A SPRING LIKE NO OTHER

Brimmer leaders reflect on remote learning, resilient students, and a nation in crisis

A GLOBAL PANDEMIC, ANTI-BLACK RACISM, REMOTE LEARNING, AND A SILVER LINING

By Emily Miller, Head of Lower School

When I think back to September 2019, I am reminded of the great hope and optimism of starting the new school year. The cyclical nature of school openings elicits renewal, excitement for novel possibilities, and an openness to what rests ahead. I don’t think any of us could have imagined the global and national crises we would face in the spring of 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic and the anti-Black racism we witnessed in the news and all around us brought hardship and great sorrow to our communities, but they also forced us to dig deep within ourselves and to do what was needed—namely, to find the courage to be strong and steady in our teaching, our support of children, and our commitment to dismantling anti-Black racism.

During last year’s Lower School Closing Ceremony, I shared the following story.

"Years ago, my husband and I stopped in a coffee shop while we were on vacation with our family. As we waited for our coffee, we noticed that local artists had displayed their artwork on the coffee shop walls.

My husband, Schuyler Kuhl, found a small painting he liked, and at first, I wasn’t sure why it appealed to him. I thought maybe he liked it because of its many shades of purple, his favorite color, or because it featured a penguin, a multi-year obsession of our then eight-year-old daughter.

But as I neared the painting and read its title, I realized right away why my husband was drawn to this small work of art and why it was coming home with us that day. My husband is an avid kiteboarder, spending many hours on the ocean, doing flips, soaring tens of feet in the air, and landing mostly on his feet. I share this story because Schuyler Kuhl, who has spent his entire life on the water (and that’s a lot of years—almost 50 now), tells me that he is scared every time he goes out in big surf. This is why the painting, which depicts a penguin riding a unicycle and bearing the title 'Do Something Every Day That Scares You,' has been hanging on our kitchen wall for over a dozen years."

While the artwork itself doesn’t necessarily appeal to me, the sentiment of cultivating courage does, especially as I spent last spring watching the Brimmer community display countless acts of courage. Despite the fear, uncertainty, and fatigue, our teachers carried on, and did so in a manner that was supportive, personalized, and grounded in close observation and feedback.

Our students also carried on. Theatrical performances meant for the stage were presented virtually from bedrooms and living rooms, musical presentations typically with accompaniment were solo acts, and culminating Exhibitions of Knowledge required greater creativity and out-of-the-box thinking and were broadcast to large audiences via Zoom.

While the spring months offered many examples of our community members standing up to their fears and the obstacles before them, and possibly doing something every day that scares them, I realize that to be brave, to embody the many qualities of courage, it must be modeled, practiced, and activated in the right moment. I am grateful for the excellent example set by our teachers and our families.

There is no more apt time than today to use our collective courage to navigate the uncertain landscape of this global pandemic and to help our country and our communities become stronger and better than the racial injustice we have witnessed in recent months and throughout history. Let it be our personal call to action and a reminder of Dr. King’s wise counsel, “Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles.”

Lower School Creative Arts Coordinator Joanne Clamage made a beautiful, inspirational display to brighten up her remote classroom for students.

Our teachers carried on, and did so in a manner that was supportive, personalized, and grounded in close observation and feedback.

—Emily Miller

NAVIGATING A CHALLENGING SPRING

By Carl Vallely, Head of Middle School

This spring, our School community was tested in a way it hadn’t been before. We were faced with an unprecedented task—to shift completely to a remote learning environment. The Middle School Leadership and Brimmer’s Administrative teams spent countless hours working together over the March break to develop a remote learning plan to guide our transition to our new way of learning together. I am incredibly proud of what we created, and I wanted to share a few key takeaways I gleaned from these challenging times:

1) Our community transcends physical space. The spring showed that, although we were not in the same physical space, our Middle School community continued to move forward together and blossom. Our teachers and students showed their care and respect for each other in so many ways—our Senate President and Vice-President inspired us during morning meetings, our teachers gave a record number of commendations for students exemplifying our Core Values, and our student hangouts were fun and well attended.

2) Our exhibitions are important. Exhibitions of Knowledge have long been a cornerstone of Brimmer’s educational philosophy. These demonstrations allow students to demonstrate what they have learned in a way that goes beyond traditional forms of assessment.

