Upper School

As another school year comes to a close, and as I prepare, for the last time as Head of the Upper School, to say goodbye to another class, I find myself reflecting often upon both my 11 years in this position and my three decades in the teaching profession. Such a trek down memory lane is interesting and revealing, leading me to think much about the changes that have occurred both here and in the world of education at large.

The last 11 years have not always been easy, but I think we have navigated the ever shifting waters in fine fashion. Initiating new programs, expanding and strengthening existing ones, we have achieved much in the Upper School, as a talented and dedicated group of teachers with whom I have been proud to work has served our students in an exceptional fashion.

At the same time, challenges abound, none greater, in my view, than the ongoing battle to keep the focus on the process aspect of teaching and learning, to stay true to the idea that educational success is not truly or meaningfully measured in scores or college lists, but rather in the growth and development of the student as a person, in the curiosity that is aroused, the discipline that is instilled, the determination and resilience that are discovered, and the independence and the confidence that are developed.

Indeed, I have long said that in my view we do not graduate English students, math students, etc., but rather people, people prepared for college and hopefully the world beyond. In that way my new role represents a continuation and a reaffirmation of what we have been trying to do, for while it is still very much in the planning stages, I envision my new position as Director of Civic Engagement to be one that at least in part is about developing and coordinating new opportunities and programs that will further develop the people side of our students, making them ever more ready for the world in which they will live and to which they must contribute. Whether it is as an informed, knowledgeable, and thoughtful participant in a democratic system, or getting out and volunteering in ways that allow for others to have opportunities we all too often take for granted, we will seek to better develop that aspect of our students as they move into the next stages of their lives.

As teachers we are, of course, only a part of an ongoing process, involved at only one stage of a life long journey. But it is a distinctive process, an aspirational one that leaves our hopes dashed as often as they are realized. That is a reality of this most human of enterprises. And yet, for me, and I would venture to guess for pretty much all of my colleagues, it is that humanity that makes it all worthwhile. Indeed, in the end, as it has been for me for over 30 years, regardless of the title or the specific responsibilities, the meaning and satisfaction that comes from working in education, in being a teacher, is in knowing you that you touched a life and made a difference. As a college counselor for two decades, as a longtime AP teacher, I can go back in the records and pull up scores and look at lists that offer a view, from a small, very limited perspective, of my former students’ work. But from where I sit and from what I value, they do not begin to compare to the graduation announcements I periodically receive, or even more tellingly to the wedding invitation I received last week from a former student. That invitation, a reconnection after many years, was a reminder — not that I will ever forget her — but even more an affirmation, that I had made a connection with, and had an impact on, someone’s life.

In the end it is that — not scores, not college lists, not GPAs, not career preparation — which is the truly telling feedback and evaluation. The connections are the best and most meaningful evidence of how well we are doing what we seek to do. Happily, I can say with pride that not only do we do it pretty darn well, but we are committed to continuing to do so.

This post was written by Zoe Welsh, Upper School Science Department Chair

The question:  “What is going on in the Upper School Science Department?”

The answer:  “A lot!”

This week, I wanted to see what sorts of activities were occurring in my colleagues’ classes, so I set off with my Android phone to observe and record some of the action.

Monday:

In Noell Egeland’s Honors Biology classes, students were observing leaves and making fingernail polish impressions of them to count the number of stomata present.  They viewed these impressions under the microscope and compared them to prepared slides of other plants to determine if there were any trends in the number and location of stomata.

Tuesday: 

Mimi Lieberman and her APES students set off with water sampling equipment and visited Falls

Lake Dam today. Normally a very eutrophic location, she said that today the water was pretty clear. The students looked like they had fun doing some off-campus experimentation!

Meanwhile, back on campus, Nelson Nunalee had his physics students out in the hall with chairs, ramps, meter sticks and tennis balls. What could have been a chaotic scene was, instead, quite focused as the students gathered data on the force of friction exerted as a tennis ball rolls across carpet.

Wednesday: 

Great balls of fire! Oh, no, it was just Susann Heckman’s classes doing a lab called the
“Iron Marshmallow!” Students were able conceptualize combustion of iron in the presence of oxygen to form Iron (III) oxide. With all the proper safety protocol in place, the students seemed to enjoy their chemistry campfires!

Thursday:  

Today I didn’t have to travel far to see science in action. My AP Biology students designed and set up a multi-day experiment to measure rates of transpiration. They decided what variables to test and set forth answering questions and collecting data. College Prep Biology students are also currently studying plants and it’s fun that all three biology levels are enjoying botany at the same time!

