The document summarizes how Bancroft School builds confidence in its students from an early age through graduation. It discusses how students are given opportunities to speak publicly and present their work starting in kindergarten. Throughout their time at Bancroft, students continue gaining confidence through activities like performing Shakespeare plays in elementary school, participating in science fairs and public speaking events in middle school, and preparing for college through speech team and other activities in high school. The document highlights how alumni credit Bancroft's focus on building confidence as preparing them for success beyond their school years.

1. MATTHEW S. ROBINSON
62 Brookline Street, Needham, MA 02492
617 877 6264 / matthewsrobinson@mac.com
The following notes appeared in the alumni magazine for Concord Academy:
FACULTY NEWS
In an effort to add a few more lines to their already impressive CA cv’s, math professor
Howard Bloom and music teacher Keith Daniel performed in a community theater
production of the Broadway musical "1776." They had colleague Christine Campbell to
blame, for it was she who choreographed the show for Acton's Theater III. In the
production, Bloom took on the role of Connecticut Representative Roger Sherman and
Daniel portrayed New York’s Lewis Morris. CA junior Maya Gupta was also involved as
a violinist in the company’s orchestra.
Another of CA’s master thespians, Theatre Director David R. Gammons, took some
time in October to act as a guest set and costume designer at Suffolk University’s 11th
Annual One-Act Play Festival. The evening of plays included “Impromptu” by Tad
Mosel, “A Separate Peace” by Tom Stoppard, and “The Constitutional Convention, A
Sequel” by Charles Mee. During the Festival, Gammons also lectured on topics of
design.
Speaking of festivals, Dance teacher Richard Colton’s new work, “Billy Nijinsky,” recently won
“Best Production 2002” at the New York International Fringe Festival. The production was a
collaboration with Blue Man Group's Associate Artistic Director Randall Jaynes.
Congratulations, Richard!
Turning from theater to poetry, English teacher Anne Colman recently attended a workshop
on the topic, the gleanings from which she hopes to bring not only to her classes but also to
CA’s Poetry Club.

2. Ceramics teacher Marvin Sweet recently had two essays published in the newly
released book, 500 Teapots: Contemporary Explorations of a Timeless Design (Sterling
Publications /Lark Books).
In other publishing news, History teacher Peter Laipson wrote articles on the topics of
bachelorhood and on urbanization for the Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinity (Sage). He
also began revisions of the manuscript for his book, No Genius for Marriage: Bachelorhood in
Urban America, 1870-1950, which is set to be published by Cornell University Press in 2004.
In November, Laipson’s colleague Mustafa Aksakal presented a research paper entitled
“Ottoman Public Opinion and War in 1914” at the Middle East Studies Association's Annual
Meeting in Washington, DC.
For the third year in a row, Assistant Dean of Students and Health and Wellness Coordinator
Jeff Desjarlais conducted summer training sessions for orientation leaders at Boston College.
In a special presentation entitled “Courage, Strength and Faith: Friends Helping Friends,”
Desjarlais also addressed BC’s 2300 freshman on the topic of alcohol use and abuse. Well
done, Jeff!
STUDENT NEWS
On November 7, the CA student body took part in an Afternoon of Action. During this
day of community service, students participated in a wide variety of programs. . Locally,
students worked at Belknap House, The Emerson Umbrella arts space, and helped
clean Mill Brook and the famed Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and Minuteman National Park.
While some helped bring in the harvest at Drumlin Farms and Codman Farms, others
shared the bounty with the help of the Haley House and Kingston House soup kitchens,
Gaining Ground, The Boston Food Bank and Community Servings, a support
organization that serves individuals living with AIDS. Students also helped out at Boston
area shelters such as Project Hope and Rosie’s Place. Their dedication to the next
generation was demonstrated through work at Lena Park in Cambridge and at The
Stone Zoo in Stoneham and Dorchester’s Zoo New England. In keeping with CA’s
dedication to education, students also assisted with area chapters of the Jump Start
program.
Other events of note include CA’s observance of National Coming Out Day on October
11, the Womens Organization student club’s fundraiser for breast cancer research, and
a Halloween House Decorating Contest that was organized by House Faculty Brett
Morrison. CASA (Concord Academy Service Activists) also served lunch at Rosie‚s
Place on October 27.
CAMPUS EVENTS
Adding another chapter to CA’s extensive library of arts events, students recently
performed in and produced a number of new plays and projects.

