38 minute read
Athletics
Give It a Shot
Students tried new sports during the pandemic.
Just like nearly every program at Bement, athletics had to adapt to COVID-19 physical distancing and safety measures, which meant that some of the school’s triedand-true sports offerings, as well as interscholastic competitions, were temporarily paused. Other sports were able to continue, but they looked quite different from previous seasons. Dance, for example, took place in the Mary Hawks House, while the dance studio was converted into a COVID-19 testing station. In the winter, students participating in soccer and basketball could perfect their skills at Indoor Action in Greenfield. As athletics shifted, students were also introduced to a new slate of sports at Bement, widening their horizons and stretching their mental and physical muscles. Here are the six new sports that students were able to try this year.
Despite the Pandemic, the Ski Team Competed!
Bement’s ski team was fortunate to have interscholastic competitions this year. Coach Dan Bensen ’01 said, “Ski season was very different this year, but we had plenty of success in a modified format. While it was certainly more complicated than normal, it was a great season.” As a JV coed team with 13 athletes, the squad competed in four races: one panel slalom, two giant slalom, and one slalom. Bement athletes earned the top four finishes in all four races. Winners were Matt ‘22, Jake Brook ‘21 (twice), and Ying Kay ‘23. Evie ‘24 was the first girl in all four races, earning her honorable mentions after each race.
1
PADDLE TENNIS
This racket sport has elements of tennis, squash, and pickleball, and it’s played with a solid paddle instead of a strung racket. Students practiced and competed with each other in teams of two on Deerfield Academy’s paddle tennis courts. The courts are smaller than tennis courts and are enclosed with screens to keep the balls in play. Heaters underneath the courts helped to melt the snow and ice, although big snowfalls required students to start their warm-ups by shoveling the courts! Paddle tennis is a game of placement, patience, and teamwork, and students loved it. 2
“I had never played paddle tennis before, but I quickly got into the sport. Every time we went out on the freezing courts and began playing, I seemed to forget about the frigid weather. I focused completely on the ball, and my quick improvement in the sport was solely because of my concentration. I wanted to do better, and I reminded myself to remain focused. Stability in the mind is the key to success in sports.” —Elena ’22
STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING
Led by personal trainer Jeff Peddar, this athletic offering focused on the fundamentals of developing and improving balance, stability, flexibility, functional movement, and strength. Workouts were tailored to each student’s individual abilities and goals, and the students used indoor and outdoor Bement spaces, Deerfield Academy’s turf field and track, and Peddar’s personal training studio, Peddar Fitness, in Amherst. Together, students completed a 6.5-mile fast walk/ jog, engaged in calisthenics and interval training, learned a basic weight routine, and deepened their knowledge of major muscle groups and nutrition.
fall & winter 2020–21
GYMNASTICS
In the winter term, students ready to tumble traveled to the Franklin County YMCA in Greenfield to participate in gymnastics with instructor Karma Phillips. The gym was outfitted with gymnastics equipment, and after a stretching warm-up, students jumped on the Tumbl Trak (a narrow, long trampoline) and practiced beam balancing, vaulting, and floor exercises using the foam pit. A proper cooldown ended each session.
“I was grateful for the opportunity to try gymnastics. This new activity taught me new tricks on bars, beams, the floor, and vault, and it helped my peers and I grow closer. We supported each other, clapped when we achieved our goals, and laughed together often. This atmosphere guided us individually and as a whole to learn and have fun together during this unprecedented year.” —Caledonia McKeon ’21
3
WINTER TRACK AND HIKING
Bement’s group of intrepid winter explorers went outdoors every day to enjoy the seasonal beauty of the surrounding valley, the trails at Pine Hill, the meadows of Historic Deerfield, the playing fields and trail segments at Deerfield Academy, and many of the mountain-biking trails on Pocumtuck Ridge. A new supply of traction-enhancing spikes strapped to boots and shoes allowed students to walk briskly and even run. Each day, students hiked between 2.5 and 5 miles, then returned to campus bolstered by the fresh air and ravenous for the lunch that followed.
4
Multiple team members were new to mountain biking, including myself, and at first we had trouble doing small drills that we now consider light
work.”
