News
Remembering Dr. Jennifer Formichelli
Boston University Academy English teacher Dr. Jennifer Formichelli passed away in a tragic accident near her home in Mattapan on the morning of October 26. She touched so many lives in our school community, and her loss is profoundly felt. Jennifer will be remembered as a thoughtful, highly intellectual scholar of English literature; a champion of social justice, deeply committed to equity and inclusion in and out of the classroom; a trusted advisor; a warm and loyal colleague and friend; and, most of all, an engaged and dedicated teacher who loved her students. Through her work at BU Academy, she shaped the lives of hundreds of young people. She was a cherished member of our school community and will be deeply missed. BU Today published this moving remembrance of Jennifer Formichelli on the day of her passing. A candlelight vigil for Jennifer Formichelli will be held on Thursday, October 28 at... More
HOS Blog: Homer with a Side of Humor
I visited a ninth-grade English class yesterday. The group was discussing an early passage in Homer’s Odyssey where Telemachus, Odysseus’s son, was expressing frustration about the bad behavior of the suitors, who were vying for his mother’s hand in his father’s long absence during his return from Troy and shamefully taking advantage of the hospitality of the household. One of the students offered, with a wry smile, “Telemachus could just do what Oedipus did and marry his mother — that would solve everything!” The teacher replied, with a wink, “And how did that work out for Oedipus?” The class had a good laugh and went right back to the task at hand. Humor in the classroom does more than lighten the mood. It creates an emotional bond between teachers and students, and an atmosphere of emotional safety that is critical to learning. We know from decades of research that teaching and... More
HOS Blog: Inclusion in Five Languages
Last year, several students teamed up with our admission officers to record video information sessions for prospective students and families — not an unusual move, particularly when the pandemic made campus visits complicated. The wrinkle? They recorded those sessions in Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, and Mandarin Chinese — four languages commonly spoken in our students’ homes. Inclusion requires action. It is necessary, but not enough to be kind, polite, and friendly. In making our admissions information sessions available in multiple languages, these students understood that, particularly for the families of our first-generation American students, we could remove a barrier and meet them where they are. We work hard to actively create an inclusive community across the school: a holistic financial aid program that covers not just tuition but so many of the incidental expenses that pose challenges to full community engagement; affinity spaces for students and alums who identify as people of color to be together and share their experiences; a Gay-Straight Alliance serving both as... More
HOS Blog: Columbus Day and American Mythology
I taught American history for many years, and every fall at about this time we would have a debate in class about whether we should continue celebrating Columbus Day or rename that holiday in some way (I assured students that either way there would still be a day off from school — anticipating their most pressing question!). In preparation, students would read about Columbus — including a chapter from Howard Zinn’s The People’s History of the United States. They were surprised, sometimes upset to learn that the story of Columbus — the one that we adults grew up with — is at best incomplete, and in several important ways inaccurate. Columbus set off to find a route to Asia, but instead accidentally “discovered” several locations in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico (not the present-day United States), many of which were already populated by native peoples. Columbus and his men —... More
61% of BUA Senior Class Receives National Merit Recognition
An impressive sixty-one percent of the Boston University Academy Class of 2022 received recognition in the 67th annual National Merit Scholarship Program competition. Twenty current BUA seniors were named National Merit Commended Scholars. They are among the roughly 34,000 U.S. seniors recognized for "exceptional academic promise," and place among the top 50,000 students who entered the competition by taking the 2020 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT). Out of these 20 Commended Scholars, five BUA seniors were named National Merit Semifinalists, placing them among the top 1% of all US high school seniors who entered the competition. Semifinalists will have the opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,600 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $30 million. National Merit Scholar finalists will be announced on February 7, 2022. Three members of the BUA Class of 2022 received a total of four College Board National Recognition Program honors by scoring in the... More
HOS Blog: The “I’m Just Not Good at Art” Fallacy
“I’m just not good at art.” How many of us have said, thought, or heard that at some point in our lives? Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of visiting three art classes. I watched students in first-year visual art working on contour drawings of simple objects stacked on their tables. A dozen ninth graders in introductory drama each performed simple movements of their choice, which their classmates analyzed using the Laban Principles of movement. And the Jazz Band worked on one of its first pieces of the year, “Duke’s Place,” where each member took a turn to solo; those solos ranged from one-note experiments to virtuosity, but they were all done with gusto! Particularly in art, but also in math and athletics, we sometimes fall into a trap: assuming that either you have it or you don’t. The art classes I visited embraced the opposite (and accurate) philosophy: while we... More
Dr. Monica Alvarez: “Voice and Belonging”
On Tuesday, September 28, BUA English Teacher Dr. Monica Alvarez presented a talk at All-School Meeting entitled "Voice and Belonging." In her remarks, Dr. Alvarez shared personal reflections of growing up with a stutter, how she overcame her speech impediment -- in two languages! -- and how she pushed through her fear to finally find her voice. Watch Dr. Alvarez's complete talk here:
HOS Blog: Let’s Focus on Student Engagement, not Participation
It’s time to rethink the student participation grade. Every three weeks, our teachers gather after classes for professional learning meetings — a chance for us to share ideas, learn from one another, and improve our practice, all in the interest of serving our students better. The topic for this week’s meeting was student participation. What is our expectation for how students participate in class? How do we communicate that expectation? How do we assess participation? The biggest takeaway was a consensus around the following reframing: Let’s stop talking about student participation and instead encourage student engagement. It’s a shift that many of our teachers have already made, and for good reason. As adults, we have all been in meetings where somebody monopolizes the conversation without moving the group forward; in fact, that behavior can often detract from the enterprise. Encouraging and grading “participation” can, inadvertently, create incentives for students to do just that... More
HOS Blog: Greeting Students at the Door
I begin most days standing outside the front doors of the schoolhouse greeting students. Some are just getting off the train, some emerging from their parents’ cars, others hopping off bikes or skateboards. Everybody gets a “good morning,” and sometimes students pause for a little conversation — a chance for a student to tell me about a lab they did in chemistry the day before or for me to pat them on the back for some good hustle in the soccer game. Last week, one ninth grader looked at me and asked, “Did I do something wrong? Did I miss something? Why are you out here?” I smiled and assured him that everything was fine and that I greet students just to be friendly. His question did make me think, though, about the purpose behind the ritual. The truth is that I’ve seen others do it and have adopted it just... More
Leaving Things Better than You Found Them (or The Grace in Picking Up Somebody Else’s Trash)
All-School Meeting Remarks on September 9, 2021 Chris Kolovos, Head of School Good morning. I find myself deeply moved at the sight of us gathered as a community like this. It feels like the first spring day after a winter that lasted far too long. All-School Meeting is a sacred time for me. It is a physical manifestation of -- in the language of our mission -- “our caring high-school community.” These meetings are a chance for us to share, celebrate, and laugh together in good times, to mourn and comfort one another in hard times. It is especially fitting that we gather in this space, which for its first sixty years served as Temple Israel. Today, we’ll start a tradition where I address the school at the start of each academic term. I hope to offer thoughts beyond the day-to-day. That tradition comes from my upbringing. When I was a boy, my head of... More