Milton Magazine - Milton Academy

“ I thought school wasfun. The idea of aresearch paper? Bringit on. My teachersthought that attitudewas normal. My friendsthought it was normal,too. My teaching inother schools was notparticularly personallyrewarding, becausethat enthusiasm forlearning isn’t themodel in lots of otherschools.”always been that way, and that’s one of thethings I loved. We have serious discussionsabout words, and how to use wordspowerfully. Every minute, every classperiod is packed, unlike in college. Onedifference: my students now say ‘thankyou’ at the end of class. I don’t rememberdoing that.”“I’m not only connecting with students inthe classroom,” says Patrice Jean-Baptiste’88, who teaches in the performing artsdepartment, coaches Speech Team andhas been a dorm parent in Hathaway. “I’mconnecting in the dorm, and in performance,but I really work at a whole otherlevel with students as a Speech Teamcoach. I have to find out exactly who everyperson on my team is to help them choosematerial that will allow them to expressthemselves best in competition. And wetravel together—weekend after weekendwe spend in a close-knit group traveling tocompetitions.”“Connections with teachers are central atMilton,” says Rod Skinner ’72 (director ofcollege counseling), “but the irony is thatmy classmates talk about faculty not ‘getting’them, probably because of the politicaldissent and the general challengingof authority that was happening on manycampuses. That was peculiar to my timeband at Milton; ground rules were shiftingin significant ways. But there was neverany hierarchical barrier between us andteachers. People like Chuck Duncan, PaulMonette, A.O. Smith, Ethan Bisbee andthe Schorrs ended up being very specialto me.”Whatever the era, you can’t escape beinga teenager when you’re in high school;the social perils of negotiating those yearsare a chapter in personal histories. Miltoncould be a kind place to spend those years,however. “You had the opportunity to movefreely between roles and reinvent yourself,”Rod says. “You could be an actor, amusician, an athlete and a student.”André Heard ’93 says, “My class had aterm called social side-stepping. Thatmeant that while there were circles offriends, you could, and did, move in andout of the circles, but you were no cooler,or less cool, for whatever group you hungwith at a given time.”Back row (L to R): André Heard, Rod Skinner, David Ball. Middle row (L to R): Elaine Apthorp, Sally Dey, Meg Foley Burke, Anne Kaufman, Patrice Jean-Baptiste.Seated (L to R): Suzie Greenup, Brad Richardson. Missing from photo: Caroline Sabin, Jane Brewer.14 Milton Magazine