The Grade 8 humanities exhibitions translated especially well to our reimagined learning environment. Our Grade 8 humanities courses center on themes of identity, leadership, and social justice. The capstone project is a multi-modal assignment in which students research a social changemaker and synthesize that research into an informational and creative display for an exhibition. Subjects have ranged from historical figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rachel Carson, to contemporary social justice heroes such as Greta Thunberg and Emma Watson. Students create presentations about their subjects’ lives and accomplishments and then devise modern-day plans of social action to honor or continue their subjects’ work and legacy. At a time when our society faced substantial upheaval—from COVID-19 to the long overdue reckoning with systemic racism—hearing about these changemakers was poignant, timely, and uplifting.

3) Growth comes from meaningful feedback. Skilled educators understand the importance of feedback as a tool to guide student growth. As we navigated remote learning, we, too, benefited from feedback from our stakeholders. We repeatedly surveyed students, parents, and the faculty to hear what they were thinking and how they were feeling. Their thoughts and suggestions were incredibly helpful, permitting us to adjust remote learning to meet our goals and to inform our strategies for remote learning should the need arise in the future.

4) A dynamic learning management system is key. After researching several different learning management systems during the 2018-2019 school year, we ultimately decided to move forward with Canvas last summer, and what a great choice that turned out to be. The dynamic and modifiable nature of the system proved to be invaluable as we worked on how to not only best structure our academic classes, but also how to best provide students access to important resources like our Learning Center, visits with Dr. Beth Meister, and health and wellness activities to participate in at home.

5) Our Middle School faculty are incredible. While I’ve always known this to be true, a school’s remote learning plan is only as good as the teachers delivering it. Our teachers were, in a single word, amazing. They kept students at the center of all their choices, reached out when they had concerns, and did whatever they could to make their classes, advisories, and our Middle School meetings fun and positive. The faculty shirts that Middle School teachers received last fall were featured often on Zoom!

6) Kids are incredibly resilient. All children are capable of extraordinary things. While we can’t change that they will face challenges along the way, including a global pandemic, what we can do is give them the skills to learn from them. As we found our footing with remote learning, I was struck by how resilient our students were. Despite the challenges, they kept a positive outlook. Our eighth graders impressed me with their perspective as many of their capstone events, including their annual rafting trip and an in-person eighth grade dinner, were not able to happen in the traditional way. However, despite these losses, they remained optimistic and grateful for the work we did to re-create these experiences to the best of our ability. It was remarkable.

WHAT IS CORE TO THE BRIMMER EXPERIENCE?

By Joshua Neudel P ’30, Head of Upper School

On March 11, 2020, with spring break looming and uncertainty on the rise, I stood in front of the Upper School community to talk about a remote learning schedule and the basics of online learning. At the moment, it was clear we were heading into uncertain times, but we could not have predicted what actually lay ahead.

Without knowing how long we would remain in a remote learning environment, we needed to look critically at work through the lens of our mission. Questions like: “What are essential aspects of our curriculum?” and “What is core to the Brimmer experience?” were the guideposts that helped shape our conversations.

Teachers made important decisions about the skills and content that were most important for students to demonstrate by the end of the year, and they adjusted their courses accordingly. They began using new tools to create online discussions and display artwork for critiques, and they brought experts from across the country into their classrooms via Zoom. While we certainly felt the loss of being together in the same place at the same time, the addition of new learning modalities created new learning opportunities.

Knowing that our teachers were focused on the teaching and learning that would enable our students to progress academically allowed us to shift our focus to the second question: “What is core to the Brimmer experience?” The answer? Relationships.

As a small school, we have ample opportunities to build meaningful relationships and a strong sense of community. The strength of our community is in large part why remote learning went well. Teachers and students had built a foundation of trust over the course of the year, and this helped carry their work forward. At the same time, we were keenly aware that being physically apart and disconnected for an extended period of time could threaten to erode the relationships we had worked so hard to build. For this reason, we prioritized finding ways to offer regular check-ins for our students with our health team. Upper School Counselor Emily Luckett and School Nurse Beth Escobar hosted drop-in sessions, met oneon-one with students, and held grade-level meetings. These connection points helped to build a safety net for students and gave them an outlet to talk about their concerns. We extended these resources to parents and guardians as well, with parent group meetings that offered family members the opportunity to share their concerns.

We worked hard to reimagine Brimmer programs and traditions online. Maintaining the routines of Morning Meeting with music playing as students arrived from the Zoom waiting room brought a sense of familiarity and comfort at the start of the day. Affinity groups continued to meet. The Class of 2020 created a virtual senior lounge to share lunch, just as they would on campus. Student leaders created trivia games for homeroom as a way to re-create moments of grade-level bonding.

