Board Member Transitions: A Conversation with Janet Lohmann and Lise Wagner

Pictured above: (Top left) Outgoing board member, Lise Wagner, Head of School Sara Primo, and incoming board member, Janet Lohman

Incoming FSP board member, Janet Lohmann, and outgoing long-time board member, Lise Wagner, sat down with Head of School, Sara Primo, to chat about how Quaker education has touched their lives. Lise’s son Doug Wagner was in the inaugural FSP kindergarten class and graduated in 2015. Lise joined FSP’s board after her son graduated and saw FSP through the building of the middle school wing and our head of school search. Janet has been a member of FSP’s advisory committee and has witnessed the school’s growth from its founding in 2006.  

Lise Wagner’s tenure has seen FSP through so much change and growth – we are grateful.  And we are excited for Janet to join FSP’s board and bring her experience and depth of perspective. Here’s a window into their recent conversation:     

When did you first get introduced to Quaker education? 

Lise: I could say that Swarthmore College was my introduction to Quaker education, but it wasn't exactly. Until Friends School of Portland, I would say I wasn't as touched by Quaker education. 

I remember how Friends School started, the decision was made to be true to the long history of Friends education. It also happened that FSP’s first location at Mackworth allowed for a place-based angle to the curriculum, which now has traveled to FSP’s current location. What comes to mind, though: I have a framed article on students considering “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” years and years ago at Friends School, when Doug was probably in second grade. It's just the pensive looks on these kids' faces as they discuss the book and what they would think of, and just how the kids were really asked to speak. It's participating, it's being, having your own voice, being heard, being seen, that I especially recognized.

Lise: Back in first and second grade, Doug was spending a lot of time folding paper and maybe not seeming to pay attention. His teacher, Katie, started Friday workshops, which allowed students to teach the class. Doug was the first one and he taught everyone how to make paper airplanes. And just to have this, you know, six-year-old teaching the class as a way to channel his talent and passion into something, into something for good. 

Janet: I grew up in Philadelphia. My dad went to Germantown Friends School. I went to public school. My mom was Catholic. My dad would pile the five of us and my mom in a car. He would drop us off at a Catholic church. He would go to Quaker meeting, then he would come pick us up. And then junior high school, I finally asked, can I go with you? That was my Quaker introduction.

I knew nothing about Quakerism before then. Fast forward… when my husband and our kids moved back to Philadelphia. We became members of Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting, and I ran the first-day school program there. We sent two children to Abington Friends School, where my husband taught. I was able to see through him, after many years of teaching as a public school teacher and then in a private boarding school, what it meant to be at a Quaker school as an educator. I got to see the magic that happened with my children. At the time, my children were in preschool and kindergarten. We were there for six years. 

As a professional, I watched my husband think differently about his teaching and, though he's not here to articulate how it was for him, I watched how the collective energy of his colleagues made a difference. And how it made a difference to have a North Star of spirituality, being unapologetic about how a Quaker institution upholds its values and practices. 

How could you tell you were getting a Quaker education?

Lise: Doug, my son, was so seen there. They knew him. They knew him inside and out in so many ways. Teachers asked how can this child not just learn, but also teach others?

I mean, that's just, that's still so amazing to me. I look at the YEP Projects, the year-end projects for the seventh and eighth-grade students. Looking at other kids coming into the meeting room gallery space and being taught by the student who's standing there with their project.

It's just this amazing time of “look at my passion that I've learned through studying and immersing myself in this thing that I believe is important and let me tell you about it and everybody's going to listen because the passion is there.” I saw a sense of belonging.

Janet: My middle child struggled with his ability to express himself until he was older, and it was through the kindness and generosity of his teachers. The community and inclusiveness of Abington Friend School really knew how to shine a light on it and really made him feel like he had something to contribute. There are things that are beyond the education, the formal education, that I think just shape the ways in which you educate.

What looked different after having experienced a Quaker education?

Janet: I think about calling teachers by their first name and how that level of equality is so paramount to how it is that students learn. And it's not disrespectful. Students are calling teachers by first names and still holding respect for one another. I think that has an effect on what it means to be in relationship with others, how you refer to them, how you work collectively as opposed to individually. How you can talk about spirituality and God and that of the light within. We encourage students to think about those pieces of their lives, which is not what happens in places that do not have this sort of Quaker identity.

Lise: Doug left Friends School with deep friendships. It's funny that I'm looking at the friendship side of things, the relationship side of things as opposed to the education, because the education was terrific. There were just so many things there. 

Janet: I think a lot of what we've talked about in this conversation so far, around Quaker education, for lack of a better word, I'm going to say are soft skills, right? 

The relationships, the community – these are critically important to what it means to be a human being in a world that embraces humanity and generosity and kindness and respect. I do remember my husband, a teacher at Abington Friends, working with his students in the high school. He saw that kids were more willing to fail and then succeed. The kids that he taught at Abington Friends School were really interested. They dug in deep; they wanted rigor to their academic engagement. As a physics teacher, I think he had so much more excitement because he was able to do these experiments that failed and failed miserably. And he was able to say, “let's unpack this.” There was something about the arc of being in a Quaker school from the start that allowed for the ability to fail, but also the real commitment to academic rigor. I'm going to fail because I'm also going to learn it. I think the ability to fail and also engage in active learning of a discipline. 

Lise: I completely agree with you, Janet. I remember the revisions that they were always doing and the ability to try things over and over again, and to get it right. I remember before she retired just what Mary Tracy did for students in terms of the rigor of learning how to write and to be a critical thinker. 

Sara: I just want to say, Lise, we're so grateful for your years of board service and hope you’ll find new ways to be involved in Friends School. Janet, thank you for joining the board and bringing such depth and thoughtfulness. We're so glad to have you.