—Channing Doran ’21
MOUNTAIN BIKING
For the fall term, Bement welcomed back mountain biking. Students spent time at Pine Hill working through various drills in order to get comfortable with the terrain and confident with the positioning and control needed to mountain bike. As students demonstrated coordination, balance, and control, the crew took nearly daily trips to the Pocumtuck Ridge Trail, which provided a great variety of terrain and opportunity for further skill development. Another key component of the mountain-biking program was stewardship. Students gained a sense of responsibility for the trails and an understanding of their impact on the surrounding environment. In coordination with Outdoor Education Coordinator Jill Craig P’29 ’29, students built and maintained trails at Pine Hill.
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spring 2021 5
COED SOFTBALL
In the spring, many students inquired about the possibility of softball or baseball as an athletics option. The compromise became a coed softball option for the upper school, with Margarette Howland ’21, an experienced softball player, helping to lead the charge. Softball was open to students at every experience level, and it proved to be a fun way to have an intramural experience. The players took to the groomed baseball diamond at Bement’s North End field, where some students warmed up with a baseball, some with a softball, then proceeded with drills and scrimmaging.
HEAD OF SCHOOL MIKE SCHLOAT’S
Journey toBement
BY CORI SCAGEL ’21
Ninth grader Cori Scagel sat down with Head of School Mr. Schloat to learn more about his career path and his vision for the school.
In early March, Head of School Mike Schloat P’24 ’26 turned on the Hamilton soundtrack in his office and opened up an Excel spreadsheet. Just like every week last year, he was tracking COVID-19 case counts in the area, and while the stakes were extremely high, he found crunching numbers surprisingly calming. “That’s the nerd part of me,” he said. “I’m not afraid to admit that playing with numbers on a spreadsheet actually relaxes me.”
For a boost of positive energy, Mr. Schloat often walks over to Keith House to spend time with lower schoolers. “I love hanging out with kindergartners and first graders when they’ve just arrived at school,” he said. “Their enthusiasm is infectious.”
It wasn’t a typical year to become a head of school. Mr. Schloat, who was appointed to lead Bement on an interim basis in June 2020 before being selected as the head of school after a national search, has guided the school through the challenges of returning to in-person learning during a pandemic—all while getting to know the students and employees behind masks. It’s a task that required all hands on deck, and Mr. Schloat has been deeply impressed by his new colleagues.
“I’m inspired by every single employee that I work with here at Bement, whether they work in the kitchen, or they’re a teacher, or they work on the grounds crew, or they’re in an administrative office,” Mr. Schloat said. “I’m inspired by their daily commitment to our mission and to the sacrifices that they make to work at our school.” and worked at Blair Academy in New Jersey, and Mr. Schloat joined her at what would be his first boarding school. At Blair, Mr. Schloat lived in the dorms, taught English, and coached track and field, and two years later, the Schloats were married.
Although the couple enjoyed the boarding life, Mr. Schloat wanted to pursue a graduate degree and Mrs. Schloat wanted to experience city living. The Schloats moved to New York City for one year, where Mr. Schloat earned a master’s degree in school leadership and Mrs. Schloat explored the city while working at a nearby school. Having completed their goals, they both took jobs at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts.
Up for the Challenge
Mr. Schloat worked at Deerfield for 12 years, and in that span of time, Mr. and Mrs. Schloat had two boys, Carter ’24 and Macrae ’26. Both boys began attending Bement as kindergarteners, which provided Mr. Schloat with an early introduction to the community as a parent. At Deerfield, Mr. Schloat served as the chair of the English department and the assistant dean of faculty, and he coached cross country and track and field. He felt himself gravitating toward more leadership roles, so when the interim head of school job opened at Bement, Mr. Schloat applied.
The Early Years
Long before Mr. Schloat was living and working in Deerfield, he grew up in Mount Kisco, New York. In high school, he ran cross country and track, wrote for the literary magazine, and was a member of the photography club. He attended Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Faced with the challenge of deciding his major, Mr. Schloat says he, “initially fell back on English, to be perfectly honest, and then I fell in love with it again and realized that it was a real passion of mine.”
Mr. Schloat’s first job fresh out of college was teaching fourth-grade reading at a school in New York, where he taught for two years before meeting and falling in love with his now wife, Julie Schloat. Mrs. Schloat lived
“I wanted to move into a significant administrative role, but I also didn’t want to move my family from Deerfield,” he said. “When the opportunity came up to apply as interim, I was up to the challenge, and it was also perfect for my family.” The interim head of school role was designed to be a one-year position with a specific focus on helping the school get through the pandemic.
