BFS history, the video

"This Is Our Quiet Time"

BFS ordinarily shares brief clips in its Video Archives, but we make an exception this week with the full version of the original BFS musical, Forward to the Past. Written and performed by the BFS community in 1989, Forward to the Past: the Historical Hysterical Follies of Brooklyn Friends School, relates our school's history as uncovered by an extra-terrestrial cultural anthropologist visiting the Planet Earth in his search for "friendly peoples." And he just happened to land at BFS. Of course, there are many familiar faces among the cast of teachers, parents, students, and friends, including Cheryl Foote, Don Knies, Jack Ramey, Martin Norregaard, Lawrence Gibson and many others. A clip of just the hip-hop finale was posted almost a year ago, yet today the beautiful solo, "This Is Our Quiet Time," beginning at 49:30, merits a listen.

Gatekeeper No More

1940, BFS Principal Douglas Grafflin's Address to the
Trustees of the Schools of New York Monthly Meeting 
proposing the enrollment of African American students at BFS. 
Please click to read Grafflin's entire address

This week, I'm unexpectedly switching gears thanks to a courageous conversation focused on the experiences of students of color in independent schools, a conversation that occurred at the BFS Alumni/ae Facebook group thanks to Bernard Dory '88, who shared the October, 2012 New York Times article, "Admitted, But Left Out." When it comes to our school's history, I wind up being a "gatekeeper," a word I despise and first reluctantly applied to myself in 2007 while attending an Undoing Racism workshop with other BFS employees. All institutions are imperfect and our school is no different. As it did in the past, our school tries, learns and grows today - such is the nature of Quakerism's continuing revelation. 

Video archives return with Forward to the Past, 1989

Forward to the Past - Finale - 1989

Do you remember Forward to the Past: Historical Hysterical Follies of Brooklyn Friends School? That was the 1989 musical about BFS - written and produced by BFS community members who also starred in the production. Forward to the Past was about an alien named T.E. from the far-distant future. T.E. was a budding cultural anthropologist visiting the planet Earth in the great search for "friendly" peoples. The actual site of T.E.'s visit just happened to be 375 Pearl Street in Brooklyn where he stumbled upon a trunk of memorabilia and shared its contents with his superiors in outer space. They learned a bit of Brooklyn Friends School's history and learned it has always been a friendly place. This rainy Thursday, let's look at the finale of Forward to the Past which features our first principal Mary Haviland leading the cast in song.

From the kitchens of BFS

Teachers' Treats Cookbook, published 1984-85

Some of us will remember the BFS cookbooks produced by members of our community, most often our teachers and parents of the PAT.

Miss Woodward, innovator at BFS and beyond from 1900 to 1951

Examining the history of Brooklyn Friends School means also examining the history of education in Brooklyn and New York City. Brooklyn Friends School has a long history of educational innovations, but it also has a long history of allowing innovative educators to implement their ideas at BFS.

E. Frances Woodward
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1951,
accessible courtesy of fultonhistory.com

Ella Frances Woodward exemplifies our long-standing commitment to educational innovation and to supporting innovative teachers.