Brunswick Trust Report – Winter 2025
Brunswick boys have demonstrated the power of generosity through these frigid winter months. This generosity can have an inward focus as our boys learn to practice resilience in the face of setbacks. We also show the generosity of kinship as boys within and across divisions work together on our best practices for being kind, responsible, and supportive. Finally, the many service efforts in all divisions prove the commitment of Bruins of all ages to the needs of those in our immediate communities.
Character & Leadership
Trust Time at the Pre and Lower Schools has featured lessons designed to encourage a “growth mindset” in academic life, similar to the much more commonly accepted mindset in athletics.
In sports, a “growth mindset” is a given: everyone accepts the idea that when the human body gets exercise, muscles get stronger, faster, and more resilient. In the classroom, that’s not always the case. When a “fixed mindset” prevails there, sometimes dangerous beliefs about ability can hold students back.
Brunswick Trust Coordinator Kate Duennebier used a dumbbell in the first of two Trust Time lessons to show boys how, in sports, when an athlete continues to push hard, lift weights, and practice every day, muscles get bigger and stronger.
The brain is also like a muscle, she told boys, and gets stronger with practice and perseverance.
“If we work, push past the hard stuff — if we exercise our brains — it also grows and gets stronger,” she said. “Students sometimes don’t know how to keep pushing when things get hard in the classroom.”
A second Trust Time lesson focused on updating the axiom “Practice Makes Perfect” to “Practice Makes Progress.” A slideshow put together by teacher Brian Couglin showed the evolution of Ford cars from 1910 to today and served as a visual illustration of the relentless pursuit of progress and innovation in industry.
Boys then turned their attention to their own lives and were asked to think about subjects they might like to improve in — with the end goal being progress, not perfection.
“I really care about this,” Duennebier said. “In classrooms when things get tough, this is the exciting moment. I want nothing more than students to know this.”
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Character & Leadership
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The House & Den program bubbled back onto the scene at the Middle School with a surprise announcement from Head of Middle School Rob Follansbee. Boys had just finished Morning Meeting when Follansbee announced a break in the action, as it were, with a rousing game of Trivia designed by teacher Tyler Boudreau. Boys were invited to divide themselves into their Den and House seats in Camuto Auditorium, an arrangement that set up a spirited contest of four rounds of trivia questions on topics ranging from sports to bears. The prize was free dress on the following day.
The game laid the groundwork for another House & Den program later in the week, this time built on STEAM challenges within Dens. Activities included dominos and a catapult competition.
Bacon and eggs were on the menu in the Upper Middle School dining hall as seventh graders in Polar House prepared a special breakfast for kitchen staff. Boys brought the food, cooked it, and then sat down to enjoy a meal with dining hall staff. The shared victuals served as a way to give back — and connect within the Brunswick community. Boys cleaned up, too!
All seventh graders are partaking in a community service project for the year. Organized by House, they are being asked to select, plan, and execute their own projects.
Fourth grade ambassadors reignited the “Let’s Focus” theme of the year as they kicked off their classroom visits in January. Boys shared a read-aloud video of Focused Ninja by Mary Nhin. The book offers tips and ideas on how to maintain focus and concentration in “all sorts of situations,” like the classroom or while a sibling practices their instrument.
A second Ambassador visit expanded the message to “Let’s Focus on Others.” Ambassadors led discussion of the California wildfires with ideas on how to help. In March, Ambassadors started a new project in partnership with the group Welcome Baby, which provides low-income new moms with essentials for the first four weeks of motherhood.
About 22 fourth graders are serving as Student Council ambassadors this year, visiting the classrooms of their younger schoolmates to deliver news, run activities, and speak the language of The Brunswick Trust.
The Brunswick Trust
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging
Deacon Art Miller , the former director of the Office for Black Catholic Ministries for the Archdiocese of Hartford and a one-time schoolmate of Emmett Till, spoke to Middle and Upper School students in special assemblies to mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Miller grew up on the southside of Chicago and was 10-years-old when Till, his brother’s classmate, was brutally murdered in Mississippi. Miller, who is also a Vietnam War veteran, sat with students at assemblies at both the Upper and Middle School, where he spoke about bullying, being an upstander, and being courageous despite being full of fear.
“I felt good when I was standing up for what I felt was right, but I was very much afraid,” he said. “It takes courage.”