A Permanent Post
During March and April of 2020 when Mr. Schloat was the assistant dean of faculty at Deerfield Academy, he took on the difficult task, along with his colleagues, of organizing Deerfield’s first-ever virtual learning program while the school helped boarders return home safely. When he was selected as Bement’s interim head, beginning his role in July 2020, he was already familiar with COVID-19 protocols, and his experience at Deerfield coupled with his understanding of Bement allowed him to hit the ground running.
In the fall of 2020, Bement reopened its campus to all students and faculty for full in-person learning, which required faculty and staff to revamp nearly every aspect of the school day in order to adhere to COVID-19 protocols. Mr. Schloat says this achievement was obtained through the hard work of every member of the Bement community.
In the meantime, Bement was still in need of a head of school, and the board of trustees and the search committee worked with the firm RG175 to narrow down the candidate field to three people, who were each invited to campus and underwent a two-day interview process that involved many different groups from Bement. At first, the committee did not consider internal candidates, including Schloat, but it became clear that he was the right choice to continue leading the school in a permanent capacity.
“In the end, the obvious choice for us, if we were true to the mission of selecting the very best person for the job, was Mike Schloat,” said board of trustee member Bob Howe P’18 ’18. “Mike had made an immediate favorable impression on everyone since taking on the interim head’s
role over the summer. There was no one we spoke with throughout the process that this committee felt would be a better fit for our beloved Bement School.”
Mr. Schloat gladly accepted the position. “I fell in love with the job and felt closely connected to the school because of my kids and from working with a team of adults who are so committed to this school and its mission,” he said. “I’m getting to know all the students, and the work that we’ve been doing during COVID-19 has been really inspirational to me. It was an easy decision for me to continue the work that I’d started.”
Students and faculty have described Mr. Schloat as empathetic, humble, compassionate, and resilient. His favorite part of his job is “daily interactions with students and hearing about their passions and things that are making their experiences memorable.” The most challenging part, he shares, is navigating the everyday hardship of natural human phenomenon, such as receiving news that a member of the community is ill. Mr. Schloat brings to his position an understanding of students’ perspectives, and he believes wholeheartedly in Bement’s mission to prepare students to live a life of integrity, joy, and significance. “It’s great to achieve in life, but if you spend all of your time thinking about getting into college and developing yourself for that, at some point that’s going to end, and you’re still going to be really young,” he said. “There will be no more schools to get into. What’s going to matter then is that you’ve found a way to make a difference in the world and share your passions with other people. I’m hoping we can keep cultivating that here.”
When he describes his approach to education, Mr. Schloat harkens back to advice passed down from his father. “My father likes to say that ‘Life is a collection of your experiences,’ and I’ve found that to be helpful both for myself and for talking to young people in my work,” he said. “We’re all going to go through ups and downs. We’re
going to get into colleges we want to get into, and we’re going to get denied from colleges. You can never predict how your life’s going to go. If you step back and say, ‘Everything that happens to me is an experience I can learn and grow from, that gives you some perspective.”
Among his many goals, Mr. Schloat strives to further diversify Bement by first building a baseline of knowledge and capacity within the adults to understand the lived experiences of students and employees of color and their families, and then learning how to support them. Mr. Schloat says he values others’ sense of belonging, aiming to create a safe and welcoming environment for all.
As Mr. Schloat finished his first full year at Bement, he prioritized getting to know students. He tried to greet students each morning during drop-off, invited the boarders to his home several times, and joined the upper schoolers on a ski trip. “I want to get as much face time as I can with kids,” he said. “I’m so fortunate to have a job that I love.”
Last spring, Bement’s ninth graders gathered around a campfire at Pine Hill as part of an overnight camping trip, and they reflected on their time at the school and their experiences during the pandemic. It was a heartfelt evening that also included a dose of levity—faculty and students shared hidden talents, and Mr. Schloat surprised the group with his own impressive skill: juggling. Then again, the talent should come as no shock given all that he’s balanced this year. “Charting a course for a school through a year as turbulent as this one required a lot of adaptation and equipoise, and I would have been nowhere without the core values and spirit of Bement to keep me pointed in the right direction.”
