IS Blog » Noble and Greenough

Ben & Sarah Snyder Visit IS During Their Sabbatical

teamcomm — Mon, 06 Oct 2014 17:40:15 +0000

Ben and Sarah Snyder (parents of Abby, Spring 2006) have been long-time friends and supporters of The Island School. In fact, Ben is a member of our Cape Eleuthera Island School Board. They are also long-time educators and administrators at Noble & Greenough School in Dedham, MA. They chose to take a sabbatical this year and we were lucky enough to be on their list of destinations!

Literally diving in, Ben and Sarah kept themselves busy during their time on Eleuthera. From collecting data with students on deep-water shark species and observing coral reefs forty-feet below in Marine Ecology, to helping faculty hone their craft after a class observation and participating in a Teaching Fellow’s Seminar, the Snyders left knowing quite well how busy an Island School student or staff can be. On top of all that, they still managed to find some time to relax and enjoy the warm weather before heading back up to New England!

Get on the Bus!

teamcomm — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 17:13:30 +0000

On Friday April 5th, Fall 2012 alumna Cate Ellison participated in “Get on the Bus”, an event organized by Amnesty International. She travelled from Boston to New York City to protest human rights issues with a group of twenty students, and two faculty members from Noble & Greenough School. Total, there were about 200 people from Massachusetts who “got on the bus”. Throughout the day, they were protesting and learning about different human rights issues in Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tibet, and Birma. They protested to end arbitrary detention in Sri Lanka, protected the rights and safety of civilians and people who have been internally displaced in Sudan, fought for the freedom of Tibetan film-maker, Dhondup Wangchen, and freedom for prisoners of conscience in Burma. In the morning, when Cate and her classmates first arrived to New York City, they listened to speakers talk about their experiences in these countries, and how they were directly affected by the lack of human rights in their countries. While all the stories were powerful, one that really stood out to Cate was the story of a man’s experience with arbitrary detention in Sri Lanka. Arbitrary detention is when a person is arrested, despite the fact that there is no hard evidence against them, there was no process of law, like we have here in the United States. He told the crowd of the horrors of jail that he faced, how the guards treated him like an animal, and many more terrible things, despite the fact that he did nothing. After hearing this story, it made Cate feel grateful for the rights that we have here in the US, and made her even more excited to protest the human rights of others. In the afternoon, they went out to four different locations, and protested this issues. They had different posters and chants for each one of the issues, and signed many different petitions, hoping to end the injustices that are happening globally. Cate says about the experience, “I am so glad that I decided to go to this event, and the experience made me appreciate the value of the rights that everyone in our country are given.”

Introducing The Island School Boston Office Interns!

teamcomm — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 13:45:58 +0000

Don’t let school get in the way of your education.

Any alumni of Island School surely knows this quote by Mark Twain, as it is one of Maxey’s favorite and attests to the value of the unique experiences one has in Eleuthera. Island School believes that education should not be restricted to the classroom, something that is tested each day from morning exercise at 6:30am to late-night research presentations before bed. At The Island School you live and breath your education, and although Maxey will get the occasional student who argues that their Eleutheros paper is interfering with the educational value of getting food at the Marina Store, it generally works out well. This quote has inspired us to explore beyond the boundaries of our own classrooms this spring and create a senior project where we will hopefully help to keep the knowledge we learned and experienced on Eleuthera alive back at home.

This spring, we (Sarah Allison, S’12, Devin Caccavaro, F’11, and Kate Maroni, F’11), three seniors from Noble & Greenough will be working with the Island School Boston office as interns to help ease students’ transition back home and to promote The Island School program. We will be working from Nobles two days a week for 2 hours, and from the Boston office once a week for 4 hours. Our project began at the end of March and continues until the end of May. The Island School left a lasting impact on each one of us, and we therefore feel obligated to stay involved and to help the school grow.

For our first project, we will be working on creating a Transition Manual for returning Island School students. We have all experienced how difficult it can be to integrate back into our home communities, and to resume our daily routines while still maintaining the Island School values. Our transition manual will incorporate both our own tips for transitioning, as well as the advice of other recent alumni. For our big project, we will be visiting local schools in Boston to present the Island School program to them in hopes of allowing more students the opportunity to benefit from such a transformative semester. Lastly, we will be making phone calls to other institutions and organizations with study abroad programs in order to gain perspective on how to strengthen our own alumni network.

Please follow our blog to view all of our progress, and we encourage all email comments and questions about our project!

Our blog link: islandschoolblog.wordpress.com