By Katrina Lovegren ’21, News Reporter
One North in its short existence has become a significant slice of the community and lifestyle at Mercersburg Academy. Whether you go on a Sunday afternoon for lunch or during your free rotation, One North is continuously swamped with students, teachers, and townspeople. Don’t be surprised if you see an entire class gathered around tables or sitting on chairs participating in discussions, listening to teachers, or working on projects. AP Literature and Composition, fondly known as Brit Lit, along with other English classes, is a frequent visitor to One North, using the cozy space to switch up the normal classroom setting.
Frank Betkowski, member of the English department and AP Literature teacher, understands how diligently his students work. He says, “[The] coffeehouse provides them with a well-deserved break. Also, it’s a ‘low-key’ way to make them more comfortable with poetry, which accounts for more than a third (and sometimes almost half) of the AP exam.” Not only do classes at One North serve as a treat for students, it also can be a strategy for learning and part of becoming more comfortable with a topic that they might not be familiar with already.
Ryer Hastings ’20, one of Betkowski’s Brit Lit students, says, “Having a new classroom atmosphere every once in a while is helpful for getting students engaged.” She adds, “Our homework the night before our coffee house class is to pick out a poem we like and read it to the class. I think this is cool because it makes us explore a topic we might not have been interested in before.”
Classmate Julie Trapenese ’20 states that she also enjoys going to One North “because of the food and because Mr. Betkowski has us do more creative activities than we usually do in class.”
Michele Poacelli’s AP English Language and Composition classes visited One North frequently last year. Stapley Curwen ’20, Poacelli’s former student, says, “Going to One North for English class was always something I looked forward to. I preferred it because it offered a change of scenery, and getting coffee for an energy boost is always a bonus.”
Miki Kato ‘20, from in the same class, said, “I enjoyed going to One North because it allowed us to feel relaxed when discussing, and it was simply fun to be in a place where we usually don’t have classes in.”
A setting other than the traditional Harkness-style classroom can help change the way that students perceive and interpret what they normally learn in class. It can shift the lenses that they typically look through and guide them to gain new perspectives. Having class outside of the classroom is also just a simple break from the hectic schedule of a Mercersburg student and a way to shift the dynamic of the daily setting. Hastings believes, “Going outside to the quad for a discussion, or just on a walk around campus could get students more excited to go to class.”
Curwen ‘20 adds, “I would definitely like to go to Romeo’s for class to get a milkshake.” With the 300-acre campus and various places in the town of Mercersburg, the question is, “Why not move classes to settings beyond One North?”