The Path October 2024

A Classroom and Theater Collaboration: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

This fall, our 8th-grade English classes took advantage of a unique opportunity to enrich their study of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream by aligning with the theater department’s scheduled production at Simms Little Theatre. Traditionally, students have supplemented their reading with film adaptations, but this year, they can experience the magic of live performance right here on campus.

The theater department’s fall production, a 90-minute version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream set in the 1980s at a bustling summer camp, presents an imaginative take on one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies. The show features a mischievous pack of glam rock fairies, adding a fresh twist to the classic tale of love, magic, and mischief.

To capitalize on the timing, the English department shifted their study of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, encouraging students to attend one of the performances. This decision allows students to deepen their understanding of Shakespeare’s work by watching it unfold on stage – just as it was meant to be experienced.

There are three more shows on October 24, 25, and 26. Reserve your free tickets here.

Helping New Mexican Children Thrive

By Ted Alcorn '01

To shine a light on the transformative power of tuition assistance, Alumni Council member Ted Alcorn '01 is telling the stories of alumni who were grateful recipients during their Academy years.

When Chamiza Pacheco de Alas ’96 drops off her sixth-grader at the Academy, she sometimes thinks about arriving there herself at that age. The school’s campus is just across town from the working-class Sawmill neighborhood where she’d grown up, but they were a world apart.

Her family was frugal by necessity. Her dad, who had worked as a social worker before going back to school to study sociology, and her mom, who would later become an elementary school counselor, both prized education. But that’s not a field that will make you rich.

Her family never wanted for anything, Chamiza recalled, but there were few luxuries. They lived in a house her dad built himself. Family vacations were trips to Ghost Ranch, where her parents would teach in exchange for accommodations.

Still, Chamiza was privileged in other ways, with generational roots in the state and an extended family that “just poured love into me every single day.” Her parents expressed that love, in part, by seeking the best schooling possible for her, and through a family connection, her mom learned about the Academy’s generous financial assistance program. After Chamiza braved what was at the time a formal and intimidating application process and was accepted, the school offered to cover her tuition in full.

That didn’t make it any easier to step onto campus or bridge the gulf she sometimes felt with other students. The cues she was out of place could be minuscule, like a student poll that inquired, innocuously: Are your jeans Guess or Gap? “My jeans were from Kmart, or maybe from Thrift Town, and I don’t even know if I had heard of Guess before that moment in time,” she said. By eighth grade, she was floundering, and her parents thought briefly about transferring her out. But as she got more involved in theater and found a passion for community service, she regained her footing.

The Academy’s faculty fed her mind, as did her classmates and their families. “They came from really different backgrounds,” she said, and “pushed me outside of my shell.” One friend’s mom, an attorney for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission who had argued a case near the end of her pregnancy, set an example for her of what a full-time working woman could accomplish. “The Academy awakened a part of me that I think was always there, that was not shy and timid, and that felt like I could take up space in rooms,” Chamiza said. “It made me a leader.”

Every parent wants to shape a better world for their kids, and today, as director of New Mexico programs at the W.W. Kellogg Foundation, Chamiza is lucky enough to make that her job. Most kids in the state don’t grow up with the advantages she had, but far from it being a problem of ‘bad parents’ making poor parenting decisions, she sees structural forces that make it difficult for families, and that communities and their elected officials can address. That’s why W.W. Kellogg funds non-profit, tribal, and government projects to strengthen early childhood education, health, and employment, what Chamiza says are “the legs on the footstool that really help families thrive and succeed.”

Her childhood experience and her work both inform how she navigates as a parent, too. Watching her son’s experience at the Academy (and in her role as a trustee), she’s seen how the school has updated its admissions processes to be more child-centered and fun and fosters a more welcoming campus culture. For her part, she reminds her son to be mindful, so when he talks about family vacations or his Nike shoes, he’s not inadvertently excluding anyone. “We're sending you to the Academy, in part because it pulls kids truly from all financial backgrounds, and that means you have to step it up and be sensitive to all of those things.”

6th-Grade Balloon Fiesta

Volunteers from the Albuquerque International Balloon Museum taught the sixth graders to make hot air balloons out of tissue paper, which they launched in a mass ascension just before fall break, with balloons from the Balloon Fiesta soaring in the background! AAPA added to the festive atmosphere by providing warm drinks and snacks.

What Makes David Eagleman ’89 So Driven?

He Could Probably Design an Experiment to Explain It.

Bravery has been brewing inside David Eagleman, Academy Class of 1989, for a long time.

On a fall day in the 1980s, when he’d only been a sixth grader at the Academy for a matter of weeks, hot-air balloons touched down on campus, and one pilot asked if anyone wanted a ride. David hopped in. The balloon rose back into the sky, and David realized he was the only kid who’d taken advantage of the offer. “I thought everyone else would, too, but no one did. I watched the Academy recede in the distance,” David recalls. “The balloon touched down three-quarters of a mile from campus, and I ran back.”

The administrators weren’t pleased. “The whole time I was getting yelled at, I couldn’t stop smiling. That ride was one of the highlights of my sixth-grade year.”

That fearlessness has taken him in many directions throughout the intervening decades.

