First Day Jitters

Over a quarter of a century ago, I had just graduated from college with a degree in public policy and a minor in Russian studies.  With no significant classroom experience to speak of, I was hired to teach 7th Grade English and 8th Grade math at Cardigan Mountain School.  Not only was I lacking in classroom experience, but my most significant collegiate experience with math was statistics and econometrics.  Suffice it to say, as the summer days were winding down, I was becoming increasingly anxious about the task ahead of me.  I would imagine that not a single student in my class was worried about their teacher’s competency.  After all, they had their own worries as the school year approached.

Many years later, I would like to think that I have become a more seasoned educator.  Through the years, I have had the opportunity to teach myriad classes at different levels.  I know significantly more now than I did when I first started my career in education, which helps me to understand that there is still so much I must learn.  With all this experience, my pulse still quickens with the approach of a new year.  Granted, I am not nearly as worried as I was when I was a raw rookie, but there is just something about this time of year.  And still, I am sure that none of my students are concerned about their teachers – for this year’s students – like last year’s and next year’s, and always are going through their emotions as they approach a new start, which is, after all, how it should be.

In the end, there is only one cure for the emotions that arise at the start of a new school year.  Start it!  This Wednesday, we will all get the chance to start the 2022-2023 school year.  We will walk, before we run, gathering for a half-day with one goal in mind – let’s get the year started!  Inevitably, the students, the teachers and the parents all report that the simple act of having the first day – even an easy half day of orientation – significantly reduces anxiety and sets a very positive tone for the community.  It allows folks to enjoy the long Labor Day Weekend and allows us to get righty to work on the following Tuesday.

This year, I have a very different teaching load than I did in year one, and as the Head of School, a set of responsibilities that I could never have dreamed of in final days of The Summer of 1995.  What has not changed is my excitement for a new year, the butterflies in my belly, or the desire to get it all started!

Looking forward to seeing you all for the BYOL (Bring Your Own Lunch) picnic following Orientation on Wednesday!

Thoughts on Aspiration

When The Beech Hill School was founded just over ten years ago, one of my first tasks as Founding Head of School was to establish an ethos that could be easily understood and communicated.  The Founding Board indicated that this should likely come in the form of an Honor Code.  I had been involved in the development and refinement of honor codes at two other schools, and my experience taught me that simple slogans become useless without a deeper purpose or meaning.  In the end, the idea of an honor code at BHS morphed into what we now refer to as “The Foundations of Community” with its four tenets of Aspiration, Engagement, Perseverance, and Respect.  As the new year begins at The Beech Hill School, our students will spend time explicitly contemplating the way “The Foundations” provide guidance in all that we do at BHS.

Lately, I have been thinking quite a bit about the tenet, “Aspiration.”  In “The Foundations,” aspiration is expressed the following way: “We understand that it is always possible to improve our communities and ourselves.  We achieve a sense of purpose through the creation of ambitious and meaningful goals”.  This was not something I just thought up one day and wrote like some prophet, rather a number of folks influential with the founding of the school spent hours discussing, wordsmithing, and, ultimately, blessing the notion that at The Beech Hill School intentional growth and development is at the core of what it means to be here.  Moreover, change is a constant, and we are not constrained by static definitions or vocabulary – like “good at,” “bad at,” “smart,” or “dumb.”  Implicit in aspiration is a positive belief that one can change for the better.

What I find most compelling about aspiration, however, is not its affirmation of the growth mindset, rather the emphasis on the process of growth.  In the second sentence, purpose is explicitly stated to come from the creation of goals.  Implicitly, it indicates then, that once created, one works toward that goal.  Nowhere in this definition or in “The Foundations of Community” does it ever state or imply that excellence is predicated on the attainment of these goals.  Goals guide, and as growth occurs, goals are reexamined, reset, and retired.  I have always thought that this process was best encapsulated by a quote from the legendary Vince Lombardi, who, more or less, stated, “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”  Thus, it is the process of relentlessly working toward and resetting goals that leads toward excellence, not the goal of excellence in and of itself.

