The Ithaka Advisory Program

The Ithaka Advisory Program

The Ithaka Advisory Program

Photo by Matthew Cavanaugh

Helping students identify their passions and explore resources at BHS to pursue these passions.

Currently over 1800 students / 90 teachers (entire school)

This ambitious program is about personalizing the high school experience in a large public school and about allowing students to identify and pursue their passions to make their journey through high school invigorating and compelling from day one. Inspired by Jim Collins’ best selling organizational management text, Good to Great, a group of veteran teachers and administrators met regularly over the course of two years to research what BHS does well and what it could do better. Through their two years of research and discussion, the group established a set of academic and social “Parameters of Greatness” which would focus the high school’s efforts to improve. These parameters reflect the deepest beliefs of the BHS community regarding the education of its young men and women; they include:

  • All students take ownership of their learning;
  • All students find, develop, and express strong interests and passions;
  • All students achieve success after high school and maintain a commitment to life-long learning;
  • All students establish a meaningful relationship with at least one adult in the school;
  • All students contribute to their community through responsible citizenship and service; and
  • Relationships in our school reflect our diversity.

Background

To realize success in all these parameters, Brookline High School launched the Ithaka Project in 2008 through a small group Advisory program. Advisory is a common practice in elite private schools; Ithaka has brought this best practice — and refined it in the process — to a large public high school, grades 9-12. We call this project “Ithaka” because, like Odysseus’ challenging journey back to Ithaka, it is about the challenging intellectual and social journey that all students take in high school. The Advisory program represents Brookline High’s fundamental beliefs about student academic and social development.

Advisory has created small communities, each of which reflects the diversity of Brookline High, within the larger context of each grade. Advisory groups meet once a week, during Brookline High’s Tuesday 40-minute T block, to learn Brookline High School’s culture and to establish relationships among students and between students and teachers. Each Advisory group is comprised of twenty-four students, three junior-year or senior-year student mentors and a faculty advisor. Advisory groups give the gift of closer relationships with their peers and with faculty advisors. The Advisory program is designed to make students feel safe and valued at BHS, and to impart the message that they can meet the demanding expectations of this intellectual institution. Through Advisory we are saying to the students, “you’re important,” “we care about you,” “you are capable of high quality work,” and “we are here to support you academically, socially, and emotionally.” Advisory discussions and activities cover a wide range of topics including: academic honesty; academic and social decision-making; problem solving; citizenship (how to put into practice BHS’s mantra of “freedom and responsibility”), community service, and “Tell Your Own Story.”

Why This Program is so Important for Brookline Students

Teenagers are in a developmental struggle: they simultaneously want to stand out and they want to belong. The “Tell Your Own Story” segment of Advisory is a structured activity during which students, advisors, and junior/senior mentors write and talk about their lives, cultures and traditions — about who they are, where they come from, and what has helped to shape them. This is an intentional strategy that allows everyone to learn about the richness of our school’s diversity through direct and cooperative experience. Through this curriculum, Advisory groups foster not only an appreciation of our differences but also the realization of the values, interests and concerns that unify us. This culminating stage of Advisory is a celebration of our school’s diversity as well as our essential kinship.

With each new freshman class, a new Advisory community begins, while the previous classes’ Advisory groups continue through their sophomore, junior and senior years. Through their participation in the Advisory program, students develop a sense of commitment to their Advisory groups, their entire class, and BHS as a whole. But even more, they identify their own passions and learn how BHS can help them to pursue them.

The Ithaka Program emerges from concerns in the school community that not all students connect with a BHS faculty member during their high school years, that there is not enough student ownership of learning, and that there are not enough opportunities for some students to develop and express their strong interests and passions. This project is about BHS better fulfilling its mission of reaching all students during their high school years. Public high schools are about all students, not some students. The Ithaka Project is meant to ensure that all students have access to the breadth of resources that Brookline High School has to offer. It personalizes the Brookline High School experience, intellectually and socially. The project encourages all students to reflect on their education at BHS, to identify their passions, and to pursue those passions during their four-year journey through high school and beyond.

