RED & GOLD THE COMMUNITY MAGAZINE of CATHEDRAL SCHOOL FOR BOYS
INSIDE: THE SPIRIT OF SERVICE AT CATHEDRAL Page 4 SEAN BREEN: AN INDELIBLE IMPACT Page 12 ALUMNI SERVING BEYOND CATHEDRAL Page 18 REMEMBERING THE REV. CANON DAVID FORBES Page 24
LEARNING BY SERVING
RED & GOLD THE COMMUNITY MAGAZINE of CATHEDRAL SCHOOL FOR BOYS
RED&GOLD TEAM EDITOR Matt Thier ’00 COPY EDITORS Stephanie Kastner, Harrison Wilkes, Yvonne Blaxter PHOTOGRAPHY Matt Thier ’00 Nano Visser COVER PHOTO Matt Thier ’00 DESIGN: Jenna Del Vigna, Terrence Knoles ON THE COVER: Four graduates from the Class of 2022 celebrate their graduation on the steps of the Cathedral.
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OUR MISSION
IN THIS ISSUE
26 Graduation Class of 2022 27 Commencement: June 9, 2022 31 Graduation Awards 2022
1 Message from the Head of School 3 What’s Happening 4 The Spirit of Service at Cathedral 10 A Look at Chapel 12 An Indelible Impact 15 Master Teacher Award 16 Our New Learning Commons 18 Serving Beyond Cathedral 21 Scenes From Intersession 24 Remembering The Rev. Canon David Forbes
To provide an excellent education for boys at the elementary level. To attract a diverse student body of strong academic potential.
32 Alumni Week 33 Alumni News 34 In Memoriam 35 Moving In, Up, and On 42 Faculty 43 At-a-Glance
To provide a school committed to intellectual inquiry and rigor, centered in the Episcopal tradition, respectful of and welcoming to people of all religious traditions and beliefs. To develop social responsibility through exemplary programs of outreach and service. To create a community bonded by open-heartedness, hope, compassion, and concern.
Cathedral School for Boys, a department of Grace Cathedral, is accredited by the California Association of Independent Schools, and is a member of the National Association of Independent Schools and the National Association of Episcopal Schools. As an institution with 501(c)(3) non-profit status, it relies on the generosity of individual and community support and an active Parents Association to fund its annual operating and capital needs. If you’d like to make a gift to the School or would like more information on how you can make a difference in the lives of the School and our boys, please contact Yvonne Blaxter, Director of Development, at blaxter@cathedralschool.net. All gifts to the School are fully tax-deductible as allowed by law. CATHEDRAL SCHOOL FOR BOYS 1275 Sacramento Street, San Francisco, CA 94108 (415) 771-6600 www.cathedralschool.net
MESSAGE from the Head of School
“To develop social responsibility through exemplary programs of outreach and service.”
DEAR CATHEDRAL SCHOOL COMMUNITY:
While educators can fall victim to a somewhat utopian and often unrealistic conceptualization of the role of schools, there is a part of any educator’s mentality that recognizes the need to develop young men and women with the capacity to
change the world. In fact, John Dewey, the early 20th-century philosopher and educator, advanced that very notion. Dewey recognized that it wasn’t the acquisition of knowledge that mattered. Rather, it was the application of knowledge for social advancement that represented the true objective of education and educators. Since its founding, Cathedral School has sought to instill this responsibility in its students, and nowhere is that effort more apparent than through our programs of outreach and social justice. In any given week, Cathedral boys are engaged in the practice of serving others. Those opportunities occur on campus, in collaboration with Grace Cathedral, and throughout the Bay Area. And in important ways, our school recognizes that the boys have as much to gain as they have to give. Service remains such an essential component of our educa- tional philosophy and approach, and thus, we thought it was important to highlight in this edition of the Red&Gold. Our boys report regularly that their interactions with others through service represent some of their most profound experi- ences at Cathedral School for Boys, and we trust that they emerge from their time at Cathedral ready and eager to make a difference in the world. Very truly yours,
David Leshchenko ‘22 and Finn Hocking ‘22 take a quick break while their class prepares a meal at City Hope during our Day of Service.
Burns Jones Head of School
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WHAT’S HAPPENING
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SCHOOL EVENTS 2021–2022
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1. SEPTEMBER 1, 2021: Return to Opening Day For the first time since 2019, we were able to start our school year on campus and in person! 2. OCTOBER 29, 2021: Halloween Parade On the Friday before Halloween, our boys and staff got dressed up in their spookiest, most creative costumes for our annual parade around the block. 3. NOVEMBER 9 & 10, 2021: CSB Celebrates Diwali We held two special division-level Chapels to celebrate the Hindu festival of lights, where we learned about the holiday, lit our own diyas, and engaged in a mindful meditation practice. 4. NOVEMBER 23, 2021: Day of Service While Lower Schoolers stayed on campus to work on service and gratitude projects, our Upper Schoolers went out into the community to work with partners like City Hope, where our 8th graders prepared a meal for Tenderloin residents. 5. DECEMBER 17, 2021: Lessons & Carols The first semester ended with our annual Lessons & Carols service in Grace Cathedral, which concluded with a magical “snowfall” as we sang “Joy to the World.” 6. FEBRUARY 7, 2022: Celebrating Lunar New Year We held a special outdoor Chapel on the Cathedral Plaza to celebrate the Lunar New Year, where we heard from speakers about the meaning and traditions of the holiday and got to see an up-close Lion Dance performance! 7. MARCH 17, 2022: Project “X-po” Our 6th graders presented on the topics they chose to study during Project X, a history unit in which students conduct research on a subject of interest and present their findings to the community. 8. APRIL 1, 2022: Grandparents & Special Friends Day After two long years, we were thrilled to welcome our special guests back to campus for a morning of classroom visits, student presentations, and a special Chapel service in Grace Cathedral. 9. APRIL 29, 2022: Field Foundation Oratory Competition Our 7th and 8th graders competed in this annual competition, presenting dramatic readings and personal essays in front of their classmates. 10. MAY 29, 2022: Field Day at Kezar Stadium The entire school community—students, teachers, and parents—came together for our annual competition between the Red and Gold teams. This year, the Gold team came out on top. 11. JUNE 8, 2022: 8th Grade-Faculty Basketball Game Our annual and much-anticipated game was a hard-fought and close one this year, aided by the enthusiastic cheering of our entire student body! 12. JUNE 15, 2022: 8th Grade Bike Trip To Yosemite Another longstanding tradition, Mr. Mundy, Mr. Rahlson, and Ms. Andres led a group of 8th graders on a three-day ride from the Bay Area to Yosemite to celebrate their graduation. 13. JUNE 26, 2022: Marching in the Pride Parade! Cathedral showed our school pride at the San Francisco Pride Parade, where 25 students, parents, and teachers marched in support of the LGBTQ+ communty.