Things looked interesting in John Karny’s Honors Chemistry classes today, so I popped in and saw many of the students elbow deep in water as they collected butane in a submerged graduated cylinder. They then worked towards finding the molar mass of butane by determining its volume, temperature, and pressure.

I had an awesome week seeing our students utilize their critical thinking skills and collaborate with each other during their science classes.  My only regret is that I didn’t get a chance to see John Dover, Chris Kelly, or Mike Murphy in action. Of course, there’s always next week …

This post includes Head of Upper School Bill Pruden’s remarks at today’s Upper School assembly honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – courtesy upenn.edu

Good morning. In advance of Monday’s holiday, we are here today to honor the life and legacy of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  I know that to many of you he is just another in the collection of dead people whose long ago actions make up history.  But he was and is so much more. Indeed, for us at Ravenscroft in 2013, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life serves as a beacon for what we are trying to do, for his efforts offer an unparalleled example of leadership, but leadership that was in fact dedicated to ensuring real opportunities for civic engagement and the exercise of the rights and responsibilities central to the unique democratic system in which we live.

As a historian, I have studied King’s life and as a teacher I have shared the lessons it offers, but my interest is not simply academic. Rather, I am a member of the generation that he impacted directly. His efforts changed my world and his example and his quest for social justice influenced the path I chose. As a result, I want today to share a little bit of my story, because, as Emerson, once said, “There is properly no history, only biography,” and as insignificant, in most ways, as my own biography is, as I stand before you today preparing to oversee my final semester as Upper School Head, my story, one that unfolded in the shadow of King’s efforts, not only illuminates some of his legacy, but also helps explain my excitement at the opportunity to encourage and develop a new generation of “citizens,” with all that title connotes. I will be honest with you, my story is different from what you heard last week in this arena, but nevertheless, I ask you to bear with me for a few moments as I delve into my own past in the hope of influencing your future.

From a purely chronological standpoint, my early life paralleled the civil rights movement that King led while also reflecting the very real divide that was America in the mid-1950s through the 1960s, the world that the Kerner Commission characterized in 1968 as a “nation … moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” I grew up in what was, for its time, a quintessential commuter suburb in northern New Jersey, less than twenty miles outside New York City. All white and predominantly Protestant, I did have a few Catholic friends, but I was only aware of it because they had to go to catechism every Thursday afternoon—an activity that intruded upon our daily afternoon pick-up games — and because if we had a sleepover on Friday nights, we could never eat meat—although that had its upside since it was how I was first introduced to pizza—plain, sometimes with extra cheese.

Growing up my greatest love was sports, but beyond the games, sports did much to make me aware of the broader world in which I lived. The path-breaking NCAA basketball victory of Texas Western’s all black starting five in 1966, and the courageous acts of protest by Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics, did as much to heighten my awareness of the racial tensions that characterized 1960s America as any of the standard news reports of the era. Too, Sandy Koufax’s decision to sit out the opening game of the 1965 World Series in observance of Yom Kippur did much to further my understanding of Judaism.  These snippets gave me some awareness of the broader, more diverse world that lay beyond my suburban enclave. But going away to a boarding school, a little north of Boston, opened my eyes to a very different world.  Indeed, it was a transformative experience. Suddenly I, whose lilywhite Christian community of Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, had been rocked when the first Jewish families moved in late in my elementary school career, found myself in a freshmen class of about 130 students in a high school of over 800 males from all over the nation and the world. Coming from a wide range of races, religions, ethnic, and socio-economic backgrounds, we were united only in our desire for a high quality education and in our effort to survive challenges, in most cases unlike anything we had ever before experienced. And yet, it brought home a central truth: that despite coming from a diverse set of backgrounds, our shared pursuit of the same goals and the same dreams highlighted our common ground, making our similarities far more important than our differences. As a community we functioned far better when we focused on those commonalities rather than on our differences. Of course on the national scene things were happening that showed that such sentiments did not always translate smoothly.

Courtesy http://philly360.visitphilly.com

In fact, the election in 1968 of Richard Nixon as President seemed to promise a rollback of the advances that had been achieved earlier in the decade by the King-led civil rights movement. Yet my new school offered stark evidence of the changing American landscape when in the spring of 1969, we elected 3 African-American students as our class presidents for the coming year, an act that earned national attention, including an article in The New York Times.  Calling Andover “one of the most prestigious of the elite prep schools” they quoted my class president, Ed McPherson, who said “The fact that they would elect us shows how the old traditional values are breaking down around here.”  He added, “Young whites are beginning to answer questions about the system and the roles assigned to blacks that their parents wouldn’t even ask.” Perhaps reflective of being in the middle of it, I saw this event less as history than as the election of a friend, one of my track teammates.

