Annemarie Roeper – The Roeper School

Lecture 2: The Self of the Gifted Child

A 1995 lecture by Annemarie on the development of the Self for gifted children

Original Publication Date: October 17, 1995

For many years, Annemarie would visit the school in October from her home in Oakland, California, taking advantage of the season that was her favorite Michigan season. She would meet with students, faculty, and administrators, catching up on the school and providing advice. During her 1995 visit, she delivered a series of four lectures on child development. The lectures were recorded and we have transcripts of the sessions. This is the second lecture, on the development of the Self of the gifted child and the parental relationship, and the first, third, and fourth lectures are also on this website.

Lecture 3: The Growing World of the Gifted Child

The third lecture in a series explores the gifted child's encounter with school and society

Original Publication Date: October 24, 1995

For many years, Annemarie would visit the school in October from her home in Oakland, California, taking advantage of the season that was her favorite Michigan season. She would meet with students, faculty, and administrators, catching up on the school and providing advice. During her 1995 visit, she delivered a series of four lectures on child development. The lectures were recorded and we have transcripts of the sessions. This is the second lecture, which examines the progress from home to the larger world for a gifted child. The first, second, and fourth lectures are also on this website.

Lecture 4: The Role of the Community

In the last of a series, Annemarie discusses the importance of community

Original Publication Date: October 30, 1995

For many years, Annemarie would visit the school in October from her home in Oakland, California, taking advantage of the season that was her favorite Michigan season. She would meet with students, faculty, and administrators, catching up on the school and providing advice. During her 1995 visit, she delivered a series of four lectures on child development. The lectures were recorded and we have transcripts of the sessions. This is the fourth lecture, a discussion of the nature of community. The first, second, and third lectures are also on this website.

The necessity for morality in gifted education

By Annemarie Roeper

Original Publication Date: August 1985

In 1985, George and Annemarie attended a World Council for Gifted and Talented Children conference in Hamburg. Being in Hamburg, where George was born, and near Marienau, the school they grew up in and had to flee, made them both quite full of emotion. In addition, the conference opened on the day of the 40th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. This confluence of factors made them both receptive to the power of the questions raised by German attendees about the moral hazard of identifying anyone as gifted and potentially superior. In this paper, Annemarie reflects on the questions raised and her thoughts about their responsibilities as educators to provide moral guidance to students.

Summary of the Proceedings of the Gifted Child Institute

The gifted child program developed by invited experts

Original Publication Date: June 1956

The Gifted Child Institute, held at Roeper June 18-22, 1956, led to a plan that encompassed the identification of gifted children, a discussion of the meaning of learning, and the organizing principles of the curriculum. The participants were interesting in developing motivation (how to nurture a love of learning) and self-awareness (how to have a healthy emotional balance). The curriculum was summarized overall as a study of “people and their problems.” It was a broad approach, studying cultures around the world through their myths, technology, and aesthetics using writing, experimentation, critical thinking, and hands-on projects. The explicit goal was to understand the complexity of the world and to find a means of contributing to its betterment. Attention was paid to heightening awareness of gifted girls and expanding their social and professional options, as well as ensuring that students of all races and ethnicities would be identified and admitted to the school.

After the Institute, the Proceedings were collected and printed, thanks to the generous assistance of the Birmingham (MI) Public School district, and made available to anyone who was interested.

Implementation of the Gifted Child Project

The first report on the new program for gifted child education

Original Publication Date: March 1957

In March 1957, George published an update on the changes that had been made at the school to begin to incorporate the recommendations of the Gifted Child Institute.

1965 Statement of Policies

The first formal statement of principles

Original Publication Date: February 3, 1965

In the 1960s, George and Annemarie began working on a statement to reflect the school’s philosophy. The core principle of this statement was that the purpose of the school is to educate children to become “true members of modern world society.” To do this, the school needed to have a student body that reflected the diversity of the world, with a robust scholarship program to ensure that everyone who could benefit from the program, regardless of their economic status, could attend. George and Annemarie also specified a rigorous, well-rounded curriculum that supported each child’s psychological growth with an emphasis on critical thinking and creativity. This statement was adopted by the Board of Advisors in 1965.

Photo Gallery of People

George was born in Germany in 1910 but spent the first years of his life living in Kobe, Japan, because of his father's steel brokering business. The family left Japan in 1914 when Japan declared war on Germany.

Annemarie was born in Vienna in 1918 where her mother, Gertrud Bondy, was a medical student and studying with Sigmund Freud. Her father was serving with the German Army in WWI at the time.

George at Marienau, where camping was a frequent activity.

George and Annemarie on the beach in Atlantic City, May 1940. Annemarie arrived in the US with her family on April 6, 1939. She and George were married at New York City Hall on April 20, 1939.

A family portrait at Windsor Mountain School, Lenox, MA in the 1940s. From left: George Roeper, Annemarie Bondy Roeper, Gertrud Bondy, Max Bondy, Heinz Bondy, Ursula "Ulla" Bondy, Curt Bondy (Max's brother).

An early photo of George and Annemarie in George's second floor Hill House office soon after purchasing the campus in 1946. At the time, Annemarie was 28 and George was 36.

Annemarie was Director of the Nursery program, shown here in one of the Hill House classrooms in the 1960s.

The school instituted its own bus fleet when it moved to Bloomfield Hills to ensure that families from Detroit, where the school had been previously, could get there easily.

The school commissioned portraits in December 1951 for its expanding promotional campaigns.

George and Annemarie in the Domes at the opening assembly in September 1969. The photo was taken by Bob Benyas, a parent and professional photographer who documented the early years of the school.

George and Annemarie were photographed in their home in Oakland in 1991. These were the last photos before their house was destroyed in the Oakland Fire in October 1991 and before George died on August 24, 1992. The photographer was Carolyn Caddes.

A photo of Annemarie in her home in Oakland, California, just months before the home was destroyed by the Oakland Fire in October 1991. Photo by Carolyn Caddes.

The Origins of The Roeper School

From Europe to Michigan, an educational philosophy finds a new home

Original Publication Date: Fall 2016

During the celebration of the 75th anniversary of The Roeper School in 2016-17, School Historian Marcia Ruff wrote histories of several aspects of the school. In this article, she traced George and Annemarie’s path from their upbringing in the progressive boarding school in Germany founded by Annemarie’s parents, Max and Gertrud Bondy, through their flight from the Nazis and the evolution of The Roeper School in Michigan.

Citation: Ruff, M. (2016). “The Origins of The Roeper School,” The Roeper School Archives, Bloomfield Hills, MI.

Why Roeper Became a School for Gifted Children

The national interest in gifted children piqued the interest of the Roepers

Original Publication Date: Winter 2017

The Cold War rivalry of the 1950s triggered a national interest in identifying gifted children in order to ensure their skills could help advance American interests. George and Annemarie recognized that gifted children could play an important role in improving society. They were concerned that there was little research about the emotional needs of gifted children and that without that knowledge, the new attention might derail the children’s optimal development. They decided to dedicate their school to gifted child education so they could develop the best method for educating gifted children as whole individuals, as had been their focus with all children, and share their findings with the larger educational community.

Citation: Ruff, M. (2017) “The Beginning of a New Educational System,” The Roeper School Archives, Bloomfield Hills, MI.

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