Jane's Pocket Change: Community In Action
Last Friday and on Tuesday our campus received a hundred plus visitors; families making their decision about next year: Where will I attend high school? It’s an impressive community effort pulling together to organize these revisit days.
Thank you Trish Saunders, Jess Kim, David Mountcastle, Melisa Kjellander, Denise Santa Maria, Linda Dauphinee and Jennifer Weeden P’16 for making them happen so well, and so seamlessly. These hours spent talking to prospective families, answering their questions and helping them “trust” the decision they are often still grappling with are, of course, valuable and worthwhile for us all. For many of us, listening to the opinions of our colleagues, our current students and their parents is a deeply gratifying learning experience.
One parent on the panel discussed the concept of “connectedness.” Students feeling connected to the greater purpose of the school, to their peers and to their teachers. These connections form the basis of success for students in school, ensuring the kind of safety that promotes healthy risk-taking and intellectual exploration. Other parents discussed how hard it was to leave their daughter or son in September and perhaps not talk to them for 48 hours—advice they were given by our dorm parents in order to let their child settle in a bit to their new surroundings. Several current families talked about the respect and kindness their children experience at CSW and how those base-level values give them as parents, comfort, while affording their children sometimes for the first time, a deep love of school that allows them to excel personally.
After one of the panels a couple of visitors asked me: So how do you create this kind of community; this place of kindness and respect? I answered by saying that I thought everyone here made a conscious choice to be here—teachers are attracted to the fact that they can design courses that connect to their passions; students make a deliberate choice to shift to a school like ours, one where they see that their “gift” will make a difference. And then the community magic happens; that’s our secret sauce, the power of the individuals within the community. I asked one of the visitors how we can measure our success; he replied: not until your students are out of school and even perhaps college. What kind of human beings have they become?
Thanks, CSW, for all your hard work during these days. Thanks for showing the kind of community we are, deeply, wisely and well.
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Pocket Change is a web diary written by Jane Moulding, head of school.
The Cambridge School of Weston is a progressive high school for day and boarding students in grades 9–12 and PG. CSW's mission is to provide a progressive education that emphasizes deep learning, meaningful relationships, and a dynamic program that inspires students to discover who they are and what their contribution is to their school, their community and the world.