This week, however, I came across an article in The Atlantic, titled, “What We Gain From a Good Enough Life,” about a recent book by Avram Alpert, called The Good Enough Life, which essentially challenges its readers to abandon greatness for more attainable goals.  Prior to reading the article, and not having read the book, I prepared to defend my Lombardi-like belief in chasing greatness.  As I read on, however, it seemed to me that the author was only making a more nuanced defense of Lombardi’s challenge to relentlessly work toward something more.  In essence the article indicates that Alpert urges not to aim for greatness, but to accept that frustration and limitations are inseparable – and often beautiful parts of human life.  Taken with “The Foundations” definitions of the tenets “Perseverance” and “Respect,” Alpert’s good-enough life underscores what has guided us at BHS for over ten years.  We are always good-enough, and our limitations, “real or perceived,” are what we work through as we aspire toward our best selves, as stated in the definition of “Perseverance.”  Of course, our limitations and frustrations are unique to each of us, and why we must “embrace and celebrate” our diverse community, as stated in the tenet of “Respect.”  In the end, it is the process that matters and, in our community, we are all making our way in our own way.  Thus, I am not certain that Alpert is rejecting “Aspiration,” rather he is refocusing on the patience and kindness required to embrace the journey that is a part of a meaningful life.

“The Foundations of Community” have provided The Beech Hill School an inclusive, challenging, and rewarding ethos that has served our community well through the first decade.  While each of the four tenets are required to make the whole, I have come to believe that it is “Aspiration” and its underlying sense of perpetual positivity that make it the first among equals in defining our school community.  As we start a new year and a new decade it is the possibility and elusive search for a better and more perfect self, school, and world which energizes me as much today as the day that we put words to the very idea a decade ago and excites me for the year to come!

Is that my alarm, already...

When the alarm went off at 5:20 AM this week, I jerked awake, feeling confused and as if there was no way that morning could have arrived so quickly.  Every instinct was to turn off the alarm and reset it for 7:00 AM.  I knew, however, that it was time to reset my body clock and rebuild my waking habits.  Unlike most professions, those in education generally get a chance to create a very different work schedule in the summer – and I had been taking advantage of that opportunity.  Over the years, I have come to understand that the body needs time to acclimate to changes in schedules.  Thus, it is time for me to rise as I would during the school year.  By the time the school year begins, I will be ready for the rigors of the school year schedule.

It took me a long time to buy into this acclimation.  As a younger man, I felt that I should sleep-in at every chance I had.  Sure, it was hard to get up for the first couple of days, and I was lacking energy for the first week or two – but wasn’t everyone?  As I got older – and I would like to think, wiser, I realized that by acclimating at the end of the summer, I could hit the ground running at the start of the school year.

I would urge you to encourage your children to begin this acclimation process as well.  Of course, they need not rise as early as I do, but it might be useful to have them return to the practice of rising to an alarm.  Not only will it help them to reset their body clocks from summer, but it will also reinforce the notion that they should be able to get themselves up in the morning.  I know that many of your children will take the same stance that I took when I was younger – let me sleep while I can, can’t I live while I’m young!  In the end, they may need to learn through experience, as I did.  Or you could simply introduce the idea as something that Mr. Johnson recommended in The Update.

I know that students will be addressing sleep and schedule in Skills classes this year – it will be interesting to see if any share that they took this advice.

Summer - Baseball, Idols, and Biographies

When I was young, my summer days were filled with baseball.  I played organized ball, but that was just a small sliver of my day – there were also hours spent playing wiffle ball, pickle – or as we called it “hotbox,” trading baseball cards, and watching my favorite team on WPIX – The New York Yankees.  My first sports idol was one of those Yankees that I loved watching – Thurman Munson.  Tragically, Thurman died too soon in a plane crash, but he is and always will be my favorite ball player.

Summer was also great because my birthday is in August.  Although I lamented the fact that I never had a school birthday, I loved the family cookouts that accompanied my birthday.  One year, my aunt gave me Thurman Munson’s autobiography for a birthday present.  I was not that old, but I read every page – even though there were parts that I really did not understand until I re-read it when I was older.  What a thrill it was to learn more about my idol.

My son Nate, who is soon to be a junior in high school, shares my love of baseball and the Yankees.  He also has an August birthday.  When he was younger, I gave him a book about another great Yankee, Mariano Rivera.  He devoured it and, like his father, has moved on to read biographies and autobiographies of other athletes, politicians, leaders, and more.

I have not assigned summer reading for the students this summer, and to be honest, I hope that their days are filled with outdoor activities, like the days of my youth.  Soon enough they will be back at school, and they will have plenty of work.  I do hope, however, that they are finding some time to read this summer.  For some, I imagine that might include the 11th re-reading of the Harry Potter series – but for some, they may be looking for something new.  With only about a month left until school begins again, I recommend our students read a book about someone they might find interesting.  Whether that book is part of the “Who was …” series or Ron Chernow’s Hamilton, I encourage our students to discover how ordinary people became extraordinary.