News

BU Connections

Earlier this week, we hosted our BU-BUA Connections event – a fun evening gathering of BUA current parents, parents of alumni, and prospective BUA families who teach and work at the University. The evening gave me a chance to thank this cohort for all the ways they enrich our students’ experience. Many of them teach BUA students in their University classes. One professor told me that his first impression of BUA came from teaching a BUA student in a master’s level economics course. He was puzzled that a 16-year-old was the strongest contributor in the bunch and felt like he just had to learn more about BUA! We hear stories like that all the time.

These families help out in so many other ways. They hire BUA students as researchers in their labs. They advise senior theses. They speak at our school meetings and suggest other great colleagues to do the same. They open the doors for our kids to engage with departments and interdisciplinary institutes up and down Commonwealth Avenue – like the Software & Application Innovation Lab and EPIC (BU’s 15,000 square-foot makerspace), both of which are now part of our 10th-grade seminar program. And they spread the word about BUA with colleagues across the University. We are a much stronger school for their partnership.

Thank You to our Families

We held our annual State of the School event last night. It is a festive evening where parents, guardians, teachers, and staff come together for social connection and to hear a bit about how things are going at the school. My favorite part of the event, aside from the magnificent performance by the Swamp Cats – our select jazz combo – was fielding questions from BUA families. The questions were not about any individual student, but instead telegraphed an interest in the success of the institution. The spirit behind several of the questions was explicitly about how parents can help. What kind of social entrepreneurship opportunities are available to students and how can parents open more doors? As the school builds more partnerships in the City of Boston, what role can parents who live in Boston play?

This school is fortunate to have such dedicated and generous families. Each year, dozens of parents and guardians volunteer across multiple areas of school life: admissions, parent network gatherings, teacher appreciation, the advisory board, chaperoning school events, and more. 86% of families last year made the school a philanthropic priority and made a gift to the school’s Annual Fund – in addition to their investment in tuition. Those funds underwrite all of our faculty-staff professional development efforts, bolster our financial aid program, and enhance our academic, athletic, and extracurricular offerings. In the coming weeks, we will roll out a new way for parents and guardians to help: informational interviews, shadow days, and career panels for recent BUA graduates just getting started on their professional journeys. To all of you who keep finding ways to give back, thank you.

A Teacher’s Impact

Earlier this week, I spent three days visiting a peer school and leading a committee of educators from around New England tasked with evaluating that school for reaccreditation; all independent schools in our region go through a process like this periodically. For those of us visiting, it was a wonderful chance to immerse ourselves in another school culture and learn from excellent peers. For me, this visit was special in another way. A member of the visiting team was one of my favorite teachers from when I was a boy in high school. Aside from my parents, he was probably the biggest influence on how I grew up and on the person I’ve become. He is a big reason I became a teacher. We have stayed in touch over the years, which has mostly consisted of me asking for advice. I have just recently made the transition to calling him by his first name! Our relationship is different now, but I still find so much comfort in his support, friendship, and love.

Last weekend, we hosted an event for BUA alumni from the 1990s – the first generation of the school’s life. In the early stages of our planning, we wondered how we would convince the graduates to come back. Our answer: bring back their teachers. Giants in the life of the school walked the halls again – teachers from the early years like Mark Davies, John Talbot, Megan Staples, Sandra Michelman, Catherine Pollock, and Rich Horn, people who helped shape the curriculum and culture we now steward. In one touching moment, an alumna gave a copy of her recently-published book of poetry to one of those teachers as a recognition of the role he played at the start of her literary journey. She is now a professor of literature, passing it on to the next generation.

The historian Henry Adams once wrote that “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” Perhaps it never does. These moments made me even more grateful for the dedicated and talented teachers I work with every day here and who will be lifelong mentors for this generation of BUA students.

Love of Learning

I recently had the pleasure of covering an 11th-grade English class for a teacher who was out for the day. The teacher had left behind a great lesson; in his absence, he asked students to discuss several questions he had prepared related to the chapters of The Scarlet Letter. The hour flew by. The students – with no guidance from this former history teacher except for a passing clarification about Calvinism – engaged in an non-stop energetic conversation around the oval table. They pointed to specific language in the text to support their arguments – refreshing in an age where facts don’t seem to matter. They built on one another’s points. They asked one another questions: “How did you all interpret the narrator’s description of . . . .” When they challenged one another, they did so with respect: “I didn’t see that. Where in the chapter did you pick that up?” Nearly everybody spoke up, and those on the quieter side were deeply engaged. It was serious. It was fun. And it was all driven by the kids.

What I saw was no accident. Those students came to BUA because they wanted to be surrounded by peers like them who enjoy discussing literature, and history, and math, and any number of subjects. They have spent two years and some months now in classrooms learning together and under the tutelage of wonderful teachers who fan their passions and help them understand how to engage productively around the table. The result is the classroom atmosphere I witnessed – where young people genuinely love learning and take ownership of the experience, joyfully.

Why I Greet Students in the Morning

On most mornings, I stand outside the front entrance of the school and greet students by name and with a fistbump. A new student asked me why I do it. There are a lot of reasons, and I thought it might help to share them with all of you.

For one, the morning can be stressful, particularly on days when the MBTA is cranky and traffic is bad. Students carry that stress with them, along with the anticipatory stress of whatever test or quiz or game or concert or might be coming that day. My hope is that a warm, personal human connection from an adult before walking through the door can bring the heart rate down and spirits up. There’s something psychologically important about being seen, called by name, and welcomed as an individual. And there’s something comforting in the consistency of the ritual at the start of the day. Greeting students like this is a way I can do my part to live up to our promise to know and love each young person.

There are other benefits too. It never hurts to give students a chance to practice eye contact, say hello, and engage in a little conversation. I’ll often learn something: there’s a 10th grade English quiz coming up or it’s somebody’s birthday. In the process, I’m hopefully laying the groundwork so that if students have something sensitive to share with me in the future, they are comfortable doing that.

The most important reason, though – and the one I told that new student – is that greeting them is often the best part of my workday. These kids are just so great. I come back into the building for first period energized and carrying a daily reminder of what this work is all about.