For almost 240 years, Friends School’s educational journey has equally emphasized the mastery of content with the mastery of essential skills required to succeed in the world - skills like critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and empathy - to name a few. Meet some of our outstanding faculty who guide our students through this journey each and every day.
David Brock
Upper School Advanced Biology Teacher
At Friends School since 2019
Q. Why did you choose Friends and/or what do you love about teaching at Friends?
A. To paraphrase Parker Palmer, Friends gave me a place where I could continue to have my “deep gladness” of teaching meet the “world’s deep need” of helping young people become mature adults, while also enabling me to remain faithful to my moral compass as an educator. Friends has provided me a way to finish out my National Teacher Hall of Fame career with dignity and integrity, and for that, I am extremely fortunate and grateful. It also gave me a way to continue to commute to school by foot thereby still keeping my carbon footprint small!
Q. What do you love about teaching your subject in particular?
A. In my career, I have taught world history, AP European history, philosophy, chemistry (regular and accelerated), engineering, and biology (at all levels). Biology has remained my greatest passion because I find it the most complex of the traditional sciences, and sharing the intricacies, patterns, and intertwined nature of the living world with my students has the potential to change their outlook on everything. As I promise my Advanced Biology students on the first day of class, “I guarantee you will never look at the world the same ever again,” and I have never taught another subject where you can see the “light bulb” moment go off in a child’s eyes like you can in biology: “So THAT’s why that happens!”
Q. How do the Upper School curriculum and teaching at Friends School prepare students to be successful?
A. I think [Friends does] a very good job of meeting each child where they are in their personal educational journey when they arrive in the Upper School, and providing them the resources and the challenges to stretch and grow their intelligence, their empathy, and their creativity (known in the cognitive sciences as IQ, EQ, & CQ, respectively). Neuroscience has shown that the brain and its many intelligences are highly malleable, and here at Friends we do a good job of employing this science to work toward encouraging and enabling children to achieve their best selves. We send young adults out into the world who understand deeply that how we view the world directly impacts how we treat the world, and Friends School has shaped that view for the better.
Q. Something fun about you - a motto or hobby, perhaps?
A. There is a very ancient proverb that goes something like this: “It is better to light a candle against the darkness than to curse it.” This idea has guided my entire adult existence, and it is why my education blog even uses part of it as its title. As I tell my students when we have to cover the tough stuff, hope is a verb, not a noun. It is something you do, not something you possess.