3. The CA Dance Company’s spring production of “Zero at the Bone” features
choreography by Richard Colton and sets by Art teacher Antoinette Winters and
Theater director David R. Gammons.
Theatre III Company’s production of “Beauty Sleeping,” an original work based on the
famed fairy tale, “Sleeping Beauty,” was written and directed by Gammons, who will
also direct the Fall, 2003 production of “Heart’s Desire Hotel.”
This year’s Student Theatre Independent Festival featured “The Importance of Being
Earnest,” directed by Kasia Cieplakvon Baldegg ’02, and “Spiral,” an original work
written and directed by Matt Ricci ’02.
Summer Stages Dance celebrated a record year in terms of attendance, thanks in great
part to director Amy Spencer.
Among the guests artists who graced the PAC stage were the Concord Chamber Music
Society, the internationally acclaimed piano trio Triple Helix and former Boston
Symphony Orchestra Program Annotator Steven Ledbetter. Boston-based Salsa
sensation Mango Blue also performed for the CA community in October.
Other recent guests include South African teacher Baphiwe Nxumalo and Harvard
School of Public Health Professor Jody Heymann (’77), both of whom have been on the
leading edge of the fight against the AIDS epidemic in Africa. In recognition of her work,
Heymann was awarded CA’s only award, The Joan Shaw Herman Award for
Distinguished Service
On Halloween, Joyce Willig addressed the CA community on the important and often
inflammatory topic of organ donation. As a recipient of a liver, it is a topic that is literally
and figuratively close to Willig’s heart and one which she has championed in similar
presentations throughout the region.

4. MATTHEW S. ROBINSON
62 Brookline Street, Needham, MA 02492
617 877 6264 / matthewsrobinson@mac.com
The following feature was the cover story for the Fall/Winter 2010 edition of the Bancroft
School alumni magazine:
Standing Tall
From day one through graduation - confidence is built at Bancroft
By Matt Robinson
Ask any Bancroft graduate and they will rattle off a long, long list of benefits they
garnered while a student at their beloved school. Top among these, however, would be
the all-important element of confidence.
From the first time students carry a flag into the auditorium until their senior co-op
project, a Bancroft education gives students not only the knowledge and skills to
succeed but also the confidence to use what they have learned to make their own lives
and the lives of others better.
According to Lower School Head Jyoti Datta, confidence is a “mindset” that Bancroft
students have from their earliest days. But of what exactly does this confidence consist?
“Confidence is being able to stand up and hold your own in front of classmates,
teachers, older and younger peers, and adults,” Datta suggests. And while it is hoped
that all children grow up in an environment in which such attribute can be developed,
Datta says that Bancroft is especially adept at supporting it. “Our students feel
comfortable and confident to be able to learn and own their learning,” she says, citing
the Lower School as “an environment where people care for [the students] and care
about what they have to say.” While many educators talk about supporting their
students in developing confidence, Datta and her team of teachers in the Lower School
have the students speak for themselves.
“Starting in Kindergarten,” Datta notes, “each child has an opportunity to be up on stage
during our morning …and lead the school in saying the Pledge of Allegiance.” Many

5. new students also publicly share what they are learning or doing in their classes with
parents, teachers, and peers. Such opportunities give students a chance to take risks
and enter unfamiliar and potentially uncomfortable situations with support “Public
speaking is encouraged from a very young age and they learn to embrace this with
enthusiasm and excitement instead of fear,” Datta says.
While many students do not even look at complex texts like the works of Shakespeare’s
until high school, Bancroft students not only explore but perform these plays much
earlier on. In fact, Datta says, today’s fourth graders not only present performances of
“Twelfth Night” and “A Midsummer Night's Dream,” they also perform such stories as
Goldilocks and the Three Bears…in French! By the time they reach fifth grade, every
Bancroft student is ready for their moment in the spotlight- and they all get it! “Each
child has a speaking part,” Datta says, “and they build teamwork and leadership skills
through this process.”
In addition to drama, many Bancroft students also take advantage of the school’s strong
arts and music programs as means of self-expression and development.
“They are validated and encouraged,” Datta says. “They come to recognize their
strengths and share their talents and accomplishments with others in a nurturing and
encouraging environment.”
Though these skills may first be developed within the more comfortable confines of the
Bancroft community, many students are soon ready to show their stuff to the outside
world. From field trips to a four-day trip to Leadership School at Camp Kieve before the
transition to Middle School, Bancroft students spread their wings far sooner than many
other students.
“Often museum staff are amazed by how much our knowledge our young students have
about a subject or topic,” Datta says, noting how enthusiastic Bancroft students are to
share what they have learned. “There are numerous opportunities for children to have
their voices heard,”
In fact, public speaking begins early on in a Bancroft career and continues right through
to graduation. In the Middle School, Jane Merritt oversees the eighth grade forum,
another key element in the Bancroft system of confidence-building. According to Merritt,
confidence involves “a feeling of self-assurance that a student gets when they believe in
their own abilities or qualities.” As Bancroft students are encouraged to develop not only
innate but also potential skills and abilities, they quickly develop confidence in these
abilities as well. And just as they have plenty of opportunities to show and share in
Lower School, there are many Middle School milestones that continue to bolster their
confidence. From Speak Out Night in sixth grade (during which students present
research projects) to the seventh grade Science Fair to Merritt’s Forum (in which
students must research, prepare, and present a five-minute talk and PowerPoint) and
the World Fair (for which eighth graders research and prepare interdisciplinary
discussions about current events in various countries), the path through Bancroft’s
Middle School is virtually paved with opportunities to show what students know and to

