Viewing art “involves very close looking, but also being open to a variety of ideas,” author and art critic Jed Perl told students. Mr. Perl was on campus as the Melissa Dilworth Gold Visiting Artist. On Tuesday night, Mr. Perl spoke to faculty, parents and alumni at Milton’s “Evening with the Arts,” an event dedicated to Kay Herzog, former English department chair and a champion of the arts at Milton.

During the Visual Arts Assembly, Mr. Perl showed students various works by artists such as Picasso, Corot and Mondrian. He discussed the process of “looking at something with your eyes and then figuring out what you are looking at. There is a back and forth between looking at it and making sense of it.”

Students can make a difference even before they reach voting age, by committing to hold their representatives accountable, said Jill Ashton, executive director of the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women.

“Build a relationship with your elected officials,” she encouraged students. “Know who represents you at all levels of government. Your state representative may remember what it was like to be a high school student, but they have no idea what it’s like to be a high school student in 2018. Your experiences and perspective are unique and significant.”

Students who listen to others, instead of fighting to command the spotlight, are building critical leadership skills—sometimes without knowing it—Army Brigadier General Richard F. Johnson P’19 told Milton students during the Veterans Day assembly.

“When I was your age, I didn’t realize that I had the potential to lead; I didn’t really understand how to model leadership,” Brig. Gen. Johnson said. “If you want to be a leader, you can do that by being a good follower: being a strong leader at times and a team member at others. Generally, the leader listens. They allow other people to express their opinions, they absorb those opinions, and that allows them to form their own.”

On Wednesday morning, Upper School students participated in The Defamation Experience, an interactive, theatrical performance and discussion centered around a fictional courtroom drama involving a civil defamation case. Using the context of a legal trial, the cast navigated issues including race, class, gender and religion, culminating in deliberation and a decision in which students participated as jurors. The post-show discussion, led by a trained facilitator, provided the opportunity to engage in civil discourse around issues of identity, inclusion, justice and our connection as people.

Understanding the differences between gender and sex is key to creating a more welcoming and inclusive world, said Jennifer Bryan, a nationally recognized expert in gender and sexuality diversity.

Sex is biological, assigned at birth according to a baby’s anatomy, while gender refers to certain cultural or social attributes, Dr. Bryan said. Both exist on spectrums: a person’s gender may be male, female, some combination of both, fluid, or neither; biologically, people are born with reproductive systems, hormones and genetics that indicate male or female sex, or some combination of both.

More than 400 Class III and IV students and their advisors fanned out across Milton and surrounding neighborhoods to participate in community service at a variety of locations. Students did yard work at Milton Hospital, prepared lunches at Father Bill’s shelter, harvested food at the Urban Farming Institute, landscaped at the Franklin Park Zoo, and helped out at the Hebrew Senior Life Center and in classrooms at the Taylor Elementary School, to name just a few.

The day was organized by Community Engagement Programs and Partnerships (CEPP), which seeks to instill and support a passion for service learning in Milton Academy’s students, faculty and staff. On average, more than 200 students make weekly commitments to more than 20 different partner organizations in the Greater Boston area. Another 250 students participate in multi-annual events such as Special Olympics tournaments, the Red Cross Blood Drive and holiday giving events.