Saint David's Environmental Awareness and Action Committee Continues Tremendous Efforts

Several years ago, Saint David's Environmental Action and Awareness Committee (EAAC) was founded by art chair Jenna Boccella. A Faculty/Staff volunteer-run organization, the group sought to find ways to reduce their carbon footprint, both individually and school-wide; thereby making Saint David's as environmentally conscious as possible. Over the years, efforts have targeted paper, plastic and energy use.

Following a COVID-hiatus, the group instituted a new recycling initiative for the 2021-22 school year, one which encouraged our community to enhance paper and plastic compost habits and to practice sustainability whenever and wherever possible. Reduce and reuse are two primary points that we want to drive home, and then after those two options have been exhausted, we aim to recycle. A Recycling Challenge was called in which homerooms and offices vied to be identified as most successful in their recycling efforts.

The plan was so well received and successfully integrated that this year we took a next step in limiting the food waste that ends up in landfills by instituting a school-wide composting program. Each day at the end of lunch, boys deposit their leftover food waste into clearly marked food waste bins, which our composting vendor picks up curbside five days a week.

I would like to commend the leadership of the faculty and staff in making this venture possible: Ms. Boccella, Mr. Donnelly, Mr. Binaco, and many others have brought this concept to life. Our collective hope is for the success of last year's Recycling Challenge to be just the start of good practice becoming good habit. We want to maintain the enthusiasm by ensuring that our boys make it student-driven and student-led; that they are mindful about the impact that small actions can have on a greater good.

Please click on the video below for a demonstration by Mr. Donnelly, who shows how to use each of the colored bins at school to properly reduce, reuse, recycle:

Thank you, Saint David's community, for your hard work and continued practice in helping the planet and one another!

www.saintdavids.org

"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 ...

"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...

"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...

David O'Halloran, Headmaster - Saint David's School, New York City

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