Unlike many middle schoolers, when Keishary first walked into her 5th-grade class last year, she was excited. “I felt like woah! I felt so welcomed. Everyone was so nice to me,” she shared.
Keishary is currently a 6th grader at Our Sisters’ School (OSS), a tuition-free middle school (grades 5-8) for girls from low-income communities in the New Bedford, MA, area. For many middle school girls, the ages of 11-14 are a time of tremendous change. Bodies are changing, and social-emotional skills are developing. School can bring both new challenges and more freedom to make individual choices.
What Changes for Girls During the Middle School Years?
Besides the first five years of life, the most rapid brain development occurs during the middle school years. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the brain reaches its full size in adolescence – around age 11 for girls and 14 for boys. But the brain continues to develop throughout the teenage years and into the twenties in areas such as abstract thinking, problem-solving, logic, reasoning, and information processing.
This critical stage in the brain’s wiring coincides with a time when many girls are questioning their abilities, and confidence is decreasing. A 2018 New York Times article, The Confidence Gap for Girls: 5 Tips for Parents of Tween and Teen Girls, stated, “between the ages of 8 and 14, girls’ confidence levels fall by 30 percent.” The demands of these simultaneous phases indicate that girls may need extra support during this pivotal time.
How Can We Increase Confidence in Girls During this Formative Time?
The National Institute of Mental Health says, “challenging academics or mental activities, exercise, and creative activities such as art can help the brain mature and learn.” Research also indicates that engaging girls in challenging activities promotes brain growth and increases confidence. Reaching girls at this critical age of 10-14 is the primary focus for Women’s Foundation of Boston’s (WFBoston) grantee partners, Mother Caroline Academy & Education Center (MCA) and Our Sisters’ School (OSS). These partners are working to create success for middle schoolers through cutting-edge curricula and programs.
Expanding STEAM Education at Our Sisters’ School
Our Sisters’ School empowers students like Keishary to step into the future with valuable life skills and a mindset of achievement and excellence. Their STEAM program (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) integrates with the curriculum perfectly as a project-based course that pushes students to create and develop projects or design challenges that reflect real-world issues.
A recent grant from WFBoston funded a new science teacher position. This role allowed OSS to increase science instruction and connect STEAM activities to the curriculum. This enabled the school to continue offering students innovative learning opportunities, such as their outdoor greenhouse, where hands-on learning happens.
Mother Caroline Academy Creates a Space for Growth
As a tuition-free independent school for girls in grades 3-8 serving traditionally under-resourced Boston neighborhoods, Mother Caroline Academy and Education Center empowers girls to think bigger, bolder, and beyond through educational excellence, leadership development, and community stewardship.
Mother Caroline Academy has created a safe space that fosters social and emotional learning, and a recent WFBoston grant funded the hiring of an Admission and Outreach Coordinator. This position streamlined the admission process, allowing the Academy to accept 15 new students in the 2021-2022 school year.
Advantages of a MCA Education
At Mother Caroline Academy, students understand that learning is a process to be academically equipped for high school and beyond. MCA middle school graduates have shown impressive results as they continue their education.
- The MA statewide high school graduation rate in 2020 was 89%. The rate at MCA was 100%.
- 96% of MCA grads enroll in college (vs. MA rate of 75% in 2018)
- 85% graduate from college within six years (vs. nationwide rate of 63% in 2019)
The Academy also recently learned that two of its alumni were selected out of 16,500 applicants to receive full scholarships to Wellesley College and Williams College!
Tips for Building Confidence in Girls
WFBoston grantee partners Our Sisters’ School and Mother Caroline Academy have established a formula for building confidence in their students. But, as we know, it takes a village. We can all have a role in helping girls succeed. The 2018 New York Times article offered these concrete tips to help middle school girls believe in themselves:
- Trade comfort zone for danger zone – Comfort zones inhibit growth.
Encourage girls to move beyond what they do well and tackle something scary. - Take the fear out of failure – Failure will strike. It’s inevitable, especially when someone is taking risks. It’s essential to learn to move through failure, normalize it, and rebound from it.
- Retrain the brain – The predominantly female trait of rumination kicks in at puberty. However, there’s tremendous evidence that recognizing the way our brains work is the most powerful move we can make toward retraining and rewiring.