The Social Justice Leadership Program

The Social Justice Leadership Program

The Social Justice Leadership Program

Supporting Student Action for Justice and Education.

After initial funding from the BHS Innovation Fund, the Social Justice Leadership Program is now fully integrated into the Brookline High School curriculum. Watch a video interview with teacher Kate Leslie here.

The Brookline community has traditionally welcomed innovation in areas that nurture the development of responsible citizenship and ethical debate. Presently Brookline High School offers students a variety of community service opportunities as well as coursework on social issues. However, as important and beneficial as these opportunities are, they are all too often limited either by the confines of a classroom experience or in the service they aim to achieve.

INT-SocJustCitySchool

The primary goals of SJLP are as follows:

  • To equip students with the tools necessary to become active leaders in the community of ‘change makers’;
  • To nurture a profound sense of citizenship that incorporates humility, global awareness and social responsibility;
  • To cultivate an interest in particular areas of concern and gain a sense of their own individual importance as an agent of change;
  • To transform students to endeavor to create justice in their own lives and also the communities they seek to impact.

Further, the program seeks to distinguish between community service and social justice, emphasizing collective rather than individual responses to injustice, and transformative rather than temporary relief from social problems. Social Justice Leadership aims to fill a void, creating a novel program offering students an experience that is student-defined and action-oriented.  It complements the existing student group, Student Action for Justice and Education (SAJE) — where there is a clear demand for more structured and supported social justice work.

The core of the program is completion of an internship project in a local social justice organization. A program coordinator procures internship placements for students and provides supportive curriculum, which includes readings, speakers, and opportunities to share experiences. Activities include:

  • Trainings on issues of racism;
  • Visit to a prison, in conjunction with discussions on socio-economic class and race;
  • Speaker series on an array of social issues, such as: gay marriage, low-income housing, wealth and equality, and environmental justice (domestically and internationally);
  • Field trip to and student exchange with a Boston inner-city school;
  • Tours of Boston neighborhoods, in conjunction with discussions on environmental justice.

The program offers students social justice leadership training that includes defining and refining personal mission statements, collaborative organizing to achieve social justice goals, and formalized training in effective leadership skills. Seminar topics align with quarterly foci: identity, organizing to make change, identifying issues of interest and leadership. Seminars are also a forum to analyze internship experiences and evaluate writing.

Students who complete trainings, internship and attend seminars receive certification in social justice advocacy.

“There are countless examples around the world of students — including high school students and younger — who made a huge difference in the way we see things,” teacher Roger Grande says. “One of the great things about BHS is we don’t shy away from mature topics,” Grande continued. “This is a crucial time to meet kids around issues. They learn history in a more sophisticated way.”

Go to the bottom of this page to read the mission statement of Sadye Sagov, BHS 2009, and Social Justice Leadership participant.

They Can Change the World

Social Justice Program Empowers BHS Students to Become Leaders*

by Rebecca Coven ‘09 and Laura Sampson ‘08, News Editor and Contributors’ Editor for The Sagamore

In response to a recent national decline in civic activism, the 21st Century Fund initiated the Social Justice Leadership Program, allowing 25 juniors and seniors at Brookline High School to embark on a year-long journey towards social activism.

“What’s your larger purpose?” Social Justice program leader Roger Grande challenges to each of his students who bring up different problems they see in the world during his seminars. “What is your actual motivation to help with this social justice issue?”

The program focuses on how to make students active leaders who create change in global causes that they care about. “I want students and young people to see that they each have the ability to be a powerful person in terms of making change,” said Grande.

Helping students find their mission

Throughout the year, students work towards creating their own mission statement that declares what issue they are passionate about and how they plan to address it. Grande hopes this mission statement will help focus students on an important issue and lead them towards becoming life-long social justice advocates.

Grande also guides students through discussion-based seminars and field trips that allow them to experience social justice in action. Additionally, each student has an internship with one of 15 participating Boston area social justice organizations.