Soon afterwards I received another lesson in my personal, ongoing real world education, one that illustrated clearly what my classmate had said about our generation answering questions that our parents wouldn’t even ask. I spent the summers of my high school years working at a private tennis club on Martha’s Vineyard Island. Ironically, given what was to transpire, the Vineyard was and remains today an exclusive summer retreat for some of the nation’s African-American elite, but when a member of the club I was working at sought — unsuccessfully — to sponsor a black for membership I quickly became aware of the divide that had long characterized race relations on the Vineyard. In fact, I received a preview earlier, before things reached the really divisive stage, when on a hot Saturday morning, a young black man about my age came wandering into the club and said he was looking for his parents who, like mine, were inside the clubhouse at an area homeowner’s meeting. We got talking and I soon learned that he played tennis regularly on the town’s public courts and so as the homeowners’ meeting broke up and our parents emerged, I invited him to come back that afternoon to play, and a few hours later Les Hailing, Jr., and I played tennis in a match that seemed no different from any of the hundreds of others that I had played on those sun baked clay courts. Across the net from me stood a person very much like me, a student at a boarding school, the son of a dentist (indeed, we learned later that our fathers had been lab partners in a summer course they had taken years before), a tennis player. Yes, there were differences.  My backhand and serve were stronger, but his cross court forehand kept me constantly on the run. And indeed, reflective of the leveling effect of sports, those things — and not the color of our skin — were what mattered as we proceeded to play under the mid-day sun, enjoying the camaraderie and competition that we shared.

A day or two later I was told that my opponent was probably the first black to ever play on the club’s courts, and before I knew it that afternoon became a symbol and the place where I had learned to play tennis became a battleground, as well as a classroom for lessons about civil rights — racial and religious — about my parents and their friends, about the innocence of children and the cowardice of adults, about where one will take a stand, and when talk is cheap. The details are not uninteresting, but a bit cumbersome for this venue.  Suffice it to say that the lessons were at once life changing and life affirming. The experience changed my views about many things relating to character, success, opportunity, and equality. The whole episode, one that culminated in my December 1971 appearance in the Massachusetts District Court as the lead witness for the state in a suit brought by the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination against the Tennis Club and its executive board, a body which included my mother, the club treasurer, offered eye opening lessons about the challenges that remained in the quest for equality.

These experiences, coupled with my having worked for over two months in the spring of 1971 as an intern in the Washington office of United States Senator Edmund S. Muskie, then the frontrunner for the 1972 Democratic Presidential nomination, an experience that further fueled my dreams of a career in public service, specifically elective office, left me heading to college determined to pursue a career that would allow me to address the issues that remained all too real in post-Martin Luther King America.

Memorial in Washington, D.C. – courtesy nps.gov

As I said, initially I intended to go into politics, and while I worked on a ground-breaking campaign for one of the first women ever elected to the New Jersey State Senate, and then served as her legislative assistant, the unsuccessful candidacies for local office I undertook while in college—the general consensus within my family is that my mother didn’t even vote for me one time — left me questioning my electability and looking for alternative avenues for service and public engagement. The law soon beckoned, for while Dr. King’s heroic effort embodied leadership of a distinctive kind, the legal efforts of people like Thurgood Marshall and Earl Warren were no less an inspiration, and so it was with that 35 years ago this month, I found myself anxiously checking my mailbox, awaiting the answers from yet another application process, this time to law school—sorry seniors, the end is not necessarily near.

Happily, I was admitted to law school, but before too long I came to the realization that not only did I find the history of the law more interesting then the law itself, but more importantly, that the legal underpinnings so crucial to helping the United States ultimately become the color blind society promised by Thomas Jefferson’s declaration that all men are created equal were, in fact, in place, thanks in no small part to the efforts of many, including Martin Luther King, Jr. But while the laws were on the books, there remained a serious need to address the attitudes that characterized a still evolving nation in its quest for social justice.  It seemed to me that education was the key to taking that next step, and so, desiring to work with young people to achieve those goals, I turned to teaching.

Looking back, it was undoubtedly the right choice, and as a result, except for a brief return to graduate school and a stint as a legislative assistant to a congressman on Capitol Hill in Washington, I have spent the past 30 plus years in education. Over that time I have seen real progress in the areas that first engaged my public consciousness, but I have also been reminded that it is an ongoing process, one that cannot afford to become stagnant and which is, at least in the political context, wholly dependent on the engagement of the people it serves, for the distinctive system under which we operate, one best described by the cinematic man of the hour, Abraham Lincoln, as a “government of the people, by the people, [and] for the people,” is dependent upon “we the people” from whom its authority and legitimacy stems.  Whether it is the holder of high office or the solitary voters who turn out every year to have their say, our system is a singularly human endeavor, powered by citizens to serve citizens.