- Do it yourself – To make these tips resonate, role model the behaviors of risk and failure.
- Embrace the bumps – This is a directive for more adults than girls. A bumpy path will build more confidence than a smooth one.
What Can You Do?
As we watch girls like Keishary spread her wings and move from adolescence into adulthood, we all can play a role in their success. Through our grantee partners, the Women’s Foundation of Boston has seen that funding programs addressing the needs of middle school girls can change lives. A donation to the Foundation will continue these efforts to create a world where girls and women have the tools and environment they need to thrive.
Laurie H. Glimcher, MD, was named President and CEO of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in 2016. She is also Director of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and the Richard and Susan Smith Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Previously, she was the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean and Professor of Medicine of Weill Cornell Medicine and Provost for Medical Affairs of Cornell University. Dr. Glimcher is a distinguished immunologist, widely renowned for her work in one of the most promising areas of cancer research.
Linda Henry is the CEO of the Boston Globe Media Partners. She is a co-founder of HUBweek, a civic collaboration between the Boston Globe, Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital, and MIT that explores the future being built at the intersection of art, science and technology. Linda is also an early-stage impact investor, an Emmy-Award winning television producer with two shows currently airing, and a community activist. She serves as a director of the Red Sox Foundation, is a trustee of the Liverpool Football Club Foundation, chair of the Boston Globe Foundation, and chairman of the John W. Henry Family Foundation. In addition, she is a founder of the Boston Public Market, serves on the advisory board of MassChallenge, and is on the board of the Engine at MIT. She earned a BS from Babson College and her MS from MIT.
Bekah Salwasser joined the Red Sox Foundation as the Executive Director in January of 2018. She earned her B.A. in Psychology from Brown University and has extensive experience in philanthropy and both professional and semi-professional sports. After four years working as Community Relations Director for the Boston Celtics, Bekah went on to lead Scholar Athletes as its Executive Director, a program that supports public high school athletes with both their athletic and academic achievements. Earlier in her career, Bekah served as a professional soccer player for the Boston Breakers and as Executive Director of the Charlestown Lacrosse and Learning Center.
Kimberly Fay Boucher is a business executive who has driven high performance organizations in technology, consumer products and social enterprise/nonprofit industries over the past 25 years. She is currently the Technology Commercialization Business Leader for the CTO at Analog Devices, where she is responsible for driving new technologies from incubation stages to successful businesses. Kim is also a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where she teaches Disciplined Entrepreneurship in the Martin Trust Center. She holds a BS in Management Industrial Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She is a NCAA Academic All-American Women’s Basketball player and has been inducted into the WPI Hall of Fame.
Ami Kuan Danoff (Co-Founder and CFO) is a private investor and the trustee of a foundation. She is a Harvard Quantum Founder and a member of the Harvard FAS Dean’s Council. Ami earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University in Visual and Environmental Studies and holds a dual master’s degree in Applied Economics and International Finance from the Sloan School of Management at MIT. She was a portfolio manager in global equities at Putnam Investments and co-manager of the Putnam International New Opportunities Fund, and also worked as an international equities analyst at Fidelity Investments.
Christina Heenan Suh holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania in English and Marketing and a master’s from Columbia University. A former management consultant, her work focused on strategy and implementation projects for Fortune 100 clients. She was also an account executive at Hill+Knowlton (WPP) marketing consumer packaged goods. As an Executive Board Member of the Brookline Education Foundation, which funds professional development in the Brookline Public Schools, Christina led their Grant and Oversight Committees. She currently sits on the board of the Brookline Library Foundation and teaches ESL at Rosie’s Place in Boston.
Christina Gordon (Co-Founder and CEO) holds a dual master’s degree in International Finance and Applied Economics from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Boston University and also studied for a joint master’s degree in Women’s Studies and Sociology at Brandeis with a focus on women in the workplace. Christina is a former assistant fund manager and technology industry equity analyst at Wellington Management. She also worked as a stock analyst at Fidelity Investments. She is a trustee of a private foundation, a member of Women Moving Millions and currently sits on the board of Rosie’s Place, a sanctuary for poor and homeless women in Boston.