BRUNSWICK
Focus on Empathy
❖ Looking Ahead: Positive Psychology, Managing Technology
❖ Power in Connection
❖ Mental & Physical Health
❖ Benefits of Dis-Connection
&
Health Wellness
FALL 2019
Focus on Empathy Brunswick boys understand the power of a handshake, the reassuring and strengthening bond in calling someone by his name. As we begin this school year, boys in every division have been working to develop close and caring relationships with each other and with their teachers. These social connections provide the foundation that supports our community as we face the many complex challenges of the school year.
respectful and considerate of others’ feelings, and is open to working out conflicts with others.”
This fall, we have focused our attention on empathy, now a featured character strength on our Brunswick School Character Continuum, which states: “Empathy is welcoming to and supportive of others, is
Our Fall 2019 Health & Wellness focus centers not only on proper care of self, but also on the critical care of those around us.
❖ Care of Self
❖ ‘Healthy Brains, Healthy Bodies’
❖ Environmental Awareness & Sustainability
❖ Health Alerts
LOOKING AHEAD
Positive Psychology, Managing Technology ❖ Author and lecturer Tal Ben-Shahar, who taught the most popular course at Harvard University on “Positive Psychology” and the university’s third most popular course on “The Psychology of Leadership,” will present his lecture, “Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness,” to Upper School students on November 21. He will present to parents in Baker Theater at 7 p.m. ❖ Please join Common Sense Media for a parent workshop on Wednesday, December 11, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in New York City. CLICK HERE for details and to register. ❖ Back by Popular Demand! Navigating Your Son’s Digital World Parent Visiting Day, Monday, November 4, from 8:15–11:00 a.m. Third- and fourth-grade parents are invited to attend a parent-education workshop led by Tim Coupe, our Pre and Lower School Technology Specialist, and Leslie Andersen, our Director of Family and Student Services, in the LS Dining Hall. This workshop will build on those of previous years, offering the latest recommendations for how to manage technology in our children’s lives.
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BRUNSWICK
Health&Wellness
Middle School field trip
Community field service
FALL 2019
Upper School challenge
Vermont hike
Mike Domitrz
Power in Connection ❖ Big Brothers and Little Brothers are connected in Pre and Lower Schools. This fall, fourth graders have been partnered with their first-grade little brothers, kindergarten will have reading buddies in third grade, and Pre K will have play buddies in second grade. ❖ September field trips in Middle School all centered on team-building exercises intended to develop bonds of friendship outside of the regular school setting early in the year. ❖ Upper Schoolers spent the first days of school working through literal challenges (10th and 11th coed groups) and providing community service to those in need. Seniors spent time away from campus preparing for a year of significant next steps.
❖ Vermont expeditions, scheduled to take place during the course of the entire year, provide sophomore advisory groups with time to hike, talk, connect, and unwind away from phones and the pace of regular school routines. ❖ Upper School students welcomed Mike Domitrz, from The Center for Respect. In a highly engaging presentation involving coed groups, Domitrz discussed the need for ongoing communication and respectful boundaries in relationships. ❖ And, of course, all Brunswick boys continue to spend intentional time connecting face-to-face with those around them! Helpful Reading: UnSelfie
Mental & Physical Health ❖ Brunswick yoga instructor Giselle Kaptcianos now offers yoga for faculty before school on Wednesdays and Thursdays to help our teachers start their school days with greater center and balance. ❖ In an ongoing effort to provide a safe and secure environment for all of our students, faculty, and staff, 100% of Brunswick faculty are now certified in First Aid and CPR. ❖ Lower schoolers and their teachers made a pledge to complete 16 minutes of cardio work each day.
❖ Upper Schoolers welcomed Ken Bartolo, former professional athlete and co-founder of There and Back, who shared his powerful story of substance abuse and addiction and discussed the current dangers of vaping and illness.
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BRUNSWICK
Health&Wellness
FALL 2019
Benefits Of Dis-Connection
Care of Self
In a world in which technology provides us with incredible access to each other and to limitless knowledge, we also need to remind ourselves of the benefits and necessity of disconnecting from the digital world and our reliance on this convenient means of socialization.
Lower and Middle School teachers have received RULER training to help students with awareness of emotion.
Middle School students have begun their digital citizenship practices in fifth-grade values classes using the Common Sense Media Curriculum and in their computer classes using Google's Be Internet Awesome, where they earn certificates for their completion of the course. LEARN MORE
Parent site for Common Sense: commonsensemedia.org Google’s Be Internet Awesome: beinternetawesome. withgoogle.com Helpful Reading: iGen
Developed by the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, RULER is an evidence-based approach for integrating social and emotional learning into schools. RULER teaches emotional intelligence skills — those associated with recognizing, understanding, labeling, expressing, and regulating emotion. Lower School TRUST TIME brings together work on character, leadership, diversity, inclusion, health, and wellness in dedicated time that helps the boys to develop their most self-aware and empathetic selves.
Environmental Awareness & Sustainability ’Wick is getting greener. New compost bins have made their way into lunchrooms at all four ’Wick dining halls, and by the end of every lunch period, the bins are chock full of food scraps ready to be born again as nutrient-rich composted soil and mulch.
More efforts are underway: A Sustainability Chair is planned for the Brunswick Parents’ Association, while athletic-team parents have been asked to send boys with refillable water bottles instead of cases of bottled water. The plan is to add more recycling containers around athletic fields, so away teams can recycle, too.
The magic happens offsite. Curbside Compost, of Ridgefield, Conn., picks up the scraps weekly and delivers them to composting facilities. “We started talking about composting,” said Sarah Burdett, Brunswick’s Chief Integration Officer. “That’s new.” “There are four different dining halls. That just means we have a bigger team,” she said. “We are getting good at this. We’re trying to get better at it.” The effort goes hand-in-hand with Brunswick’s efforts to improve its existing recycling while also pursuing new forays into keeping food scraps out of the waste stream.
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BRUNSWICK
Health&Wellness
FALL 2019
‘Healthy Brains, Healthy Bodies’ Health & Wellness took a front seat even before the school year began: Dr. Jim Hudziak, Creator and Director of the University of Vermont Wellness Environment (WE), presented at opening faculty meetings — centering his discussion on his pioneering program and neuroscience course at UVM, entitled “Healthy Brains, Healthy Bodies.” The phenomenally popular and life-changing experience focuses on exercise, nutrition, mindfulness, and mentorship. Students also sign a contract agreeing not to consume alcohol or drugs while participating in the program.
“All health emerges from emotional behavioral health,” Hudziak concluded. “Strategies that include the prescription of healthy brain-building activities simply make good scientific, programmatic, and financial sense for all educational settings. “UVM WE is one example of how a university is approaching embedding neuroscience-inspired, behavioral-change science to promote healthy brain development in our students.”
H E ALTH ALE RT S Eastern Equine Encephalitis — For more information, please refer to the CDC website: cdc.gov/eee Flu Season — For more information, please refer to the CDC website: cdc.gov/flu Vaping — For more information, please refer to the CDC website: cdc.gov/ecigarettes
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