Beaver Reflections:
I graduated in 2007, and I loved Beaver. I’m still close to my friends from high school, and although I haven’t visited Beaver in a while, I have been following the construction updates online. Beaver looks so different from when I was a student. It’s been fun seeing the new additions on the Beaver website and Instagram. Mr. Adjout was my advisor and favorite teacher so it’s great to see he’s in a new role leading the upper school.

What is #happeningnow in your life:
I worked at a public school teaching students aged 5-10 for the past six years, and now work as a Montessori teacher and work with kids aged 3-6. I try to teach to the whole person, as Beaver does. The pandemic has been difficult because one of Montessori education’s main principles is that kids choose their own path; they can choose to revisit it once or one hundred times during an activity. To return to the classic classroom setting where everyone is doing the same thing at the same time is a big adjustment for the kids. Another challenge is that I am used to no screens as a Montessori teacher, and now we are entirely virtual. I am trying to be creative and develop projects that kids can pick up and do independently. Last year was my first year at this school, so I am learning as I go.

“I do environmental education. So much of my teaching is, ‘Go outside, away from your screen!’ Now, I have to figure out how to do that virtually.”

– Helen Weeks ’07

Advice to Beaver students:
Beaver teaches you to become a critical thinker and question the norm. Be analytical. Keep doing that! Once I got to college, I realized how much Beaver cares about their students as people and understands that there is so much more to education than grades.