In response to Hurricane Harvey’s devastating impact on the city of Houston and surrounding communities, Mayor Marty Walsh issued a call for help: Boston’s “Help for Houston” drive mobilized individuals, organizations and businesses to collect items, assisting those in the wake of the storm.

Niall Dalton IV planted the seed that Roxbury Latin could get involved. Headmaster Kerry Brennan and Community Service Director Elaine Driscoll called upon students, faculty, staff and parents to contribute what they could—toiletries, diapers, blankets, clothing, food items.  The collection filled the back of Rousmaniere Hall, and on Thursday afternoon, boys packed the school’s largest truck to transport the items to the Jim Roche Community Arena in West Roxbury—a City of Boston drop site.  These items contributed to the city’s successful drive, which—in total—required nine tractor trailer trucks to transport the goods to Houston.

Thanks to all those who contributed to the drive, and special thanks to members of the Buildings and Grounds crew, who helped deliver the donations on the school’s behalf.

“People hesitate to profess the goal of happiness because they feel it diminishes other things they’ve been taught to value. My contention is that happiness vividly accompanies and complements those other values. In fact, I’m quite sure that most pursuits, even the seemingly most arduous ones, are enhanced by the person’s parallel quest for happiness.”

Under a cerulean sky and brilliant sun, Roxbury Latin began its 373rd school year. Before classes began, Headmaster Kerry Brennan addressed the School in Hall—a student body of exactly 300 including the 45 boys that comprise the new sixth class along with 16 boys added to Classes V, IV, and III—on the subject of happiness, “an especially noteworthy noun.”Before the Headmaster’s address, Mike Pojman read an essay on happiness by Michael Crichton, which aims to invalidate the mythology that surrounds the notion of happiness. To wit, “The more attention you lavish on yourself, the more unhappy you become. If you want to be happy, forget yourself. Forget all of it — how you look, how you feel, how your career is going. Just drop the whole subject of you.” In his talk, Mr. Brennan offered his own response to Crichton by both attesting to the validity of happiness as a goal to pursue and identifying the human endeavors that really can bring happiness, including many things that form the warp and woof of school life. He concluded:”You will practice each day, I hope, as you seek to bring the balance into your lives that will in part be represented by your being happy, but it will start with an attitude, as most important things do. You will will yourselves to make this a priority, to feel it, to know it, to learn how to find it, and to provide it for others. In our school, in this garden of possibility, while other values and aspirations may compete for your attention, let happiness be your constant companion….”The opening day ceremonial concluded with the all-school handshake of tradition around the courtyard. Read the Headmaster’s address in full here. View photos from the day here.

“Technology is neither good nor bad—it all depends on how we use it,” Dr. Jill Walsh reminded faculty during opening meetings. Dr. Walsh is a sociologist, researcher, and lecturer at Boston University, focused on adolescent development and social media use. She aims to help parents and educators establish healthy parameters around teen social media use and foster positive and open communication around technology among parents, schools, and teens.

Dr. Walsh began by quoting David Carr who likened social media to a “series of straws that offer narrow views of a much bigger picture.”

“We have to make students aware of this reality,” says Dr. Walsh, “remind them that what they’re seeing is tailored, manipulated—that it’s curated by the person posting it, so that you see what they want you to.”

Dr. Walsh discussed teens’ emerging and evolving “media diets,” or how and where they spend their time online. She explained what she sees as adolescent boys’ time spent on digital viewership (sites like YouTube), online gaming, and social media.

The “idioms of practice” that older people have are simply different from that of young people who have come of age in this digital space, she explained. For example, the ways in which we construe privacy, meaningful friendship, “good” communication, and the existence of an online versus offline dichotomy vary greatly.

“Because we adults don’t necessarily know the scene, or are uncomfortable with it, we ignore it until it reaches crisis point,” Dr. Walsh says. “We need to reframe our approach. Rather than focusing on the very latest app, we should recognize that—regardless of the medium—young people are facing challenges we know about and are well versed in: social pressures, making good choices, creating healthy boundaries.”

