Why respect your opponent? Teaching sportsmanship must be explicit, coaches find.
Sports idols perform touchdown dances, update Twitter feeds constantly, and are often caught behaving badly off the field. Young athletes connected with social media are engulfed by an athletics culture where civility, respect and general sportsmanship are hard to find. Neither athletes nor coaches can ignore the prevailing tides. In this environment, how do coaches impress student-athletes with the value of fair conduct; respect for oppo nents, teammates and offi cials; winning and losing graciously? How do you make sure athletes practice...
read moreDare to Be True, the Version with Love
I don’t naturally fall into reflective rhythms during the year, and I relish the opportunity summer brings to slow down and reflect. Marlborough, New Hampshire, where my wife Nancy and I have been going since we were 18 years old, is one of those places that actually feels lost in time. Recently, I had the opportunity to hear some particularly apt reflections from the Right Reverend Mark Beckwith, Bishop of Newark, New Jersey. Bishop Beckwith talked about the fundamental balance between truth and love. Love and truth cannot separately...
read moreResuscitating Compromise
by Katie Leeson ’93 “Washington is obsessive.” That was the opening line of a recent NPR story about the capital city’s laser-like focus on the 2010 health-care-reform law. I laughed as I drove up Pennsylvania Avenue, wondering if the reporter could have picked three better words to sum up the city where I’ve lived and worked for the past 12 years. As a health-care lobbyist, I can tell you with absolute certainty that D.C. is flush with obsessive, passionate people seeking to influence policy and shape history. In fact, advocates...
read moreThe Alchemy of Friendship
A progressive idea among friends from the ’5os penetrates students’ lives today. Two weeks after the cataclysmic events of September 11, 2001, a group of friends met to begin planning their 50th Milton Reunion. From their school days in the ’50s through the turn of the century, they had all ably tended families and careers. Now they struggled with a new, incomprehensible chapter. Ned Felton, the boys’ head monitor in 1952, was sure that these friends could and should organize around an idea. “Ned was sure that we could identify a...
read moreThe Support to Fly: Two Stories of Risk and Its Reward
Starting anything new is at least partly scary. When the people in your new setting look mostly like you, you make some assumptions, consciously or not, about shared experiences. Knowing that you share common ground makes opening up, or making friends, a bit easier. When Ronnell Wilson ’93 and Nafeesah Allen ’02 arrived in Class IV, the School looked much less like the face of America than it does now. Today, 45 percent of our new students self-identify as students of color. Still, most students of color, as well as our international...
read moreFlocking Together
When Andy Ward came to Milton in 1944, the Milton Academy Bird Club had been active for nearly 20 years. The thrill of observing songbirds, hawks, warblers and the shorebirds of New England strengthened friendships that Andy relies on 60 years later. Early encouragement from biology faculty member Pete Morrison drew the group together. He orchestrated weekend birding trips to Newburyport and other areas around Boston. “Bird-watching is widely accepted now, but during our time at Milton, birding was thought to be a little offbeat,” Andy...
read moreFriends Become the Mirror that Middle Schoolers Seek
Sorting out who you are takes time and effort. Nicci King has her finger on the pulse of Middle School life, and she knows her students well. Nicci is Milton’s Middle School counselor. She began at Milton in 2005, and she responds to the needs of students, parents and colleagues as they try to understand adolescent behavior. Nicci helped develop and co-teaches the 360° affective education class, a program that fosters empathy, respect and perseverance in our middle schoolers. It promotes the development of constructive communication,...
read moreHow we stay connected: A survey of students
Have you ever sent a text you regretted? Is a Facebook “friend” a true friend? The Milton Magazine, Milton Paper and Milton Measure put together a single survey of Upper School students about technology, social media and cell phone...
read moreAccording to My Friends
Students parse how friendship flows. Direct answers, to fundamental questions, from Class I–transitioning from Milton to college–and Class IV, working toward friendships that last. Here’s what they said. What is a friend? You can be quiet, relaxed and comfortable around a friend. A friend is trustworthy. Otherwise, you can’t be open. A friend makes you feel good about yourself, but doesn’t necessarily always tell you what you want to hear. You have fun with a friend; he makes you laugh, no matter what you’re doing...
read moreA Fond Farewell Ann Carter 1917–2011
One of my—and Milton’s—oldest and best friends, Ann Carter, died in December in Hanover, New Hampshire. She was the wife of Ad Carter ’32, longtime faculty member and renowned mountaineer. Ann was in her 95th year, yet her death was surprising to those who knew her. She seemed ageless. Her parents lived to 100. I believe that Ann expected to reach or exceed that mark. In her Christmas letter to family and friends, she wrote of her marvelous, active summer at her family’s place on the Cape, surrounded by her offspring, swimming in...
read more