Community and Connections by Ms. Andres

Confession/Disclaimer: These words just skim the surface of the beautifully complex topic of community and connections at Seven Hills. I believe so many of us in this community could share stories and anecdotes about their time and experiences that would be joyful and fulfilling to read about. However, I began writing this to explain how intentional our actions are in what we do and how we do them to start to build our internal community. 

It wasn’t too long ago that health and safety measures upended our world during the pandemic. For more than a year, people were warned to stay away from each other. Looking back, it’s hard to imagine the evolution of school life and how Seven Hills kept its community spirit alive through those tough times and into the present. We’ve been able to continue to grow as a community, getting back some of those connections that had to be severed, and in some ways expanding what the Seven Hills community is.

We are keenly aware that what community means to an adult and what that means to a middle school boy are not always synonymous. The boys have many different communities that they interact with regularly and with which we may only have a passing familiarity. They’ve got obvious connections with family, friends, and teams. But even the word friend is different these days. There are old school friends, new school friends, friends with whom we only talk to online. Online personas and relationships have different meanings and importance to different students. So the challenge is, how do we get all these super awesome unique individuals together to form a community, when, in some cases, a student might tell you that a person “isn’t their friend?”

We start each school year with camp week. It has a number of purposes, but up there on the list is to start to build the student body community connections. A whole week without classes to play and compete and learn about each other. As a part of camp week, new students are sorted into houses. Houses that systematically allow us to interact between grade levels, lend themselves to amazing instances of cooperation and often lessons in humility, support, and forgiveness. When you get a little more comfortable outside your comfort zone you start to build connections with new people. Our eighth grade students chat with bridge students as one group is excited to start their final year and the other isn’t fully sure what to expect but is still excited! That’s how the first week of school gets the ball rolling.

The house system is a clear way to build community and it is constantly being examined to see how it can be better (learn more from Mr. Southam-Gerow). Housemates are reunited with each other regularly for competitions that are designed with different areas of strength in mind. We travel in houses for River Days, State Fair day, and other activities. We come up with house mottos, cheers, and so many stories are passed along. Doing the same activity each year means a story of the last time gets to be shared with any new members as new memories are made. Our traditions evolve and are reinterpreted each year, ensuring we maintain our roots but make space for our new students. We work together to complete tasks and challenges. We spend the day together for the celebration of gifts which offers opportunities for outside community connections as well.

Each year, students complete a common grounds survey. Through a series of questions that might not come up in everyday middle school life, students are told who, in the school, they had the most questions in common with each year. This year, for the first time, students voted on community awards and the nomination process alone was community magic. More than 50% of the student body was nominated for an award. The categories focused on things like looking out for friends, the school’s core values, and just being overall awesome. The fact that so many students were nominated and wanted to nominate others is another example of how much they value each other.

Outside of the structure of Camp Week and Houses, the daily routine also provides opportunities for community building. During each break (our name for unstructured play time), students get to see one another and play and interact. They join mixed clubs and afterschool activities. They interview each other for projects and simply ask for help when they need it. We are a fun bunch of students, faculty, alumni, and families, with an ever-growing list of groups that we interact with outside of our campus (there’s a whole other topic for a different post). If you were to pop your head in a classroom, sit in on a faculty meeting, an advisory session, a lunch table chat, or even walk along with a house as they move to a river day rotation. In that case, you’d find a very unique and diverse group of individuals. Yet, one of the real treasures is being able to acknowledge and celebrate those differences while knowing that we’ve got each other’s backs.