “41,” and “Slide.” We spend about twenty-five minutes drilling those into our brains. We are then asked to use what we have just learned in a scrimmage. So, we scrimmage for about thirty minutes. We do surprisingly well, considering many of the players are just learning the plays for the first time! At the end of practice, we gather in the middle of the court, put our hands in middle of the huddle, and yell “Hoka hey,” or “with the heart.”

One reason I love basketball at Northfield is that, similar to the Orchestra, anyone can play. I started playing basketball my freshman year, the year I came to Northfield, which was also the first year for a girls team. It has been a wonderful experience to learn the game along with other girls, and to help teach it to new players. Now that I am a senior, I look back on the past four years and think of all the wonderful times and lessons that I would have missed out on had Northfield and the team not been so encouraging, and ultimately like a family. As we yell after every game, “Way to go, Northfield. Way to go!”

Work Wednesday

Text still to come.