Pre and Lower School boys observed Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a special visit from a versatile and award-winning West African dancer and musician. Iddi Saaka, a native of Ghana who now serves as an associate professor of dance at Wesleyan University, offered a lively musical and dance performance aimed at telling stories about Ghanaian culture and bringing people together in the spirit of Dr. King.
“Dr. King wanted all people to be friends,” Alecia Thomas, director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging, said as she introduced the performer. “Sometimes, people would play music when they followed Dr. King. Music was a big part of bringing people together, whether it was through singing, dancing, or playing an instrument.
Thomas said boys loved the performance.
“Mr. Saaka told stories through his music,” she said. “This was a way of honoring Dr. King and his legacy. Music was such an integral part of the Civil Rights Movement.”
Boys in the Lower School through the Upper School marked a day of cultural community with special luncheon menus to reflect all the different nationalities represented in the dining hall cooking staff. Boys had the chance to sample recipes from Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Bangladesh, and Mexico as they celebrated diversity and international culture through ethnic cuisine. Menu items included dishes like Guatemalan Chow Mein, Soup Encebollado, Chorizo Empanadas, and more.
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Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging continued from page 3
Josyl Barchue ’00, P ’37, a Brunswick trustee, served as guest speaker and mentor at a special joint meeting of the Brunswick and Sacred Heart Greenwich Diversity in Action clubs. Students enjoyed pizza in the Lower Middle School Dining Hall before moving to Camuto Auditorium to listen to Barchue, who answered questions and asked the gathering to reflect on the expectations they place on themselves and others.
A second-generation Holocaust survivor spoke to Middle School boys about her mother’s escape from Hungary in the early years of World War II.
Michelle Bisson , author of the award-winning picture book Hedy’s Journey: The True Story of a Hungarian Girl Fleeing the Holocaust, told boys that her mom was still a teenager when her family made the difficult decision to leave their home.
Crowded trains meant the family could secure only three train tickets to the coast of Portugal, where a boat would take them to America. That meant Bisson’s mother, Hedy, then just 16-years-old, had to travel through Nazi Germany alone in 1941.
Bisson’s book recounts Hedy’s dangerous travel in the days before she met up with her family in Portugal, where they eventually secured passage to America aboard an overcrowded ship. Bisson visited Brunswick in observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Pre School boys celebrated Black History Month by learning about historical figures — and presenting what they learned to their peers in a Friday assembly. Boys researched Simone Biles, Serena Williams, Lebron James, Faith Ringgold, and Frederick Douglass.
They used videos, art projects, charitable donations, and music to share what they learned.
Pre School teacher Dani Clarke said the projects run a little differently in each classroom. In Clarke’s class, boys used Faith Ringgold’s amazing storytelling to tell their own unique stories. They made collages like the ones in Ringgold’s Tar Beach, depicting places of importance to them. Boys also made a word quilt that showcases words they associate with Brunswick.
“The projects allow us to creatively explore the life and work of our chosen historical figures, but also to creatively express ourselves and learn big themes in new, inventive ways,” Clarke said.
A biography of Trombone Shorty served as the subject of DEIB readings during library time at the Pre and Lower Schools this winter. The celebrated horn player performed America the Beautiful alongside Lauren Daigle at the Super Bowl this year; he grew up in the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans. His book, Trombone Shorty: A Picture Book Biography, describes his childhood in the city, how he got the nickname Trombone Shorty, and the transformational moment when Bo Diddley invited him to perform.
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Trombone Shorty: A Picture Book Biography by Troy Andrews
The Brunswick Trust
Health & Wellness
Richard Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men and author of Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why it Matters, and What to Do About It, spoke to parents and alumni in Baker Theater in an evening presentation in late January.
He spoke to Upper School students and faculty the next day.
Reeves, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and host of the 2023 TED Talk How to Solve the Education Crisis for Boys and Men, told parents that his goal is to lend facts and data to the often “frothy” conversation about gender in America and help boys and men thrive now and in the future.
He pointed to data that shows boys and men dying of suicide at much higher rates than women. He also said the data clearly shows boys and men struggling in school, with the gender gap in awarded college degrees completely reversing itself in the last half century. When Title IX was first enacted in 1972, far more men received degrees, while today, there is a 16-point gap in favor of women.
school a year later, creating more vocational and technical schools, and hiring more male teachers in K–12 public schools where there is a particular dearth of them.
Reeves’ visit served as the third 2024–25 installment of the ’WICK Center Speaker Series, which brings leading healthand-wellness thinkers to campus.
