TaborTalk Blog

It’s been a busy first trimester and fall season and now a new trimester and winter season for the freshman class. They have worked hard to take advantage of the many opportunities around campus as well as navigate the challenges both in and out of the classroom. While the community as a whole has witnessed the many talents our newest Seawolves have brought to our school by the sea, as the freshman seminar L.E.A.P.S. teacher (Leadership, Ethics, Academic Management, Perspectives, and Self), I have had the distinct pleasure of learning first-hand how thoughtful, engaged, creative, committed, and just plain old fun these freshmen are.

There are opportunities for all students, of any experience level, to get involved in the music culture at Tabor through the wide range of musical groups, clubs, and activities offered on campus. During my freshman year, music was what gave me the opportunity to put myself out there in a new environment, and over the course of my four years, I have experienced what it truly means to be a part of a community.

A short four years ago when I was looking into Tabor as my future home, I was intrigued and impressed by the photography program and its opportunities. I loved how important student photography was to the school, and I knew I would thrive in a community where I could grow through taking on such a responsibility.

Freshmen, sophomores, and juniors – take note…with early application submissions for seniors now in our wake and individual meetings with juniors set to begin, I’ve been thinking more about the student experience and how students present themselves as candidates for college admission. Academically speaking, students are fed a steady and predictable diet of academic nutrition ranging from English and history to math and science, and that IS how it should be. Up until this point in high school, many students really haven’t done much outside the classroom beyond what we require, which is largely relegated to the realm of athletics. How can students develop a resume beyond the athletic requirements they are beholden to? What follows is some food for thought as you continue to develop your emerging personal story.

The boarding school experience is probably starting to take a bit more shape in your mind by this time of year.  You’ve looked at websites and talked to representatives, poured over materials, and visited some schools. You are starting to imagine yourself in some of the places you have visited, engaged in classroom discussion, playing sports, living in a dorm, and making new friends. You may still be wondering what it is like to be away from home. Maybe you can imagine having a roommate or living in your dorm room, but what will your day look like, exactly? What will you do when you have time to yourself?  

For the actors in our black box production of See Rock City and Other Destinations, the past few months have been packed with auditions, learning lines, drilling choreography, and practicing music. Long hours and many weekend rehearsals later, the actors have proven themselves to be some of the most talented and dedicated performers we have had in my time at Tabor. Watching them rehearse, the show has never felt like a high school production but something more professional.  

On the weekend of October 7th, I attended the Harvard Science Research Conference at Harvard University. The Harvard Science Research Conference (HSRC) is the frontier annual conference for exceptional high school students in the sciences. When my AP biology teacher invited our class to apply for a  spot at the conference, I was thrilled, for biomedical research is one of my main topics of interest for the future. I went through the application process with Ms. Norris’ guidance, and managed to be accepted.

What does it take to be a team?  That question is something I have thought a lot about my four years as a high school athlete.  Being a freshman on varsity teams is where I think I’ve learned the best lessons from my older teammates.  Their constant drive and hard work allowed me to understand that it was necessary to work hard at practice for the best results in games.  Their constant encouragement and motivation allowed me to understand how a leader should act.  Their excitement over a good win, or anger over a tough loss taught me to take games seriously.  Most importantly, their actions allowed me to know how I wanted to act as a leader.  

The International World War II Museum in Natick , Massachusetts has a collection which comprises over 7,000 objects, 500,000 documents, 3,500 posters and 7,500 books. “The documents include the famous and infamous: an original copy of the Versailles Treaty of 1919 to the Munich Agreement of 1938; the letters written by Eisenhower and Rommel to their wives on D-Day. The objects range from uniforms and military equipment to the more personal items that belonged to members of the Resistance, families on the home fronts or prisoners of war.”

This fall fourteen students visited the International Museum of World War II as part of their World War II class.  Divided into pairs, each group was assigned a specific aspect of the war on which to focus and later report.  They made their way through the museum, taking notes on topics, such as the military, political, and civilians heroes of the war; the impact of propaganda and correspondence on the course of the war; applying the statement, “Necessity is the mother of invention to innovative technology; and interpreting a 1999 quotation by Senator John McCain on war’s “cruel reality.” Below are some excerpts from students' reflection on their visit:

If you’re reading this post, you’re very likely considering (or have already scheduled, hooray!) a visit to Tabor Academy and perhaps a number of other independent schools. You understand that the visit is a critical part of the admissions process for parents and students alike. However, you might be curious about what to expect and how to make the most of the visit.

In 1968, not too long after I was born, Andy Warhol, the iconic pop artist known for his Campbell’s Soup Cans declared: “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes.” Without going too far into it, he was referring to his belief that the hierarchies of the world of that time were dissolving quickly, that lines were blurring. To him, and to his contemporaries, this meant simply that the opportunity for things or people to be worthy of fame were unbounded, in the absence of habitual delineations, and therefore that anybody – or actually everybody – could be famous. A plain old can could be Mona Lisa’s equal. I don’t think Andy Warhol could possibly have imagined the rise of YouTube or other social media, where the most mediocre of people can be famous for a time. Nor could he have imagined that, like regular people or regular soup cans, ideas or memes – even regular ones, even terrible ones – can gain fame and support. Still, he seems to have been essentially correct. In the future – meaning today, if looking forward through a decades old lens – everyone can enjoy some level of fame.

The irony of the boarding school search process is that the busiest and most ambitious kids often are the ones seeking these opportunities, but the process of getting there is quite involved, making them even busier. We know we are asking a great deal of kids and families with already-busy lives, and we are always grateful for the work that goes into selecting the best fit boarding school for you!