Skip to main content

Graham Higgins '05 Gives Special Chapel Talk on the Environment


When I visit alums in high school and ask them about their favorite school traditions, they typically cite daily Chapel and our family style lunch as most memorable. Both of these bring our boys together, whether to share time for reflection or a meal.

Since Chapel means so much to our boys, we have added a series of new Chapel talks given by our young alumni. Yesterday, Graham Higgins '05 returned to Saint David's to talk to sixth graders and their parents about global climate change.

Graham, a graduate of Trinity High School, University of St. Andrew's, and Columbia University, is a Senior Environmental Designer at Atelier Ten. Much of his work involves developing solutions to mitigate climate change's negative impact. "With every challenge comes opportunity," he told the boys and their parents. Citing the example of young Greta Thunberg, he encouraged them to actively participate in environmental efforts and causes that are meaningful to them.

Our Chapel talk topics range widely and are often born from the speaker's personal experiences. They provide an opportunity for boys to reflect upon an important issue or situation and to consider it from the speaker's perspective. The personal experiences shared during Chapel give the boys tools to navigate life and its challenges with strength, courage, and integrity. It is one way that we seek to fulfill our mission's aspiration that our boys become good men.

Thank you, Graham, for returning to Saint David's yesterday and inspiring our boys to be good by doing good.


Popular posts from this blog

"The Wisdom Within" - Building Student Motivation Through Choice

In the third entry of our Teaching Boys Initiative quarterly blog series, Master Teacher Jim Barbieri explores how providing boys with agency to choose builds motivation and enhances learning. BUILDING STUDENT MOTIVATION THROUGH CHOICE By the time I was eight years old, I had become completely absorbed in all things baseball. Living in New York was perfect for a baseball fan; although I was a Mets fan thanks to my idol, Tom Seaver, I was also interested in learning about all the amazing Yankees stars of yore. How could I call myself a baseball fan if I didn’t know the history and records of stars like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Yogi Berra? I loved collecting baseball cards and reading the career statistics of each player on the back. Looking through my collection one day, I discovered that I shared a birthday with the legendary Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Roberto Clemente. At eight years old, I was crushed to hear the news that he had died tragically in a plane crash while trying to ...
Read more

"The Wisdom Within" - The Superpower of Performance

In the following entry of our Teaching Boys Initiative blog series, Saint David's Director of Music and Master Teacher Jeffrey Moore explores how participating in performances and productions build transformative competencies, transmit values, and inspire boys to excel. Jose Antonio Abreu, one of the leading educators in classical music and the founder of El Sistema said this: “Music has to be recognized as an agent of social development in the highest sense, because it transmits the highest values  — solidarity, harmony, mutual compassion. And it can unite an entire community and express sublime feelings.”¹ At Saint David’s School, performance begins in the very first years. Each class, from Pre-K through Eighth Grade, presents their work to an audience of peers and parents, whether it is a story, a skit, a play, a lecture, or a musical presentation. But the increasing complexity and demands on our boys to push themselves to another level is the key to their development and succes...
Read more

"The Wisdom Within" - Writing and Thinking

In our continuing efforts through the Teaching Boys Initiative at Saint David's School ™ , one of our visiting scholars, Dr. Ric Campbell, engages in ongoing reflective practice with our faculty. Below, Dr. Campbell shares an example of a freewriting initiative that was born from the collaboration between literature teacher Jamie MacNeille and history teacher Drew Burton, who sought to address forms of student engagement in their respective disciplines.  WRITING and THINKING:  A Learning Community Engaged in the Knowledge-Making Practices of the Disciplines “Whoa, this freewriting is really helpful !” The above quote by a sixth-grade literature student captures a revelatory moment; he has discovered the wealth of ideas at the end of his pen as he writes to describe what he is noticing in the novel the class is reading and discovers that what he notices leads to questions, and that those questions, in turn, lead to bigger ideas. “All there is to thinking is seeing something not...
Read more