Jessica Bond Lives in Robbins House, Teaches English, and Climbs Rocks

Having taught at a number of schools—including some in London and Vienna—English faculty member Jessica Bond says it was clear to her when she first visited Milton that this was the place for her.

Growing up in Vermont and then teaching in New Hampshire, Jessica says that she’s always tried to balance the rural lifestyle with an urban one. Teaching at a school so close to Boston, and being involved in the Outdoor Program at Milton, helps her achieve what she has in mind. “When I was younger,” Jessica recalls, “my dad would take my sister and me hiking, and I really enjoyed it — even more so as I got older. That’s why I became involved in Milton’s Outdoor Program and since then I’ve been rock-climbing and kayaking as well — a great learning experience. Almost every Sunday we have trips that any student can sign up for; the Sunday trips go a little farther away than the weekday program, like to New Hampshire. This year, because of my workload, I’ve only been able to do the weekend trips.”

Jessica teaches English, mostly to Class IV students, with two sections of the Class III Performing course, which is fitting since she taught drama in the past and loves reading plays. This year Jessica is also teaching, for the first time, a Class I elective she designed called Literature and the Nature of Reality. “Right now,” she explains, “we’re doing a unit on language theory and semiotics—studying the way words shape our reality. We’re reading pieces of George Orwell’s 1984, looking at the way the new-speak world of that book, in trying to limit language, tries to limit the way we look at things. We’re also going to look at a couple of nonsense poems including Jabberwocky and then a dense piece, a short story, by Jorge Luis Borges.”

Jessica is an advisor to seniors living in Robbins House. She explains, “I have really enjoyed living in the dorms with the girls. You get to know them in a whole different way than you do in the classroom. You’re much more a part of the life of the community. You get to hear everything,” she laughs, “the good and the bad. I love that the dorms are multi-grade levels, too. Because my advisees are seniors whom I picked up in their Class III year, I’ve been able to watch them grow, and I love that.”

Some of the books Jessica particularly likes include Hamlet, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre—which she has also taught—and Jorge Luis Borges’s collection of short fiction entitled Labyrinths. She exclaims, “I have so many that it’s hard to choose a favorite. Almost anything Edward Albee is good, almost anything Tom Stoppard is good. I really enjoy reading plays. Stoppard wrote The Real Inspector Hound which the students are performing next month. That play is a lot of fun, and a bit silly. Stoppard’s other works have the same level of humor, but most of them are hyper-intellectual, like Arcadia or Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.”

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