On a wintry February day, lower school students lined up outside the Polk Building in their snowsuits after recess. In a quick procession, each student walked into the dance studio to get tested for COVID-19, a test administered by the school’s two nurses, Brittany Tuttle and Meaghan Killeen. Despite the masks and winter wear, both nurses had no trouble identifying each child as they filed through the testing center.
“The testing is almost nice because students get to take their masks down, and we’re like, ‘Oh, that’s what you look like!’” Tuttle said. “Yes, we’re swabbing noses, but we get to see everybody’s faces.”
Keeping the Bement community safe, healthy, and largely inperson in the midst of a pandemic was a herculean feat, and Tuttle, Killeen, and the school’s doctor, Margit Walker P’24 ’27, all played instrumental roles in this achievement.
Starting from the Ground Up
“There were no blueprints on how to handle a pandemic,” Dr. Walker said. “There were some guidelines from the state and CDC, but we built a lot of this from the ground up. We’ve had to develop policies and procedures pretty quickly to keep our community as safe as possible in a way that fits Bement and at the same time comply with guidelines and standards of care.”
Last year also marked the first time that Bement had its own consulting physician and a dedicated Health Center, located in Snively House. Outfitted as a tried-and-true health center, Snively included a triage room, two wellness beds, and a separate COVID-19 treatment area. Compared to past years, when students would see a nurse at Bement, who could then consult with the physician at Deerfield Academy’s Health Center, Student Health Services at Bement today is more streamlined and better suited to the needs of younger children. “We had new staff, a new building, a new electronic health record [system], and a pandemic,” Dr. Walker said. “It’s pretty amazing as a group what we’ve been able to accomplish in such a short period of time. It speaks to the strength of our team. We also couldn’t have done it without this wonderful community.”
Dr. Walker is a family physician with Valley Medical Group in Greenfield, Massachusetts. She helped establish the Student Health Services’ overall guidelines and protocols, as well as Bement’s COVID-19 protocols. She also consults weekly with Tuttle and Killeen, and she cares for Bement boarding students at her Valley Medical Group office.
L to R: School nurses Brittany Tuttle and Meaghan Killeen with Bement’s doctor, Margit Walker P’24 ’27
“I LOVE WORKING
WITH YOUNG PEOPLE.
I’M DRAWN TO THEIR
POSITIVE ATTITUDES
AND RESILIENCY.”
—MEAGHAN KILLEEN
The school nurses administer COVID-19 tests in the Polk Building.
On a day-to-day basis, Tuttle and Killeen run the Health Center, and their roles include administering medications to students, communicating with parents, seeing patients, addressing students’ health questions and concerns, helping to teach health class for upper school students, and collaborating with the school’s counselor, Ellen Carter.
Important Life Skills
Open-Door Policy
For Killeen, who was an ER nurse before joining Bement, seeing patients is the highlight of her day. “I love working with young people,” she said. “I’m drawn to their positive attitude and resiliency.”
But more than anything, the nurses’ days have been dominated by COVID-related issues. “If a student comes in with symptoms, the first thing we have to rule out is COVID,” Killeen said. “We have to monitor that everybody’s taking the proper precautions. If a student calls out of school sick, we have to find out what the symptoms are and if they’re COVID-related.”
Tuttle and Killeen are passionate about establishing an open-door policy at the center, and they want to create a warm and nurturing environment, which they hope can truly take shape after the pandemic.
“Students would normally come to us for little things, like, ‘My stomach hurts,’ but they don’t necessarily need to go home,” Tuttle said, who’s worked as a nurse for 10 years. “They just need a little TLC, and in a normal year we’d say, ‘Let’s have something to drink and just chill for a little bit.’ But students are more hesitant to come here this year because we have to be so strict with COVID and every symptom could have implications.” Oftentimes students—particularly boarding students—are interacting with health-care professionals without their parents for the first time, and Dr. Walker believes that teaching students how to advocate for their health needs is an important life skill.
“We really don’t teach young people how to navigate health care, which can be really complex,” Dr. Walker said. “I’ll usually take care of young people in the presence of a parent, but when they suddenly turn 18, that parent doesn’t accompany them anymore, and the young people are like, ‘Oh, wow. How do I do this?’ It’s a real learning opportunity. I’d rather see young folks start to get those skills now, stumble a little bit, and we can be there to catch them, as opposed to all of a sudden trying to figure this out on their own in college.”