She offered suggestions and insight on how adults can communicate effectively with students on these topics. She also shared her biggest concerns related to adolescents’ online use, such as effects on sleep, emotional contagion, and social comparisons (body image and commercial consumption).

As Headmaster Kerry Brennan has shared with parents, “At RL, paying attention to the whole boy has been a central part of our mission for a long time.” Programs, workshops and courses for boys, focused on topics like sleep, nutrition, and overall wellness (physical, psychological and emotional) have been modified and expanded each year. During opening meetings, members of the faculty presented to one another findings related to boys’ patterns of sleep and technology use throughout the year. All of this work is to better understand and best serve the boys in our care.

Jill Walsh earned her a Ph.D. in sociology from Boston University, her master’s in Public Policy from Brown University, and her bachelor’s from Harvard University. Prior to completing her graduate coursework, she taught, coached, and mentored high school students at the Noble and Greenough School. Her recent work examines the way that social media, and the need to document the self online, has altered the paths to adolescent development. Her dissertation titled The Highlight Reel and Real Me: How Adolescents Construct the Facebook Fable, is a multi-method study arguing that Facebook has become a public space where adolescents engage in self-reflection and dialogue. This work has been developed into a book that will be published in 2017. Dr. Walsh currently teaches undergraduate and graduate level courses on the intersection between society and technology, with an emphasis on the millennial generation.

Peter Cahill ’15, Ryan Sweeney, and Tim Galvin will drop the puck for their 5th annual the Dot Pot Street Hockey Tournament Fundraiser this weekend.The tournament benefits a Dorchester resident and families who’ve experienced a loss or difficult situation. Tournament creator and friend of Peter, Ryan Sweeney, comments on the start of annual Dot Pot, which was originally designed as a tournament between neighbors:  “A friend of ours had a father who was dying from cancer, so we decided to make it into a fundraiser for his family.”

This year’s tournament occurs Saturday, July 22 and Sunday, July 23. It will honor neighborhood friend Stephen Folan, who’s recovering from a stroke. 

Read more on the Boston Herald website.

Beginning with the coming academic year, Roxbury Latin is launching an innovative teaching fellows program. Partnering with the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, RL is offering new, aspiring middle- and upper-school teachers the opportunity to earn a Master’s degree in education while completing two-year teaching fellowships on our West Roxbury campus. The program provides the foundation for exemplary teaching by combining classroom experience, attentive mentoring, and a broad, rich understanding of learning theory and pedagogy. Fellows are prepared to provide their students with an exceptional educational experience. Part of a distinguished cohort of fellows from ten outstanding independent day schools (Gilman, Greenwich Academy, Hopkins, North Shore Country Day, Princeton Day, Riverdale Country School, Roxbury Latin, Shipley, St. Anne’s-Belfield, and Trinity-NYC), the fellows are mentored and taught both by faculty colleagues at RL as well as professors at Penn. Roxbury Latin is the only Massachusetts member of the day school cohort of the Independent School Teaching Residency Program (ISTR).

We have not only reached, but exceeded, our goal of $3,450,000 for the 2016-2017 Annual Fund. Annual Fund donations total $3,711,081, setting another record. Amazing!

Annual Fund Chairman Bill Maffie ’88, ALGC Co-Chairs Bryan Anderson ’88, Jay Mitchell ’96, Andy McElaney ’96 along with Parent Fund Co-Chairs Michael and Ellen Berk and Vice Co-Chairs David Bryant and Ellen Berkman have done an outstanding job leading a team of dedicated volunteers. As a result, parent participation is 99.7 percent this year. Parents have raised an impressive $1,328,106—the tenth consecutive year that parent donations have topped $1 million. Our alumni volunteers have also worked diligently to ensure that the 2016-2017 Annual Fund has been a banner year. Special thanks to the Alumni Leadership Giving Committee and their members for another record-setting year, raising over $1 million for the third year in a row.  In total, our alumni have raised $1,483,750. Finally, we continue to be heartened by the response of our past parents who remain committed to RL’s mission as their donations have totaled $588,362.