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THE SPIRIT OF SERVICE AT CATHEDRAL FATHER TIMOTHY SEAMANS, CATHEDRAL SCHOOL CHAPLAIN
Family volunteers at City Hope
IF YOU ATTENDED A HYMN SING CHAPEL THIS PAST YEAR, you were probably witness to a new tradition that we call the “Blessings of Good Samaritans.” The gist is simple: Once a week, we pause to celebrate and bless a handful of students and adults within the school who—like the Good Samaritan character in Jesus’ famous parable—have gone out of their way to engage in acts of kindness, love, or justice without any expectation of recognition or reward. In a word, Good Samaritans are distinguished by their commitment to service.
While the Good Samaritans of the week are limited to those boys and adults who have been secretly nominated by one of their peers, what is not secret is that we at Cathedral place service at the center of each boy’s education. As we learn to live with COVID and transition to a ‘new normal’ of life and school, it is worth pausing to renew our commitment to service and to explore what this commitment looks like for the next chapter of CSB.
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AS AN ACT OF LOVE, SERVICE LEARNING AT CATHEDRAL IS A MULTI-STEP CYCLE THAT INVOLVES EMOTIONAL AND CRITICAL UNDERSTANDING, ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT, AND REFLECTION.
GUIDED BY LOVE At Cathedral, service is a spiritual act. That is why the service program is overseen by the School Chaplain. Understanding service as spiritual is important for at least three key reasons. First, the spiritual dimension of service incorporates us into a spiritual tradition that spans across time and space, across borders and religions. Through service, we strengthen our bonds to the past and take responsibility for the future. We see ourselves in a long line of servants, continuing the work of the ancient Israelites and Hebrew prophets, the ministry of Jesus and the saints, the path of the Buddha and the Brahman, and the humanitarian efforts of all people, with or without a faith tradition. In other words, when we serve we locate ourselves in the
larger story of humanity's spiritual quest for celebrating goodness and redeeming a hurting world. Second, we have faith that service is the basis for transformative spiritual connec- tions in the present. These connections can be described in various ways— friendship, solidarity, meaningfulness, hope, collaboration, belonging, and justice. Service generates these spiritual connections, and serving others has a profound impact not just on the person who is being served but on the child who serves. For instance, when Lower Schoolers are spending time with senior citizens to help prevent loneliness, that service is as meaningful for the boys as it is for the elderly they’re connecting with. Through service we discover the goodness
in others, the goodness within ourselves, and the grace that surrounds us all. Third, our call to serve comes from a spiritual place of love for the people and the world around us. As an Episcopal school, our spirituality is centered on love and the faith that we humans are distin- guished by our capacity to love, learn, and serve. It is a mistake to separate these qualities of human nature from one another. We cannot be fully ourselves without serving others, and we cannot fully serve others without trying to love and learn about them. What is distinctive about Cathedral’s vision for the service is that it is guided by this “Trinity” of love, service, and learning.