As the trio reflected on their first year, they each expressed excitement about the strength of the Student Health Services that they’re building at Bement, which Dr. Walker said will be a continual work in progress. “One of the positive things about it being so new is that we’re constantly evaluating where we are and if we’re meeting the needs of our students and our staff,” Dr. Walker said. “We’re asking, ‘What can we be doing better?’ There’s been lots of tweaks and adjustments as we continue to move forward, and like any good organization, we should always be reevaluating. We’re looking forward to continuing to serve the Bement community.”
MEET
Ellen Carter
DIRECTOR OF COUNSELING
Ellen Carter devotes her time at Bement to supporting students, faculty members, and families. She joined the Bement community in 2016 and she’s worked in education for more than 25 years. Ms. Carter earned a BA from Brown University, an EdM from Harvard University, and an MSW from the Smith College School for Social Work.
What’s your role at Bement?
I spend time in the classroom working with students on a variety of themes, from developing mindfulness skills to guiding discussions around topics that are of relevance to them. I also support teachers and advisers as they support their students. I meet with students who would benefit from having a place to discuss their concerns and receive support and guidance. Topics might include: healthy friendships, developing skills in conflict resolution, naming and expressing emotions in healthy ways, how to ask for help, what do you do when you are worried about a friend. And I offer a lot of parent guidance work, especially during this pandemic: How do we support our children? What can we do about anxiety?
Why is it important for students to have access to a counselor?
It’s important to normalize for students that we are all human, we all have big feelings, and we need to have trusting adults with whom to talk. That is the kind of community we want to develop and support. In addition, sometimes students are dealing with really difficult issues—whether it’s friendship issues, conflicts with peers, big worries, anxiety around school expectations, loss and grieving, depression, etc. We want students to know that there is a place they can go to get support.
What do you enjoy the most about your work?
It’s an honor when students trust me to support them and they tell me their story. It’s magical. I don’t take it lightly. I love working in educational communities. There’s something powerful about the collaboration between teachers and the school counselors and the way that we can support students from very different perspectives and with different skills. I also look forward to working with the staff at the Health Center: Margit, Meaghan, and Brittany all bring so much expertise and an ability to connect with the students in a genuine and thoughtful manner. I believe that we all share the goal of helping to create a sense of belonging in a community where students feel known, seen, and heard. What’s more important than that?
What is challenging about your role?
This period during the pandemic has been the most challenging time in my profession, ever. What it’s taught me is that we need to be really intentional about checking in with students and creating a sense of community. That’s always been an important part of my work, and during this time, we have to do it even more. Perhaps moving forward, when we’re back to life as we know it, we’ll pay even more attention to community and connection to one another.
What’s your approach to working with young people?
For younger students, I like to infuse my work with a sense of creativity and metaphor. Young children between the ages of four and 11 really work best when you meet them where they’re at. Often, they’ll use making art or creating imaginary stories and play as a way to express what is going on for them. Recess offers so many opportunities to make connections and to help students navigate the everyday experiences of conflict in play. The teachers at Bement are also really skilled in that area. Older students need adults who are honest, direct, and authentic. Some students benefit from having a safe space that has boundaries and is confidential, where they can talk about who they are and what they’re worried about. Other students benefit from a community approach. When I meet with classrooms, I focus on building community and creating a safe space where students can talk about real things with one another and be respected and listened to. I like to help students access the tools to move through difficult feelings—naming them, sharing them with an adult they trust, and gaining perspective to know that big feelings come and go.
SARA MELLAS ’07’S WORK CELEBRATES PEOPLE THROUGH FOOD AND ART.
Food People Love to Eat
Sara Mellas ’07 taught herself culinary skills because no one in her family likes to cook. After years of working professionally as a choir conductor and music teacher in San Francisco, Mellas decided to put those skills to use beyond her own kitchen, launching a career in food. Among other things, she’s a food stylist and the author of three cookbooks: The Easy Baked Donut Cookbook, The One-Pot Casserole Cookbook, and Quick & Easy Breakfast Cookbook. She is the original recipe developer behind the Whirlpool smart cooking appliances Guided Cooking recipes, creating over 750 original dishes. In December 2018, Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi named Mellas the winner of the first ever Kellogg’s Holiday Baking Championship. She now lives in Nashville, from where she travels the country working as a visual stylist, and she recently gave a TED Talk in Gainesville, FL, called “Creating Your Life’s Work.” She still thinks fondly of the love-filled community at Bement, particularly the moments spent in music and art classes and around the tables in the dining hall.
