Jane's Corner

Head's Message: Striving for Diversity

A progressive school is a diverse school. A place where diversity of thought, action, background and approaches to problem solving stand at the core of discourse and decision-making. When John French brought The Cambridge School to Weston, he envisioned a community where the active and ongoing engagement of questioning, resourceful minds, was to be at the very center of the necessary and good fight of democratic process. The co-educational boarding and day school that he founded took the principle of building a democratic institution and dug deeply into the land and terrain of Kendall Green. This foundation continued through the work of Dolph Cheek, and the heads that followed him, to the school of today, where our desire to sustain a vibrant school community, where principles of equity and social justice affect the lives of all, is alive and well.

One of the pleasures I experience, as current head of school, is traveling to cities across the country to meet alums and friends of CSW. On a recent trip to Washington, DC, I was able to spend time with several alums of color and talk about the CSW experience. They described how important it was for them to have role models, like Roland Gibson, as their teachers. Roland, who is now president of School and Community Association, Inc., an organization that provides consulting and anti-bias training for schools, taught at CSW from 1969 through 1972, and I was fortunate enough to meet him recently and spend time in conversation. In speaking with Roland, I was reminded of how a school with a diverse population, and programs and structures that support and educate that population, is a strong and vital school. In re-connecting with these voices from our past, we continue to see the critical importance of renewing and sustaining our commitment to diversity.

So what are our aspirations towards creating and maintaining a diverse school? We believe in harnessing all aspects of the school and learning how to integrate the voices of many into all areas of the institution. This year, faculty and staff members have become part of our first SEED training session (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity). Co-led by Judith Tauriac, a member of our admissions office, and Moses Rifkin, a math and science teacher, this group of fourteen has participated in a series of workshops through the course of the year focused on breaking through issues of racism, classism and sexism.. This summer we will fund two additional faculty members to learn how to become workshop leaders, and thus continue this important work next year. The board of trustees has committed to a full day workshop of anti-bias and anti-racism work in their fall retreat; there are also plans to create an ongoing diversity initiative that will support the Committee on Trustees in their efforts to increase representation of racial diversity on the board. At the student level, we continue our partnership with Teen Empowerment, a group dedicated to furthering the dialog between urban and suburban teenagers, by offering sessions and conferences where students from public and independent schools work together, and learn to lead through that partnership. In our admissions efforts we reach out to communities of color in the Greater Boston area. In our hiring, each spring, we participate in hiring fairs that attract candidates of color.

How will we know when we "are there?" It is perhaps more a matter of how we hold ourselves mutually accountable for understanding inequity and injustice, and how to redress the imbalance. Sonia Nieto, Associate Professor of Education at University of Massachusetts, has said that we must engage in "a dynamic process that challenges racism and other forms of discrimination...and affirms pluralism. It should permeate the curriculum and promote democratic principles of social justice. It's not just how people celebrate holidays around the world. It is not just taught from 10 to 11 a.m. on Tuesdays. It's not a class. It is a philosophy. Multicultural education needs to be pervasive. It's an issue of equity, not just changing the curriculum. It means using students' experiences as part of the curriculum."

Perhaps we will never quite know when we have arrived at this place, where everyone is "unselfconsciously included" (to quote Steve Clem's phrase at the recent annual Association of Independent School heads' dinner), but if diversity of action and opinion is a tenet of progressivism, then we do know for sure that working toward the goal of a truly diverse community is vital for our mission and beliefs.

Jane Moulding, Head of School