Jane's Corner

Head's Message: In our small world

I spoke at our opening assembly this September about the limits of individual compassion, a concept inspired by philosopher Martha Nussbaum (trustee and parent of Rachel '91) in her book Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. Hearing about the disaster on the Gulf Coast, and seeing it on live television, immediately prompted our individual and collective compassion. As an institution, we are committed to fostering this compassion through the values intrinsic to community life at CSW. How does The Cambridge School ensure that compassion and empathy develop in our students?

In the immediate sense, we foster compassion by responding as we did to the Katrina disaster. Within days, through the leadership of our Community Service Committee, and its faculty adviser, Joyce Krensky, we raised over $600 at bake sales. In addition, we raised over $350 to purchase school supplies for the Houston public schools, which absorbed over 25,000 people from the disaster. One student, Jessie Lewis '08, spent part of her weekend sorting these supplies and loading them for shipping to Texas. Another two students, Lydia Carmichael '08 and Emily Gui '08, inspired and led a bracelet-making project. They created bracelets made from colored string and a washer to symbolize "building," an apt metaphor for those evacuated from the Gulf area in August.

In the broader sense, we can create space for empathy and compassion by encouraging students to be aware of the world beyond CSW. Later this year, for example, we will hear from a number of our students who chose to pursue service projects or Capstone projects in other countries during this past summer or the coming year, by traveling to South Africa, India, Costa Rica, and Arizona.

In a more foundational way, we develop, and model, caring and compassion through our residential program. Since we create a "24/7" setting for students and dorm parents to live and work together, we form a microcosm of the greater world. This year, our boarding program houses seventy-seven students from six countries and eight states. Our new dean of residential life, Aaron Hirsch, has just entered his second year at CSW, and through his efforts, and those of our admissions office, we are seeing a renewed growth in the size and quality of the program.

Our commitment to the boarding program exists in part because of our belief that it fosters moral and emotional growth, and the social responsibility that CSW stands for. Our boarders who hail from countries outside of the United States bring an additional world view to our community. And, in turn, that view becomes part of our greater understanding. International Student Program Director Joanie Rivera's recent visit, last spring, to Taiwan, and her upcoming visit to Korea this coming May, is yet another sign of our commitment to a global awareness, and a deeper empathy for the lives of our students who come from overseas.

Three times a year all boarders participate in Community Days, designed to build community in the boarding department and to help local organizations such as the Greater Boston Food Bank, Blue Heron Organic Farm, and the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Through service, caring about the environment, and learning to live with people from other cultures and areas of the country, the residential program deepens and emphasizes all that CSW holds dear in its mission.

When I travel to meet alums, I always ask how many boarders are in the room; it is frequently more than half of those gathered. There is a rich pride of ownership exhibited by these alums, many of whom remember a time when day students returned to campus on weekends to join in the activities of "the village." Music, dancing, library study, good food, sports, and conversation all formed a great attraction to local students. These boarders, and the day students, tell stories of the community work they did. The value of service and giving to others has always been strong at The Cambridge School.

The special nature of a Cambridge School education can be defined in many ways. At its core, it asks students to find out who they truly are and to be true to the self they find. Through all our programs, perhaps most intensely in the boarding department, we ask students to plan, negotiate, face challenges, take risks, form relationships, and find ways to give outside of themselves and their small world. We want them to develop, as Nussbaum says, a "properly educated compassion," and we want The Cambridge School of Weston to be the place where they experience the freedom to act on it.

Jane Moulding, Head of School