What’s your approach to food?
I make the food I like to eat, and the food people I love like to eat. I feel there is a lot of elitism in the food industry and it can be very exclusionary, and I want my food to be inviting and communal. I love “grandma recipes” and comfort foods—dishes that evoke feelings of nostalgia—but as a recipe developer, I strive to elevate these familiar dishes using fresher, more wholesome ingredients. Food and cooking should always be fun and colorful.
What’s a common theme in your cookbooks?
When I write my cookbooks, I strive to do so with a touch of humor and whimsy. I want the recipes to be approachable. I remind myself that while a mixing spoon feels like an extension of my limb, many people look at a recipe and feel just as lost as I do when I’m looking at instructions on how to build furniture. So I try to present my recipes in a way that is straightforward and encouraging.
What does “food styling” entail?
My job as a stylist is to make food and props look beautiful for a camera, and what this entails varies based on the job and whether the food is being photographed or videotaped. For instance, when you buy a blender and the picture on the box is of a blender filled with a bunch of fruit, a stylist had to chop that fruit and position it in the blender as aesthetically as possible. Or anytime you see a commercial for a restaurant, there was a stylist on set plating the food and refreshing it to tell the brand’s story. It takes way more time than anyone would ever imagine. This winter, I was doing a photoshoot for Rubbermaid containers. Each container had different food: marinated salmon, sliced red onions, salad, etc. It’s not unusual for me and a photographer to spend an entire day and a half on a single photo, altering the finest details to get the client’s approval. I’ll be standing there with a pair of tweezers, Windex, paper towels—anything that will help make the food and props look pristine— waiting to make adjustments based on the client’s feedback. It’s typical to have an art director circle a single lima bean in the corner of the container and say, “Can you shift that bean 90 degrees?” And it’ll be at the bottom of a container of 200 beans.
I travel with a kit of tools I use to make the food look more photogenic, as I’m usually working with real food, not fake food. I’ll use glycerin to make vegetables look like they were just washed, and toothpicks to prop up bread on a sandwich. I have an electric grill starter for if I’m doing a shoot where the food needs to appear grilled. I don’t put it on an actual grill but rather brand it like a cow to make grill marks, which I then paint with caramelized sugar. As tedious as the work can be sometimes, I don’t take for granted that my job is not unlike being in art class!
What’s an early food memory?
My first visceral food memory was when I was around three years old, when my family lived in a very suburban neighborhood in the Bay Area of California. One of our neighbors would make a super decadent chocolate cake with raspberry sauce for everyone’s birthdays. I requested it for every birthday until we moved away, and I remember it so vividly. Not only was it delicious, but I think it made an impression on me at such a young age because I recognized how we can use food to celebrate a person’s life. To this day, birthday cakes are my favorite thing to make because I love the opportunity to celebrate someone for who they are, and I always try to evoke the person’s personality through the flavors and design of the cake.
What’s one ingredient you can’t live without?
Salt. One of the suggestions I give most often when people ask me to troubleshoot their recipes is that they need to adjust the salt levels. It’s one of the most critical ingredients in cooking and baking because without it, the flavors just don’t come out. If you ever want people to go crazy over something you’ve baked, just sprinkle flaky sea salt on anything with chocolate. I promise you’ll get countless compliments.
Can you describe your experience at Bement?
I tell my parents that Bement was the best investment they could have ever made. My experience was absolutely foundational to who I am. The education at Bement goes well beyond the classroom; it really is about raising good people—people who are kind, respectful, and hardworking, and have an enthusiasm for making the world a better place.
How did Bement influence your career path?
Bement instilled in me a deep sense of personal responsibility, independence, the commitment to being a lifelong learner, and the desire to use my knowledge and skills in service of others. At Bement we were given a lot of freedom in the educational structure. It was like, “We’re going to guide you and set you up to thrive, but it’s up to you to think critically and do the work.” From as young as kindergarten, we were encouraged to explore and empowered to make choices, but always under the guidance and genuine care of the teachers and staff. Bement kids are really provided the means with which to become diligent, self-motivated adults. I still remember, verbatim, many of the things teachers at Bement told me that have been so pivotal to my career and personal growth. Deb Stewart-Pettengill P’01 ’03, PF would say, “If you make a mistake, make something out of it.” That is advice I use quite literally every day, and how I continue to improve professionally and personally.
