Author: Milton Magazine

For Yoshi Makishima ’11, animating a story is a way to put your stamp on every aspect of it. The animator is a director, a writer, a designer, and an actor, making choices that affect everything from characters’ personalities to the overall tone of a film. Yoshi’s short film Night was an official selection at the 2019 San Diego International Kids’ Film Festival last August. She submitted the four-minute piece after completing it for a class at the Harvard Extension School. Yoshi, a performing arts faculty member in Milton’s Middle School, began animating when she was a student in the Upper School. For her senior project, she worked with former modern languages teacher Mary Jo Ramos to animate Spanish stories for Middle School students. After Milton, Yoshi attended Smith College, where she majored in English, and took animation courses at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Night follows an unidentified figure through a city covered in darkness to a forest. Yoshi made the character genderless, ageless, and without other identifiers so that viewers could relate to the figure. The inspiration came from a summer with repeated electrical blackouts; Yoshi found the sudden plunges into darkness and quiet to be isolating. “I spent a lot of time in the dark, which made me think about light, and the absence of it, and how lonely that can feel,” she said. “It was...

Milton’s varsity football linebacker and running back Kalel Mullings ’20 was selected for the 2020 All-American Bowl, joining an elite group of athletes who have played in the all-star game. Surrounded by his coaches, teammates, family, and friends, Kalel was presented with an honorary game jersey, commemorating his selection, during a ceremony in the Fitzgibbons Convocation Center in October. Kalel began his varsity football career as a 13-year-old freshman, playing against 18- and 19-year-olds in one of the top leagues in New England. He will attend and play at the University of Michigan in the fall. “One would surmise that all this attention and notoriety would affect Kalel,” said Coach Kevin MacDonald. “However, he has never changed. He has continued to be the same kind, affable, humble, and outgoing young man he has always been. Yes, Kalel is an outstanding football player with a bright future, but he is an even better young man who has left an indelible mark on our school.” Past All-American Bowl participants include NFL players Reggie Bush, Tim Tebow, Joe Thomas, Andrew Luck, Odell Beckham Jr., and Trevor Lawrence. The honor recognizes top high school football players as they pursue their goals and provides opportunities for competition, learning, and personal development that benefit student-athletes both on and off the field. Kalel was the only Massachusetts athlete selected to play in the 2020 All-American Bowl,...

Strings players from Milton’s chamber orchestra watched members of A Far Cry, the Grammy-nominated string ensemble, discuss a few measures of a Haydn minuet during a pause in the action. One musician suggested a slight change to the speed of the melody as others nodded in agreement. Another chimed in with a reminder about the dynamics of a section. They started again, the adjustments made. “The unique thing about A Far Cry is that they don’t use a conductor,” said Adrian Anantawan, Milton’s music department chair. “They’re a fully democratic orchestra, and they make decisions as a group. The leadership is shared.” The Milton group visited an open rehearsal in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s Calderwood Hall, a modern, four-story performance space behind the historic Boston art museum. Students took notes as A Far Cry, this year’s Gratwick visiting performers, shared their insights and corrections to their piece. The rehearsal was a master class, not only in classical music, but in deep listening and focused cooperation. Adrian hoped the encounter with world-class musicians would inspire the Milton performers and encourage them to take on a similar leadership style. During a break in the rehearsal, students formed groups according to their instruments and took the opportunity to ask questions of the professional musicians. Part of the reason for the visit was for the students to get to know the musicians...

This sentence is missing its marks: I learned heed this warning future employees how bosses who are desperate to fill positions convince staff who have expressed no interest in those positions to do the job anyway The sentence is part of a past sophomore English test, challenging Milton students to insert the correct symbols to create the appropriate pauses and attribution in a long paragraph without under- or over-punctuating. Those with a heavy hand may be surprised to learn that the sentence is missing just one comma, a period, and two em dashes: “I learned — heed this warning, future employees — how bosses who are desperate to fill positions convince staff who have expressed no interest in those positions to do the job anyway.” Learning about punctuation may not be as thrilling to an English student as discovering a work of literature; it may pale in comparison with the gratification that comes from finalizing a piece of writing. But Milton English teachers, in a program that has long boasted strong writers, spend time on the fundamentals of grammar and style, including punctuation and the teaching of megablunders: eight critical writing mistakes to avoid. These are the technical aspects of writing and reading that help convey meaning and scaffold creativity. “When we speak to one another, we depend on pauses and changes of tone to understand the logic and, just as importantly, the...

When people learn that Steven Bertozzi is a middle school educator, their response — perhaps recalling their own experiences or the challenges of raising a child through the middle grades — often falls somewhere between awe and sympathy. But for Steven, who became the principal of Milton’s Middle School in December, the magic and messiness of tween and early teen years affords an opportunity to support students as they navigate the important transition from childhood to young adulthood. “I think one part of the challenge of being a middle school principal or teacher is that you just want everyone to know how amazing this age group is, how resilient they are, how curious they are,” he says. “The rest of the world doesn’t always see promise in this age group, so it’s our responsibility to continually remind kids how special they are when the rest of the world treats them like they’re not.” Middle school is an exciting time for students to become more independent, discover their interests, and explore aspects of their identities. Steven’s dedication to middle school education comes from inspiring teachers who helped guide him through those years. “They had such an impact on my life and took such an interest in me and my growth as a learner and as a person. I loved school growing up; it was a place where I could learn, play sports, do art,...