Internships put ideas into action

At their internships, students learn how ideas get put into action. Junior Rachel Baras and Senior Lizzy Divine interned with SHARED Inc., an organization based out of Brookline Village that works to improve global health in poor countries by providing the proper medicines and vaccines to residents. With the help of SHARED’s president Elizabeth Ziemba, Baras and Divine organized two events that raised $1,700. This money went toward planting a community garden that provides food for people with HIV and AIDS in the African country of Lesotho.

For Baras, the internship was a worthwhile experience, “I think that what this internship showed me was that I, as an individual, was able to set up this whole program that would be affecting so many people in Lesotho.” Baras plans to stay involved with SHARE even though her internship is complete.

“They were successful in everything that I asked them to do,” said Ziemba. “Because Rachel and Lizzy did such a terrific job, it’s really given me a lot of confidence about the quality and the caliber of work that the high school students can do.”

Senior Patrick Alvarado had the chance to practice leadership in social justice at his internship with Bikes Not Bombs, an organization based out of Jamaica Plain.

Along with promoting bicycles as an alternate mode of transportation, the organization ships used bicycles along with technicians and tools to economic development projects in countries such as South Africa and Ghana. Locally, Bikes Not Bombs serves low-income youth in Boston by opening their doors to children through various programs. Alvarado worked with kids in the Earn-a-Bike Program by teaching young people about bicycle mechanics and environmental issues while getting them involved in community service.

This internship was the perfect opportunity for Alvarado to link his passion for biking with his social justice goals. “I learned a lot about how an organization runs itself, the power structure of [the organization] and also how it obtains finance and support,” said Alvarado.

Making a difference
As the program completes its first year, Grande and his students have identified enhancements for next year, including more guest speakers and a focus on a different social justice issue each term so that students can become more deeply immersed in the issues.

But this year’s participants have already taken the plunge into social action. “I plan to be active [in social justice] throughout my life,“ said junior and Social Justice participant Sophie Kazis,“ I don’t know necessarily where that will take me but I want to be an active rather than passive citizen.”

*This article appeared in the Spring 2008 issue of the Brookline High School 21st Century Fund Program News.

Teachers Mentoring Teachers

Teachers Mentoring Teachers

Teachers Mentoring Teachers

teachers mentoring teachers

Supporting and retaining a world-class faculty at Brookline High School.

After initial funding from the BHS Innovation Fund, Teachers Mentoring Teachers is now fully integrated into the Brookline High School curriculum.

This program was designed to address the major challenge of high turnover among new teachers. Research shows that nationally, 50% of teachers leave the profession within five years of signing their first contract. In fact, 30% leave the profession within their first three years. Replacing these teachers is costly, and this revolving door has a negative impact on student achievement.

This teacher retention problem is exacerbated by national demographics leading to record high teacher retirement rates. For these reasons, school systems are faced with a mass infusion of new teachers. With this loss of critical experience, how do we ensure that valued work on curriculum, culture, and pedagogy is passed on to this next generation of teachers?

TMT is the Innovation Fund’s solution to this major challenge through a comprehensive induction and mentoring program for new staff. The program, led by two veteran teachers, works with new teachers for two to three years to:

  • Engage them in activities before school starts;
  • Integrate a mentoring program into the process;
  • Model effective teaching;
  • Foster collaboration and networking;
  • Provide opportunities for new teachers to observe and be observed without evaluation.

The Program’s results are notable. Since implementing TMT, BHS teacher turnover linked to job dissatisfaction has been reduced to one-third the national average. The program is also making an impact beyond Brookline:

  • A 2003 Harvard University publication on The Next Generation of Teachers cited TMT as one of three exemplary teacher induction programs in the nation.
  • TMT received national attention through a 16-page article written by program leaders Gayle Davis and Margaret Metzger published in The Edge — a Phi Delta Kappa publication — in January 2006.
  • The program leaders also presented their findings in 2006 at the National New Teacher Center Symposium in Santa Cruz — an annual event which attracts more than 1,000 educational administrators and faculty.
  • TMT program leaders brought local attention to the BHS induction program via professional presentations at a summer local districts workshop and a Simmons College teacher-training seminar in March 2007. As a result of this presentation, the TMT program leaders were hired by the Westwood, MA school district to help them establish a “formal” mentoring program and to train Westwood teachers to be official mentors next year.