For more information, visit saramellas.com and follow along on Instagram @sara.mellas.
DR. ELEANOR BUENO ’91 VALUES LISTENING TO HER PATIENTS—WHETHER VIRTUALLY OR IN PERSON.
The Good Doctor
As a young girl, Dr. Eleanor Bueno ’91 dreamt of becoming a doctor. Her father was an anesthesiologist in Greenfield, Massachusetts, and she has fond memories of visiting him at the hospital as he emerged from the operating room to greet her in his scrub cap and face mask.
“Medicine was always a part of our lives,” Bueno said. “Seeing my father’s role serving others in the community and being part of the hospital network was near and dear to me.”
Bueno is now a board-certified family medicine physician at Village Primary Care in North Chelmsford, Massachusetts. She completed her residency in family medicine at Concord Hospital’s NH Dartmouth Family Medicine Residency and received her doctor of osteopathic medicine at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine. She lives with her husband and three children in Nashua, New Hampshire.
As a physician who deeply values face-to-face interactions with her patients, Bueno had to adapt to a virtual setting in 2020, caring for most of her patients through telehealth visits because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s not how I imagined I was going to practice medicine as a little girl when I was playing with my little Fisher-Price doctor’s kit,” Bueno said. “Who would have thought that we would have needed to overhaul what we were doing on a daily basis? It’s been challenging. But it’s made me really think outside the box in terms of how you reach someone and how you maintain a connection with patients on the phone or by Zoom and in 2D settings. It’s made me a better listener and improved my ability to look at the whole picture of medicine.”
Bueno’s favorite aspect of her work has remained the same: “Listening to people’s stories and connecting to people.” She enjoys serving a wide range of patients, from newborns to the elderly, and she incorporates a mind, body, and spirit approach to treat the whole person.
Medical school, however, put her “love of medicine to the test.” She continued, “It was like drinking from a fire hose—assimilating all the information needed to move on to the next level. There was always something you’re working toward. You couldn’t rest on any laurels. You had to move on to the next challenge.”
Bueno was able to draw from her strong educational foundation, first built at Bement and carried forward at Deerfield Academy. She arrived at Bement in the sixth grade following her older sister, Therese ’88. Their younger brother, Gerard ’98, also attended Bement. Bueno was in awe of all the choices presented to her. “I could take an art class and participate in field hockey—there were so many opportunities that extended the learning experience outside the classroom,” she said.
As an eighth grader, Bueno had what she describes as a “lifechanging” experience on the France trip with Ms. Nancy Pond P’89 ’95, PF. Initially thrilled to travel, Bueno found herself intensely homesick and unable to embrace the trip.
“I had an international phone card, and I would call home all the time in the first week,” she recalled. “My mom said, ‘You really wanted to go on this trip, so just enjoy it.’ And something clicked. After that I would walk around the town with friends from Bement and I just took everything in. I really grew up, and I felt so independent, even though I knew my heart was still at home. My mom passed away in 2019, and I am so honored and grateful for what she and my dad gave me—my wings to fly! I still love Bement’s motto.”
Last spring, Bueno saw her patients in person again after she received her second COVID-19 vaccine. She was feeling hopeful that a new, better normal was on the horizon, a time when we can “do what we need to do for each other as humans, by greeting each other face to face.”
Reflecting on Bement students who, like her, have been eyeing the medical field from a young age, Bueno offered some sage advice: “Remember to have fun and get the most out of where you are right now. Appreciate where you came from, because your roots are going to serve you—you’ve got really good roots at Bement. It sets such a great groundwork for any field you want to go into, so enjoy all the opportunities that you have there.”
(top) Bueno’s ninth-grade Bement yearbook photo; (middle) Bueno (center) after her graduation from medical school in June 2005 with her parents and siblings, Therese ’88 and Gerard ’98; (bottom) celebrating graduation from her family medicine residency.
Photos provided by Eleanor Bueno “Remember to have fun and get the most out of where you are right now. Appreciate where you came from, because your roots are going to serve you—you’ve got really good roots at Bement.”
Abbe directs a shoot in the vineyards of Domaine La Bastane in Rions, France.
DAKKAN ABBE ’85 REFLECTS ON FILMMAKING IN THE TIME OF COVID.
