Excellence and quality of experience go hand in hand at Rivers

There are a lot of issues I have with Mark Edmundson’s article “Where Should I Go to College?” – the cynical tone, the thinly disguised objectivity, the simplistic stereotypes, the predisposition to create good guys and bad guys, purity v. impurity – the list goes on.  For Edmundson students are just abstractions to be categorized.  Whatever truth I might think his argument contains, as an educator I refuse to put my students in a box, conveniently label them, and then climb on my high horse of educational purity in the midst of “corporate” slime.”

But as is the case with most arguments that touch a nerve, there is an element of truth in Edmundson’s thesis, and to deny it is equivalent to putting my head in the sand. Education and learning have for many become simply a means to the “good” life, a way to stem the tide of inter-generational downward mobility. Resume-building trumps intellectual curiosity as students feel the pressure to attend the college that will most help them advance their careers.

But the two values – learning for learning’s sake and learning as a means – can be reconciled.  The “good” high school as Edmundson sarcastically refers to it can serve excellence and true learning.  The key component is the value the school places on student quality of experience, students using educational experiences to discover what they love, what they don’t love, what they’re good at, and who they are.  The experience becomes a mechanism for gaining self-knowledge.  I see this happen all the time at Rivers because quality of experience is one of the critical values that defines “Excellence with Humanity.” 

I am the first to agree with Edmundson that too many schools produce “achievement machines.”  But I refuse to dismiss those students who, through experience, have come to realize that they are practical learners, that they want to see how the ideas in the classroom become relevant in the real world. Again, the critical factor is schools focusing on quality of experience as well as excellence, the journey as well as the result.  Please don’t tell me that the two are irreconcilable; they are both on full display at Rivers every day – the really smart kid who loves to bake and is encouraged to start a bakery stand at the local farmer’s market, the kid whose imagination is sparked by an assembly on robots and within a year the school has a robotics club and a computer science program, the kid who finds a talent for acting and is encouraged by her drama teacher to “go for it” and apply to acting schools. Yes, “excellence” can be perverted without the emphasis on quality of experience, but excellence plays a critical role in helping young people discover who they are and what they are good at – a sometimes painful but often ultimately rewarding journey. The key is that the school has to value quality of experience and its necessary sidekick, relationships, so that students know that they are valued beyond what they achieve.

Innovative thinking pays dividends

One of my favorite expressions is “best idea wins.” When I use it at faculty meetings, it’s not to challenge teachers to go beyond the standard syllabus or class activity to try something different in the classroom. I challenge them to really think outside the box, to find new and better ways to teach and mentor our students.

This summer, that spirit of innovation has paid off for two of our teachers who have been recognized outside of our own Rivers community for their groundbreaking ideas. I am so proud that the programs they conceived of and implemented at Rivers have gained the respect of top universities and institutions.

In June, Kate Wade’s RISE program for 10th graders helped earn her a $20,000 fellowship toward her master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania. The Gardner Carney Leadership Institute presented her with their first ever cgLi/Penn Fellowship in Pedagogy of Leadership, citing her “outstanding work in building the RISE program at Rivers.”

Shortly after that, Julian Willard, founder and chair of our Interdisciplinary Studies Department, was appointed a research fellow at Yale University's Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics as well as a visiting scholar at The Hastings Center, the premier center for bioethics research in this country.

These four institutions are the best of the best in the fields of leadership training and interdisciplinary studies. It’s wonderful that Kate and Julian will have the opportunity to expand their own horizons among like-minded academicians (they’ll both continue teaching at Rivers!).

Kate and Julian are just two of our many teachers who thrive on finding a better way to achieve their goals. Dave Burzillo’s BIG History course was a prototype for the Gates Foundation’s curriculum for teaching history online anywhere in the world. Our 21^st Century Focus Group – Rivers’ think tank – meets regularly to explore what’s new in education and to look for ways to take the best of those ideas and make them work even better at Rivers.

So when I suggest “best idea wins,” I never know what might happen, but I do know it will be exciting to watch it unfold.

Be Open to the Possibilities

This is always a bittersweet time of year at an independent school – for students, for parents, and, yes, for faculty, staff, and administration. We are in full swing with breakfasts, dinners, awards ceremonies, and finally graduation itself. It’s hard to believe that we are sending off another group of kids, some of whom have been here for seven years, more than a third of their lives. They are full of such hope and promise for the future and can’t begin to imagine all the possibilities that lie ahead of them in the next four years, and beyond.
 
What makes it easier to send them on their way is knowing they are heading into the world well equipped to face its challenges. We can say that because we continue to see the “possibilities” that have become “realities” for our own young alumni who are now graduating from college or have been out in the world for a few years.

Jillian Dempsey ’09 is returning to speak to our athletes during our varsity award evening. She has just graduated from Harvard where she was a classics major and their top female hockey player. She was chosen for the All-Ivy and All-ECAC teams, was 12^th in the nation for goals per game, and will be training this summer to try out for the U.S. Olympic team. What an inspiration to our kids who are always trying to find a balance in their busy lives.
 
Another college grad this year, Ian Brownstein ’09, just garnered a fistful of top awards at Brown – magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Outstanding Senior Award in Mechanical Engineering, membership in the Engineering, Scientific, and Humanities and Social Sciences Honors Societies. His honors thesis combined his love for archeology (which he honed during a dig in Egypt this winter) and mechanical engineering (which he’ll pursue in Caltech’s PhD program in the fall). Talk about seeing the possibilities and making them realities.