Indeed, over a lifetime studying our political process one of the things that has been most striking is the humanity of those citizens — at all levels.  The opportunity to see many public officials in private times has reminded me that while they may too often be defined by their titles or their offices, they are at base, people doing the best they can because they had a commitment to service and believed in something greater than themselves, and yet that commitment had a price. Indeed, on one of the last days of my internship, as Senator Muskie and I posed for the traditional exit photograph, I wished him good luck in his presidential quest while confiding that I, too, wanted to go into politics. Etched in my memory is the weary look that engulfed his face as he murmured softly, “I’d think about that a while first.”

Through immense good fortune, that was only the first of such personal encounters. Writing my college thesis on the failed Muskie presidential campaign, my research led to interviews with over 30 prominent political office holders and support staff, many of whom later served Presidents Carter and Clinton. Luminaries including Senator Gary Hart who came into his office on a holiday to meet with me; future Secretary of State Cyrus Vance who treated me with kindness, candor, and humanity, encouraging my scholarship, adding to my political education, and fostering my commitment to public service; and James Johnson, later a top aide to vice president Mondale patiently spent almost two hours with me on a pair of telephone interviews — one the day after Thanksgiving — discussing his efforts with the Muskie campaign.

Politics is often called a contact sport, and many of the people admitted finding the interviews difficult, forcing them to dredge up painful memories of a disappointing experience, but they were all unfailingly kind and forthcoming — using the sessions as a form of catharsis, while also encouraging  my interest in public affairs. Future Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, a Muskie protégé, sat down with me in his brother’s kitchen in Maine, in the midst of a family party on New Year’s Day, 1976, and shared his painful recollections of his time as deputy campaign manager, all the while fending off his brothers who were beseeching him to finish up with “the kid” so he could join them for the annual cribbage competition that was a staple of the family’s holiday gathering. Each encounter served as a testament to the humanity and character that marked their commitments to public service, all the while reinforcing mine.

Happily for me, my thesis was not my only entrée to big time politics.  Service on a committee at Andover allowed me to meet the first President Bush, then the Ambassador to the United Nations and a School trustee, whose every question reflected a deep human concern for the institution he had attended and to which he had sent his sons as well, as well as a respect for our opinions. A few years later, I was asked to fill in as a fourth in a doubles match, only to discover that I was playing with Bush’s 1988 opponent, the then Governor of Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis — and his teenage son — an encounter that was totally apolitical, but which left me genuinely impressed with the governor — as a competitor — and a father. Too, his willingness afterwards to talk politics with an eager student was an act of generosity I have never forgotten.

My year and a half stint as a Congressional legislative assistant in Washington left me with similar impressions as my interactions with people I had previously only seen on the news, offered me an immutable sense of their deep seated patriotism and commitment to the public good, as well as their very real humanity.

In the end, I tell you all of this because, while my political dreams and experiences are best seen in the rear view mirror of my life, what I learned and saw can serve as useful reminders of the sometimes forgotten human side of politics, and even more importantly of the commonalities we share in this democracy, a distinctive system in which office and title aside, we are all equal and we all have an opportunity matched by a responsibility to participate and contribute. Too, they inform deeply my belief in the critical importance of an informed, engaged, and active citizenry, as well as my belief that given its importance to our nation’s very survival, it cannot be left to chance. We cannot assume that, as King did in Montgomery almost 60 years ago, leaders will emerge, and yet that emergence reminds us of the fact that for all the marble statuary that now appropriately honors his efforts and his example, Martin Luther King, Jr., like the greatest of our leaders, was at base an individual, a citizen who stepped up, who engaged, who saw beyond himself, serving and leading at a time that it was needed. At the same time, his untimely death left an unfinished agenda, a fact that should serve as both a reminder and a challenge to each of us to do the same — in whatever way we best can — now at a time when it is again, needed.

Civic engagement is a broad concept and certainly it is about more than just politics, but as Martin Luther King Jr.’s own life demonstrated, politics does matter — greatly. Indeed, while King started on the streets of Montgomery and died preparing to march in the streets of Memphis, in between he was a powerful influence in the halls of Congress and in the White House where he played a crucial role in the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts.  Yet however you define it, what is really important is that you make it a part of your life.

Over 50 years ago, in his Inaugural Address, President Kennedy proclaimed that the torch had been passed to a new generation of Americans.  That torch continues to be passed — and you are now that new generation of Americans and so, as we recognize and honor the work of Martin Luther King, Jr., I urge to take it up and honor his legacy by committing yourselves to a life that serves a greater good.

Standing up for Project Purple

This post was written by Dr. Susan Perry, Upper School Counselor.