Loading the Food Drive
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SERVICE LEARNING As an act of love, service learning at Cathedral is a multi-step cycle that involves emotional and critical under- standing, active engagement, and reflection. This learning process mirrors Cathedral’s commitment to developing the hearts, minds, hands, and voices of our boys. Step 1: Hearts Emotional understanding, the entry point to service learning, explores connections between the students’ lives and the lives of others. Using care, respect, and empathy, emotional under- standing allows students to become conscious of others’ joys and pains, strengths and wounds, hopes and fears. The process of recognizing and recip- rocating emotions is essential for this understanding, which involves thinking and acting with one’s heart. Step 2: Minds Critical understanding occurs when students bring matters of the heart to the precision and rigor of the mind. Having recognized an area in need of healing, improvement, reconcili- ation, or celebration, students research the situation, especially exploring a diversity of voices, perspectives, and solutions. Critical understanding involves withholding assumptions and acknowl- edging biases. It allows students to make informed and intelligent decisions on the best course of action. Step 3: Hands & Voices Active engagement is when students use their hands and voices to engage in acts of service that are practical, hands-on, and typically engage the wider community. Acts of service can be private and intimate or they can be public and social. Acts of service can include: • Celebrating overlooked neighbors • Welcoming and caring for immigrants or refugees • Intervening when someone is being bullied or threatened 6th graders at the Bayview Mission
8th Grade at City Hope
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• Spending time with someone who’s lonely or frequently ignored • Tutoring or mentoring a younger child • Cleaning a neighborhood • Acknowledging and affirming the humanity of a person in a dehuman- izing situation, like someone living in poverty or who is unhoused • Marching or protesting for change • Creating and sharing art that inspires and uplifts others • Amplifying the voices of the marginalized • Engaging in a letter writing campaign • Developing eco-friendly habits for school and home Cathedral’s Episcopal tradition places particular emphasis on service through supporting the poor, feeding the hungry, sheltering the unhoused, visiting the sick and imprisoned, educating others, comforting the sorrowful or afflicted, supporting migrants and refugees, caring for creation, and engaging in social justice and racial reconciliation. Step 4: Reflection Reflection is the crucial conclusion to service learning. This involves looking back on the whole process and asking questions like: What was the most and least effective of our actions? What should we do differently next time? How has my understanding of others and the situation changed? What did I learn about myself in this process? How have I become a better servant? For example, imagine the Upper Schoolers are addressing homelessness in San Francisco. We begin the cycle of service learning by seeing the humanity in our neighbors who are unhoused and asking about the experience and condi- tions of homelessness. We visit our local service partner—City Hope—and ask what actions and organizations that address homelessness have been the most and the least effective. With this greater awareness, and in conversation
Litter pick-up
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with individuals who have experienced homelessness, we determine what courses of action can best serve our unhoused neighbors. After we have engaged in an act of service, we spend reflection time discussing what we’ve learned and analyzing our successes and limitations, and we determine what could be changed next time to improve the effectiveness of our actions. Throughout the process, we explore how different academic disciplines—from math and art to religion and the humanities—can uniquely contribute to serving our unhoused neighbors. ANNUAL SERVICE EVENTS Cathedral’s service program integrates service learning into the whole life of the school—from chapel topics and speakers, to classroom content, to involvement from the Parent and Alumni Associations, to partnerships with other organizations throughout the Bay Area. Some of the annual service events that the entire school participates in are as follows: HOLIDAY GIFT DRIVE FOR BAYVIEW MISSION To celebrate the holiday season, CSB boys and families are voluntarily matched with children who attend the Bayview Mission’s annual Christmas party. We collect toys for the children, bless them at our annual Lessons and Carols concert, and then send them with personally made cards to ensure that our neighbors feel valued and celebrated during the holiday season. (Bayview Mission is a Special Mission of the Episcopal Diocese of California with strong support from Grace Cathedral that provides much needed services, food, and supplies to residents of the Bayview/Hunters Point neighborhoods.)
Graffitti Cleanup
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Loading Giving Tree gifts for the Bayview Mission
LENT MADNESS GIVING COMPETITION Lent Madness is a week-long tournament of giving to support our neighbors in need of assistance and help. In the lead-up to Easter—just around the time of the March Madness college basketball tournament—this event combines the spiritual exercise of charitable giving with the "madness" of healthy competition. This past year, we partnered with the local non-profit Refugee and Immigrant Transitions, and collected toys, books, stationery, giftcards, and money for refugee and immigrant children in the Bay Area. In the service learning process, we hosted speakers in Chapel who shared their own experiences as refugees or immigrants. The grade level with the most consistent givers is awarded the special distinction of leading the Servant Leadership chapel.
DAY OF SERVICE & DAY OF ACTION Once a year, CSB pauses the calendar to have the entire school participate in a Day of Service where each grade works with parents, alumni, or neighbors to volunteer to improve our surrounding communities. Similarly, we hope to include a Day of Action each year. Modeled after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s steps for nonviolent social change, the Day of Action will involve taking a specific area of injustice and applying the service learning process to take actions to bring about awareness and change. FUTURE SERVICE GOALS In addition to the Day of Action, my plan for the future is to develop a service learning curriculum where each grade level explores a different area of service that can also be associated with some spiritual quality or story. The Lower School curriculum, for example, might
6th graders at the Bayview Mission beautiful, more loving, and more just through a commitment to service that was cultivated here at CSB. educated at Cathedral will grow to be a Good Samaritan, making the world more focus on service towards the earth and animals, the elderly, other children, local heroes, and immigrants and refugees. The Upper School curriculum, for example, might focus more specifically on serving children at neighboring public schools, our neighbors seeking food assis- tance, the unhoused, and those who have died alone. My goal is to have the service learning curriculum span from ‘cradle to grave’— from discovering how we can serve infants and toddlers in our communities, all the way to learning how to memori- alize someone who would otherwise be forgotten in their death. Ultimately, I pray that each boy
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A LOOK AT CHAPEL
On December 6, we had a special all-school Chapel in honor of St. Nicholas Day, where we named an honorary “boy bishop” who led the service.
At our May 23 all-school Chapel, we welcomed Steve Okomoto, who spoke to students about his experience in a Japanese Internment camp during World War II and how we all have a duty to stand up for civil liberties.
We began the 2021-22 school year hosting Hymn Sing in the nave of the Cathedral. Despite the less cozy setting, our students were as enthusiastic as ever when they raised their hands to select a hymn!
We opened the school year with division-level Chapels in Grace Cathedral, where our newest students had a lot to take in!
