Friends Forward

This workshop introduces the combined lens of “Outliers, Outlaws, and Outcasts”, through which the stories we hear (and ones we tell ourselves) have aspects of leadership, defiance, and failure rather than demarcations of winning and losing by heroes and villains, or pitting “us” against “them.” Participants leave with a greater awareness of their own growth as leaders, along with resources and strategies that help students recognize leadership qualities in themselves and their peers as they mature within social and academic communities.

This interactive session explores two approaches to evaluating Quaker identity in schools: the structured, evidence‑based American Friends Council on Education model and the invitational, narrative‑rich UK Ethos Evaluation approach. Drawing on Ackworth School’s recent Quaker Ethos Report, participants will compare how each model captures the lived experience of Quaker values. Through discussion and group activities, the session will invite reflection on the strengths of both approaches and offer practical ideas for developing reflective, values‑led practice in participants’ own settings.

In the Lower School at Wilmington Friends School, students explore one Quaker testimony each month through developmentally appropriate, experiential learning. Using queries, music, shared readings, and collaborative projects, students reflect on how these values show up in their daily lives and relationships. Learning culminates in student-created artifacts that are shared throughout the school, helping to make Quaker values visible within the community.

This interactive session will share the structure, resources, and practices that support this work, including examples of queries, songs, readings, and student projects. Participants will collaborate in small groups to generate ideas for testimony-focused experiences and visible displays tailored to their own school settings. Together, we will explore how tangible, student-centered expressions of the testimonies can build shared language, deepen understanding, and strengthen Quaker identity across a school.

Social media invites a curated persona and relies on external validation while the digital noise of constant stimulation deprives our brains of the silence necessary for deep listening and centering down before worship. Furthermore, a systemic dilution of Quaker education into social media-ready "values" or "SPICES" leaves students and teachers without the practices needed to navigate academic stress, anxiety and a general crisis of well-being. Most Upper School students at my Quaker school are so overwhelmed by the extrinsic demands of the college process that they do not participate in soulful engagement during meetings for worship. In fact, they sometimes resent being forced to take a break from the studying that could lead to their definition of success. There are colleagues too who wish they could have that extra time correcting assessments and preparing for class. The tyranny of perfectionism and its accompanying fear of vulnerability make true self-knowledge and compassion for oneself and others feel more like a risk than a prerequisite for a life of meaning and purpose. To what extent is our performance-based culture and our over-scheduled screen-filled lives causing a profound atrophy of our Spirit-filled soulscapes? And what can we do to elevate the soul's importance in our competitive winner-take-all world? There is no single answer, of course. But finding ways to slow down, to enter into silence, embrace nature, inculcate deep listening, discuss love and friendship, lift up our own weaknesses, applaud student kindness and caring, and engage in Spirit-led inquiry and worshipful sharing can at least help to nurture our ever receptive and redemptive Inner Light.

** This session will be repeated on Thursday, July 9 during Workshop 2. **

Do our classrooms reflect courageous conversations rooted in our Quaker SPICES with our youngest learners? In this workshop, participants will engage in “hard” topics such as race, racism, ethnicity, and identity and explore how to incorporate these truth-centered conversations into our Quaker curriculums and practices. Rooted in Quaker principles of equity and honoring the Inner Light in everyone, this work calls us to be responsive in engaging with these complex topics, embracing the responsibility to guide even our youngest learners through these important conversations with courage and care.

Goals for Today-Exploring Quaker Protocols-Threshing
To deepen Quaker practices in our teaching and learning, and in how we engage with one another as a community. Engaging in a Quaker Protocol as a community is one way we can serve that goal.

What is "Threshing"?
"Threshing" means separating the "wheat from the chaff" and working toward collective discernment of a way forward. Quakers use threshing, usually in advance of decision-making or discussion on a topic that might be controversial or difficult.

GOALS include
to explore a topic using a protocol that encourages all voices and that leads to deepening focus on aspects of common interest;
to gain practice using this protocol with colleagues;
modeling a collegial learning practice;
to emphasize the importance of both sharing and listening
to gain practice in following the protocol so all have a turn.

What Threshing is NOT
We are NOT trying to come to any conclusions or resolutions, rather use protocol to gain clarity to help with further decision making.

Credit: Deborra Sines-Pancoe and Shu Shu Coasta, SPARC, Friends Council

*This workshop will also be held on Thursday, July 9 3:15-4:15PM (Workshop 3).*

As educators, we value and curate our course content. As Quaker educators, we strive to bring every student into community, with integrity, while nurturing their individuality. Resonance, the scientific concept, refers to an efficient exchange of energy. Resonant Teaching refers to the idea that students learn best when in a purposeful relationship with their teacher; they intentionally seek to know one another, or, to Quakers, seek one another’s Light Within. We offer Resonant Teaching as a framework for merging these two important tasks of true learning and true connection. We believe that when resonance is achieved, teaching and learning seem to propel themselves forward. We will explore strategies for taking the purposeful craft of resonating with students from the mystical and metaphorical to the actionable. 

**This workshop will also be held on Thursday, July 9 10:00-11:00AM (Workshop 2).**