A number of years ago, at an assembly at my previous school, we invited an engineer to share her career path. In her speech, she told a story of when a speaker came to present in an assembly at her high school years before. That speaker was a female engineer, and the woman telling the story said she knew immediately that was what she wanted to do with her life. Later that day, a student who heard the engineer speak approached me and said that she now knew what she wanted to do.
At Bank Street School for Children, we enter Upper School Assembly knowing that not every story will resonate with every audience member. There will not be a rush of students registering to be tap dancers after hearing Jason Samuels Smith speak; there will not be a rush to sign up for working inside of prisons to create reform like Katie Schaffer; there may not be an increase in volunteerism within adoption programs like the ones April Dinwoodie leads.
But, there still may be connections made to the stories shared. There may be someone with an interest outside of school who heard Jason say, “The world today promotes you to be a jack of all trades. I was able able to witness masters,” and they may realize they want to learn their craft from an expert teacher. There may be someone who is considering politics and heard Katie say, “These are evil systems. And the way that we change them is to change laws,” and, this may reaffirm their commitment to making change through politics. Or, there may be someone who wants to be a writer and heard April say, “It’s important to recognize that we all have power in our words,” and, they might go home and write that piece that has been wanting to come out.
The power of story has always been a guidepost in Assembly planning—listening to, sharing, and reflecting on the stories of others. To close out programming last year, we invited David Isay of StoryCorps, an organization committed to capturing human stories. StoryCorps write on its site: “We do this to remind one another of our shared humanity, to strengthen and build the connections between people, to teach the value of listening, and to weave into the fabric of our culture the understanding that everyone’s story matters.”
Upper School Assembly is our platform to feature human stories in the same way that StoryCorps captures them. Introducing our community to people, and more importantly, to their stories, is a vital step not only toward understanding others, but also toward understanding ourselves. It has been an amazing journey in Upper School Assembly over the past four years, and we have even more on the horizon.
In true Bank Street fashion, this work would be incomplete without the voice of students. This year, two students helped me to form an Assembly Committee. Both 7th graders, Alex and Julian, have been unbelievable additions to the Assembly program. They are extremely bright, organized, fun, and focused. As a team, we push ourselves to think creatively about speakers and presenters to feature. We meet weekly to prepare our presentations, line up announcements, and discuss how we can communicate the great work we are doing more broadly. It is one of the meetings I most look forward to every week.
Through their efforts, we now have an Instagram account and have created a community of people who have taken part in or are excited to know about Assembly. Follow us as we continue to share stories and grow together.