TaborTalk Blog

In early December, Tabor Academy’s application of Mind-Brain Education (MBE) scientific research and partnership with the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning (CTTL) evolved a new dimension.

Mid-year exams are just a few weeks away, and it’s important to have a good study plan so you can come into the experience feeling confident and prepared. Leaving your study to the last minute or going into it without an organized plan of attack can make you feel unnecessarily anxious and overwhelmed. We want our students to take charge of their exam experience. What follows are some simple tips to employ (and pitfalls to avoid!) in order to make sure your exam prep helps you do your best work on exam day.

Towards the end of the fall trimester came preparations for this year’s Winter Musical, Mamma Mia!

I once suggested to one of my students that they call an admission office to clarify a detail about an upcoming visit they were planning. You would have thought I was asking them to donate a major organ or just told them they would not be able to graduate from high school. You know the look. Bemused. Incredulous. Paralyzed. Snap out of it, kid, it’s a just a phone call, I thought to myself. I make calls all the time for any number of reasons to an assortment of people on campus and off. But that got me thinking about the whole concept of communication, raising some essential questions. Is it reasonable to expect teenagers to communicate as effectively as adults, or perhaps more importantly, in the same manner? 

This summer, I traveled to the remote town of Camden, Maine, to complete a course called Outward Bound.

^{By Tessa Mock ’21, Log Staff Writer}

If you’ve ever been to an All School Meeting where Felix Cutler is playing one of his enchanting piano ballads of rap and pop songs, then I’m sure you understand why he is this month's featured musician in The Tabor Log.

Just over three years ago, Tabor committed to resourcing its faculty with access to Mind-Brain Education (MBE) research to further inform our curricular and pedagogical choices, across all areas of school life.

Tabor students are in the Bahamas at the Gerace Research Center in San Salvador for the last week of the year working on the coral nursery they began last spring. In March 2019, we constructed two coral trees: pvc pipes connected to look like branches of a tree where we hung coral fragments of Elkhorn and Staghorn coral we found on the seafloor while snorkeling. It is our hope that the fragments will remain alive and grow large enough so that we can attach them to the seafloor and grow out, restoring areas of damaged reef in the Bahamas. We will maintain and multiply our coral trees over two weeks each year, in December and in March, and hope to "plant" our first new reef restoration in a year or two. Unfortunately, strong storms are our enemy in this effort as we discovered one of our two trees from 2019 destroyed when we arrived.  Read on to learn about the efforts of the December team who arrived for a week of field research on December 28.

DAY 1

We have successfully arrived in Nassau at the comfortable hour of 11:30 PM. Our students immediately jumped into the hotel pool for a refreshing dip. We will begin early tomorrow with breakfast and then off to San Salvador Island.

DAY 2

We arrived in San Salvador a little late due to delays.  We are learning that 'island time' is 'island time'.  We went for a dip in the aquamarine tropical waters, had a nice dinner, and spent the evening setting up our lab, going over the mission goals, and playing mad gab for a while.

Hey folks! For those who don’t know me, I’m Poom Siripakorn ’21 and I am from Nonthaburi, Thailand. I am currently spending a school year abroad as a junior in Beijing, China. And yes, I will return to Tabor as a senior!

Prospective families often ask me what I would change about Tabor if I could change just one thing. My answer: I wish Tabor Academy were its own time zone with about 30 hours in each day instead of just 24.

Last year, I wrote a blog in which I described the various college tours I did with my son during the summer prior to his senior year at Tabor.