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At the heart of every Cathedral student’s experience is Chapel. Three times a week, we come together to reflect, find our center, and bond as a community. It’s where our entire school gathers together and every person is heard, seen, accepted, and appreciated for who they are. Chapels at Cathedral take many forms: celebrating holidays from the world’s major religions, hearing from special guests about important issues, sharing our own reflections, and joining together in song and prayer. The pictures below are a glimpse into our Chapels in the 2021-22 school year. But pictures can only tell part of the story—we encourage you to come to Chapel and experience it yourself!
After the St. Nicholas Day Chapel, our boy bishop joined Father Timothy at the top of the Cathedral to bless the entire city!
Lower Schoolers learned about Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month in Chapel in the tastiest way possible, with presentations from our families about their food and culinary traditions!
We celebrated Women’s History Month in Lower School with a series of special Chapels, where we learned about why Women’s History Month exists and highlighted important women in history and our community.
Upper Schoolers heard from members of Tomorrow’s Women, a group of Israeli and Palestinian young women who spoke about setting aside hatred and finding common ground.
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AN INDELIBLE IMPACT At the heart of 2021 Forbes Master Teacher Chair Sean Breen’s creative genius is constant reflection, revision and reimagination.
BY MEGAN PICKETT WYMAN (Thorne ’23)
PUT TOGETHER A BASEBALL DEVOTEE BOUND FOR SAN DIEGO, a kid with electromagnetic hypersensitivity headed to Amish Country, and a guy who wants to croon like old-time singers in a fogged-in bus station in Paris, Missouri, and what do you get? A tiny glimpse into the labyrinthine imagination and inimitable creativity of Sean Breen. As Cathedral’s beloved Performing Arts teacher for nearly 40 years, Breen has lent not only his countless talents to the CSB community, but also a profound definition of service and tireless dedication to students and fellow faculty. To call him a Renaissance man would be a gross understatement, let alone a cheap cliché. For at the heart of his work is the constancy of revision in the name of improvement. He is the consummate life-long learner who, as one anonymous 6th grader said, “makes it fun to be bad.” The list of fun facts about Mr. Breen is as varied as the number of instruments he can play. For years he kept a basketball in the back of his car to shoot hoops in the Tenderloin after school (and subsequently ruined his knees). He loves to travel to desolate places to gem-hunt with his wife. Before teaching, he worked as a security guard, bank teller, and played weddings in a band. When he retires, he plans to join the World Series of Poker. He skips the New York Times crossword puzzles until Fridays. He has posted videos of all the musicals he’s written over the past 38 years to YouTube. And the legend many students have heard that he once wrote and recorded a song for the San Francisco ’49ers on the cusp of Super Bowl victory and slipped past security at Candlestick Park to leave copies on every player’s windshield is true. But one fun fact that parents may not know truly embodies Breen’s subtle character and approach to teaching: Every morning, as boys trickle onto campus, Breen starts his day at the piano down in the depths of the Crypt. “I leave the door open because I want kids to hear it as they go by,” he says. The practice is just one example of his gift for igniting a love of learning beyond the classroom.
Born into a United States military household in Germany, Breen was one of eight children, often lost in the shuffle as the family moved to Greece, England, and around the Washington D.C. area. With no money for college, “unless we agreed to go to teachers’ college, since tuition was $100 and they would find you a job if you agreed to teach within five years of graduation,” he sought a degree in teaching and music, graduating in 1976. Following a short-term post as a music teacher in a rural Virginia school where he met his future wife, the lure of the big city drew Breen to New York where he taught at a private school on the Upper East Side. With the arrival of his sons, he heeded advice from a mentor who suggested that boarding schools might provide greater quality of life for a young teacher and his family. He accepted a job at The Thacher School in Ojai only to find that heat, snakes, and a complete lack of privacy were not for him. Luckily there was an opening at a boys’ school in San Francisco, and Breen joined Cathedral in 1984. He never intended to stay at Cathedral for as long as he has. With dreams of a recording studio, the plan was to stay finan- cially stable until he wrote his first hit. During this period, he composed in his precious free time late at night, wrote for public radio and commercials, and poured savings into travel to Los Angeles to record demos. But as creative souls know rejection all too well, nothing hit. “The closest I came to fame was the song I wrote for the San Francisco ’49ers when they were going for their third consecutive championship,” he recalls.
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“I started to realize that writing musicals and children’s music would be something that I would really enjoy.”
At Cathedral, Breen’s interest in musicals blossomed early. “I started to realize that writing musicals and children’s music would be something that I would really enjoy,” he says. “I wanted to write musicals that were—looking back—pretty gender-neutral. No one was falling in love, there was no he/she stuff. The drama was not in that, the drama was in being a person.” Between 1985 and 2008, he wrote 25 original musicals with colorful and curious titles like Eighth Grade Angst , Mystery at the Men’s Club , and Hillsdale Blues . It was a prolific time during which his own two sons graduated from CSB, went on to Lowell High School and UC Berkeley, and eventually became teachers in their own rights. In 2002, Breen lost his wife and with her much of his desire to write new material. Life was calling for revision once again, and he uprooted to the city, a few blocks away from school, and decided to dig into professional devel- opment. “This was the place I needed to be, this was my home,” he says. “And I always thought I was a great music teacher, but I wasn’t, and I wanted to up my game.” In 2006, he earned a Master’s at Holy Names in Oakland and four years later went on to earn a Master’s in Cognitive Neuroscience at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, where he was named a fellow. He has since traveled the world lecturing annually on the topic, from Scotland to Malaysia. When Covid threw a wrench into school routines, Breen was terrified that his time at CSB was coming to a close as performing arts programs shut down in schools around the country. “I waited for the call saying, ‘your services are no longer needed,” he recalls. But a surprise call from Upper School Director Chad Harlow brought about an auspicious twist: “I was packing up downstairs and he said, ‘How’d you like to teach math?’ Golly, holy cow!” he laughs. “So that summer I did as much professional devel- opment as I could to be the best math teacher possible. With that came the ability to show up every day and feel engaged and excited, to come to school and be a steady, dependable force.” Fully prepared on the first day of the surreal 2020-21 school year teaching 6th grade math online, “math teacher” is now one more nod to the teacher “who can do anything,” as an anonymous student said. Breen’s program for the Upper School offers a broad variety of performance exposure, from learning handbells in 5th grade and conducting word-for-word reenactments of book passages to the highly anticipated 6th and 8th grade musicals.
