Today at Bement

And the Band Played On

The pandemic didn’t silence Bement’s band students. During the fall term, to comply with CDC guidelines, students rehearsed outdoors under a large tent, standing on dots spray-painted on the grass, while others rehearsed on the athletic fields. In the winter, students were allowed to play instruments indoors, at 10 feet apart. Band Director Megan Mahoney used the band room and the Barn, and some grades rotated between in-person rehearsals and asynchronous online work. As the weather warmed, students returned to rehearsing outdoors.

“While it was challenging at times to practice outside, especially when the wind blew our music across the athletic field, I think the students had fun with the new environment and were just happy to play their instruments,” Ms. Mahoney recounted. “At times there were distractions: bees that wouldn’t leave us alone, wind, people walking by, and sometimes even squirrels distracted students. Still, we managed to prepare quality music and continue to improve on our instruments.”

To uphold Bement’s COVID-19 cohorting requirements, Ms. Mahoney met with each upper school grade separately, rotating by term, which allowed for new leaders to emerge. “Because the groups were so small, this called on students to step up and play with confidence, as there were usually only one or two players on a part,” she noted.

“Students had fun with the new environment and were just happy to play their instruments.”

MAIN STREET

Student-Published Magazine

TO VIEW ISSUES OF MAIN STREET MAGAZINE, GO TO ISSUU.COM/BEMENTMAGAZINE.

Bement’s first student-led Magazine Club published its inaugural edition of Main Street magazine in the spring of 2019. Distributed once per term to students, faculty, alumni, and parents, each issue reports on campus news, performances, athletics, student work, and global issues, and it offers students a forum where they can express their opinions. During the pandemic this year, students adapted to producing the magazine remotely. They held Zoom meetings to discuss editorial ideas, and they used a platform called Canva to design the magazine, which allowed all participants to view and participate in the design process. Evelyn Lee ’21, the outgoing editor-in-chief of Main Street, said it was particularly important to keep publishing the magazine during the pandemic. Evelyn felt that restrictions during the pandemic limited students’ abilities to express themselves. She said, “This club allows students to show a sense of their personalities, and to highlight issues that are important to them.” For Evelyn personally, she saw the magazine as a place to write about social justice issues. “I was able to write about Black Lives Matter, which is something I really wanted to share with the community.”

Boarding Life during the pandemic! As we began this year, Bement’s goal was to maintain the family aspects of the boarding program while adhering to COVID-19 protocols. Dorm parents worked hard to make students feel welcome, comfortable, and safe. To maintain physical distance, activities and meals were arranged by dorm. During the week, students enjoyed meals in their common rooms instead of in the dining hall. This allowed bonds to deepen as boarding students gathered together each night and discussed the day or shared funny stories over meals— just as families gather at their own dining room tables.

Hiking!

Games! Baking Cookies!

Outside Fun!

Assistant Director of Residential Life Meg O’Brien ’95 said, “The memories that were made over a year of highs and lows will be some of the fondest in many of our minds. Bement boarding truly made the most of each day and understood that joy can be found in the simplest of things as long as you are surrounded by your Bement family.” In past years, students attended weekend excursions to neighboring towns, malls, and museums, but the pandemic required that students stay close to home. Luckily, Bement’s backyard is rich with opportunities and activities. Students hiked in the woods, biked along the Connecticut River, romped in the snow, told ghost stories around a bonfire, and played ”manhunt” and volleyball into the evening twilight as the lightning bugs twinkled in the sky.

Drawing the Water Cycle

2020 demanded that teachers reinvent the way they teach.

Science teacher Eric Bordua asked his sixth-grade students to move their desks to the side, and then he handed out markers. The assignment: draw the water cycle.

“How many times as a kid have you been told not to draw on this or that?” Mr. Bordua said. And then he announced to the class, “‘We’re going to draw on the floor today,’ and their eyes lit up. Because of physical distancing rules, it was also a safe way for students to show what they had learned about the water cycle and to not be on a screen.”

Students plopped down and began illustrating the seven steps of the water cycle, the tile floor providing a larger landscape than a piece of paper. Mr. Bordua stepped around each drawing, crouching down to ask each student to talk him through their work.

“It was so interesting to see how each student’s brain works and where they decided to start their water cycle, whether it was with rain, with bodies of water, or with evaporation,” Mr. Bordua said. “It’s a circular shape, so students could start from anywhere. . . . It was important for them to realize that it wasn’t as formulaic as science can sometimes be.”

Their floor drawings weren’t as permanent as handing in an assignment. Students could make real-time edits as they discussed the water cycle with Mr. Bordua and their peers. Because students already had sanitizing wipes available, wiping away the drawings was easy. Throughout the rest of the year, thanks to the joy of this project, it was typical for students to raise their hands during other lessons and ask Mr. Bordua, “Can we draw this on the floor, too?”