“I have been able to grow as a teacher, using resources and my colleagues in a much more fluid and effective manner simply because I was exposed to information and peer discussion in our monthly meetings.” — Teachers Mentoring Teachers participant

Unlike college supervisors of student teachers, experienced teachers in a given building are available for sustained support of new teachers, and these veterans can accurately transmit the school’s culture. Mentor teachers from within the school also have a high credibility with the entire staff. After all, we are all struggling to teach well.” — Gayle Davis and Margaret Metzger, the architects of Teachers Mentoring Teachers

In 2007, TMT co-leader, Gayle Davis appeared in a segment on NPR called “Looming Teacher Shortage.”

This very successful program has been fully integrated into the BHS curriculum.

Medical Interpretation and Translation

Medical Interpretation and Translation

Medical Interpretation and Translation

Training students to become Spanish/English medical interpreters.

Currently 16 students / 1 teacher

Offered through the BHS the World Languages Department, this course begins by training students to become Spanish/English medical interpreters. For the first year, the target group of students will be seniors who can speak, read, and write fluently in English and Spanish. Credit earned may be applied to either a student’s World Language or Career Ed profile.

Photo by Matthew Cavanaugh

Shadowing opportunities for the second semester have been secured at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital and at Beth Israel Hospital. Cori Green, the program leader, continues to research connections with other local hospitals and health facilities for more experiential learning opportunities.

There is a possibility of expanding the program to train students who are bilingual in English and another language if the program is successful. These students should have an interest in the sciences and/or medical professions. It is recommended that they complete the Medical Careers Class prior to taking the Medical Interpretation and Translation Course (in their sophomore or junior year), but it is not a requirement. These students should be emotionally mature in order to adequately deal with the serious issues that may arise in a medical capacity.

Background
For the past 20 years in the World Language Department we have been trying to figure out how to best serve the heritage language speaker population. Since then, the Hispanic population at Brookline High School has increased. Maria Carreira, a professor of Spanish at California State University in Long Beach states that “it is best to separate heritage and non-heritage language learners because their needs are so different.” Many other heritage language experts agree. Yet, at the present moment we include heritage speakers in the same classes as non-heritage language learners. Medical Interpretation and Translation highlights the strengths of the heritage speakers and help them to grow in an authentic way. Another growing body of students are those who have completed our highest level of Spanish (5AP) by the time they have finished their junior year. This number will continue to increase now that we have Spanish in the elementary schools.

Why this Program is so Important for Brookline Students

Who are heritage speakers?
Heritage languages expert Guadalupe Valdés, a professor in the School of Education at Stanford University, gives a widely-cited definition of a heritage language-learner as an individual “who is raised in a home where a non-English language is spoken, who speaks or merely understands the heritage language, and who is to some degree bilingual in English and the heritage language” (The Language Educator, February 2011).

Why do heritage speakers need a separate Spanish class? Why can’t they be placed in the existing Spanish classes?
Heritage-language learners study Spanish for different reasons than non-heritage-language learners. According to the results of the National Heritage Language Survey conducted by Maria Carreira and Olga Kagan, 50.2% of heritage-language learners said they were studying Spanish to make connections with family and friends in the United States. However, the curriculum in a Spanish class often focuses on the Spanish-speaking world. “Carreira believes that for heritage language learners, lessons should be meaningful and authentic in the U.S. context” (The Language Educator, February 2011).

Heritage-language learners have a more personal connection to the language, and they come to the classroom with valuable skills and knowledge. In the past, however their skills were devalued. “‘What prevailed before was the deficit version — that they don’t speak well, and their knowledge should be eradicated and we should start anew’…Her research showed that instead we should build on what they have” (The Language Educator, February 2011). We need to emphasize that heritage-language learners’ second language is a huge asset, especially to speakers of Spanish, whose language and culture is often denigrated.