Chris Herren, former NBA player, recovering addict, and founder of Project Purple (www.theherrenproject.org) addressed grades 8 through 12 last Friday for an hour-and-a-half in the Finley Center.

The Project Purple concept was developed when Chris spoke at a high school in 2011 and the front row of students were wearing purple shirts. After Chris shared his story, one of the students wearing a purple shirt raised her hand and stood up to speak. As snickering and laughter could be heard throughout the auditorium, the student said, “Thank you Mr. Herren for validating what we do. We are the sober students of this high school and each year we take a pledge to not use drugs or alcohol.”

Chris was captured by the courage it took to not only stand up and share the symbolism of the purple shirts, but was inspired to make a difference among adolescents across the United States. Ravenscroft students now have the opportunity to join Project Purple as well.

Chris Herren’s presentation last Friday marks the third community event this school year where students had the opportunity to learn about the dangers of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use. Dr. Libby Cataldi and her son, Mr. Jeff Bratton, visited campus in September. Judge Robert Rader addressed the Upper School in November. These three programs are part of our alcohol and drug prevention education program adapted for Ravenscroft through our consulting work with Freedom from Chemical Dependency (www.fcd.org). Children and adolescents are most likely to make responsible choices about alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use when they are:

(1) Presented with accurate information.

(2) Respected and listened to.

(3) Given clear, consistent expectations for behavior.

(4) Exposed to positive role models, and rewarded for choosing to live drug free.

The Ragin’ Ravens show their support for Project Purple after hearing Mr. Herren speak.

A preventative, proactive, community and health-oriented school environment regarding alcohol and drug prevention education complements our unfolding leadership and citizenship initiative. Some of our students will have the opportunity to talk about these challenges and others on Jan. 23 when selected students and faculty from Forsyth Country Day and Durham Academy will join us on our campus as part of a leadership summit titled: “Leading Self, Leading with Others: Living Respectfully on our School Campuses.”

I welcome your feedback, either on this blog, via email at sperry@ravenscroft.org, or in person (919-861-2116, ext. 2715).

This point in the calendar year always offers us a valuable opportunity to reflect on the core aspects of what we do, especially in the academic arena. While the current members of the Upper School community are starting exams, with each passing day more and more alums return with tales of their experiences, reports that invariably reflect well on the preparation they have received.

Of course, for a teacher there are few things more meaningful or gratifying than to have a former student talk appreciatively of how prepared they feel. And yet their mere presence, their taking the time to return to campus, to seek out and talk with a former teacher is itself a testament to the relationships that are so central to the educational process. Indeed, my own daughter, only days away for her first visit home since August, asked for specifics about the exam schedule, not out of concern for her freshman brother, who is undertaking his first set of exams, but rather in an effort to determine when the teachers she wanted to visit would be available.

It is interesting to see how it plays out, for we all know that our efforts are never undertaken in a vacuum. Whether it be the college application process, or the debates about what we should be teaching, or the ongoing discussions about the very nature of the role of education in modern society, we are regularly reminded of the fact that education is a process, often a highly personal one, played out against a bigger context.  Yet individually, at any given point in time, each student is in the midst of his or her own educational journey, punctuated on the one hand by a number of specific dates like application deadlines or exam periods, but on the other hand progressing through the more variable stages of individual growth and development. None offers a definitive measurement or assessment of where they are or what the value of their education truly is or will be, but each contributes to the distinctive role that an education can play in our becoming who we are. All of these impressions are reinforced when alumni return, demonstrating in the most human and individual ways as they continue to grow and build upon their Ravenscroft experience.

Indeed, all of the visits and stories from alums, coming as they do against the backdrop of exams and for many seniors a first wave of college news — both positive and not so positive — also serve to highlight both the intensely human dimension of the process. Often the visits with teachers are borne of a desire to reconnect with an adult in a way that is far less common at the collegiate level, a fact that is often discussed in the college counseling process. If we have done our jobs — as both educators and as parents, then we have prepared these young people to be independent, to be self-advocates, and to be able to navigate in the now foreign waters of their college community. The lack of that same community feel, the lesser connections, and the different relationships are something we hear about on a regular basis.

In the end, whether as parents or teachers it is a challenge. I have said on many occasions that we seek to develop and graduate people, not English or history or math students, but people, and the relationships that are central to that fact are also a major part of what makes this experience distinctive and about which they will reflect fondly in the years ahead. Especially at this time of year, it is so important to appreciate our young people for who they are and to treasure the relationships we have with them.   Happy Holidays!