Protecting Pine Hill’s Turtles

Being cold-blooded, painted turtles require significant time basking in the sun each day, but with no floating logs in the pond at Pine Hill, turtles were balancing precariously along thin overhanging branches or clambering along the banks of the pond seeking a warm clearing. The solution: build turtle platforms perfect for basking. During a warm spring day, the fifth-grade class, with guidance from Outdoor Education Coordinator Jill Craig P’29 ’29, constructed two floating turtle platforms using old decking wood and pool noodles. Students pre-drilled and screwed their precut pieces together, then they attached pool noodles to the bottom to provide flotation, as well as anchors to keep the platforms afloat on the pond’s sunniest locations. Within 24 hours, one platform held 20 turtles soaking up the sun!

After reading about food insecurity, sixth-grade students volunteered at Stone Soup Café’s Saturday meal service in Greenfield. Maeve ’24’s artwork represents both the poem “You Got a Song, Man” by Martín Espada and her own original poem, “Just Stand.” Of her artwork, Maeve said, “I made a crack in the wall representing hope and a better future. The people in my painting are standing up together and looking at the crack in the hope that the better future represented by the crack will happen.”

SIXTH GRADE

Diversifying English Curriculum

As Bement looks to be mindful about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in all aspects of campus life, sixth-grade English teacher Rachael Carter has been honing her curriculum to be more culturally responsive and inclusive. Reflecting on the themes of individuality and community, Ms. Carter assigned poetry by a diverse range of New England poets—including Martín Espada, a Latinx poet and professor from Amherst; George Abraham, a nonbinary Palestinian poet from the Boston area; and Tracy K. Smith, an African American poet from Falmouth, Massachusetts.

Students then read selections from Nikki Grimes, a Harlem resident who wrote her recent collection, One Last Word, after feeling inspired by famous Harlem Renaissance poets local to her community, such as Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen. Ms. Carter also collaborated with Visual Arts Teacher Caitlin Dembkowski, who helped students create artwork representative of both their original poem and the poem that inspired them.

In the spring, Ms. Carter assigned the book A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park, a Korean American author. The novel centers around a young boy named Salva who becomes one of the “Lost Boys” from South Sudan due to the local civil war. His story is told alongside Nya’s, a fictional character who lives in the same village as Salva about 25 years later. After reading the book and writing critical essays about food insecurity and water scarcity, students visited Stone Soup Café (SSC), an organization in Greenfield that provides healthy meals in a paywhat-you-can model. Sixth graders volunteered by chopping vegetables and preparing other foods and materials for SSC’s Saturday meal service. “Students learned about an issue that plagues real people in their home community and had the opportunity to be part of the solution by volunteering their time and energy at the café,” Ms. Carter said.

Art by Ethan F. ’24

Middle School Students of Color Conference

Five students and one faculty member attended the virtual Middle School Students of Color Conference on February 6. Through speakers and workshops, participants learned more about diversity, equity, and inclusion in society and how to apply those values in their personal lives and in their school community. Students also joined virtual affinity groups to support and connect with other students who share their identity, and white students explored how to be allies in this work. The students presented what they learned during a Friday all-school meeting.

then

Eating in the dining hall, family style, is a main component of the Bement experience. We look forward to returning to shared meals once again, a favorite part of everyone’s days.

now

Lower School PE Gets Creative

When the pandemic hit, lower school PE teachers Jerry Dobosz and Will Paulding had to adjust their PE classes. Using blue construction fencing and fence posts, the pair quickly created an enclosed, outdoor mini-sports arena nicknamed the Phoenix Nest. Inside the arena were 6� × 6� squares spray-painted 10 feet apart to keep the students physically distanced yet give them each room to move around as they played games like soccer and dodgeball.

The baseball diamond on the playground also came in handy, allowing students to spread out along the baselines for exercises and warm-up activities that easily transitioned into kickball and Wiffle ball. To play games of tag but not touch each other, the teachers handed out six-foot-long pool noodles, which became “tag hands.”

During inclement weather in the fall and spring, PE was held in a tent, and students were stationed inside hula hoops to maintain distance. In the winter, PE shifted to the Barn, where the teachers opened doors and windows for ventilation. “It was actually a lot of fun to be on campus, and it made for more class time because we did not have to transport students back and forth [to Deerfield Academy],” Mr. Dobosz said. “The kids were the real stars last year. They gave us the energy and motivation to keep trying new things.”

The kids were the real

stars last year. They

gave us the energy and

motivation to keep

trying new things.”