Upper School juniors recently workshopped the results of the Insights Discovery assessments they completed earlier in the year — every 11th grader participated in a small-group clinic of about 25 students in the new Health & Wellness lounge.
Insights Discovery is a self-awareness program that is based on the positive psychology work of Carl Jung M.D. It is designed to help people understand themselves and others
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“It is just a plain fact,” he said, adding: “We have got to be able to talk about boys.”
Reeves offered some solutions to the education crisis, including “redshirting” boys so that they start
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Health & Wellness
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— and make the most of relationships. Juniors sat for a 30-minute personality assessment in the first week of school and received a detailed report highlighting their individual strengths, communication styles, and more. In the ensuing months, they met individually with coaches, including Melissa Shahbazian P ’30, ’32, co-founder of Spark InSight Coaching, and trained coaches Marcie Molloy M.D. and Sarah Burdett.
This winter, students revisited their results in a workshop setting with about 25 other boys. They learned how to effectively communicate with others that may have different priorities, perceptions, skills, and communication styles.
“Good leadership and healthy relationships are based on good communication,” Molloy said. “The goal of the Insights workshops is to help students develop effective communication skills through a better understanding of the differences in how people express, receive, and process emotions and thoughts.”
Brunswick became the first high school to offer Insights Discovery to its entire junior class a couple of years ago. Upper School Dean of Student Life Jon Kaptcianos noted that high school juniors stand on the cusp of young adulthood and many important decisions. That makes junior year a particularly key moment for Upper Schoolers to gather key information about themselves and others.
Middle School boys continue to receive “small yet poignant” health and wellness tools through Upstream, a Colorado nonprofit that shares a curriculum of actionable, bite-sized tools for student well-being. Recent lessons for Middle Schoolers included a question-and-answer “quiz” about values. Before that, boys learned visualization and meditation strategies for test-taking. Mindful breathing exercises are often tied into lessons.
Lessons are shared once a month in advisory. Advisors often share a slideshow and spend an afternoon working with boys on guided exercises. Drew Dawson, sixth grade dean, said he has seen lessons reduce anxiety and enhance well-being in the Middle School classroom and beyond.
“From what I have witnessed, two primary plusses happen,” he said. “First, the lessons that facilitate conversation, with the right group, open up doors for the boys.
Boys really enjoy talking about “heavier” topics and sharing their thoughts with others when comfortable.
“And second, I have received reports of boys using the breathing exercises both inside and outside the classroom,
typically before stressful moments such as a sporting event or during a quiz or test.”
Bi-weekly Trust Time lessons on Health & Wellness continue for Pre-K through fourth grade. The lessons, led by Molloy, feature instruction on sleep habits, RULER social-emotional learning, kindness, friendship, service, hygiene, and first aid. An additional lesson this year includes how to care for oneself and how to care for others. First graders will put their caretaking skills into action when they take home their health and wellness bear this spring and demonstrate how to “care for their bear.”
Brunswick Health & Wellness staff hosted two Parent Conversation Circles for Middle School parents. Led by Gianna Masi, Keiran Halton, and Molloy, topics included body composition goals using training and nutrition, losing and gaining weight with healthy habits, meal assembly for these goals, and satiety. Leaders also worked to debunk myths about nutrition and weight training, identify risks around restrictive/binge patterns and behavior, and educate parents about supplement safety and maintaining healthy habits through adolescence beyond.
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Service & Sustainability
Area community service organizations turned up in droves at the recent Community Service/ Off Campus Study Fair, held in the Upper School lobby. The fair featured about 30 tables offering all sorts of information for students and families looking to plan summer — and, for the first time this year, tables were about evenly divided between opportunities for offcampus learning and opportunities for local community service. The strong showing from local aid groups was intentional, as Brunswick works to connect students and families to the local community for service.
The Brunswick community responded in a big way to calls for help from Barbara’s House, a Greenwich-based social service agency. Barbara’s House needed help delivering meals on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and an email sent out to the whole community drew a huge outpouring of helpers who offered to drive all over Greenwich with deliveries.
“The gym was filled within hours,” said Courtney Spada, director of Service, Leadership & Sustainability.
“Again, the response was amazing,” Spada said. “It just shows, once you graduate, that connection is still there.”
Helping Others was the theme of a Lower School Mini Term workshop in February — boys in this cohort, led by teacher Kiersten Coolen, learned about the work of the Blythedale Children’s Hospital and enjoyed a visit from Upper School junior Neel Behringer ’26, a certified EMT for Greenwich Emergency Medical Services.
