A Place to Belong
is
a periodic e-newsletter for SHS alumni that supplements the print magazine. It is brought to you by Shady Hill’s Communications and Advancement Offices in collaboration with the Alumni Board. These articles make evident that the School of today is vibrant and innovative while continuing to embrace the mission and traditions you hold so dear.
Happy reading!
The Communications and Advancement Offices and the Alumni Board
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Lemon Day Tradition Still Going Strong
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This fall Grade IV celebrated LEMON DAY, a beloved, profound, interdisciplinary, and slightly wacky tradition.
Precisely HOW Lemon Day started we do not know. But we know it started with the late Jane Prescott, who taught at Shady Hill from 1953-1991. Perhaps she gave each child a lemon as a gift one day, and they all named them and wrote them a song or poem. (Miss Prescott loved poetry.) Over time, she added activities like generating as many words as possible from the letters in the word "lemonade,” measuring lemons’ length, width, and circumference, drawing their portraits, and making them cozy beds. This tradition came to be known as Lemon Day.
Today, we continue the tradition with these same activities. And we have added many more. We write creative stories about lemons, measure each lemon’s volume and mass, and use the lemons to explore circuits, since fruit conducts electricity.
It's all great fun! It’s also a powerful lesson about what one can see when one looks through new eyes. Engaging with lemons in different contexts opens students’ minds and sparks new connections and experiences. All day, fourth-graders comment on the unexpected insights and discoveries. It's something they will remember for a lifetime. Older students walk by saying, "Oh, I remember Lemon Day!" and “I still have my lemon!” As one fourth-grader put it, “We should all stop to smell the lemons!”
- Click here to see photos of students engaged in Lemon Day science, art, writing, etc. activities.
- Click here to see a video of using lemons to make music by completing a circuit.
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Developing Empathy by Connecting Students to the Wider World
This fall while at Project Adventure’s challenge course in Beverly with Grades VII and VIII, I witnessed a powerful conversation about the role of voice in a community. Masterfully facilitated by a Project Adventure leader, students debriefed a low-ropes challenge, reflecting on the voices in the group that were heard compared to those that weren’t. Student comments included:
- “Everyone has equal opportunity to speak up. If a person doesn’t advocate for themselves and speak up, it’s not on me. I only have to be responsible for myself.”
- “Some people don’t speak up because they feel self-conscious. It doesn’t mean they don’t have something to say. And sometimes people don’t speak because they’re listening and trying to find the right moment.”
- “If I have something to say, I have to have the courage to say it if it’s really that important to me.”
- “I have to have the social courage to help make sure that people feel that they can contribute.”
- “I don’t think people actually have equal opportunity. I think that’s an assumption.”
- “History tells us that not everyone has equal opportunity.”
The facilitator pushed the students to think further about identity. I was delighted. The questions mirrored throughlines that guide important parts of our curriculum focused on diversity, inclusion, justice, and citizenship.
Shady Hill is grounded in a mission that mandates we develop ethical citizens who have the academic and social-emotional skills to not only navigate the world they will inhabit but also to change it for the better. In a world of dramatically shifting demographics, economics, and technology, our mandate couldn’t be more critical or feel more pressing. I am proud to be a part of a community committed to this charge and to meeting the dynamic needs of our 21st-century learners.
While the majority of our middle-schoolers’ days are spent on campus, engaging in experiential learning through fall trips to Chinatown (Grade V), Farm School (Grade VI), and Project Adventure (VII and VIII) helps our students connect their content learning to the world in which they live. Developing empathy and engaging in experiences that offer perspectives outside their own is critical to middle school students’ development. Leaving the Shady Hill “bubble” provides invaluable opportunity to disrupt the daily routine, provide unique opportunities to take risks, work together and connect in highly relevant yet low stakes contexts, and work in meaningful, authentic ways.
The Project Adventure facilitator’s last question gave me chills.
“If you were to decide just for this day that you were going to make more true the ideal of letting each person’s voice be heard, what would that look like?”
Despite the fact that we see young activists like Greta Thunberg in the news, the majority of young adolescents feel powerless to make meaningful change. In
Deep Diversity
, Shakil Choudhury points out, “To overcome the systemic problems, we must notice ourselves, moment to moment.” Shady Hill’s mission is to help our students see that they can take each moment that comes their way and work to make this ideal more true. It brings me joy to see it come to life!
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Shady Hill Students Join Boston’s Global Climate Strike
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On September 20, SHS students participated in Boston’s Global Climate Strike and joined others around the world demanding action on the climate crisis. The Boston demonstration was youth-led and followed the example set by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. SHS alum Audrey Lin '15 of the Boston Sunrise Movement helped to organize the Boston strike.
Click here for her interview on WBUR about the Boston action
.
Many SHS students participated, and five who attended presented at last week’s Middle School Assembly, sharing information, pictures, and personal experiences. They spoke about how events like these are opportunities to think about who we are, the values we hold dear, and ways to use voice to stand up for one's beliefs. (See photo below.)
- Jennat Jounaidi (VIII Davidson/Roy): “The climate rally was a way to not only express my beliefs but also to see how many other people are also passionate and truly want climate justice!”
- Maya Lownie (VIII Williams): “I realize how much of a difference we children and teenagers can make. That day was full of surprises and emotion, and I am so grateful that I was able to be part of such a powerful voice for our future."
- Elyse Spink (VIII Quigley): “For me, it was one of the best experiences of my life. I was surrounded by thousands of young people who are ready to change the world.”
- Maya Wilson (VIII Davidson/Roy): “I was swept up in the excitement and in the flow of bodies. I will never forget watching the Plaza fill as more and more students left their schools behind and traveled to the Plaza to protest.”
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New Viewbook
We want to share with you our new Shady Hill Admission Viewbook! It is a tall order to describe a multifaceted, dynamic community like ours in just a few pages. But when you click through the online version
(linked below)
, we hope you will see the things you hold dear about Shady Hill reflected in its pages.
We always appreciate admission referrals from alumni. Word-of-mouth is the best way to steer like-minded families to Shady Hill.
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Meet the TTC Class of 2020!
Shady Hill apprentices. They assist in the teaching. They offer skilled support. They bring a fresh perspective and another set of eyes to the classroom. And they engage their directing teachers (DTs) in conversations about the how and why of things. For DTs, apprentices’ questions stimulate discussion and reflection, which serves as a powerful form of professional development. “I always learn something new from collaborating with an apprentice,” says Grade VII gradehead and DT George Langdon.
Shady Hill's internationally known Teacher Training Center (TTC) is a campus-based, graduate-level, teacher-preparation program that provides aspiring teachers with well-guided experiences in pre-K through eighth-grade classrooms. Each TTC apprentice works side-by-side with a DT to discover what teaching is all about. DTs provide supervised teaching, observation, and mentoring. In parallel, weekly workshops, seminars, and SHS faculty-led graduate courses on differentiation, classroom management, and curriculum development hone apprentices’ capabilities.
All apprentices work toward licensure from the Massachusetts Department of Education, which recently approved Shady Hill to endorse its apprentices and faculty in three new areas: 5–12 Tech and Engineering, 5–12 History, and 8–12 Mathematics. In addition, most apprentices participate in a partnering master's program at Lesley University or Boston University.
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The Shady Hill Fair: Bright Sunshine Brought out the Crowds!
What a fabulously festive, fun-filled community day for SHS! As always, the Alumni Board slush booth was a big hit.
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