ACTFL (the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) suggests that language programs can ensure the academic success of heritage speakers by providing the following:

  • Curriculum design that reflects the fact that the needs of native speakers and heritage speakers are often significantly different from non-native and non-heritage speakers;
  • Challenging curriculum that builds upon the existing linguistic skills and the cultural heritage and knowledge of the students;
  • Assessments that integrate language, culture, and literature for all students Pre-K through 16;
  • Opportunities for heritage and native speakers to become involved in their language communities beyond the classroom; and
  • Systems to award credit or appropriate placement for oral and written proficiency and prior learning for native and heritage speakers.

Why medical interpretation?
Bilingual students possess an existing skill that, with development, could offer them a means to provide an important service to others and a means to support themselves. According to the results of the National Heritage Language Survey, 71.1% of Spanish speakers said they were studying Spanish with a future career or job in mind. Medical interpretation is a growing field despite times of high unemployment. A new study published in the book Closing America’s Job Gap indicates that English translation and foreign languages is among the top ten emerging job opportunity sectors. According to the 2011 Hot Careers for College Graduates, a study published by UC San Diego Extension, Spanish/English Translation/Interpretation is one of the top ten best career choices of the moment. This is because the Hispanic population is the largest minority in the U.S. and it is the fastest growing. Translators and interpreters are needed in a variety of industries, but “[i]n particular, demand is strong for interpreters and translators in the health care and legal fields, due to the critical nature of the information.” As a result of these factors, the UC study predicts a large growth in employment in Spanish English Translation/Interpretation within a ten-year span: “Growth in employment within this field is projected to increase in the United States by 22 percent between 2008 and 2018.”

At Brookline High School we are fortunate that we are in such close proximity to many of the finest hospitals in the country, enabling students to shadow and train with highly qualified interpreters. They will thereby have the opportunity to put the skills they have learned into practice in a real-world setting, which has long been a core-value of courses offered in the Career Ed and a goal of the World Language Department.

EPIC — A Senior Year Alternative

EPIC — A Senior Year Alternative

EPIC – Senior Year Alternative

EPIC (Experiential, Project-based, Innovative Capstone) is a year-long course that offers BHS seniors a new way of taking charge of their learning by independently pursuing, in a supportive environment, topics they are passionate about. Co-teachers Stephanie McAllister and Ben Berman guide students through the process of reading and researching, engaging with experts in the field, designing, revising, executing and presenting their personal passion projects. This course serves as an alternative to the second semester of senior English and replaces the English Senior Paper.

There are three pathways for students in this course: in-depth academic research, project design and creation, and an experiential, internship path. A student might choreograph a hip-hop ballet, write a book, research fractals in nature, launch a business, or volunteer in the community. One student in EPIC’s first year built his own skis; one started and coached a rugby team; one learned about marketing and advertising; one volunteered at a nursing home; and one studied race relations at BHS. Each project reflected its creator’s unique interests and learning style.

The mindsets required for experiential learning can be difficult to master. Students must push themselves to move beyond their comfort zones, persevere through setbacks, reflect deeply, and hold themselves accountable. 

In 2019, Stephanie McAllister and Ben Berman held a special Master Class for parents and community members to experience EPIC. Hear directly from them here and learn about this Innovation Fund 20th Anniversary special event here. 

Drawing for Understanding in Field Science

Drawing for Understanding in Field Science

Drawing for Understanding in Field Science

Dissolving the artificial boundary between arts and science, and between drawing and prose.

In 2012, Siena Fried was a student in the pilot class of “Drawing for Understanding in Field Science,” supported by the BHS Innovation Fund. Siena had previously taken drawing and painting classes with BHS Visual Arts teacher Donna Sartanowicz and saw the class as the perfect combination of her passions for biology and art.

Siena Fried scientific art

The idea for the class came from a workshop that Jill Sifantus, a since retired biology teacher at BHS, and Ms. Sartanowicz attended at Harvard University that focused on the close relationship between art and science in studying the natural world. From their different vantage points, both came away thinking that this very old school idea would be a great new way to engage students in learning the two subjects.

