Teachers Learn Lessons Through Faculty Enrichment Grants

Rivers faculty members are notable for their talent, accomplishments, hard work, and dedication to teaching and learning. That dedication doesn’t end when the school year draws to a close, but—thanks to the Faculty Enrichment Grants program—it takes on a very different form, with the teachers becoming students, in the broadest sense. The longstanding program gives Rivers faculty members the opportunity to spend the summer exploring interests, hobbies, and passions outside of the classroom—and often, outside of the U.S. Those farther-flung experiences were more or less off limits during the pandemic, but this past summer, as travel restrictions eased, teachers were able to explore the wider world during their time off.

The grants are specifically not intended for professional or curriculum development. Rather, as the program guidelines state, they are meant to “enrich the applicant’s personal and professional growth.” Over the past summer, Rivers faculty members used enrichment grants for everything from a biking expedition in Iceland to a pottery class on Cape Ann to a road trip through the Deep South visiting key sites from the Civil Rights movement. The grants may fund an opportunity to build on existing skills and interests or to develop new ones. And, the teachers report, they provide a chance to see the view from the other side of the desk—to remember the joys and frustrations that students experience when tackling the unfamiliar.

Kit Cunningham, director of community engagement, used her grant to take a stained-glass class at Snow Farm in western Massachusetts. A longtime crafter who wanted to try a new medium, Cunningham learned lessons that enhanced her teaching, though not perhaps in the way she anticipated. “Pretty much from the beginning, I struggled,” said Cunningham. “Everyone else could do perfect shapes, and mine kept shattering. I couldn’t believe my emotional reaction; I was in tears.” Her response surprised her and brought home a powerful insight: “This is what so many students feel when they’re trying something new that is hard. It gave me perspective on how brave kids have to be in school.”

Science teacher Sequoyah Reynoso similarly found the experience of being a student frustrating at times. His grant brought him to the Dominican Republic, where he has family roots, for four weeks of immersive Spanish language instruction. “Taking classes again was challenging,” Reynoso reported. “I was often frustrated at my slow progress in Spanish. I had several humbling experiences there. Being back in the student position reminded me how taxing learning can be and highlighted how important it is for an instructor to be patient.”

Sometimes the benefits are more concrete. For Philippe Crettien, of the performing arts department, a trip to Havana provided a rare opportunity to perform and collaborate with Cuba’s top jazz artists. Not only was Crettien invited to return, he reported, he also initiated a potential exchange program for Rivers students.

Darren Sullivan explored World War II sites in France and England. The military history buff, who has also made excursions to Yorktown, Antietam, Gettysburg, and other battle sites, says the trip was “right up my alley.” But it also allowed him to add a personal dimension to the U.S. history classes he teaches: “I’m going to show the students my slides of Normandy Beach and of the U.S. cemetery there. I’ll ask them if they think they would have been able to climb up that cliff that troops scaled on D-Day.”

No matter the experience, teachers report that the grants provide a priceless perspective on their work. “I do feel like I’m bringing this back to the classroom,” said Cunningham. “It’s a whole new lens on learning something new.”

Poetry Reading Highlights Faculty Work

All-school meeting has served as a venue for music and comedy, for distinguished visitors and important announcements, for student presentations and senior speeches. This fall, for the second year running, it provided a showcase for faculty poets (and others) to share their work with the community.

“I decided to try organizing it last year because I was inspired by the visual arts faculty shows and the presentations by the performing arts faculty,” explained Mac Caplan, chair of the English Department. “Given that we have three practicing writers with MFA degrees in our department, we thought it would be great to do our own version.”

English faculty members Evan Massey, Jeff Baker, and tc Hanmer all participated in this year’s reading; they were augmented by Rivers staffer Cheryl Wolf and former faculty member Ari Kaplan.

At the assembly, the audience listened attentively as the poets read their moving, powerful, and personal works. For students, it was a rare opportunity to see a different side of their teachers—a side that showcases those teachers as professional practitioners.

“It’s important that students have mirrors,” Massey noted. “In my MFA program, every faculty member wrote and published voraciously.” Massey, a veteran who served in Afghanistan, read a piece titled “Salerno,” after the base where he was stationed overseas.

Baker said later that the reading served as, among other things, an opportunity to build community. “I think that wherever we, regardless of discipline or expertise, can find opportunities to share things we’ve made, we help to foster— however briefly—community and connection,” he said.

Reading one’s own work in front of a large audience entails a kind of risk, even for those who have done it many times. That, too, is an important component of the program, said participants. As Massey put it, students need to see that “creativity comes from taking risks in your learning. Put simply, we are not going to get better at anything if we don’t take risks, particularly as artists.”

Jenny Jun-lei Kravitz to Lead DEI Office

In January, Head of School Ned Parsons announced that Jenny Jun-lei Kravitz had been selected as the new director of diversity, equity, and inclusion at The Rivers School, effective July 1, 2023.

Kravitz will be a key member of the senior administrative team, reporting to incoming Head of School Ryan Dahlem, who was actively engaged in this important hire. She will work collaboratively with all departments and constituents to advance DEI initiatives across the institution and support the school’s collective efforts to deepen its culture of inclusion and belonging.

Kravitz comes to Rivers from The Pike School, where she serves as director of equity and justice, leading comprehensive DEIJ initiatives and programming across the institution. She earned a BA in biology from Tufts University and an MA degree in biological sciences from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and she taught science for many years in the Massachusetts public school system. She completed a master’s degree in diversity and inclusion leadership at Tufts University.

Through teaching, she says, she discovered that forging authentic connections with students and their families was the most important aspect of successful learning and development. She says her approach emphasizes supporting students to become “better thinkers, better problem solvers, better empathizers, better advocates, and ultimately better at knowing who they are inside and how they wish to share that with the world.”

For the past 20 years, Kravitz has been actively working toward equity and justice in the educational arena. In announcing the hire to the Rivers community, Parsons noted that “the overwhelmingly enthusiastic response from the professional community and students who met Kravitz during the search process speaks to the strength of her candidacy and readiness to lead this work at Rivers. . . . We look forward to all she will bring to this role.”