Inspired by Richard Reeves’ recent visit to Brunswick, Behringer discussed opportunities for men in medicine and read Yes, Boys Can! Inspiring Stories of Men Who Changed the World by Jonathan Juravich and Reeves.
“Neel shared why he likes helping others,” Spada said. “It was very moving.”
Behringer’s message dovetailed with ideas Reeves championed in his recent talk at Brunswick, including a “H.E.A.L” initiative that seeks to highlight careers for men beyond Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). Health, education, the arts, and literacy are also growing industries, Reeves noted.
A handful of Upper School boys visited St. Catharine Academy, an independent Roman Catholic school for girls in the Bronx, N.Y., to lead a lacrosse clinic. St. Catharine leaders invited Brunswick to their campus, and Sawyer Sacks ’27 stepped up to organize a group. Boys headed down to the Bronx at the end of October, bringing all the gear needed to set up and teach the fundamentals of lacrosse to St. Catharine students. A follow-up visit is planned for Community Service Day in April.
A second request for help went out in December, this time to alumni who also responded in droves to help deliver meals. continued on page 8
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Service & Sustainability
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Lower School Student Council boys have partnered with the Children Against Land Mines Program (CHAMPS) of the Marshall Legacy Institute . CHAMPS works to train dogs to detect landmines in war-torn regions as it also seeks to connect survivors with the medical care and prosthetics they need.
In January, third and fourth grade student council members sat in the Lower School dining hall for a Zoom call with a prosthetics lab in Bosnia.
“The kids asked amazing questions,” Spada said.
A second Zoom call highlighted bombsniffing dogs at work and also featured a question-and-answer session with Tim Raker, a veteran who was part of NATO peacekeeping work in Bosnia.
Brunswick has repeatedly welcomed the Mine Detecting Dog Rico Cosby, a retired Belgian Malinois, to campus to demonstrate how specially trained dogs work to clear land mines. In 2016, Brunswick students and families raised funds to sponsor Rico Cosby and his work with CHAMPS. Rico went on to work for six years in Bosnia and Herzegovina sniffing out landmines.
A community partnership has entered its second year as the Upper School Sustainability Council was once again on hand at the Greenwich Land Trust Maple Sugar Day to help raise funds for Coffee for Good, a Greenwich café that provides paid training for young adults with developmental disabilities. Bruins helped make maple syrup and maple candy, helped to run events for kids, and sold pure maple syrup donated by Mike Richter, who owns Hat Trick Pure Maple Syrup.
Inspired by the call to service made many years ago by Martin Luther King Jr., fifth graders in Krista Taylor’s science classes packed 300 bags of rice and beans for area families in January. Students viewed a one-minute video of King’s message, including his unforgettable words on the “fierce urgency of now,” and then got to work dividing 50-pound bags of rice and beans into individual one-pound bags. The Community Service Club started the project at its regular meeting, and students in Taylor’s science classes finished it the next day. The food was donated to Neighbor to Neighbor.
The Souper Bowl, a one-day canned-food drive at the Pre, Lower, and Middle Schools, brought in a heap of donations for Neighbor to Neighbor, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to “improve the lives of residents in need throughout the Greenwich area and strengthen our community by creating
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Service & Sustainability continued from page 8
access to food, clothing, and basic living essentials in an atmosphere of kindness and respect.”
Boys were able to use their donations to root for their favorite team; they leaned heavily in favor of the Philadelphia Eagles, and their prediction rang true!
Pre-K boys taught by Deb Schwartz and Meredith Rose created friendship bracelets and backpack keychains for Friends of the Children — Houston, an organization that pairs disadvantaged children with professional mentors. Boys discovered the organization after studying celebrated gymnast Simone Biles, herself a champion of Friends of the Children efforts, in celebration of Black History Month.
“The boys loved creating these gifts knowing that it was going to put a smile on another child’s face,” Schwartz said.
Along with donating to this organization, boys presented fun facts about Biles during a school assembly.
Pre Schoolers and toddlers from the newly opened Little Cubs program got their groove on to benefit the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center as Brunswick partnered with the HuskyTHON program at the University of Connecticut.
HuskyTHON raises funds and awareness for children’s health and well-being, and UConn students and cheerleaders
brought their dance-a-thon moves to the Pre School gym on the last day of school before a long weekend break.
“This was a combination of doing good and letting young children dance,” Spada said. “The most fun part was when the children danced on their own. Even at such a young age, they can make a difference and be supportive of these important causes.”
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