‘We were fortunate to have the idea for the class while teaching at Brookline High School because of The Innovation Fund, which allowed us to put our idea into practice,” Ms. Sartanowicz says. “The Fund’s review board was instrumental in helping us to hone our idea and think through all the possibilities. The grant money allowed us to teach and learn collaboratively for three years and this was some of the best professional development I have ever experienced. Working with Jill to integrate science teaching into the way I teach art enabled me to confidently teach this course on my own once the grant period was over.”

The Innovation Fund class led Siena to her career as a biomedical artist who illustrates complex scientific concepts for research as well as the public. Like a visual translator, Siena creates images for education materials that help patients understand procedures and make them less daunting.

Five years later, Siena remains enthusiastic about the class. Because Siena’s sister also took the class in 2018, she knows that it has evolved. “The class was great when I took it, but it’s even better now,” Siena says. “I would retake it if I could.”

The class includes partnerships with institutions like the Arnold Arboretum, the Blue Hills Trailside Museum, the Harvard Museum of Natural History, and graduate programs at Boston University, Rhode Island School of Design, Harvard University and Tufts University. Students have opportunities to experience the natural world and learn about people working in the field as naturalists, curators, educators, illustrators and researchers. Through conferences, meetings and visits, Ms. Sartanowicz shares information about the class with others interested in developing a similar course.

“The ripple effects of the Fund’s generosity in supporting innovative educational ideas is spreading even beyond the walls of Brookline High School… Many in the education field talk about interdisciplinary and STEAM [science, technology, engineering, art, and math] classes but few receive the kind of support we got from the Innovation Fund to make it happen. The impact on students has been tremendous, as evidenced by the continued popularity of the course and students recommending it to other students.” — Donna Sartanowicz, BHS teacher, Drawing for Understanding in Field Science

— Jennifer B. Wells

Click below to see more photos!

Drawing for Understanding in Field Science Paul Dumas
Drawing for Understanding in Field Science at the Arboretum 40 - © Sander Sorok
Drawing for Understanding in Field Science at the Arboretum 37 - © Sander Sorok
Drawing for Understanding in Field Science at the Arboretum 01 - © Sander Sorok
Drawing for Understanding in Field Science Anjali Mitra
Drawing for Understanding in Field Science at the Arboretum 11 - © Sander Sorok
Drawing for Understanding in Field Science Flora Fried
Drawing for Understanding in Field Science Jin Lee
Drawing for Understanding in Field Science at the Arboretum 16 - © Sander Sorok
Drawing for Understanding in Field Science Summer Barnes
Content Reading Initiative

Content Reading Initiative

Content Reading Initiative

CRI seeks to improve the content-area literacy skills of all students while energizing and training teachers across all disciplines to engage in both common and subject-specific work on the urgent issue of improving students’ literacy skills.

Beneficiaries to Date: 900 Students, 36 Teachers (eventually every student and teacher will benefit)

It is widely recognized that students need to be more proficient readers, and the Content Reading Initiative equips teachers across disciplines to engage in common work on this difficult and urgent problem. The goal is for all students — proficient readers and those who struggle — to have greater success in content courses, which require both generic and specialized literacy skills.

Perspectives of a Mathematical Mind

Perspectives of a Mathematical Mind

Perspectives of a Mathematical Mind

Widening students’ awareness of the beauty and real-world applications of math.

Beneficiaries to Date: 49 Students; 1 Teacher

It is easy to graduate high school thinking of math as merely a collection of formulas, procedures, and standardized questions with the goal of ‘getting the right answer.’ Perspectives of a Mathematical Mind (formerly A Human Math Experience), is a project-based, student-driven course that exposes students to math’s application in the real world. This course widens student awareness of the opportunities for using math after high school, both at the university level and in future career endeavors.

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Contact

  • bhsinnovationfund@psbma.org
  • 617-713-5201
  • 115 Greenough St Brookline, MA 02445

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