Sitting in a group circle, Friends Academy senior Abby Frazer spoke out of the silence and gave her take on the prompt that she had asked everyone to consider during a moment of reflection: “How does slowing down and being present help you and those around you?”
Part of Abby wants nothing to do with going slow — she’s the captain of the girls’ cross-country team after all.
Another part of her is stepping into the wisdom that comes with being a leader in her Community Group.
“Think about today, today,” she said. “And leave tomorrow for tomorrow.”
She went on to explain how she’s trying to savor every moment of her final cross-country season this fall.
“You’re only on a varsity team for so long,” she said. “And as someone whose time is almost over, I’ve been thinking back about a lot of the time that I took for granted. Be present. Appreciate everything that you’re doing.”
Abby wasn’t just speaking to fellow seniors closing in on the quarter-pole of their final year. Her advice resonated with students so young that she will have graduated from college before some of them enter high school.
After Abby shared her experiences, others spoke out of the silence.
A freshman explained that “slowing down helps my brain process things better.” A middle-schooler found himself slowing down in the moment, perhaps in a new way for the first time, his energy palpably shifting from excited to pensive in search of the right words.
Abby, like all students, has been a part of the same Community Group since she started attending Friends Academy in the third grade. Each year, new students to the school are assigned a Community Group. Each year, seniors take on leadership roles as they step up within all of the groups.
“When I was younger, Community Groups had such a big impact on me,” Abby says. “I would see the older members of the Community Group walking around campus and they would always be kind and stop to say hi. Now that’s who I am. Whenever I see the younger people in my Community Group around campus, I'll stop and talk with them.”
Says Mrs. Paige Atwood, a second grade teacher who graduated from Friends Academy in 2012: “The leadership responsibilities that come with the older kids being mentors for younger kids, even the 5-year-olds, has always been such a big part of Friends Academy experience. Community Groups create this really cool bond that you don’t see everywhere.”
Community Groups also strengthen the bonds between students and teachers.
“To be at a Pre-K-12 school is, in itself, uniquely special,” says Mr. Allen Louissaint, an Upper School history teacher and 10th grade assistant dean, who participated in the same Community Group with Abby. “And so is the fact that we are intentional in making it a community by bringing people together from all the divisions across campus.
“I love learning about our community and people from different grades. When I see people in the hallways, when I see people on the Quad, I already have connection points with them. And I’ve even had some kids in my Community Group become students in my class years later. And it’s like, wow, I’ve seen you on this journey and grow literally and figuratively. You can’t get that anywhere else.”
On a recent Wednesday morning, Abby spoke to a collection of 14 students from various grade levels at the Lower, Middle, and Upper schools who compose her Community Group — one of 38 such groups that met for the first of six gatherings this school year.
She opened the meeting by reading a message that seniors shared in all the Community Groups.
“Community is at the heart of who we are at Friends Academy,” she said. “In Quaker tradition, we often remember the ‘SPICES’ that guide us — Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, and Stewardship. Today we’re lifting up the ‘C’ for Community. One way we live that value is by gathering in groups like this and explore together how Quaker values can shape our everyday lives.”
The groups participated in icebreaker and team-building activities — learning everyone’s name, sharing things they like in both group and individual conversations, doing a collective art project — before closing with a special focus on the Quaker spotlight of Discernment, the intentional practice of reflecting deeply before taking action.
“Discernment involves interrupting our desire to react in the moment,” Abby and other seniors explained to the Community Groups, “and instead choosing to pause and to pay close attention to what we are experiencing around us, noticing what we are feeling in our bodies, and inquiring deeply. When we make time to discern, we are leading from our inner light.”
Photography by Alvin Caal / Friends Academy