New student programming also emerged during this time. Weekly lunch trivia with prizes provided an opportunity for students to connect. Prom shifted to a game night with pizza delivered to every student’s home. Senior Week was filled with a Scavenger Hunt, virtual Escape Room experience, and a movie night, which took the place of Senior Dinner. The pandemic also birthed this summer’s online learning experience— Brimmer Summer Refresh! Our faculty offered 12 online classes covering a breadth of topics that were well enrolled across the board.

As a school, we collaborated to create normalcy during a time of disruption, which helped us connect in meaningful ways during times of celebration and struggle. One memory that will remain with me is how we were still able to come together in response to the racist acts of violence against the Black community that we witnessed in our country this spring. The physical distance between us could not prevent us from gathering to talk about the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. Across the distance and through our devices, we shared our thoughts and feelings, and we started creating a plan and steps to do more and do better as a community.

March 11, 2020, feels like a lifetime ago. However, with continued uncertainty ahead, taking time to reflect on the last few months—where we have been and the work that we have done—will only help us move forward and build upon our collective strengths in the coming year.

OUR RESILIENT AND RESOURCEFUL GRADUATES

By Joe Iuliano, Assistant Head of Academic Affairs

This past spring, the pandemic let some air out of the college admissions balloon. That initial venting was disconcerting and disappointing, to say the least, and the impact on our students was evident: no in-person announcements of acceptances with applause, high fives, and smiling faces; no college visits for the accepted seniors; for some, it meant extended deadlines for making that final choice; no in-person college visits, information sessions, and interviews for the juniors seeking to build their prospective college lists and get on the radar screen of their high-interest schools; postponed and canceled standardized tests (it’s stressful taking them and it’s stressful not taking them—that should be a sign); and no definite answers about what college life might look like in the fall.

But as graduation approached in May, that balloon still had the vast majority of its air inside it. Still aloft, intact, and coaxing the young high school graduates to follow it to the joys it had to offer in the fall just around the corner and in the years ahead.

Then over the summer, the pandemic, which had its index finger and thumb on the valve stem of that college admissions balloon, let it loose. And off it flew in every direction, blowing the spray and sound of a New Yorker’s raspberry as it commenced in full the exhausting of a large portion of its oxygen.

For as many colleges as exist, there were seemingly as many different opening plans for our graduates: stay closed until January; open fully remotely; open live for the juniors and seniors while the freshmen and sophomores learned remotely; or the reverse—bring in the freshmen while everyone else learns from home; have the first semester go until Thanksgiving followed by a five-week hiatus; bring all of the students to campus and go fully live, just like in the past; or even have the students on campus but the professors teaching remotely.

With these options in play, some Brimmer graduates mulled over taking a gap year. Others who had been granted admission not for the fall semester but for the following spring semester found what once seemed disappointing suddenly became quite fortuitous. Most, however, held on to the belief that their college would open, and they would go off to their campus as expected, albeit with several masks in hand. They’d give it the old college try—social distancing would be in play in the dorm and the classroom, and one would have to take a significantly more cautious approach to sports and clubs, social life, road trips, and the other essential elements of the extracurricular college life.

Throughout the spring and summer, Brimmer’s current seniors, latest seniors, and recent graduates all have contended with a historic event that put a pinprick into each one’s college “Hopper Balloon”—a small, one-person hotair balloon, very similar to standard hot-air balloons but with one seat or a harness. The slight exhalation of air leaking out for them was a semester abroad, a summer internship, an orientation weekend, a summer course on campus, a sports season.

But Brimmer students and alumni are resilient and resourceful. They have found ways to work, study, connect, and explore in a 25% live and 75% virtual world. They are motivated to learn, to work, and to create new opportunities and experiences for themselves. They have the tools and skills to patch their own balloons and to continue to soar upwards. The School will continue to prepare its students for a successful college experience among the similarly refurbished fleet of excellent colleges and universities our students seek to attend. The college admissions process was adversely impacted in the short term, but education is a long-term prospect, and Brimmer graduates are the agile, inspired, lifelong learners we cultivate from PK-12. ■

Middle School faculty brought positive energy and plenty of Brimmer spirit to their remote learning environment.

Greenline, the Upper School Choral Ensemble, provided a memorable virtual performance from their homes this spring.

The Class of 2020 came up with a creative way to create the traditional “college shirt” photo that is normally taken during Senior Week.