The continued level of commitment to Roxbury Latin demonstrated through the Annual Fund is both a ringing affirmation of the difference the School makes in boys’ lives and a testimonial to the tireless devotion of the men and women who served this year as Annual Fund volunteers.

We extend our deepest gratitude to all those who invested in our School this year and allowed us to preserve our unique financial model. On behalf of the boys and faculty—your beneficiaries—we thank you for your continued support. There is no better way to honor the boys and their teachers…today and always. Excellence did indeed compel a response. Thank you!

On June 29 and 30 at Roxbury Latin, fifty teachers from Boston’s public schools attended professional development workshops led by instructors from i2 Learning. Why were these teachers here right after the end of the school year? To prepare to lead STEM projects with their sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students next fall during the second annual Boston STEM Week. In mid-August, more than 100 more Boston teachers will undergo the same training on Roxbury Latin’s campus.

As it did in 2016, Boston STEM Week (October 23-27, 2017) will transform middle school classrooms in Boston into learning labs, where students will work in teams to solve real-world problems that encourage hands-on experimentation and critical thinking. Regularly scheduled classes in the participating schools will be replaced with immersive, hands-on STEM curriculum developed by MIT and other leading STEM organizations. (“STEM” is an acronym for the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math.)

i2 Learning and Boston STEM Week are both the brainchildren of RL alumnus Ethan Berman ’79, who believes that the school-age years are crucial to the development of children’s skills and interest in STEM disciplines. Mr. Berman approached Roxbury Latin back in 2012 as a partner in his vision for a camp. The following summer, i2 Camps launched in Boston, New York, and New Jersey. Today i2 Learning has expanded to include summer camps in 23 locations across the US as well as Jordan and Kenya, and STEM immersion weeks in more than 60 schools, with more joining each month. Mr. Berman served on RL’s board of trustees from 2010 to 2016.

Headmaster Kerry Brennan was re-elected President of the International Boys’ Schools Coalition at its recent conference at Baltimore’s Boys’ Latin School. The IBSC, founded in 1995, includes 266 schools representing 250,000 boys in twenty countries.

On 18 June, RL’s 2017 valedictorian, Siva Emani, was presented with his Presidential Scholarship Medallion at a ceremony at the White House in Washington, D.C. He was accompanied by his RL sponsor, Dr. Peter Hyde. Since the United States Presidential Scholars Program was established in 1964, Siva is the fourth RL boy to receive this prestigious award.

Presidential Scholarships recognize the most distinguished graduating seniors for their accomplishments in many areas: academic success, leadership, and service to school and community. In May, Siva received word that he had been selected as one of just 104 students nationwide to receive a United States Presidential Scholarship (every year, at least one boy and one girl are selected from each state, plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico).

Candidates for Presidential Scholarships are originally identified by their SAT or ACT scores, and they progress through the selection process based on an analysis of their essays, high school transcripts, recommendations from teachers, personal characteristics, leadership, service, and extracurricular activities.

At Roxbury Latin’s Closing Exercises on 3 June, just prior to presenting Siva with the William Coe Collar Award, Headmaster Kerry Brennan seized the opportunity to sing Siva’s praises: “This year’s winner is the ranking scholar in his talented class. He is a remarkable listener. He is a thoughtful questioner. He is a talented includer of others and their ideas. He is indefatigable, persistent, patient, hardworking, kind, and caring. He quivers with energy and excitement; he deflects credit and freely offers compliments to others; he offers friendship generously and collaborates with patience and delight. This is a remarkable person, a young man of unwavering integrity and noble aspirations.”

Click here to read Siva Emani’s Valedictory Address.