NMH Alumni Association by the Numbers
70
NMH alumni events held around the world in 2010–11
Think It Through MARGARET VAN BAAREN, director of NMH’s Learning Skills Program, tried to be as distracting as possible. During her reunion seminar on adolescent brains, she wanted to demonstrate how hard busy classrooms can be for smart kids with learning challenges. She handed out puzzles to the dozen parents and alumni in the audience. She then walked around the room, making noise and waving plastic toys. After a few minutes, everyone in the room was still struggling with the puzzle; van Baaren handed around the solution. By providing answers at the end of a classroom problem set, van Baaren said, teachers can help calm the frustration and fears of inadequacy that many teens experience. “These are a lot of exercises I do with faculty, so [this is] a taste of what I help faculty figure out,” van Baaren said. “There are no difficulties that are the same, just like no one of us is the same.” Teens sometimes adopt personas to cope with their learning difficulties, van Baaren explained. There is the politician, who can talk a teacher into anything; the brown-nose, always looking to score extra points to allay a deep anxiety about the material; the pigpen, a student so overwhelmed by disorganization that coping becomes impossible; and the kid who is “too cool for school” and can’t even spend time to have a conversation with a teacher. “This sounds like my son,” one audience member said. These coping personas do not mask disabilities, according to van Baaren; they mask challenges that can be overcome by teaching students organization and time-management skills. That’s what van Baaren does, whether a student is struggling with creative writing or calculus. “I never took calculus, but I know how the brain works,” she said. “All I do is get [students] to slow down, to think it through, to realize their own smarts.”
1,300
Alumni attended
those events
225
Women attended five Northfield School for Girls events in Massachusetts, Maine, and Florida
8
Young alumni committee gatherings— dinners at colleges and a cheering section at the Head of the Charles
5
Diversity committee events, including a tour of the Smithsonian African American Museum’s Apollo Theater exhibit, a dinner in Harlem, a benefit for Haiti earthquake relief efforts, and a GLBTQ reception
22 KEEP IN TOUCH
STAY CONNECTED
NMH’S ONLINE COMMUNITY community.nmhschool.org
NMHBOOK www.nmhschool.org/nmhbook
ADDRESS UPDATES addressupdates@nmhschool.org
FACEBOOK www.facebook.com/NMHschool
SEND US NEWS nmhnotes@nmhschool.org
TWITTER www.twitter.com/NMHschool VIMEO www.vimeo.com/channels/nmhschool FLICKR www.flickr.com/photos/nmhphotos
Get-togethers hosted by NMH area clubs across the country, including local versions of Pie Race and Mountain Day
1,000
Alumni (associated with 14 classes) returned to campus for Reunion in June 2011 All NMH graduates are members of the NMH Alumni Association. Learn more at www.nmhschool.org/alumni. Fall/Winter | 11 43