This post was written by Dr. Susan Perry, Upper School Counselor

A strong, mission-based advisory program can provide an enriching learning experience that is rewarding for students and faculty. The emphasis that some Schools, like Ravenscroft, place on character education programs is arguably one of the most unique and distinctive aspects of a private independent school education. Parents know that is vitally important to their child learn to define him or herself, take responsibility for decisions, and create, maintain, and develop meaningful relationships. Developmentally, the Upper School years are some of the most formative a young person will experience in laying a critical foundation for exploring those questions. At Ravenscroft, our commitment to making our advisory program a priority is gaining momentum, and it is strengthened by our strategic vision to design and implement a broad-based, pre-Kindergarten through grade 12 leadership and citizenship initiative.

The ninth grade orientation retreat, held for the first time in August was co-created with the Center for Creative Leadership to:

• Assist families in becoming familiar with their Upper School faculty advisor
• Learn more about academic and co-curricular activities and schedules
• Meet a member of the senior or junior class who could serve as a “buddy” for the first couple of weeks
• Introduce the first concepts of our leadership and citizenship initiative.

The entire Upper School was then introduced to the leadership and citizenship framework, which has three main spheres of focus:  leading self, leading with others, and changing your world.

Throughout the first semester, advisory groups organized discussions around questions related primarily to the first sphere of leading self. Exploring the question “How do I begin to lead my life?” offered our students an opportunity to establish academic, co-curricular, and social goals for the first semester.

Students also discussed their level of commitment to those goals, what would they have to sacrifice in order to reach those goals, whether the goals were reasonable, which aspects of those goals they would be responsible for, and how their families and faculty advisors could offer support. After establishing direction, alignment and commitment toward that vision, first semester common periods allowed time for students to broaden the conversations around those topics.

Some of these common periods included the chance to:

• Learn about the advantages of studying abroad
• Talk with a self-proclaimed ‘off the grid outdoorsman’
• Speak with an award-winning author
• Process the poignant story of a mother and son relationship ravaged by the dangers of addiction
• Discuss and diagram a snapshot of their own current social identity
• Listen to the experiences of a recent alum who completed a program with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), and
• Consider the changes in laws regarding underage drinking and driving

In the spring, we will continue to expand our conversations about leading self and leading with others with the purpose of co-creating an evaluative rubric that will allow students to participate in framing the description of behaviors we will associate with leadership and citizenship competencies.

This important foundational year for Ravenscroft’s Upper School advisory program will be the platform for a  developmentally appropriate, mission based, grade 9-12 program that will be fully ready for implementation in the fall of 2013.

With the 2012 election right around the corner, it is hard not to do some serious thinking about the nature of leadership. Too, the fact that we are in the midst of efforts to develop and implement our strategic initiatives on leadership and citizenship makes it an issue that resonates on multiple levels in the Ravenscroft community.

Of course any frank discussion about leadership makes clear how elusive an issue it can be. Styles differ, results can be debated, and the judgment about good and bad can often say far more about those being led than about those doing the leading. It is something of a conundrum, for while we are increasingly told that everyone can be a leader, others ask if everyone is leading, then who is following — a part of the equation that at least historically has always been present. Indeed, leadership can be very elusive — which is probably why great leaders are so valued. It is easy to talk about, easy to profess to be exercising it, easy, in some respects to recognize, and yet how to teach it, how to develop the ability in people, are all major challenges that all of us — whether as educators, citizens, or parents — must confront.

I am currently in the midst of reading a book, Ike’s Bluff, on Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency and in its own way it is a veritable textbook on leadership, offering inspired and insightful examples of sound, informed, broad based, and effective political leadership. And yet interestingly, during the period the book discusses, few were as aware of all that he was doing as they now are, and they were certainly not as appreciative of those efforts.  In a country happily ensconced in the supposed calm and conformity of the 1950s, Eisenhower was seen as a competent, steadying figure, the nation’s benevolent grandfather. As the slogan said, everyone liked Ike, and while he was not his predecessor, Harry Truman, a man whose efforts led one pundit of the time to note that “to err is Truman,” (a judgment of course that history has seen fit to revise), he didn’t have the style of FDR. And yet, in the aftermath of the Great Depression and World War II, his calm demeanor was good enough, perhaps even appreciated, but not much more. As he left office, the nation excitedly turned to his successor, the charismatic John F. Kennedy to recharge the nation’s battery, and get the country moving again, and yet in what direction and at what at what cost, no one could foresee.

