Global Social Impact

The work of Global Social Impact—a core school pillar—in the BFS community is rooted in the joy of unlocking the power of our students as societal changemakers. It is also embedded in interdisciplinary curriculum across all grades. Students develop the behaviors, values, attitudes, and skills that prepare them to thoughtfully contribute to a diverse and interconnected world. Things like shared responsibility and cooperative action, empathy and humility, reciprocity and collaborative problem solving, are essential to our work addressing the challenges facing our communities and developing active global citizens. At the heart of Global Social Impact programming is an approach to experiential education that prioritizes reciprocity in relationships through cooperative, cross-cultural participation in learning, service, and impact. Using a social justice lens, we will foreground the experience and process of BFS students growing the core competencies that will enable them to actively, ethically and critically engage with the world around them—be it their local, national or global community—to help make it a more just and sustainable place. It is guided by the following:

The Social Justice Incubator (pilot program)

The office of Global Social Impact was excited to introduce the Social Justice Incubator in the Upper School during the 2023-2024 school year. The Social Justice Incubator is designed to facilitate support for student ideation, research, project design, action, advocacy,  and impact on social justice issues that students are passionate about. Informed by student proposals, the Social Justice Incubator is providing guidance and seed funding for student-led initiatives designed to sustainably address the most pressing local, national, and global challenges. Five thoughtful student group projects have been selected and students are currently ideating and in the beginning stages of designing prototypes to join the movements to address their issue. The five projects in process are:

• • Food Justice / Food Security – Linked to the idea to create a community garden and fridge at Brooklyn Friends School
  • Contributing to addressing hate speech with a focus on creating an online web-based resource that would support teens with the tools to navigate anti-semitism
  • Houselessness focused project and partnership with local shelters
  • Understanding and improving access to obstetric and gynecological care for migrant women in New York City
  • Support for people in NYC shelters – Looking into the lack of resources for both migrant and local residents in the shelter system and working to fill some of the gaps, particularly supporting elementary education for children in shelters

Experiential Education for Social Impact – Program to Washington DC

In May, 2024, Brooklyn Friends crafted an experiential learning program in Washington DC, for students in grades 9 through 11. This unique learning experience, designed by the office of Global Social Impact in collaboration with Atlas Workshops, was centered on the exploration of the history and intersectionality of Black and Jewish solidarity in the fight for civil rights and social justice. Read about the experience here.

Global Social Impact portion of Ninth Grade Seminar

In 9th Grade Seminar, students are introduced to the values and practices of the Brooklyn Friends School community. Students learn principles of Wellbeing; Quakerism; DEB; Global Social Impact; and Study Skills. Students’ understanding of the core concepts are assessed through discussions, written reflections, group projects, and presentations. For the Global Social Impact component of the class, students engage in learning, research and action and impact oriented project work on social justice issues that they identify and are passionate about. The projects serve as a laying of the groundwork for long term campaigns on those issues, with the intention of joining movements for effective policy action and change. This year, students have focused on gun violence prevention, houselessness, and fair and equitable access to higher education.

Sixth Grade Seminar

The Sixth Grade Seminar course is guided by the Social Justice Team. Designed to meet the developmental needs of sixth grade students, the seminar provides a brave space to build a foundation for students to explore social justice concepts, issues, and their agency within those issues. As a result of this work, students develop necessary critical thinking competencies and to see inequality and injustice and to respond to historical and contemporary issues relevant to students’ present day lives. The seminar course spotlights varied issues within social justice – among them: exploring identity, environmentalism, voting, gender and disability rights and youth activism. The seminar nurtures students to think expansively about the social world culminating in an exploration of a social justice issue they care about to design a way to amplify awareness in our community. The seminar centers student voice, dialogue, creativity and design thinking.

Second Grade Changemakers Unit

Kevin worked with the 2nd grade teaching colleague team on their excellent changemakers unit. In this unit we highlighted many courageous activists, both individual people and groups who have sought to implement change against injustice at different points in history. Several different topics were covered, from Civil Rights to Women’s Rights, from Workers’ Rights to LGBTQIA+ Rights and Climate Justice and Advocacy. This unit resonates deeply with Second Graders who are intrinsically interested in ideas of fairness and justice. We had many wonderful conversations and came to discover how we can fight for the freedoms of all. Kevin was excited to meet with students and also to bring in a climate advocate to speak to students.

Supporting students on C.A.S. Projects

CAS is a key component of the International Baccalaureate diploma program. CAS is also very much aligned with BFS values and mission. As such, we view CAS less with a lens of “fulfilling a requirement” and more as another hallmark of what it means to be a BFS student, one that we hope to extend to other grades in the future. Kevin supports groups of 11th and 12th students with their projects related to the service part of CAS.

Professional development

Kevin co-presented at the Global Education Benchmark Group (GEBG) annual global educators conference. The presentation was entitled, Teaching and Learning for Social Justice, Global Engagement, and Impact With An Arts-Integrated Lens. The goal of this session was to share strategies and examples of arts integration used to build student capacity in understanding global civic engagement, social justice, and social impact. A Learning for Justice framework that calls for creative interdisciplinary collaboration on curricular content was used as a guiding theory, along with arts integration philosophy. Kevin also moderated a panel discussion: Partnering for Intercultural Competence: How Dialogue Unites Global and DEIB Efforts to Improve Our World.

Before arriving at BFS, Kevin was the Director of Global Extensions at Avenues The World School. He deeply enjoys working with young people to activate their global citizenship and develop the core competencies that will enable them to actively, thoughtfully, critically, and ethically engage with the world around them and help make it a more just and sustainable place. He was born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya and encourages everyone to visit Kenya. He loves to travel and is a big fan of football (or what’s referred to as soccer in these parts). He received his BA from Middlebury College and his MA from American University.