Individual Crossroads Reflections
On these pages are hundreds of recollections, ranging from individual video interviews to written recollections, to photos of the work that we did and the fun we had. Our oldest item may be a copy of a letter from the school to parents three months before the opening of Crossroads with updates on the search for a building and enrollment. The most recent may be the yearbook from 1989. Collectively and collaboratively, we can engage in the ongoing process of trying to remember and preserve what we liked and forget about that which we preserve to never set eyes upon again.
David Starr
I have so many fond memories from those years… I do remember you (Arthur and Carol) coming to my mom’s home. Today I am full of gratitude for you allowing me to work for my tuition. McDonald’s was a firm foundation to start work. Crossroads was a firm education with creative teaching. It fit so well with my lifestyle. It was then a very smooth transition to Metro High…click to continue reading.
Dennis Gorg
I arrived at Crossroads at an interesting time. It was 1979 and my family and I moved back to St Louis from three years in Portland Oregon. Born and raised in St Louis I had attended Clayton schools through the 4th grade. When we moved back, I started at Crossroads in January of my 7th grade year. Crossroads was located on Lindell in the Central West End in an historic large home converted to a school. We lived only a few blocks from the school…click to continue reading.
Fawn Potash
I remember our carpool with James Abbott, Charley Pinkney, Catherine Park- University City folks. My mother was recently divorced and driving wearing a bathrobe and curlers. Somebody’s father had a lit cigarette in his mouth the whole ride, never taking a drag, just ashing on his tie for the 30-minute ride with the windows rolled up. Different times…click to continue reading.
Maureen Ferry Cuellar
This memory of my 7th or 8th Grade Trip to Washington DC in the 1980s is a great example of what made my Crossroads experience truly unique. While a lot of students across the US share in this rite of passage, I am almost certain that Crossroads was the only secondary school to come ready to gather public insights and data! In between art scavenger hunts at the National Portrait Gallery and the Museum of Natural History, we each had our own clipboard stacked with political opinion surveys to solicit responses from people on the National Mall…click to continue reading.
Louise Cameron
Give students a problem to solve using visual language. Example: create a work of art that represents the idea of
Adam and Eve. Create a work of art that interacts with the school’s physical environment in some way. Using your leftover photos, tell a story, real or fictional…click to continue reading.
Joan Graviss
Amazing teachers, some of whom are still there: Howard, Sarah P-W, Mark, Jad, Bob, Shadi, Tom and those who left: Anne, Angela, Joe, Derek, Brittany, Charles, Sarah Griesbach, Julie, and many others who were laser focused on their students both in and out of the classroom…click to continue reading.
Taunya Hilfrink
Crossroads set the stage that allowed me to be successful in my life. I gained confidence in myself; I learned to form my opinions and take some risks. The teachers pushed me, and I pushed myself to meet the high expectations. More importantly, it was a safe place where differences were embraced and we could become ourselves. I was at Crossroads 7th – 12th and I graduated in 1984. I went to college right after in Olympia, WA, graduated in 1988 and have lived in Seattle ever since. I am so grateful for my time at Crossroads and the people who helped me grow…click to continue reading.
Miriam Newburger Hacker
Probably the largest contribution was introducing me to the idea of environmental protection through the school recycling program (before it was widespread). This spark has lead to persistent inquiry and a 30 year career toward protecting air quality. Thanks to Arthur and Carol for creating such a welcoming space for young minds to grow and learn…click to continue reading.
Mike Bailey
I taught at Crossroads two years: 1980-81 and 1981-82. I had previously taught a semester at Hanley Jr. High, taking over for a teacher having a baby. That was one of the worst experiences of my life. I’d trained to teach, not to discipline. Desperate to move (not sure Hanley would have had me back anyway), I interviewed several places before meeting Arthur, Carol, and Karen. Instant connection. I knew I could work with them, and the school/students at Crossroads seemed very nice…click to continue reading.
Jill Miyasaka
[While at The College School prior to Crossroads}, we were in class with Jan Phillips when someone came in and said someone (Denny ?) had fallen off the roof. We all ran outside and saw him lying on the ground with a bone sticking out of his arm and blood surrounding the wound. It turned out he and Mrs. Phillips had set this up on order to teach us about wound management…click to continue reading.
James (Jim) Abbott
My introduction to Crossroads occurred during the summer of 1977 at the LaClede Town house of Arthur and Carol Lieber, founders of the school.
It seems appropriate that my earliest Crossroads memory is intertwined with this no longer extant utopian experiment born of 1960s idealism, delineated by acres of homogeneous, flat-roofed, precision-placed two and three story houses and storefronts that I had often admired via car and bus windows. I associated the whole with the martyrdom of John F. Kennedy (my hero) and the ‘Great Society’ vision of LBJ…click to continue reading.
Deb Bailey
When I was at Crossroads, the show Hill Street Blues was on television every Thursday night. There was a character on the show named Sgt. Phil Esterhaus who would start every episode by talking to the police at morning roll-call about what they needed to focus on during their shift, (and of course, to say “…be careful out there”)…click to continue reading.
Carisa Henze
Carol and Arthur were a tremendous resource to me and all my classmates. I remember Carol’s amazing trips to Chicago and Europe (I fondly remember us rambling in the countryside and experiencing Shakespeare in Stratford-Upon-Avon!) and Arthur’s World Politics class that provoked so many engaging class discussions from Newsweek magazine to those coveted off-campus lunch privileges at each other’s homes. Most of all, one of my favorite themes in class was the banner above the chalkboard in the World Politics class that read “There are no stupid questions.” From those wonderful days to now, I believe there are no stupid questions in life…click to continue reading.