The Brunswick Trust

Character & Leadership continued from page 1

“We are really looking for those acts of kindness that happen all the time, so we can highlight them and showcase the students who are showing us the right way,” said Brett Martell, coordinator of the ambassador program. “The board has continued to grow. The teachers all have eyes out. It’s turned into something engaging for the boys, who all want to see their names up there.” Ambassadors are hoping to promote leading by example — not just by the student council and the ambassadors, but across the entire school.

“If kids are eager and being competitive about doing the right thing, that’s a win,” Martell said. “As the year winds down, spring fever sometimes sets in, and this is something to lean on while we still have a month of school. It helps maintain that focus, to keep it up, and even step it up!”

The fifth and final ambassador visit of the year took place in early May. Ambassadors asked their schoolmates to reflect on their goals for showing “respect” and to finish the year strong. Ambassadors also introduced the final community service project of the year, asking boys to team up with the Pre School Bear Hugs Community Service Club and the Lower School Student Council to collect items for Happy Life Animal Rescue. In all, 22 fourth graders have served as ambassadors this year, visiting classrooms of their younger schoolmates to deliver news, run activities, and speak the language of The Brunswick Trust.

Pre and Lower School Trust Time in February featured lessons designed to get ’Wick’s youngest thinking about community — and especially how that sense of belonging is not created by accident or miracle.

Using A Kids Book About Community by Shane Feldman, Brunswick Trust Coordinator Kate Duennebier and her colleague Brian Coughlin created Making Connections, with one lesson aimed at identifying what community is and the second aimed at “building” it.

The lessons proved to be a great opportunity to resurface the character words that adorn the staircases at the Lower School and also to reinvigorate the character “pillars’’ that convey the message of The Brunswick Trust to Pre Schoolers.

Students worked on projects designed to show how character itself serves as a pillar for community, creating the foundation on which community rests.

“In the long run, how does the character we bring to school each day contribute to the strength of our community?” Duennebier asked.

Duennebier and Coughlin visited every Pre and Lower School classroom to convey the lessons.

Trust Time is now built into the calendar at the Pre and Lower Schools; the sessions see bi-weekly classroom visits from teams of staff from The Brunswick Trust, from Health & Wellness and the school counseling office, and from Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging.

Students from The Brunswick Union showcased civil discourse in an April assembly in Baker Theater, hosting a discussion designed to demonstrate how it’s possible to discuss sensitive topics without resorting to yelling and insults.

Modeled on the Oxford Union debating society, The Brunswick Union was formed about four years ago in response to increasing vitriol in political speech. Assemblies, which up until this year have been scripted, have featured discourse around topics like the border wall, gun legislation, and voter identification laws.

This year, organizers dropped the scripted format and the result was a lively discussion centered on the advent of AI and its effect on education.

“It was so much more authentic,” said Kate Duennebier, who worked with speech teacher Taryn Petrelli and Lia Mehos, advisor to the Debate Club, to organize the assembly. “It showed when people come together to disagree, you still need to listen. There is still a code of decorum.

“I think they rose to the challenge in an impressive way,” she said.