6. feel good about doing so. “Each year the projects require students to work more
independently and to present to larger groups,” Merritt says, noting a scaffolded
structure that is so key to proper learning and development.
“Speak Out changed me in a way that I am now more comfortable speaking in front of
an audience,” says recent sixth grader Carleigh O'Connell. “The teachers helped me to
prepare by giving me constructive criticism and encouraging me to prepare by speaking
in front of an audience before the real thing. The preparation support that I received at
Bancroft didn't exist at my previous school.”
Even Middle School assemblies are completely student-run and feature book reviews,
vocabulary-based skits and other public speaking segments that are prepared and
presented by the students for the students. “Students who choose to do so may also
use the Assembly to showcase a particular talent they have,” Merrtt says, recalling such
diverse offerings as pianists, jugglers and a student rock band.
As Bancroft students progress through the program they are continuously supported.
The Upper School experience is no different. As at the beginning of their careers,
opportunities for public speaking and presentation foster such personality elements and
get soon-to-be graduates ready to present themselves to colleges and the world.
Though confidence building is a key element of the Bancroft experience from start to
finish, Upper School instructor and speech team advisor Chris Sheldon observes that it
is never explicitly discussed. It just is.
“I don't think you could say Bancroft has a ‘system’ of confidence building,” Sheldon
suggests. “I think instilling confidence is what we all try to do in our classrooms and
extracurricular activities, and that makes it integral.”
By providing students with appropriate challenges and the support to overcome them,
the Bancroft system allows and encourages students to find and develop their own
sense of confidence.
“They certainly come back from college to tell us they are extremely well prepared,”
Sheldon notes.
As he works directly with the speech team (a team that has qualified for the National
tournament for the past six years and that has also had six state champions, nine
runners-up and placed three other students in the top 10 in their categories), Sheldon
may get to see some of the more confident Bancroft students. However, he says, many
come to him with other skills and strengths that also contribute to their abilities in and
confidence with public speaking.
“A lot of the students who come to the team already have some confidence,” Sheldon
admits, “[and] certainly the team gives them an opportunity to shine in a way that they
might not otherwise have. [However] all students on the team, from those that win
awards at Nationals to those who have just started, bring talents.”

7. Speaking of talents, many Bancroft students have been able to use the skills and talents
fostered and developed at the school in their post-Bancroft careers. Wilma Cespedes-
Rivera graduated Bancroft and is now a successful actor in New York!
“Confidence is an energy that needs to develop with time,” Cespdes-Rivera suggests,
“and I must say that my confidence in my craft began at Bancroft.” In fact, Cespedes-
Rivera credits the talented team at Bancroft with lighting the “small wick of confidence
that was in me back then” and fanning the flame into the confident conflagration it is
now
“It is a hard to say that I was truly confident in high school,” she admits, “but Bancroft
gave me the tools I needed to begin to develop my confidence. Whether it was in the
speech team, bringing home awards, or the fact that when I got to college I knew what
the right format of writing a paper was, Bancroft truly did guide me in the right direction
to gaining confidence.”
As a member of the speech team and the theater department, Cespeda-Rivera took
full advantage of the opportunities to develop her confidence at Bancroft.
“My passion for acting grew far more at Bancroft that it ever would have at a public
school,” says Cespeda-Rivera, who notes that she still keeps in touch with Mr. Sheldon
and does what she can to support the next generation of speech stars “I only hope that
those programs are still helping students today.”
Don’t worry, Wilma- They are!