Lise's Lens: April 24, 2025
The weather (finally!) seems to have turned for the better this week, just in time for our Earth Day celebration. It has been a delight to see students hanging out, studying, and having lunch out on the quad. And there’s still a few days left of National Poetry Month, so why not head outside and read some poetry in the sunshine?
WHAT I’M READING
- April is National Poetry Month, so in these final days of the month, I have been making time to read Three Leaves, Three Routes: Poems on the Haiti-Congo Story by Danielle Legros Georges. The collection explores the experiences of the wave of Haitians that emigrated to the Congo in the 1960s and 70s to escape repression. In this day and age, poetry can sometimes take a back seat to more mainstream genres, and so I’m really proud that we have multiple courses that explore the medium here at CSW, including KB’s Mod 5 course, “Experiments in Imaginative Writing.” One of the things I like about this is that it explores poetry and fiction so that students can get a taste of both, without feeling like they have to choose.
WHAT I’M THINKING/TALKING ABOUT
- I am thinking about our international students and families. I want everyone in our community to know that I have been watching very closely all of the news, stories, and updates related to immigration and international travel here in the U.S. While at time of writing, we have no reason for concern, we continue to work with trusted legal advisors and partner organizations to ensure that we are prepared in the event that law enforcement comes to campus. As you know, federal policies have been changing at a rapid pace, so we are remaining vigilant while also taking care not to succumb to panic or disorder.
WHAT I'M WATCHING/LISTENING TO
- We were so fortunate to have farmer and food justice advocate Karen Washington as our Earth Day speaker yesterday. I appreciated her advice that often, the best thing you can do is put the high level issues aside and narrow your focus to the community level. Because if we allow ourselves to fret about every big thing we can’t control, we will only stress ourselves further, and settle into a place of powerlessness. But if we take one small step in our community — going to the farmers market, asking where food at the grocery store comes from, building a small green space — we can make a real impact on ourselves and the people around us. Her last words — and I paraphrase — were “organize locally! And remember that silos won’t get you very far so pool your resources and knowledge base to build your own “ecosystems of support.”
WHAT CAUGHT MY EYE
A group of boarding students and adults participated in a cleanup of Lexington Street over the weekend. I'm really proud of them for stepping up to take care of our environment in this way!
More News from CSW
List of 5 news stories.
CSW—a gender-inclusive day and boarding school for grades 9-12—is a national leader in progressive education. We live out our values of inquiry-based learning, student agency, and embracing diverse perspectives in every aspect of our student experience. Young people come to CSW to learn how to learn and then put what they learn into action—essential skills they carry into their futures as doers, makers, innovators, leaders, and exceptional humans who do meaningful work in the world.