Driven by story rather than the music, Breen’s musicals draw on current events, news stories, radio programs, even real-time conversations where “there’s usually a grain of public truth,” he says. For example, inspired by former Washington DC mayor Marion Barry, who was accused of fabricating his résumé, Breen penned Stranger Than Fiction , a musical about one person whose honor for telling the truth triggers other characters to lie about their own integrity. Themes of missing parental figures factor into many of the productions’ plots. On the Line , which debuted in 1986, around the time Breen’s father passed away, features a song called “TV Men,” which he wrote “during a time when there were sitcom shows where any problem could be solved in 23 minutes and all the fathers are geniuses.” In every aspect of a production, Breen shares his creative technique with his students, bringing his own findings back to the classroom to inspire their own ideas. One year, after
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In Spirals with The Iliad . Inspired by a story about a Stanford University student who wrote everything in spirals, Breen “wondered what that kid was like in kindergarten. What was that like and why would it happen? So I concocted a story about a kid getting stuck on a rollercoaster at ‘DizzyWorld,’ falls asleep and wakes up and everything spirals.” As with most of his works, the main theme of the play is “about being true to who you are and acceptance,” he says of the ultimate lesson he imparts. To illustrate the point, one year Breen revised the play and cast seven different boys to play Peter. “I wanted to show that this character could represent anybody. The shot at the end is this multiracial group of guys and it made the play better.” Such constant examination and revision of his own work is at the heart of Breen’s drive to improve upon greatness year to year, be it his own or his students’. “Looking back at some of my old musicals, I question my assumptions and biases. I notice that in some of the early musicals, I write physical descriptions and almost every one of them is a white kid with blonde hair. I’ve edited most of my plays to reflect a gender-neutral parental role because it’s not important to the story,” he says. “To me that’s the biggest challenge: being appropriately relevant and keeping up with how quickly the school has grown in its sensi- tivity and response, not only to DEI, but also smaller stuff.” While retirement looms on the horizon for this beloved life-long learner, the revisions will continue. Breen plans to resume his passion for chess and return to his piano. “I want to know what excellence in piano playing is again,” he smiles pensively. “I haven’t known that for years.”
reading about playwright Neil Simon’s technique of crowding, whereby one mines real conversations from busy places like hospital emergency rooms for inspiration, he tested the concept by sitting in a Greyhound bus station in Stockton, California for an afternoon. “I told the kids at school that you don’t have to invent drama, all you have to do is listen and put stuff together,” he says. “So we turned on the radio to find stories. Whatever stories we found, we put in our musical.” Each year, Breen selects the musical and the casting based on the personalities of the 6th and 8th grade classes, involving each student in every step of the creative process, from artwork for sets and playing in the student band to acting on stage or working backstage. It is a deliberately designed process to move the students out of their comfort zones. “I’ve had boys who really don’t want to take a risk,” he says. “I cast everyone in a role they do not ask for, and they are shocked. You can feel the nervousness of some of these boys. And they remember those moments, they’re transformative.” Class time is spent reviewing the play and drawing parallels from literature, as he does for his favorite Peter, Who Writes
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MASTER TEACHER AWARD Presented to Jen Bachmann During last year’s graduation celebration, the Forbes Master Teacher Chair was awarded to Cathedral’s 1st Grade Co-Lead Teacher, Jen Bachmann. Below are the remarks that Head of School Jones gave while presenting the award:
The first two recipients of the Award were Michael Vietmeier in 2021 and Sean Breen in 2022. From the perspective of one of the recipient’s nominators, this teacher brings many strengths to the classroom. But perhaps none are more important than the deep commitment the teacher makes to establishing a personal connection with each student. One nominator wrote, “We have been blown away by this teacher’s patience and understanding of exactly how to get through to our son.” From the perspective of another nominator: “This teacher is such a positive influence on each of our boys. Our son said it best
when he told us, “My teacher makes learning fun!” It’s no coincidence that this fun stems from the teacher’s ability to connect, to keep cool and keep the boys engaged—and the result is an entire classroom that benefits from her approach.” Yet another parent wrote, “My son talks about his teacher all of the time, and even calls his teacher his best friend.” What I appreciate most about this year's recipient is their level of professionalism and positive outlook, which only increase when circumstances at school or in life become more challenging. The 2022 recipient of the Forbes Master Teacher Chair is Jen Bachmann.
THE FORBES MASTER TEACHER CHAIR is the first endowed chair at Cathedral School for Boys. This Chair was funded by the School’s loyal alumni, and it is designed to recognize teachers who demonstrate excellence in teaching, display an abiding commitment to the School’s students, express an ongoing commitment to professional and personal growth, and are recog- nized within the community for, in the words of our Statement of Philosophy, “modeling the highest standards in every respect.” Recipients will receive a significant addition to their salary and a professional development stipend to allow them to attend the annual conference of the National Association of Independent Schools.
