Backstage Calm During the Storm

Mr. Fitzpatrick and Mr. Tomizawa backstage at the
talent show with a few production crew members.

Another successful Edgewood talent show this month! One more round next month! Since 2010, we have offered three lunchtime shows each year, with each production repeated for a grade K-2 and 3-5 student audience, plus a dress rehearsal.  Our production crew is made up of about a dozen staff members and three dozen students to pull off a lunchtime show.

Our first talent show of the year is usually in February. The learning experience in this first show is pure madness, as crew members stumble through production routines and responsibilities and are oblivious to the flow of the show. We're often too busy or confused to eat.

Typically, we hit our stride by that third show in May, when the team is a purring V8 engine. That's when the adult supervisors in the balcony and backstage are able to sit and eat lunch, while the students manage the production. But this year, our crew gelled quickly. This year in our second talent show, I snapped a group selfie without worry of distracting the crew and then watched the team execute a flawless production -- while I ate my sandwich. Great show everyone!  -- Paul Tomizawa

Skyping with Cece Bell

Best selling author Cece Bell Skypes with Edgewood students.

It's not every day when one of your favorite authors comes to your school. For Edgewood fourth and fifth grade students, Skyping with author Cece Bell was part celebrity crush and part awe of her personal story. Her best selling book, El Deafo recounted her childhood struggles with her hearing disability. It was also the centerpiece and mentor text for the students' deep dive into a literary study of graphic novels led by district ELA coordinator Sue Luft.

Bell was clearly impressed with our students' video chat etiquette and knowledge of El Deafo, peppering her with interesting questions such as, "Why did you choose to make everybody as bunnies?"

El Deafo has quickly become a touchstone text for Edgewood students, who memorialized it in our Centennial mosaic. The title appears in the lower right corner of the mosaic, underneath the red apple, in a stack of popular fiction books.

The Centennial mosaic was designed by students with art teacher
Matt Fitzpatrick.

While Cece Bell has been our only author to visit us via Skype, we have had several others come to the Edgewood in person such as Kate Messner, Janet Tashjian, Todd Parr, Laura Marsh, and Jan Reynolds. 

-- Paul Tomizawa

Edgewood's Orchard

Edgewood School opened its doors 100 years ago in an apple orchard on the Cudner-Weed estate pictured above.

How fortunate for the teachers. An endless supply of apples! But according to Edgewood's first principal Mary Piedalue, the kids may have enjoyed life in an orchard the most. She once recalled that "When the apples fell into the children's hands, they made wonderful ammunition."

Carl Schorske, one of Edgewood’s first students, also remembered those apples. When he visited Edgewood in 2008, he told us that students gorged themselves on these Russet apples, also known as "rusty coats," for its skin texture and brownish color.

By the late 20th century these apples were gone from the Edgewood campus. But a few years ago, we started a comeback. A team of Edgewood historians and environmentalists, made up of staff and students, gathered in front of our school and planted a tree. An apple tree.

- Paul Tomizawa