Thornton Academy Postscripts Alumni Magazine Winter 2008 | Page 3

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Getting Kids Ready to Sit at the Adult Table
By Beth Bussiere, Teacher
This is my third year teaching science at Thornton Academy. When I try to explain why
this is a great place to teach, I
often mention Headmaster Carl
J. Stasio Jr.’s Canon Committee,
an ad hoc group of those who
responded to an open invitation
to do some professional reading
on our own. We gather now and
then to reflect on what we consider essential to our students’
education. We share ideas and
have a meal together.
This does a couple of things.
Those of us in education love to
learn. The reading and discussion provide a chance to talk
about our favorite topic, teaching. A second benefit, in the
midst of hands-on jobs that can
rarely be accomplished in forty
hours a week, is the chance to
reconnect with our overarching
goals.
Our greater purpose can be
hard to put into words, but there
is one image that I often use
with my classes.

Every
skills such as
Thanksgivbeing a good
ing when I
listener, being
was growing
able to make
up, my family
a point coherently and,
would gather
perhaps most
with all the
importantly,
aunts, uncles,
being able to
and cousins
disagree within one house.
out ruining
There was
someone else’s
never enough
dinner.
room to seat
I tell my
everyone in one
students that
place. There
in a few years
was always one
I want them to
table for adults
and another for
be prepared to
Science teacher and Canon Committee
join the adult
the children.
member Beth Bussiere.
table of life.
As the years
Those welpassed, it was a
come at the
special occasion
adult table are empowered to be
when a young person was finally
part of discussions that shape
allowed to join the adult table.
our personal and societal lives.
While age was a factor, there
In class we build a basic
were other criteria. An aspirknowledge of science vocabulary
ing adult needed a broad base
of knowledge and fluency in
and concepts that may be the
current events. Being welcome
first step to a job in medicine
or engineering. But even those
wasn’t just a question of bewith other careers need to be
ing informed. It required social

confident as they advocate for
their sick child or research an
environmental issue in their
neighborhood. In science class
we develop the kinds of problem-solving and critical thinking
skills that are needed in all types
of work. Finally, the classroom is
a great laboratory to experiment
with the social skills that make a
person accepted and effective.
At Thornton Academy, we
want our students ready to enter
the constantly changing world of
work, to possess the broad base
of education that facilitates engagement in the range of issues
presented to a democratic citizen, and to be engaged in interests beyond the realms of work
and duty. A successful school
readies students to be welcome.
Teaching anywhere is hard
work if one strives to do it well.
What a privilege to do so at a
school that invites us to pause,
gather around the table, and engage with the deeper questions
that shape our lives and those of
our students.

Giving Back to TA
It’s all about community to Beverly Lacy ‘53
Beverly Lacy ’53 is that rare
alumna who graduated and never
forgot her school.
The lifelong Saco resident
has attended all of her class
reunions and has participated
in events like the Senior Alumni
Banquet with the regularity
of a Swiss clock. She’s always
interested in touring campus
to see what’s new, what’s being
renovated and what remains
unchanged. Walking through
the Main Building—Thornton’s
oldest structure, built in 1889—
Lacy says she can almost still
see her teachers back in their
classrooms.
“What’s impressive to me is
what has been done with this
campus over the years,” she says.
Her strong feelings about the
school are also apparent through
Lacy’s longtime generosity to
the Thornton Fund. She’s made
a donation annually since a
few years after receiving her
diploma. That’s when Lacy first
started working at Mutual Fire
Insurance Company in downtown
Saco, where she thrived in her
profession for more than 40
years.
Asked why she gives year
after year with such consistency,
Lacy responds, “Well, it’s my
alma mater!” And she gives
the impression that it would
be impossible for her to do
anything else.
“What you give doesn’t have
to be much,” she explains. “It’s
just something you can share.”

To Lacy it’s all about
supporting her community. She is
a social person—always ready with
a smile—who walks two to three
miles a day and stops frequently
to chat with neighbors and friends.
She’s also active with her church,
First Parish Congregational
Church, and she knows many
families in the Saco community,
including those who grace the
historic halls of TA today.
Lacy is most passionate,
perhaps, about helping to provide
young people with a variety of
music and athletic offerings.
She especially enjoys listening
to Thornton Academy’s choral
groups and marvels at the Harry
P. Garland II Auditorium. She is no
less excited by the opportunities
available thr