Here are some highlights from the past two weeks—May 19 through May 30—in the Upper School.
🏙️ Race around Chinatown! Students in Chinese Foundations took a trip to Chinatown to put their language skills to the test. In addition to grabbing a bite to eat and participating in a scavenger hunt, students also had a chance to interact with native speakers and develop their speaking skills.
🗣️ Students studying Spanish collaborate with the Hiatt Center. The Intermediate Spanish: Great Films class took a trip to Nuevo Día, a day program for local Latino seniors in Boston. After asking some preprepared questions to break the ice, students engaged in impromptu conversations about daily life, hobbies, and favorite holidays.
🥎 The class of 2025 is up to bat! The annual Aaron Hoffman ’93 Memorial Softball Game brought students and teachers together to face off. After a lot of laughter, a few home runs, and some banter… seniors emerged victorious 9-8! Following the game, players grabbed a bite to eat at one of two food trucks and connected ahead of their final week as Beaver students.
❤️ Bringing the heart to the Upper School. Charlie Scott ’27 presented at an Upper School Meeting about the importance of CPR and AED access, drawing from her experiences at CrimsonEMS, a program connecting high school students with undergraduate EMT students at Harvard to raise awareness for CPR instruction. Charlie led an interactive activity aimed at increasing students’ understanding of CPR and AEDs.
⭐️ SDPs on display. At a Learning by Doing hosted on the R-Level, family, friends, and students toured presentations on several Student Directed Projects that ran during the spring term. The presentations highlighted the diversity of interests students chose to explore, ranging from human anatomy and art to the psychology behind escape rooms.
🤖 Speaking of SDPs… Neal Mahidar ’26 hosted an AI + Business Symposium for students to hear about how AI is shaping various industries. A panel with three incredible speakers–Babson Professor Tom Davenport, GenAI startup Advisor Pavan Pant, and venture fund Managing Director Venkat Srinivasan P’11–allowed students to ask direct questions and dive deeper into the topic.
🏳️🌈 Happy (almost) Pride Month! A pride panel, hosted by Henry Diver ’26, was hosted at an Upper School Meeting with the goal of sparking conversations around what it means to be a good ally. Panelists included Upper School Counselor Ashley Garcia, Jules Todd ’26, and Director of Engagement & Learning at the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition MG Xiong.
🏡 Students explore the home buying process. In Math 3A, students tackled the essential question “How might we understand and empathize with the process families go through to become homeowners in Massachusetts?” In order to do this, the class heard from speakers, analyzed the variables that impact the process, and searched for houses that met a list of criteria for a hypothetical buyer. The selected homes–and reflections on the entire process–are currently on display on the second floor of the Upper School wing!