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Alumnus Testimonial:
Michael, 2001 Schilling School graduate -
"My first day at The Schilling School was the best day of my academic life, because it opened the door to a true academic challenge.
I spent all of my elementary years in public school, an experience that left me bored and unmotivated. Even the gifted pull-out program had nothing to challenge me. And I was to a certain extent ostracized because of my ability, some of my classmates even taking it as an accomplishment when they could catch me in a mistake in class.
It was all different at Schilling. I loved the small classes and the opportunity they provided for discussion. I always asked a lot of questions, and the interaction with the teachers at Schilling helped me learn and motivated me to work harder so that I could ask harder questions. It was at Schilling that I became a skilled writer, and was able to take math and science classes from a teacher who had been considered in 1990 for a Nobel Prize. It was a Schilling trip to Washington, D.C. that gave me the opportunity to meet and talk with the late Stephen J. Gould. And it was at Schilling that I discovered, thanks to a very gifted teacher, a love of Asia that has developed into my career direction. The competitiveness at Schilling was not who's right and who's wrong, but finding the questions and answers that led to learning.
Following my graduation from Schilling in 2001, I spent a year in Taiwan as a Rotary International Exchange Student, and from there I enrolled at Tufts University, where I have been a Dean's List student each semester with a double major in Chinese and international relations.
And it all began – truly began – on August 27, 1997, the first day I walked into The Schilling School."
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Faculty Testimonial:
By Dr. Douglas Frank, Math-Science Department Chair
It doesn't seem like I've been teaching at The Schilling School for twelve years, but I have. In fact, I was a part of the school even before it opened its doors in August of 1997, working with Dr. Schilling as she turned her dream of a school for academically gifted young people into the "knowledge unlimited" experience it has become.
I am a scientist and an entrepreneur as well as an educator, with a PhD in chemistry and an international reputation as an expert in Auger spectroscopy. My work has been featured in several scientific books and international journals. I write this not to brag about myself but to indicate the caliber of instruction offered at Schilling. I have really found an intellectual home here, both with the faculty and with the students.
I have been known to say that my time at Schilling is my "recess," but perhaps a better word is "recreation" or "re-creation," because it is my opportunity to work with talented students who remind me of myself when I was their age. At Schilling I am privileged to teach in a collegial atmosphere where students learn eagerly and my energy is renewed.
It is also academically stimulating to work alongside faculty members like Judy Strong, a Yale PhD and research scientist at the University of Cincinnati, and Paul Bowen, who also earned his doctorate at Yale and whose gifts range from philosophy, math and science to mentoring students and writing a novel.
I teach advanced science and math courses at Schilling, but every once in a while I sneak into one of the Lower School classrooms, where creative things are always going on, and talk science with the younger children. And believe me, I don't do all the talking! You can't talk about atoms and molecules and why we have tides even to kindergartners at Schilling unless you seriously know your science.
Schilling's foreign language teachers bring a true international flavor to the school. Mieke Klok, Belgian by birth, lived in both Switzerland and France before coming to the United States and Schilling School. Atsuko Fatica was born and raised in Japan and Qing Wang was born and raised in China.
We have two working artists on our faculty, Tom Dusterberg and Jan Peak, and I understand that at a showing a couple of years ago – a showing that included the work of some Schilling students – visitors literally flocked around the oil paintings of our young Rembrandts.
I am a busy man as founder and president of my own business, Precision Analytical Instruments. But I never let myself be so busy that I don't have time to teach at The Schilling School, one of the privileges of my life.
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