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SETTLING INTO OUR NEW LEARNING COMMONS!
In January of 2022, we officially opened our new Learning Commons spaces off of the Upper and Lower School floors! These flexible, multi-use spaces were the culmination of our Fulfilling the Strategic Vision campaign, a four-year effort that grew our endowment, created the Forbes Master Teacher Chair position, strengthened our adjustable tuition program, and completely overhauled the School’s campus. With our new Learning Commons and renovated classrooms, our students have the spaces they need to learn, grow, and thrive in a school campus that is designed for a 21st-century education. Thank you to everyone who participated in the Campaign and contributed to its success!
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ON MARCH 17, 2022, WE HELD A RECEPTION IN OUR NEW LOWER SCHOOL LEARNING COMMONS to celebrate the successful completion of our capital campaign and the official unveiling of our newly renovated campus! At this event, we also honored the Bennington family for their years of service to Cathedral School for Boys by officially naming our new space the Bennington Family Learning Commons . Just as the Benningtons’ contributions - James as board chair, Josie as active parent volunteer, Bill ‘79 as current trustee, and Jeff ‘80 as engaged alum - have allowed our School to thrive over the past 40 years, these new Learning Commons spaces position Cathedral to deliver the best possible education for our boys well into the future.
James, Josie, and Bill ‘79 Bennington at the dedication of the Bennington Family Learning Commons.
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SERVING BEYOND CATHEDRAL FOUR ALUMNI EXHIBIT CSB’S COMMITMENT TO SERVICE IN DYNAMIC WAYS
BY GARRICK RAMIREZ (Felix ‘23)
JASON MCGAUGHEY, Class of 1996
FOR JASON MCGAUGHEY, WHO’S ADVISED EMERGENCY RESPONSE TEAMS in countries such as Afghanistan, Haiti, and Ukraine, it’s about trying to quickly identify where support could be helpful in a community. In his role as the Regional Education Technical Advisor in the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe for Save the Children, McGaughey drafts strategies to ensure children continue to be educated during times of conflict and disaster. Before working abroad, he worked one-on-one with children in the homes of asylum- seeking families throughout the Bay Area. That work eventually led him to Haiti where he taught English in a camp of 60,000 families displaced by the devastating 2010 earthquake. “I really had to draw on things that I had learned about being a humanist, and wanting to help people and participate in the larger community,” says McGaughey. He lauds his Cathedral instructors who made it clear that he and his classmates were given an opportunity that not many others had, and there was an expectation that they do something with it. Today, he wants young people to know that service is more accessible than they might realize. “What I do may seem far-flung, but it doesn’t have to be in Syria,” he says. “Service can be anywhere, it’s just about doing something.”
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There’s both joy and curiosity in discovering what endeavors former students pursue, and how they might carry aspects of their education into adulthood. For a 65-year-old institution such as Cathedral, the stories are endless. One notable commonality among grads is the practice of service. That’s because learning at CSB embodies both the acquisition and application of knowledge in support of improving communities. “I think it’s important for our boys to understand that there is a world beyond themselves to which they are responsible,” explains Head of School Burns Jones. As such, students engage in various service-oriented endeavors—from volunteering at local organizations to mentoring boys in lower grades—with the hope that this principle extends beyond the boys’ time at school. Below are four examples of how Cathedral alumni have continued to manifest a dedication to serving their community.
MICHAEL COLIN, CLASS OF 1971
CAPTAINING WARSHIPS TO COMBAT SEA LIFE POACHERS is just one of the tasks Michael Colin fulfilled for Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a group famed for protecting marine life via direct action. “I had been volunteering for years at a homeless shelter when I reached an inflection point to find a broader impact, and filled out an application for Sea Shepherd,” explains Colin, a documentary filmmaker and professional sailboat captain. When he got the call to join the agency, he booked a flight to Annapolis, Maryland to help repurpose two former Coast Guard cutters. “I was happy to simply chip paint off of these vessels, but when a captain unexpectedly backed out, they tapped me to transport the 110-foot ships down to Key West,” shares Colin. A few months later, he stepped out of the cockpit and into the editing suite to produce the film “Why Just One?” which documented a Sea Shepherd campaign to prevent the poaching of sea turtle eggs in Costa Rica. Colin credits his sense of activism to his experience at Cathedral during the 1960s when Vietnam War protests spilled out into the school’s surrounding streets. “It was a distinct moment in time, and it was impossible to separate what was in the air with the foundational gift of being at a school like Cathedral,” he says. Colin says that each of his teachers was imbued with a sense of mission. “These were educators of substance,” he shares. “They weren’t afraid to draw outside the lines, and they earned our respect.”