And yet in looking back, it has become clear that the peace and prosperity of the 1950s—goals rooted in the broadest of national interest–were not something that we just fell into, nor were they something over which Eisenhower blithely presided.  Rather they were in fact the product of a concerted effort, the exercise of subtle, but highly effective leadership exercised in the uncharted waters of the newly arrived nuclear age.  The degree of prosperity, and especially peace, the nation experienced in those days represented no small accomplishment, but interestingly it has only been with the advent of time that its true value has come to be recognized and appreciated.  In fact, that realization itself says much, for in exercising a leadership style noteworthy for its lack of concern for immediate gratification, much less glorification, Eisenhower operated in a way that is too seldom the norm in our modern world.  Too often today we have no time based perspective. It is all about now.  Immediate tech access and 24/7 news coverage makes patience and perspective things we see in limited quantities.  While much of Eisenhower’s efforts were rooted in the long view, much of modern American life is immediately reactive and we suffer for it.  Whether it is a stock market slide based in the slightest bad economic news or a parent/student panicking at a single bad grade, we have seemingly lost the ability to put things in a longer term perspective, one that history teaches us is not only essential to good leadership but also to growth and progress.  Any study of leadership based in history makes clear the value of that idea.

We live in a paradoxical time.  The need for leadership has never been greater, the critics of our leaders have seldom been louder, and the formal efforts to address them both have never been more intentional. And yet the need is real and so we at Ravenscroft undertake our efforts to develop our companion programs in leadership and citizenship with no small amount of urgency and we hope that as those effort progress you will share your ideas and talents so that we can maximize our work on behalf of all of our students and those they may lead.

As the first quarter comes to an end, as I think back on all our students have done, while at the same time reflecting on all I have written in the course of another round of college applications, I find myself reflecting on what a volatile time it is in the world of education. Locally, daily headlines herald the changes and challenges that have come to characterize the Wake County public schools. Meanwhile scandals and an impending leadership change are front and center in any discussions about the state’s flagship university, UNC-Chapel Hill, while the commentary coming in the aftermath of the death of William Friday, offered a vivid reminder of the incalculable value of strong, principled  leadership to any educational institution. On the national scene, issues relating to education—at all levels—have been getting much attention and lots of heated rhetoric from this year’s round of office seekers, while a college admissions case is already being seen as one of the Supreme Court’s most anticipated rulings cases of the current term.

Meanwhile, Time magazine has just featured a cover article, entitled “Reinventing College”. The Atlantic magazine currently has an issue labeled “Special Education Issue”— one that that includes a scathing indictment of the AP program by a college professor. Interestingly, the article, for all its many insights is tellingly silent about the central role of college admissions offices in the shift away from the original mission of the AP program. In addition, The Chronicle of Higher Education, the leading media voice in the collegiate world, is running a contest offering readers the opportunity to design the college of the future. Of course, as a college preparatory school, these are things of which we must be aware.

Quite simply, it is a challenging time. Schools and teachers are being asked to do more and more, often with fewer and fewer resources. And yet the desired end products of these efforts are increasingly unclear. At the same time, while those pressures often lead to valuable discussions about the very nature of what we do and its role in our students’ lives, the uncertainty can often leave people defensive and uncertain about the value or place of what they do. Isolated and territorial, hunkered down and feeling the need to defend their area, unable or unwilling to see how it fits in an ever changing landscape, one can lose sight of the big picture which in the end still focuses on the most fundamental of small missions—helping young people navigate in and prepare for an increasingly complicated world.

Much of the uncertainty stems from the inability to articulate, indeed to develop, a societal consensus on what a modern education is really about. From one side we hear that it is all about job preparation, while from another we hear about the need to prepare people for jobs that do not yet exist, and from still others we hear about developing people and citizens who can contribute and flourish in an ever changing world.

Ultimately, whatever our own views or perspective may be, we must all be concerned about the state and future of American education as it affects all of us on many levels. Indeed, while, on a daily basis, the teaching and learning process plays out against the backdrop of the culture at large, I would argue that education can and should be a powerful vehicle for shaping the culture, and that as a result, our efforts must, in fact, sometimes be counter-cultural to achieve the success—the most elusive of concepts in the educational world—that we seek.

At a time when the debate over education is being played out on so many levels and in so many venues, this idea, which is really no more than an affirmation of the transformative power of education, is something we would all do well to remember.

With the nominating conventions behind us, the nation now prepares for the final leg of the 2012 Presidential election, a contest which should hold special interest for the independent school world given that for the fourth election in a row, indeed, for the whole of the still fledgling 21^st century, both major party nominees are graduates of independent secondary schools.

Yes, George W. Bush, the Republican nominated winner in 2000 and 2004, is a graduate of Phillips Academy, Andover, while his Democratic opponents, Albert Gore, Jr. and John Kerry, claim St. Alban’s School in Washington, D.C., and St. Paul’s in Concord, New Hampshire, as their respective alma maters. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama is an alumnus of Punahou School in Hawaii, while his Republican opponents, John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney, this year, graduated from Virginia’s Episcopal High School and Cranbrook School in Michigan, respectively.

