Honoring Martin Luther King Jr.
Vermont Academy is honoring Martin Luther King with a series of events.
We started our week on Sunday, January 19 with a trip to Latchis theater in Brattleboro to watch 13th a documentary by Ava DuVernay exploring the history of racial inequality in the United States, focusing on the fact that the nation's prisons are disproportionately filled with African-Americans. On Monday we used time during advisory meetings to introduce discussion questions for our film being shown on Tuesday night.
The main event on Monday was our celebration of Dr. King during community meeting. This included a video about White Privilege, several students reading excerpts from Dr. King’s Keep Moving From This Mountain speech, an essay by Kristyna Kaltounkova ‘20, and vocal selections from the Vermont Academy Vocal Ensemble and the Kurn Hattin Select Choir.
On Tuesday night we showed The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind for our Residential LIfe Night. This was our all-school read last summer and it focuses on a boy who studied on his own and learned how to build a windmill to benefit his family and his community. On Wednesday we put up a poster display in Aldrich Lounge on issues impacting underrepresented people and this was up for the rest of the week. On Thursday advisory groups reflected on the posters and had discussion questions on how to be allies.
Vermont Academy is a coed college preparatory boarding and day school in southern Vermont, serving grades 9-12 plus a postgraduate year.