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TREVOR HUNNICUTT, Class of 2002
AS A JOURNALIST COVERING ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE IN THE WORLD, Trevor Hunnicutt hopes that he is serving the public with honest, sometimes challenging information that spurs a constructive dialogue. Hunnicutt is the White House Correspondent for Reuters, and travels with President Biden to all public events, both domestic and foreign. It’s a 24/7 role, and when he’s not traveling, Hunnicutt and his team are asking questions of the administration, analyzing their actions, and developing stories. Hunnicutt says he became a journalist as a way to be engaged in the world across private, public, and government sectors. He remembers being inspired to learn about international issues and cultures at Cathedral. “I had great History and English teachers that told engaging stories and had us read amazing literature that just fasci- nated me,” he says. Hunnicutt also remembers a strong sense of service. “We did community work at senior centers, soup kitchens, and tutored Cathedral kindergartners,” he shares. Today, he’s in a role that serves and informs the general public. “We ask tough questions of people in power who might not want to talk about it,” says Hunnicutt. Asked if he challenged authority as a young person, he replies, “Oh yeah, that was definitely my vibe as a kid. The trick is to find a way to channel that into something productive as an adult.” Cunningham, who helps create nutrient-dense peanut butters for Edesia Nutrition, a food supplier to humanitarian agencies such as World Food Programme. Cunningham works in Edesia’s test kitchen, reformulating the company's flagship products—Plumpy'Nut and Plumpy'Sup—based on changing needs and supply chains. He’s also charged with making sure the product retains its nutrient levels for as long as possible within less than ideal situations. “Our role is to do whatever we can to reach as many kids as possible,” he says. Cunningham studied food science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst before landing a job at Clif Bar. Years later, he discovered a position at Edesia, and jumped at the opportunity. “Once I realized that I could do this type of job in food, it was a no brainer,” says Cunningham, who notes the importance of believing in whatever you do. He says some of his outlook is rooted in his community service experi- ences at Cathedral, where he learned the many ways of giving back, from playing cards with residents of the neighborhood senior center to sorting products at the local food bank. Today, Cunningham is still helping feed those in need. “When you see photos of these kids, it creates a huge motivation for my role,” he shares. “Trying to make a difference in the world leaves you with a great feeling at the end of the day.” “DO I WANT TO WORK ON THE NEXT GREAT FLAVOR FOR OREO, OR HELP MALNOURISHED CHILDREN?” asks food scientist Oliver
OLIVER CUNNINGHAM, Class of 2006
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SCENES FROM INTERSESSION
After a two-year break, the long-standing tradition of Intersession Week returned to Cathedral last March!
SPORT MANAGEMENT
DURING THIS WEEK, our Upper School students engage in classes and experiences outside of their ordinary academic schedule, allowing them to explore topics not covered in our regular academic program with faculty members who are passionate about these subjects. All classes include a significant experiential learning component—instead of just listening to or reading the ideas of others, our students have their own first-hand experi- ences as they learn by doing. Students had a choice of nine different classes, ranging from “The Legal System,” where students followed a trial and got insight from judges and lawyers, to “The Living Bay,” where students explored how to balance the ecological health of the Bay with the needs of the inhabitants around it. On the following pages are photos from five other Intersession courses our students took.
Ms. Hilbrich Sheppard and Coach Dossick offered their group a deep look into how the sports business works and the many career options available in the field, meeting with coaches, agents, broadcasters, and team executives, and visiting the Giants, the USF basketball team, and the Stanford athletics department. WINTER 2023 • RED & GOLD | 21
BIKES AND BURRITOS! Ms. Andres and Father Timothy took a group on a week-long dive into all facets of biking in San Francisco, as they learned how to build and maintain bikes, explored bicycle culture in the Bay Area, and sampled the city’s best burrito joints, too!
LET’S MAKE SOME DOUGH! Ms. Goggin and Mrs. Juergens showed their class the basics of baking and business by visiting bakeries, talking to entre- preneurs, baking treats, pitching ideas to a group of investors, and deciding on a product and business model, culminating in a one-day student-run bake sale!
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MURALS, STREET ART, AND POLITICS Mr. Joseph, Coach Iljas, Ms. Roggero, Mr. Harlow, and Mrs. Williams led their group in an exploration of street art and the lines between graffiti, tagging, vandalism, and art. After hearing from artists, graffiti clean-up crews, and neighborhood leaders, the students learned how to use spray paint and created a mural on campus.
ANIMAL CARE AND APPRECIATION Mr. Chou and Ms. Willey introduced their class to the many ways in which people support, interact with and care for different animals in San Francisco, exploring how animal shelters and rescue facilities operate, learning about how animals are cared for in different settings, and discovering why wildlife rehabilitation and conservation is so important.