In addition to earning a Ph.D. in neuroscience and running a research laboratory, he went on to become a New York Times best-selling author, having penned seven non-fiction books and a book of fiction, SUM, which is published in 32 languages and was turned into two operas. He made the hit television series The Brain with David Eagleman on PBS and The Creative Brain on Netflix. He has founded two companies – Neosensory and BrainCheck – and he directs the non-profit Center for Science and Law. At Stanford University, David teaches Brain Plasticity, Literature and the Brain, and The Brain and the Law.

Inspired by Carl Sagan and his television series Cosmos, David has forged a path that has led to groundbreaking work in neuroscience while making it a priority to express those ideas in a way that connects with anyone who loves to learn. “Sagan was a researcher with lots of papers to his name,” David says, “but the immortality of his contribution comes from capturing the beauty of the scientific endeavor and disseminating it broadly.”

Although he’s best known for his work as a scientist, David majored in British and American literature. “I’ve always loved transmitting ideas via the written word. We all hold our own internal models of the world, and to translate any concept from your own internal model to someone else’s is a game of understanding how their model differs from yours.

“One thing that’s always been very clear to me is who my audience is. It’s my 16-year-old self. It’s the younger version of me who didn’t know that particular fact of the world but would have loved to.”

Albuquerque Academy helped nurture teenage David’s instinct to explore what’s possible. Teachers like Don Smith, Mickey Prokopiak, Gene Gardenhire, John Gray, Frances Robertson, and Sean Murphy “all had a tremendous influence on me. They took their jobs seriously of preparing the next generation to be critical thinkers.

“And beyond that, one of the great strengths of the Academy,” David says, “is teaching intellectual bravery. That means facing an unanswered question and thinking ‘Maybe I can answer it. If someone else can give a run at it, why not me?’”

Beyond his other endeavors, David also runs the podcast Inner Cosmos, which last year became the #1 science podcast in the nation. Why do we laugh? Why do you see something everywhere after you’ve seen it once? Why do familiar things lose their shine (and what can we do about it)? What sticks in your brain and what doesn’t? How far can you trust your memory? These are some of the questions he’s tackled so far, and he’s just signed with iHeartMedia for his next season, so keep listening for his novel takes on the brain that shine a light on our daily lives.

He continues to find new ways to share his passion for science. He’s recently written a screenplay for an animated feature film and is launching a small new AI company to help trigger specific memories in people with dementia. He gives a great number of public talks (many lately on AI’s relationship to the brain). Two years ago he launched a production company in Hollywood to make television and movies that are meaningfully related to science; the company, Cognito Film, currently has 12 projects in development, both fiction and non-fiction.

Through this varied approach, David has taken neuroscience in different directions. “The best part about science is that you can ask the questions you care about. There are 100 ways to do boring science, but there are 1,000 open routes to do fascinating science.”

Because we don’t know what jobs will exist in the future, he says, there’s no point in treating education vocationally. “I have the deepest gratitude to the Academy for the quality of education,” David says. “It gives students a real headstart to not only get a foundational education but to also develop the courage to say, ‘I could do that.’”

Chargers Tackle Outdoor Adventures

Long known as “Ex Ed,” experiential education at the Academy encompasses outdoor, environmental, and wilderness education, along with leadership development. These experiences reflect the Academy’s belief that learning in a wilderness environment offers lessons that go beyond the classroom. This philosophy comes to life each year, with students across several grades participating in a variety of outdoor adventures.

Recently, ninth graders completed early fall trips with the Ex Ed department, which included backpacking, canoeing at Navajo Lake, and bike-packing in the Jemez. The 8th graders went on their first excursions, choosing from technical day trips that build on outdoor skills introduced in earlier grades. Meanwhile, the 7th graders enjoyed perfect weather for their backpacking instruction in Bear Canyon, and new students in grades 10-12 experienced camping in Bear Canyon for the first time!

For more information about the Ex Ed program, including wilderness first aid courses, visit the Academy website.

New Novel by Peter Nash One of Many Great Reads from Academy Writers

Longtime English department faculty member Peter Nash has just published a new novel, Ghost Story, in which his lyrical prose explores the myriad complexities of human attachment.

Ghost Story is a novel about truth and deception, hope and despair, and the strange, often inexorable, ways we are haunted by those we love. Jacob Luria is asked by his good friend, Mary Daly, to spy on her husband, whom she has long suspected of infidelity. Obsessed by his love for her, by his hope that her marriage will finally fail, Luria is troubled in this assignment by the all-but-certain prospect of his own abasement and pain.

Pick Up a Book by an Academy Author

The Academy’s strong English program and focus on writing and clearly expressing ideas have both attracted and produced a number of outstanding authors. If you’re planning to settle in with a good book as the nights get long and temperatures drop, try one of these. (And please contact Simms Library if you have an addition or change to this list.)

Upcoming Events

AAPA Fall All-Parent Meeting: October 24, 5:30 p.m. (Dinner), 6 p.m. (Meeting) | Performance Hall, Music Building

Alumni Awards and Athletics Hall of Fame Nominations Close: October 31

Young Alumni Holiday Reception: November 27, 5:30-7 p.m. | Common Grounds Café, Simms Library | RSVP here.

Giving Tuesday: December 3

Dreams of New Mexico: The Music of John Truitt: December 7, 7 p.m. | Simms Center for the Performing Arts | Get your tickets here.