Spring 2007 - Milton Academy

A TM I L T O NFaculty AdvisorsShepherd Young StrategistsAccording to Janet Lin ’97, the 28-year-old chief of staff for MassachusettsSecretary of Housing and EconomicDevelopment Dan O’Connell, activitiesoutside of class are what help you definewho you are; they help you come to anunderstanding of yourself as a distinct person.At Milton today, announcements andexhortations positioned to catch the passingeye crowd the walls as they alwayshave. Add to that email conferences ladenwith debate, information, schedules,assignments and deadlines. Opportunitiesoutside of class, say faculty who advise themany organizations and projects, seem tobe multiplying.Sixteen student organizations are devotedto service, national and international politicalactivity, and fund raising—these areapart from groups that focus on cultureand identity, journalism, and the arts.Several of the 16 include subgroups thatact as clubs on their own. The twenty facultymembers who advise those groupsmet to help describe the public life atMilton today: the students they work with,the goals students set, the challenges theyencounter, and what they learn.Advising high schoolers eager to take on(or change) the world is a specialized craftin itself and no single template works universally.Students are crossing a developmentalthreshold during these years.As engaged, idealistic teenagers theyencounter everything from bureaucraticred tape, sensitive political turf and lacklusterresponse to outsized success andcommunity exaltation.Faculty are often amazed at the competenceof even the younger students. “Somecome,” says Community Service advisorAndrea Geyling, “deeply committed, eagerto involve their peers, and gifted at logistics.”Then, of course, others need a lot of“support,” as Andrea gently puts it, tounderstand the responsibility they take onwhen they commit to something.“I’m always surprised by how big andambitiously they dream, how strategicallythey think,” says Ann Foster (HistoryDepartment) who advises AmnestyInternational. Her chairs this year wantedto heighten the visibility of Amnesty andthe awareness of Amnesty’s issues, whichthe student leaders called “abstract andsomewhat distant issues for high schoolstudents to really care about.” So, buildingon JAMNESTY, their hugely successful30 Milton Magazine