Friends School of Minnesota is a K-8 progressive education school grounded in Quaker values. FSMN was founded in 1988 and is located in the Midway neighborhood of Saint Paul, convenient to South Minneapolis. We are a diverse community with students from a broad range of religious and non-religious backgrounds, including ten percent from Quaker families.
Students talked about a variety of identities under the headings of social and personal identity. Social identity can include things like age, race, gender, sexuality and religion. Personal identity includes things like favorite foods or places, skills, personality and family. Students recognized that all of these identities are important and that one, or a few […] Read more
It was a beautiful fall day. Fifth and sixth graders walked to the community garden just blocks from the school. They were on a mission: to find interesting, ordinary, extraordinary, simple, natural objects that they could use to create characters and compelling vignettes. A few weeks earlier, a student told Meg, FSMN art teacher, about […] Read more
“To be optimistic is to assume things will work out. To be hopeful is to realize things can work out if you work at them. Hope requires responsibility and agency; optimism relieves us of both. In rooting for your sports team, choose optimism. In rooting for democracy, choose hope.” — Eric Liu Hope is not wishful thinking. […] Read more
We prepare children to be engaged and active citizens in a democratic society. To do that, children must be engaged, active participants in their own education. Our program fosters a deep and strong sense of self. We encourage and challenge students to find and use their voices. In keeping with the Quaker belief that every […] Read more
