For the Greater Good
After Tufts Andy had an opportunity to teach in Japan, and he put to use “the most valuable academic lesson I ever got.” A university professor had once told Andy’s class that if they wanted to get the most out of a work of art, they needed to put in the effort “to meet it halfway”; in other words, they needed to learn about the artist’s life, culture, materials, styles that he or she emulates, and so on. So Andy took classes in Japanese cinema, history, performance tradition, and language before going on the teaching exchange program. Once there, he taught all levels of students, from children to adults, for three years in Matsuo-Machi, a farming village two hours from Tokyo. “From then on, I knew what I wanted to do,” he says. Andy notes that “the Japanese had it right…they view teaching as the giving of a gift.” Hearkening back to his Fenn teachers, he adds, “I treasure
the gifts they gave me and nothing thrills me more than to give those gifts to others.” He says his experience in Japan gave him the confidence that he could adjust his style to reach people of all ages. When a full-time education position opened at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, Andy was offered the job, and in 2009, when the Peabody decided to form its own education department, he was invited to join the team. Andy works with school groups and with families, helping to design programs that involve hands-on activities with artifacts and crafts, and alongside world class experts, which has taught him that “I must be at the top of my game.” Being an educator in a non-traditional setting is endlessly fascinating to Andy. “I get to experience the power of teaching with artifacts on a daily basis, and each
“How lucky we were to have been educated by the teachers we had. They treated us like the men they wanted us to become, and we rose to that unspoken challenge.” has an amazing story that speaks about cultures and human ingenuity. It’s my job to help these artifacts tell their stories so that people can be as excited and inspired as I am.” Sharing his love of “the awesome story of life on our planet” at the same museum his parents would take him to almost every weekend when he was a child is “thrilling,” Andy says. He paraphrases a line by Mark Twain, saying it suits him to a tee: “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.”
The “Natural Progression” to a Life in Schools: Ben ’78, Joe ’81, and Fred Williams t was in no small part due to growing up on boarding school campuses in Connecticut and Massachusetts that Ben, Joe, and Fred Williams were inspired to pursue lives as teachers and administrators. Fred, who once taught at Fenn, and Ben, are headmasters, the former at The Rectory School in Pomfret, CT, and the latter at Cate School in Carpinteria, CA. Their brother Joe is the assistant head at Kimball Union Academy.
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Ben says his earliest experience in an educational setting, at Pomfret School, was not as a student but “as a curious, gregarious little cuss who tried valiantly to be part of every Frisbee and stickball game the real students were playing.” He and his brothers agree that their father, Benjamin D. Williams III, who
Ben Williams
taught at the Pomfret School and served as the headmaster of Lawrence Academy for fifteen years, was a powerful role model. But they say that a number of forces combined to lead them to their chosen paths. “Dad was my hero,” says Ben, “and doing what he did always had its appeal. But it was more than that. Our