YOUNG PUPILS ‘NAIL’ TEST ON VISIT TO HIGH SCHOOL

Published in the Asbury Park Press 2/12/2003 by Bob Jordan

 Marlboro -  Fifth-grader Jaleesa Richardson, of Sisters Academy in Asbury Park, received some Collier High School pointers yesterday.

 Literally, that is. Richardson, boasting later that she had been the bravest member of a group of students visiting from her school, was the first volunteer to lie on a bed of nails.

It was a scientific demonstration of distribution of weight conducted by Collier staff members and students, and Richardson, 11, found it to be a painless experience.

   Thirteen girls from Sisters Academy spent their school day on a field trip to the high school operated by Collier Services, a nonsectarian social service agency founded by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd in 1927.

   “The combination of our kids being able to teach other kids, and the enjoyment of the experience for the visiting children, makes the program extremely worthwhile,” said Ray Bock, principal of the high school.

   Sisters Academy is a privately funded Roman Catholic middle school founded in 1997 by the Sisters of Mercy and the Sisters of the Good Shepherd.

   The annual visits by Sisters Academy students to Collier are a continuation of the relationship of the two schools and a demonstration of the mutual concern for the welfare of young people, said Jackie St. Angel, development director for Collier.

   “The children visiting us are starting to think beyond middle school, and this is an occasion for them to see what kind of things they’ll see and study in high school,” St. Angel said.

   Bock guided the students through demonstrations conducted by teacher John Bickart and several science students.

   The field trip also included classes in improvisational theater and cosmetology.

   The bed of nails demonstration is actually routine fare at Collier, said Brian Glick, who teaches physical education, calculus and physics.

   Glick showed no fear in helping with another demonstration, in which he lay on the bed of nails, holding a cinder block on his chest, and allowed Bock to smash the block with a sledgehammer.

   The visiting children cheered with delight when Glick emerged unscathed.

   “There’s nothing like hands-on activities to reinforce a lecture.  All of us here believe that,” Glick said. “My own physics class is looking forward to the field trip we’re planning to take to Great Adventure, where we’ll learn firsthand about things like force and inertia on the rides.”

   Richardson said the day was fun and she had been quite willing to try the bed of nails.

   “I was brave.  I wasn’t scared,” she said.