Active Learning
In and Out of the Classroom

Today’s questions:
How would you describe Milton Academy’s culture?
What are the major social challenges?

And the answers, from:
Sarah Wehle, faculty member for 31 years: interim principal of the Upper School
Bridget Johnson, administrator with fresh eyes on Milton: dean of students since 2007

On the Milton culture, Bridget and Sarah say:

Then and now, the Milton experience is essentially built on relationships.

• Faculty care enormously about individuals. They reach out to make Milton work for each student.
• They are very interested in what school life is like for students, not just inside their classrooms. Students then look to faculty as one of the main connections between them and the School.
• Faculty are eager to work outside of class to help anyone experiencing difficulty or confusion.

Then and now, at Milton the culture feeds on an expectation of energy, passion and involvement. The students we enroll, the faculty we hire—they don’t sit and watch the grass grow.

We focus on defining community here. That means students’ experience often runs counter to the self-centeredness of today’s culture.

• Living in one house for all your Milton years, with a surrogate “family” that you know very well, helps you learn about affection, respect and responsibility.
• You experience your house as home base. You can’t walk away from your mistakes—you learn from them—and your support net surrounds you.
• We communicate in many ways what it means to be a leader, helping the older students (who usually do a very good job) understand how to lead the younger by example.
• We work hard at making sure the environment is continually positive in building attributes and skills.

Discipline practices at Milton are deliberate and thoughtful. They reinforce ideas about how a person lives in a community, and they show how much we value each teaching moment.

• We see discipline as a responsibility that is difficult for all parents, and is core training for adulthood.
• Because discipline at Milton is a proc-ess, it allows teenagers to be reflective, to consider what led them to make an incorrect choice, to review other options they might have had, and to consider the impact of a mistake—on themselves and on others.
• Because it’s a process, it has a beginning, a middle and an end. Teenagers learn that a mistake is a mistake: they “pay their dues” and resume a role in the community, wiser and better prepared for their future.

Positive risk-taking has always been a key element of a Milton education.

• Opportunities to try activities are almost endless.
• You know you’ll have support if you try something for the first time; both students and faculty urge people to try things that are new to them.
• The multifaceted student is a common character at Milton: someone who runs for elected office, plays football and dances in the dance concert; a squash player who acts and plays in the Chamber Orchestra; a runner who edits the arts and literature magazine and raises funds for children with AIDS.

Milton’s boarder and day mix creates a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts.

• Students at Milton, from across the country and around the world, generate a rare vitality, in and out of the classroom. Their geographical diversity alone energizes the conversations around the Harkness tables or in the Student Center.
• Boston families welcome their children’s friends from far away, extending an inclusive warmth and sense of connection.
• Metropolitan parents share their diverse and interesting professions with us: speaking on campus, inviting students into their labs or studios, introducing us to renowned figures and groups, or arranging internships, for instance.
• Activities at Milton continue day and night, weekend and weekday; all students, boarding and day, can count on plenty of friends and plenty to do.

Naming and meeting challenges: Bridget and Sarah name works in progress

We are always exploring and testing new ways to foster leadership—in the Self-Governing Association, in dormitories, as heads of the many student organizations, and simply as seniors in the School.

Character education is a positive force in the School.

• It’s a four-year, integrated and required program that involves meeting weekly with one faculty member and one group of classmates.
• It introduces and explores values.
• It raises and explores with students issues such as racism, classism and gender.
• It serves as a ready-made and safe discussion group to respond to the teaching opportunities that arise during the year.
• Community relations assemblies, speakers on campus, and Monday morning assemblies strengthen the messages.
• As students come into contact with information and discussion about ideas, they get the message that we believe it’s important to raise, think and talk about these life matters.
• In the continual effort to improve this program, we’re working now on making sure that each year builds well on the last.
• We’re identifying age-appropriate themes to weave through each week of the year.

Each family is unique. Rather than making assumptions about what families have or have not communicated to their children, we need to define our behavioral standards and expectations for everybody. We’ve learned that we need to be explicit about everything we’re trying to teach teenagers today. For instance, we spend time articulating and demonstrating the concept of integrity—personal and academic. As another example, we find ourselves teaching students about maintaining decorum and courtesy as they listen, speak and write electronically, the modalities of their time.