Pressing Pause
In March 2020, filmmaker Dakkan Abbe ’85 was in France filming his latest project for PBS, A Vintage in Bordeaux, when countries around the world began to shut their borders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Abbe’s film was set to follow three châteaux in France through one single growing season as they produce their wines, and he was excited to draw on his background as an editor for Wine & Spirits Magazine, a post he held for five years. Instead, he found himself packing up his equipment to fly home, unsure if he would be able to return to film the remaining episodes. More than a year later, the project is still on hold as the pandemic stretches on, but despite the uncertainty, Abbe is unfazed. A self-taught filmmaker and producer, he’s no stranger to changing course on a dime, shoring up funding for projects he believes in, and trusting his creative process. In 2004, with no formal training on how to make a documentary, he created, produced, and directed the PBS series Inside the Tuscan Hills, which garnered over three million viewers. Abbe launched his own production company, Trivium Films, and he then co-created and co-produced the public television series Dream of Italy, which is currently in its third season. Dakkan has also directed and produced series for A&E, ABC, The History Channel, and The Travel Channel. As he awaits the green light to return to France, he’s been working on other projects, including doing postproduction on the show New York Homicide from his home office in Northampton, Massachusetts.
How did your first documentary,
Inside the Tuscan Hills, come about?
I didn’t know anything about cameras or how to make a movie of any kind. I took a three-day filmmaking course to learn the basics. My girlfriend and I went to Tuscany with a one-way ticket, and we had a free place to stay in an old farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere. We were learning Italian with language tapes. And we started getting introduced to people and making little portraits of winemakers, chefs, artisans, and craftspeople of Tuscany. We shot for three months. Little by little, we got it in someone’s hands at PBS in Washington, and they said, “We think it’d be a great show for PBS.” I thought they were going to give me a bunch of money to make it. They didn’t give me a penny. With public television, independent producers have to raise the money with foundations or corporate sponsors to fund the show. I ultimately got America Online, AOL, to fund it.
What are the stories you are drawn to telling?
All the shows that I’ve made for myself feature a combination of people who are driven either by their own personal passion or by some deep tradition that they’re a part of.
How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your current
project, A Vintage in Bordeaux?
With the travel restrictions, we still can’t return to France. Luckily, this is an “evergreen” project. There are some projects where a delay means death. There’s just no way to pick it back up because it’s now or never. But this project is still waiting for me, and next year will happen sooner than you expect. This fall, I’ll be reinvigorating it and reaching out to potential sponsors.
How are you coping with that uncertainty?
You have to take a leap of faith to know that you’re going to figure it out. A lot of us filmmakers are gamblers at heart. Sure, it’s best to have it all lined up, but it’s basically like an experiment. You’re always experimenting, and you’re always failing and learning from it. You have to have a resilient attitude and be an optimist. Filmmaking is a business for optimists. If you are a pessimist, do something else, because no one’s going to give you money or support your project unless you’re the number one believer in it.
What is your role when you are post-producing a project?
In post production, I am editing all the material for a project—the interviews, transcriptions, the actual video. I take the interviews and I move little moments around, one sentence here, one sentence there, to find the best way to tell the story. It’s very time consuming. If it’s a true story, you’re trying to tell the truest version while keeping it easy and understandable in very specific time constraints.
Abbe finds the perfect shot in the wine cellar at La Bastane.
How did your time at Bement impact you?
Like any good, small school, there’s a sense of community at Bement, and you have a richness of experience with the teachers. Being in Deerfield is such a special place. There’s no aboveground wires, and it has a lost-in-time feel to it, which was really special for a young kid and for people from around the world. I also remember one year watching some of the boarding students at Bement see and touch snow for the first time. It was an interesting experience to see that there are people from other parts of the world who haven’t experienced the same things. That’s the beautiful thing about Bement. You’re meeting people from around the world, which wouldn’t happen at a public school. That was another rich part of that experience on the very basic level that I have an unusual name, and I encountered other people who had unusual names.
Ms. Gordon was my drama teacher. I was really into acting and writing little plays I had in my head back then, and she was very encouraging. Ms. Hawks was my English teacher, and I remember the classroom was in a historic house and we sat on the floor and in chairs. It was just this very different kind of school experience, even from the rest of the school, and having a diversity of experiences— not just different teachers but also very different classrooms— was very special.