I’ve talked with dozens of other young alums at campus events during the spring and have been so impressed by their myriad pursuits and accomplishments across every field – non-profit, financial, entrepreneurial, legal, educational, medical. We even have a brain surgeon-in-training! We can’t help but be proud of the role we’ve played in shaping their lives.

My hope for our seniors is that they will keep their eyes open, embrace the “possibilities,” and believe that they, like the hundreds of Rivers alumni before them, will create a fulfilling “reality” for themselves.

Coming of Age in Today’s World

I watched the movie, Mud, this past weekend. It's a modern day coming-of-age story set in Arkansas. The main character, a 12-year-old boy, tenaciously holds onto his romantic vision of true love and the sacrifices one should make to achieve that vision. He does this despite the "reality" that surrounds him – his parents’ failed marriage, a "girlfriend" who ignores him, and adults seeking revenge. It’s not necessarily a great movie, but I'm a sucker for coming-of-age stories (I love Huck Finn). I love stories in which young people change as a result of adventures, who by all rights should become damaged goods as a result of these adventures, and yet refuse to give up on the perfectibility of humankind. These stories are the best!

So here's my question – can a young person in suburban Boston have a coming-of-age experience today? Does a 12-year-old in a private school or a suburban public school have enough freedom to actually have a transformative adventure? Are there any Huck Finns out there? We have scheduled our children, tethered them to our cell phones, and planned their lives to the n^th degree so there's no room for adventure. The only adventure they see is in the movies or maybe a book. Will global competition, the internet, and hyper-connectivity squeeze out the coming-of-age story? I don't know, but I am worried.

Reacting to Tragedy Together

I just witnessed an amazing thing. Rivers faculty, students, and staff gathered this morning for a forty-minute assembly to honor the victims of yesterday's horrible tragedy in Boston. After a few introductory remarks, we let individual members of the community speak. Most who spoke were students. They were amazing! They talked about their fears, about the need to tell those that we love that we indeed love them, about the strength we need to fight hatred with love, about the need to support each other. Before we filed out in silence to gather at the flagpole, I told the students that I was blown away by their love and wisdom. It was a great Rivers moment, filled with honest emotion and reflection. As three students lowered the flag to half-mast, I prayed for their safety and silently thanked them for their willingness to share and be vulnerable. It is in that vulnerability that we find connection to others and strengthen our community. 

Taking Stock

I recently read an article in The New York Times by Camille Sweeney and Josh Gosfield who proposed that a company's ultimate success often rests with its leader's willingness to step back, examine, and reset, if necessary, the company's basic assumptions and goals. For them, self-examination is seen not as a sign of weakness, but one of confidence and creativity.

At Rivers we are spending this academic year conducting a self-study as the first step in the school's re-accreditation. Committees of faculty and staff have closely examined everything from the curriculum to the administrative structure. A summary document of our findings will be reviewed by an outside committee of educators, including the heads of Greenwich Academy and Milton Academy, and they will make their own recommendations to Rivers next fall.

I have been most interested in the results of the recent surveys that our students, parents, and alumni have taken the time to thoughtfully answer, because, as our “customers,” they are the true measure of whether or not we are fulfilling our mission to educate knowledgeable and compassionate leaders of tomorrow.

Across the board, each of these groups placed the relationships between student and teacher in the highest regard. It has been, and always will be, our first and foremost goal – what sets us apart as a community – to teach, coach, and mentor our students as unique individuals.

Students also praised our strong sense of community that provides a safe, comfortable, and accepting environment. Alumni felt that Rivers had prepared them well for college, with dynamic faculty and strong academic support as key to their success.

As we move forward, we’ll use the surveys and self-study reports to chart Rivers’ future course. Already we’ve begun to address areas where we can do more. Our recent Day of Consideration grew out of the study’s finding that we as a community need more opportunities to discuss and celebrate not only what brings us together, but what makes us different. Throughout the day, students and faculty met in workshops to discuss everything from stereotypes in music to experiencing a major loss. Our hope is that, having initiated these conversations, we’ll be more inclined to talk about these topics in our daily lives.

I am excited to see where our self-study takes us. It is a great opportunity to enhance what we already do well and improve those areas that will make us an even stronger community of learners.

Service Above and Beyond

One of my most deeply held beliefs is that if we graduate students from Rivers who are great academicians, great athletes, or great artists, but who are not great human beings, then we have failed as an institution. Key to achieving that goal is instilling in our students a genuine sense of caring for their fellow man, whether it is helping a fellow student with a math concept or running a campus road race for financial aid.

Sure, we have a minimum requirement for community service for graduation, but so many of our students go far, far beyond those 30 hours. Beginning in Middle School, leadership and community service are linked together as a natural extension of our definition of leadership – to be your best self and positively influence others. Middle School leadership days are often structured around service activities. That intertwining continues in the Upper School, where a key component of the Grade 10 RISE program is for each student to reflect on what he or she feels passionate about and then initiate a service project to address that issue.

Fifteen juniors just spent the first week of winter break in New Orleans participating in a rebuilding project in that still-devastated city. One of our juniors has actually founded her own non-profit organization to help bring education to young African girls – I don’t know many adults with that kind of drive. There are the Middle School programs in conjunction with the Natick Service Council, the Special Olympics run by our tenth graders, the Rivers Givers fundraising efforts to support local youth and teen outreach programs – the list goes on and on.

What I’m most pleased by – and what makes me believe we are doing something right – is the genuine enthusiasm I sense in our students. They are becoming the caring human beings we need for the future.

Click here to read more about the recent service trip to New Orleans.