Helping students (and families) find appropriate balance between the positive stress of challenge and the negative stress of overload has become a central challenge as they negotiate a ramped-up, ambitious, highly competitive set of cultural expectations.

More about Sarah and Bridget:

Sarah Wehle joined Milton’s Classics Department in 1977, is the department head, and holds the Sarah Storer Goodwin Chair in Teaching. Educated at Radcliffe College and Harvard University, Sarah earned both the Classical Association of New England’s Matthew I. Weincke Teaching Award and Milton Academy’s Talbot Baker Award. She has long been a faculty parent in Forbes House.

Before coming to Milton, Bridget Johnson worked for eight years at the Episcopal High School of Alexandria, Virginia. A graduate of Georgetown University, Bridget has been active with the National Association of Independent Schools, serving as part of a delegation for diversity to both India and South Africa, participating in the Equity and Justice Call to Action Committee, and presenting at the People of Color Conference.

Other cultural critics weigh in
Milton's house heads speak.*

The assets

Adults are always accessible. “My advisor meetings are never short. Students are in my home frequently.”

Students see us as people. “We’re teachers and we live with them as well. Many teenagers have never interacted with adults in this way; they learn to know us well and to trust us.”

The brotherhood and sisterhood bonds are so strong. “This week [graduation week], they were both so excited and so saddened to leave the dorm. They can’t really describe the experience and their feelings about it.”

Bonds between our students are much stronger because they stay in one dorm for all their Milton years. “The consistency, and having older and younger students living with them, makes this experience different from other schools.”

This is a four-year conversation—an education, really—about what a community is. “It’s a process. It’s a learning curve. They ultimately develop an understanding of what a community is, how to take responsibility, and what will happen when they don’t.”

Students know that the adults in the dorms are choosing to live there, year after year, with teenagers. “That’s a strong commentary on how we feel about what we’re doing. There’s such a consistency that students are likely to interact with the same adults for four years.”

Milton students love the traditions of the houses. “I’m always amazed at how they actively participate in creating and sustaining traditions and rituals.”

Upperclassmen help lowerclassmen. “The cross-class connection is huge, and it works. The opportunities in this setting to learn about official and unofficial leadership are unparalleled.”

Among the dorms, there is consistency about standards. “A ‘no’ is a ‘no’ across the board. Perhaps this is easier than parenting, in that this consistency is possible here.”

The social challenges

Technology: video games absorb boys more than girls; social networking involves girls somewhat more than boys. “Adults are excluded from these activities.”

Cell phones: at first glance, they’re a great way for parents to keep in touch. “Connecting with parents three and four times a day ironically leads to much less independence and ownership of daily decisions.”

Digital communications: emails and texts often put a spin on a situation that isn’t right. “Students have to untangle something they never intended. Keeping face-to-face communications alive takes lots of time, but it can thrive in a house, and we work to sustain it.”

Contemporary culture and mores: the messages seem to be getting steadily worse. “For girls, regarding body image in particular, the onslaught is relentless.”

Intensity of the college process: it’s more competitive than ever. “Society asks students to juggle so much. Everything is denser and faster. We work hard on keeping that fast pace at bay, and helping students find a balance between the stress that causes anxiety and the stress that stimulates your creativity and keeps you on your toes.”

Parents: coaching parents is a big part of our work. “Parents are trying to navigate new frontiers in raising their teenagers, many without helpful experience. We earn their trust in this process, ultimately, and many express tremendous appreciation for what they’ve learned.”

* House heads in the conversation: Brad Moriarty (Millet House, formerly Centre House), Chris and Michele Hales (Forbes House), Ned Bean (Goodwin House), Heather Sugrue (Hallowell House), Lisa Baker and Tarim Chung (Hathaway House), Karin Roethke-Kahn (Hathaway’s new house head in 2008), Steve Darling (Norris House), Ricky and John Banderob (Robbins House), Wells Hansen (Wolcott House)

Cathleen Everett

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