CSW Sets the PACE
Last week I enjoyed participating in a presentation to our Board of Trustees by Rosanna Salcedo and Diana Baruni about our new PACE (Promoting Awareness and Community Engagement) program. Current families saw the presentation at a recent parent coffee and prospective families at our fall open houses. During the course of the next few months, I hope to focus on PACE every so often in my Pocket Change, introducing some of the faculty members involved in creating the program and making sure that you get the inside scoop on this ground-breaking CSW venture.
Basic information on PACE is always available to you on our website, but I thought a few foundational points might be a good way to start this first Pocket Change focused on PACE.
What is PACE?
PACE is a four-year co-curriculum designed to ensure that students develop the skills vital to a CSW education — skills that will serve them well into adulthood. In our new 6x6 schedule (six mods of six weeks each), every other Wednesday will be exclusively dedicated to PACE programming: experiential classes, events, and activities designed to prepare our students to meet the demands of an increasingly complex and diverse world.
Why are we doing this?
CSW's PACE co-curriculum was in part developed in response to growing research in support of social-emotional learning and increased calls for a refreshed take on school curriculum. Young people today seem to face pressures, expectations, and demands that many of us lived without during our childhood and early adolescence. For some, life can feel like a never-ending race to the top, resulting in a lifestyle that is draining, unfulfilling, and most of all, unsustainable. Obviously, as a progressive school, CSW aims to counteract these feeling of isolation and anxiety, and PACE, we believe, will create an even stronger way to help build competence and resilience in adolescents, resulting in a student body that is happy, healthy, and engaged. Here are a few of the many reasons we feel compelled to act:
- We understand that the pursuit of knowledge is intrinsically linked to social/emotional well-being and healthy lifestyle choices.
- Research has shown that students who maintain good health and engage in social-emotional learning exhibit increased or improved time management skills, conflict resolution, empathy, impulse control, social competence, and academic achievement.
- Students who maintain good health and engage in social-emotional learning have shown decreased levels of anxiety, stress, insecurity, and restlessness.
- In failing to address issues of physical, emotional, and mental health as part of the educational experience, many schools are unknowingly preventing their students from reaching their full potential as scholars, professionals, and contributing members of society.
Complementing the social-emotional aspects of PACE, are the social justice and service learning components of the program, through which we intend to develop a new generation of students who:
- truly understand the meaning and value of empathy and compassion;
- possess a sincere desire to engage with their communities, building meaningful relationships and gladly lending a helping hand as needed; and
- value and regularly seek to perpetuate a more equitable and diverse world.
I hope this gives you an even greater understanding of what PACE is and all that we are hoping to achieve, and I look forward to building on these basics with you over the coming weeks and months.
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.