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Remembering THE REV. CANON DAVID FORBES EULOGY FOR THE REV. CANON DAVID FORBES, DELIVERED ON THE OCCASION OF HIS MEMORIAL SERVICE,
BY HEAD OF SCHOOL BURNS JONES. Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, California | May 25, 2022
FOR THE LAST FEW DAYS, I have been trying my very best to channel my inner David Forbes, or at least a bit of him. I have been thinking that if I could muster some small modicum of his wit, of his intelligence, of his lived experience, of his conviction, and of his depth that I might be up for this challenge. It's a challenge that comes with summarizing the life and influence of a man, who at 95 years of age, could recall in uncanny and vivid detail, every boy who passed through these halls, his background, the complexities of his parents, his accomplishments, and his indiscretions. It's the challenge of describing a geology major who later went on to study theology. It's the challenge of describing a man who could love equally the energy of urban cities and the peace of National Parks. And for me, it is the challenge of describing a man who was as much mythological as he was mortal. I knew of David Forbes before I ever met him. Long before I became involved with Cathedral School for Boys, David's influence, exerted through a variety of forms, had made its way across the country and seeped into the institutions and communities in which I was living and working. There was David the creator; the man known for building great schools, Cathedral School for Boys on this very block and, later, St. Paul's School in Oakland. David recognized the need to create excellent independent schools that were accessible to any student regardless of his or her background and circum- stances. To this end, our David followed in the footsteps of St. David, the 6th century Welsh bishop, founder of monasteries, and churches. Both Davids, the Saint and the Canon, recog- nized the power of the collective over the individual and sought to develop institutions that would contribute to society. There was also David the epistolarian; the man who appeared through correspondence written to the founders of schools, and
in particular Canterbury School, the school in North Carolina that I led before moving to San Francisco. Appreciating David's reputation as a creator of schools, this group had sought David's advice about the creation of their own school. Through a carefully and powerfully crafted series of letters, David extolled the virtues of Episcopal Schools and the essential role of religious formation within them. Rather than serving, merely, as vehicles for professional success, David understood Episcopal Schools as tools for building a better world. There was also David the theologian: the man who appeared through articles and position papers published by a variety of organizations, and especially the National Association of Episcopal Schools. This David implored school leaders to recognize the educational influence of diversity at a time when, for many, its influence and imperative had yet to be fully appreciated. These were the forms of the Reverend Canon David Forbes that appeared to me before I ever met the man. Thus, he was, at least at this point more myth than man, and thus I began to form, in my imagination, the impression of a person, who loomed as large in body as he was in influence; a hulking colossus whose physical prowess both symbolized and embodied his hefty reputation. How interesting it was, then, to meet him for the first time. This meeting took place just a few months before moving to San Francisco. We had arranged to have dinner during the biennial conference held by the National Association of Episcopal Schools. I remember scouring the auditorium, seeking out someone of Dwight Clark's stature yet wearing vestments befitting the Archbishop of Canterbury. How surprising it was, then, to finally encounter David the man, small in stature and because he was well in his eighties at the
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• Here he is attending, until just a few months ago, every Cathedral School Board meeting as an emeritus trustee. • Here he is being asked about whether he ever wished that he had boys instead of his three daughters (known affection- ately around School as the “Forbes Girls”) and responding with, “Why, I already have 165 sons!” Perhaps the true challenge of remembering David comes in trying to depict the multitude of ways in which he offered himself to each of us: father, husband, partner, teacher, leader, educator, theologian, friend, activist, confidant. It's the challenge of describing a man who in one moment carries the complexity of a Picasso mural and moments later the simple beauty of a portrait by Vermeer. A dear friend once described a fellow educator in this way: “ [H]e was a sonata fading into a jazz riff rising into a show tune that drops into a bluegrass ballad that sails into an operatic aria that becomes beach music without you even noticing. He was Bill Monroe picking for Pavarotti, William Faulkner channeling James Thurber. ” How aptly this describes David, too. Most style manuals warn against the use of tautologies and mixed metaphors; they often cause confusion and unneces- sarily complicate the written or spoken word. Perhaps this eulogy presents a good example of those dangers. Yet, I can't help but remember, much less describe, David without employing triple tautologies and a myriad of metaphors. And in this, I believe, lay David's power. It's not that David was unduly or unnecessarily complex, but rather, that he had the divine gift of empathy; he had an innate and God-given ability to understand the needs of others. He could tell what those of us in his presence or those in his care needed and he presented himself to us in ways that met our needs. For you see, above everything else, David was a shepherd, and we were his flock. As we make our way through today's liturgy, we should remain mindful of the frequency with which images and diction of the pastoral—shepherds, lambs, sheep, and flocks—appear. Certainly, these are images that in Christian theology symbolize God and our relationship to him. But for those who knew David Forbes, or even of David Forbes, we can't help but recognize that these themes and these images represent, so thoroughly, his place in our lives. For in the words of the great Hymn #664, one that all Cathedral School boys know, “Our Shepherd did supply our need, David was his name.”
time, somewhat frail. He was much more of a David than a Goliath. And yet his influence was obvious. Of the hundreds of people in the room, he was the only one surrounded by others, a host of educators, all eager to be in the presence of this great man. It is worth recognizing that the bodies in our universe that exert the strongest gravitational pull are also some of the universe's most diminutive. And here he was, a veritable neutron star of a man, surrounded a coterie of other bodies, inescapably drawn to and revolving around him. Although it was late in the afternoon, David waited patiently and gave each colleague his full and undivided attention. The throng eventually subsided, and I made my way to him. I acknowledged that it was late in the afternoon and that we could easily find more time later, but David proceeded to regale me for the next few hours with the stories of the founding of and the philosophy behind his beloved Cathedral School. His energy only grew as the conversation continued. I couldn't get enough of him. Speaking with so many of you over the few weeks since David's death, I have been reminded of just how much we were all drawn to him. This theme of David surrounded by others emerged regularly though conversations and correspondence. (How many of us traveled to Palm Springs or wanted to travel to Palm Spring to be with him over his last few weeks?) Your memories correspond with my own. And although I never had the occasion to observe him as Head of School, I can imagine how he operated within the hallways of Cathedral School for Boys: as a body always in motion, always surrounded by others. If we revert back, just for a moment, to the imaginative power of our kindergarten selves, we can see him at this very moment: • Here he is depicted at the mural at the front of Grace Cathedral appearing at the perfect time to lay a firm but loving hand on a boy's shoulder; • Here he is channeling, somehow, the incomparable and kinetic force that was Mimi Lowrey to start one of this country's great schools; • Here he is chaperoning 8th grade trips to Yosemite, weather be damned, so that boys could get outside of the city and experience something transcendent and perhaps discover, even, the presence of God in nature; • Here he is responding to one of the Orser boys, called to his office for yet another infraction. This Orser proudly proclaims, “I am not scared of you,” and David retorts by saying, “Well you should be because you are now suspended." • Here he is attending choir camp both to satiate his love of choral music and to delight the choristers with ghost stories around the camp fire.
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