Nashoba Brooks School and The Robbins House join for an inspired Concord_Portal connection with Resonate in Kigali, Rwanda.
On Saturday, February 24, Nashoba Brooks School joined members of The Robbins House to facilitate a powerful conversation with university students in the Rwandan group Resonate, an organization that strives to unlock the leadership potential of women and girls through confidence building workshops and storytelling.
Members of the Concord community—including Nashoba Brooks teaching employees, students and parents—gathered for the two-hour exchange. Storytelling for Leadership, a participatory and personal tool that Resonate uses to build confidence and leadership skills with participants, has three distinct parts: an introduction (story background), a challenge, and a focus on actions to overcome the challenge. The Resonate method also encourages women to use “emotion and physical gestures” to enhance their stories. Participants are encouraged to tell their stories in three minutes.
Maria Madison from The Robbins House told the story of Ellen Garrison, a woman of African descent who was born in The Robbins House in 1823. She went on to become a scholar, teacher, and activist. Ellen challenged segregation in a train station one month after the first Civil Rights Act. “She wrote about her experiences and found the courage to test the law, even though she could have been physically harmed,” said Madison. Although her case was dismissed, Ellen went on to write about her experiences and continued her fight against injustice that is now an important part of African-American history.
The women from Resonate spoke candidly about the genocide that scarred generations of people in their country, where an estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 Rwandans were killed during the 100-day period from April 7 to mid-July 1994. The women explained the cultural barriers and belief systems that had silenced women and girls, and how Resonate has enabled them to overcome obstacles—including fears of public speaking, and financial issues related to paying for education.
For Nashoba Brooks School, the session was powerful and underscored the importance of conversations brought to campus by the Concord_Portal from around the world. Head of School Danielle Heard spoke about the School’s focus on empowering students and girls from an early age to find their voices and use them to have a positive impact in the world.
The women from Resonate spoke positively about the healing they have felt both individually and as a country. They are proud of their county. They feel safe. They love their President. The future is bright and theirs is a story to be told.
The Concord_Portal will be situated in the Achtmeyer Gallery at Nashoba Brooks School until March 8 and has already connected students with Iraq, Mexico City, Palestine, Myanmar, and other parts of the world.
As part of interdisciplinary work across science, humanities, writer’s workshop, and transliteracy, Grade 4 students engage with the Invention Convention which provides a hands-on opportunity for students to creatively solve a novel problem. With the timeliness and acknowledgment of National Engineers Week, this STEM, invention, and entrepreneurship program starts with our students exploring their lives, and the lives of others, to identify a problem they are passionate about solving.
What a bee-autiful sight! The Nashoba Brooks beehives have been buzzing all summer and have produced their first batch of honey! With the help of Mel, our apiarist partner, Grade 1 students were able to extract a few jars of honey from one of our hives. Students will further explore this wonder of nature during science class this year as they learn more about the natural world and our local environment.
Grade 3 students participated in a favorite Nashoba Brooks tradition: a Sharing of Understanding. This event hosted family members to listen and learn about what their students have been working on at School, including a recorder recital and in-depth explanations of multiple indigenous peoples.
It was a packed weekend on the Nashoba Brooks campus for Fall Weekend!
Thank you to all the parent volunteers, student ambassadors, faculty members, and all other roles who contributed to making this weekend so memorable for our School.
After weeks of hard work, Grade 3 students had the opportunity to present their Community Hero projects to their families and their interview subjects!
The Nashoba Brooks School campus was bursting with excitement Friday, November 4, through Sunday, November 6, as we celebrated our annual Fall Weekend.
After almost a year of research, school visits, interviews, self-reflection, and essay writing, the Grade 8 class is enjoying a variety of excellent high schools to choose from.
Alongside the book fair and poetry month, April has been a wonderful time for literature at Nashoba Brooks School. Sharon Draper and Jen Campbell, two celebrated authors, left their mark on the community over the past few weeks.
More than 75 parents responded to this year’s annual School survey and numbers were well balanced across all grade levels. The results of the survey are impressive and the feedback the parents offer to the School is glowing.
As Black History Month comes to a close, students and faculty alike celebrate diversity, acknowledging that a school is not only classrooms, gymnasiums, and fields, but also the people within these walls. Each year and at every grade level our students contemplate the presence and importance of different backgrounds, experiences and beliefs. And this month provides community members with an opportunity to reflect on what it means to be Black in America.
Situated on a beautiful 30-acre campus in historic Concord, Massachusetts, Nashoba Brooks School enrolls all genders in Preschool through Grade 3, and students identifying as girls in Grades 4 through 8. Nashoba Brooks is an independent school designed to build community, character, and confidence in its students.