The View of Humanities at Burr and Burton

THE VIEW VIEW THE of Humanities at Burr and Burton Academy

The Humanities, like all learning experiences at BBA, are rooted in our mission and core values. Educating students intellectually and morally for a life of responsibility, integrity, and service is the heart of our work. Our mission is to ready students for the next phase of their lives –– to equip them with necessary skills and dispositions so that they find success and contribute to the world in positive ways.

In his essay “Only Connect…” William Cronon poses two questions: What does it mean to be an educated person? How does one recognize educated people? He then goes on to posit that educated people listen and hear; read and understand; can talk with anyone; can write clearly, persuasively, and movingly; can solve a wide variety of problems; respect rigor not so much for its own sake but as a way of seeking truth; practice humility, tolerance, and self-criticism; understand how to get things done in the world; nurture and empower the people around them; and follow E. M. Forster’s injunction from Howards End: “Only connect. . . .” Ultimately, Cronon asserts that “Liberal education nurtures human freedom in the service of human community, which is to say that in the end it celebrates love.”

In order to provide students with the skills and understandings that Cronon speaks of, the English and Social Studies departments at BBA have begun collaborating more intentionally and merging program into a larger “humanities” curriculum. Collaborations extend into the STEAM lab, the library, and the broader community.

Here are some highlights:

Student Engagement Through Integrative Thinking in 9th Grade Humanities Courses

CP Humanities features a unit dealing with social justice and the American South. Students begin by discussing and analyzing some ethical dilemmas as they learn about the distinction between ethical codes, social norms, and morality itself. Then students read To Kill a Mockingbird, with an emphasis on moral choice. Simultaneously, students study the Great Depression and the Jim Crow South. Students focus on the case of the Scottsboro Boys and its relevance to the novel and then look at contemporary cases involving African Americans and issues of police brutality and social justice. In addition, students continue to learn visual literacy by analyzing how images have contributed to perpetuating racism and unhealthy social norms. Ultimately, students are asked to draw out larger themes from the unit to connect to the course question of what it means to be human. After reading Refugee by Alan Gratz, which features three refugee stories during different time periods, the students in the Workshop Humanities class dive into customs and traditions of Jewish,

Lily Barker, Aldenio Garwood, and Griff Briggs preparing Syrian food.

Syrian, and Cuban refugees. In collaboration with Sarah McMillan, BBA's Food and Education Integration Director, the students compare their own continued on next page

customs and traditions around food to those of Cubans. They taste-test Cuban food and discover why pork is central to the diet, even though it is not native to Cuba. Then the students prepare a Syrian meal for the student body, using unfamiliar spices and ways of serving meat that are part of the Syrian culture. This leads to interesting discussions around both the gathering of food in different cultures, as well as the role of food in bringing together communities.

Student Engagement Through Building Critical Research Skills

Freshman English classes take part in an escape room-type experience for their orientation to the library. Classes are divided into teams and each team is presented with clues and a box with multiple locks on it. The teams have to use the clues to find their way around the library and discover the codes that open the locks. Elements of the activity have students discovering the online subscription research databases, the library catalog, the physical layout of the library, the wireless printer, and more. Pinterest, and Follett Collections. Classes are divided into small groups, with each group focusing on one of the goals. One class section creates the initial platform and adds resources, while the other two sections add resources to complement those in the collection.

Student Engagement Through Active Learning

Sophomore English students participate in a “breakout” experience midway through their reading of Macbeth. Students analyze the text to determine the state of Macbeth’s conscience as well as make comparisons of the characters to historical and modern day figures in order to solve the codes on the locks and uncover the solution. CP World & US History 3 students explore curation and annotation for a project on the United Nations Sustainable Goals. In the library they are introduced to three different curation tools: Padlet,

In the words of first-year English teacher, Emma Reynolds, “I have been using a new approach to my CP English 10 class: how much can I get my students moving? How many different pairings and groups can I have my student engage with while encouraging meaningful, deep conversations? I learned the importance of movement, performance, and time constraints after taking a graduate-level course ‘Using Theater In The English Classroom’ this summer at the Bread Loaf School of English. Taught by the director of the Brown/Trinity Rep

English teacher Emma Reynolds.

Program, this class focused on theater and movement activities centered on several short texts. The professor used myriad scaffolding techniques and performance prompts in each class. These

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ranged from walking around the room and then suddenly finding a partner and creating a handshake with them. Then, you share the journal prompt you all just responded to. That silly middle section — creating a handshake — is key. It is a moment for students to interact with each other in a somewhat fun but still meaningful way. This allows them to feel slightly more comfortable and connected when they share their journal prompts. It also makes partners bond and interact in a way that they normally don't during the school day. Then, during the next class, you can ask your students to go find their handshake partner and make a new handshake — it's a technique that continually builds relationships into the curriculum. In my CP English 10 classes, we have handshake partners, we have performance groups, we even have our class-named ‘purple poem partners.’ This approach has allowed all of my classes to feel much more like communities. And teaching a community of students that are willing to be silly and interact with each other is an unbelievable experience to have every day.”

Student Engagement Through Authentic Experiences

On Friday, November 2, three classes of 10th grade history students traveled down to the Bennington County Courthouse as a culmination of their mock Supreme Court Hearings. Students worked for weeks in preparation for this day to work as lawyers or Supreme Court justices assigned to one of three fictional cases. The cases pose the following questions before the court: Do students in school have the right to provocative, symbolic free speech as a form of protest? Should a school be allowed to ban the Confederate flag? Does the exclusionary rule apply to searches conducted by school officials in schools with little reasonable suspicion? Are private schools, who accept taxpayer dollars, violating the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment by giving preferential admissions to African Americans and Latinos? All cases revolve around fictional situations at BBA. Students had to base all of their arguments and thinking in constitutional law and case law. State's Attorney and BBA alumna Erica Albin Marthage ’88 was in attendance, this time behind the bar, watching students in action. After the cases, she shared with

Vermont State Attorney and BBA alumna Erica Marthage ’88 with BBA students in a mock trial.

students how impressed she was with the depth of their thinking and their ability to use legal precedent so effectively. Judge Cohen also shared his praise and wisdom with students. Beginning in 2017, the English Department began a tradition of hosting authors, holding a student writing exhibition in celebration of Poetry Month, and celebrating the release of BBA’s literary magazine Between Ranges. In April of 2017, Vermont Poet Laureate Chard deNiord and UVM Professor of English Emeritus and current Bread Loaf Professor David Huddle visited classes, worked with students,

and shared their writing and process. The release of both the 2017 and 2018 editions of Between Ranges included an event with readings from student work published in the magazine and a special presentation of awards for the best poetry and prose submissions. Last year, in collaboration with Vermont Humanities Council, BBA hosted former United States Poet Laureate Billy Collins.

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