While this is by no means the first time that independent school products have achieved high public office — Groton alone produced Franklin Roosevelt, Dean Acheson, and Averill Harriman in barely more than a decade — such a confluence is certainly of no small interest, particularly at a time when the cry for more effective leadership is being raised across the land, and more and more schools and colleges are undertaking greater and more intentional efforts to address that need.

This convergence cannot help but resonate with anyone who has an interest in either independent school education or the world of public affairs. As we watch these independent school grads travel along the path to power and leadership many questions arise. To what degree are these men products of their educational experience? Is their ascension to these positions reflective of the final flowering of a service ethos that was begun or nurtured in their school years? Or do these accomplishments reflect an achievement orientation that was further nurtured in school and leaves individuals, in whatever profession they may pursue, unsatisfied until they have arrived at highest the rung on their professional ladder, the brass ring finally in hand?

Too, at a time when there are increasing concerns about the tone of the campaigns and the nature of political discourse, is there some value in reviewing the way our independent school trained candidates are engaging in the process? Is the road to service littered with the sometimes dirty vestiges of the pursuit of power, or is the path one that ennobles the enterprise, inspiring others along the way?

With representatives on both sides of the aisle these are not partisan concerns, but they do raise substantive issues, especially as we consider — whether from an educational or a civics based perspective –the nature of modern elective politics and political leadership. In fact, this election would seem to offer some invaluable opportunities, quintessential teachable moments, from which productive discussions could stem and lessons could be learned, especially in the midst of our ongoing efforts to mold and develop the active and effective leaders and citizens of the future.

These candidates, independent school graduates all, may say much about what we do and about what we aspire to do. Indeed, for those of us in the independent school world, it provides an added lens through which to view this year’s quadrennial celebration of our Constitutional process, as well as to assess the candidates. Do their lives and careers offer us lessons that reaffirm what we are doing or do they present us with a series of cautionary tales? Are we in the independent school community able to bask in reflected glory or do we suffer guilt by association? These are, in their own way, questions that we often ask as we look at each graduating class and each set of returning alums, always wondering what our real impact has been and when it will truly manifest itself.

Such is the nature of education, and yet this year with this interesting confluence of independent school alums seeking power at the highest levels, they are questions that somehow resonate in a little bit different way.

Ravenscroft – Class of 2013

With Parents Night just around the corner and the first week of school safely and happily behind us, the Upper School has gotten off to a strong start. The seniors have done an impressive job of establishing themselves as the student leaders of the school. On the opening days they made their presence felt in a celebratory manner that reflected both their excitement at being seniors but also their understanding that their position as the leaders of the student community has responsibilities that go with it. Thus far they have handled it all with aplomb.

But before the seniors made their presence felt, the faculty was involved in a number of activities aimed at enhancing our efforts to serve this community. Along with the rest of the faculty and staff, the Upper School faculty had chance to connect with the School’s past with a visit downtown to the Christ Church, where we all got an inspiring history lesson from Bruce Miller, one of the school’s most beloved and respected former teachers and administrators, and a man who touched the lives of countless numbers of students and colleagues in a career that spanned decades at Ravenscroft. The faculty also engaged in an all-day workshop conducted by the internationally renowned, Greensboro based, Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), an effort that will resonate through the year as we work to integrate lessons of leadership and citizenship into our program.

CCL also ran a retreat for our freshmen this week in an effort to begin to more fully develop their class identity while also helping in the transition to high school, meanwhile the rest of the Upper School engaged in a day of practical learning and on-campus service. The sophomores, juniors, and seniors were treated to a program on Financial Literacy by Mr. Rick Waechter, an experienced financial consultant who has presented similar programs at some of our fellow independent schools. I must admit, as a father of a daughter who has just taken off for college, I find myself wishing we had done this earlier. It was a well-crafted mix of straightforward, practical information, as well as real-world lessons which will have value for years to come.

Following a big community lunch, we broke done into smaller, usually advisory-based groups and undertook a wide array of projects on campus. There were a few blips and a couple encounters with Mother Nature, which she arguably won, but in general it was a great example of a large part of the School coming together and working together in a way that served the whole community. Indeed, with both the faculty and students regularly using and benefiting from both the facilities and the efforts of others, it was nice to reverse things a little and be a part of those efforts. Overall, the day was a successful culmination of the opening chapter of school, an opening that reflected a theme: “learn from the past, serve the present, and prepare for the future,” that I hope will continue to guide our efforts. Indeed, if we all commit to doing that I think we will have a great year. It has certainly begun that way.