Headmaster's Blog

This past Friday Mr. Imbelli and I traveled to Upstate New York and Massachusetts to visit alums at Berkshire and Millbrook.  Calder R., '10 is graduating Berkshire this year and heading off to Union College where he'll continue with hockey. Calder's still in the goal impressing all those who watch him play.  At Millbrook we caught up with Tau L., '13 and Zane A., '11 both thriving. Tau's into basketball and Lax, while Zane is busy narrowing his athletic focus to baseball. Great visits all around.

On Thursday, April 17 I had the wonderful opportunity to visit alums at Columbia Prep all the way over on the West Side.  Philip C., '10 is graduating this year and heading off to Bucknell, Ian M., '11, is a Junior, and Cameron D., Andrew H., Loomis Q., and Henry V are all Sophomores.  The boys are all working hard and doing well.  We enjoyed a wide ranging conversation about Saint David's and Columbia.  It was great to catch up.  Cameron gave a quick tour of the school which included a stop at the photography studio to view some of his work.  Black and white is his medium--impressive!

Dateline: Saturday, April 26th.  At St. Ann's in Brooklyn today, Saint David's Debate Team/Model UN competed in a multi-school competition, under the leadership of Mr. Shapiro.   Saint David's boys took home the award for best delegation!  An awesome achievement given that it's our first ever competition.  Saint David's also won some individual honors: Ryan K. won outstanding delegate (1st place) and Jack D. brought home a best delegate (2nd place) award.   Mr. Shapiro reports that it was great to see the boys step up to the plate, especially after their original apprehension when they realized that the other delegations were a little more experienced.   They handled each breaking crisis with cool-headed diplomacy (JFK, played by Ethan K., was even kidnapped!). They are currently enjoying their triumph at a delegate dance.   The boys have already begun planning how they can become back-to-back champs next year.

Tuesday evening, we were fortunate to welcome Michael R. Bloomberg, the 108th Mayor of the City of New York, world-renowned business leader, public health advocate, and dedicated philanthropist, as the featured speaker for our signature Alumni Parents Council Lectures event.  Taking the podium, the Mayor first encouraged the eighth graders present to always appreciate and be kind to others and to learn to work as part of a team. He then engaged in a lively conversation with the boys, who sat in a semi-circle around him at the front of a standing-room-only Hyman Hall. Bearing in mind our school-wide theme this year of Critical Analysis, the boys had prepared several probing questions for Mayor Bloomberg that ranged from his thoughts about climate change (he stressed the need to address the effects that are measurable right now, such as pollution from coal-fired plants), to income inequality (he believes in equal opportunity, and providing access to a good education with c...

Our sixth graders and several of their teachers are now in Washington, D.C.  During their three-day stay in our nation’s capital, they will visit the national monuments, Congress, the Library of Congress, The Supreme Court, the Smithsonian National Museum of Air and Space, and Frederick Douglass House.  This is an important opportunity for our boys to see their government in action, and a culminating experience of their comprehensive study of the founding of the Republic and its system of government.  The boys will engage in discussions and exchange ideas with lawmakers.  Their trip also involves extensive journaling of the various sites they visit and they will write poems based on their close observations and impressions.  These poems will be published this summer in our Upper School literary journal.  Much of what the boys see will spark questions and debate, deepening their understanding and hopefully, inspiring them to always analyze and ...

Saint David’s Upper and Lower School After School STEAM classes recently tested egg safety capsules.  Using materials such as cardboard, cotton, and straws, the boys designed and built different forms and types of padding and parachutes. Their mission? To drop eggs from the fifth floor classrooms into our backyard without breaking the eggs.  For inspiration, the Upper School class had studied NASA's landing protocol for the Mars Rovers. This led them to hypothesize that a parachute would be an important element for success; an idea that was borne out through some initial testing. The boys struggled with designing, building and comparing a variety of different prototype egg protection capsules, and they discussed and debated which they thought would pass the ultimate test and why. In the Upper School, each team was given a strict “$100" budget for the purchase of supplies and materials. They had to decide, as a team, how to organize and allocate their budget. This a...

(The following article by Head Coaches Craig Learn and Will Arias, appears in the winter 2014 issue of Saint David's Magazine ) Over the past decade, research across multiple disciplines has documented an ever-increasing trend of unhealthy eating habits and physical inactivity in American youth. One of the most prominent effects of this trend is the high rate of obesity in our children and adolescents. According to recent large-scale studies, children are developing poor eating habits earlier in life, as early as 12 months of age, and 10 percent of young American children between the ages 2 and 5 can be categorized as obese (Nestlé Nutrition, 2011). Experts have projected that this may lead to an alarming longer-term reality: that we might be the first to witness a generation of youth that is less healthy and has shorter life expectancies than their parents. Considering this concern and the fact that it is significantly easier to teach and establish good eating hab...