Autonomy and Adversity

The Beech Hill School is fortunate to have strong leadership and guidance from the Board of Directors.  As the School emerges from the pandemic and moves forward in its second decade, the Board has identified the need to revise the mission and the vision of the School.  In doing so, they have helped to bring into sharp focus those things that make The Beech Hill School such a uniquely amazing place.  Specifically, the revised mission has clearly articulated that at The Beech Hill School, we provide our students opportunities for autonomy and adversity.

For those that crave rigid structure and order, autonomy and adversity is unsettling.  Providing adolescents – notorious for making poor choices – the freedom and ability to make choices, seems destined for tragedy – hence adversity.  Those that are more controlling might be more comfortable in a more command and control environment.  At BHS, however, our students learn and grow from the choices they make and managing the results of those choices.  To be sure, we don’t abdicate our role to guide, to support, and in cases of real danger, to limit choices.  Overall, however, we allow our students to get involved in the messy thing called life.

For example, next week we will be holding our first dance of the year.  While this may seem very straightforward, there are many choices that must be considered when holding a dance – what is the dress code, what about guests, who is bringing decorations – and on it goes.  As guided by the mission, I let the students gather by themselves at lunch to try to figure out these details – autonomy.  As one could guess, that meeting devolved, and it soon became apparent that they thought that the loudest voice might be the one that would be heard – adversity.  The next day at Community, I noted the challenge the students faced in trying to make these decisions on their own.  As such, I invited all interested students to my office for lunch, and helped guide them through an organizational meeting.  In short time, we realized that there was much more that they agreed on, and with some guidance quickly came to consensus.

It could have been much more efficient to manage this differently.  At BHS, however, the process is as useful as the outcome.  We will likely have additional dances this year, and I will again provide the autonomy for the students to make the event happen.  It is my hope that they will have learned from their experiences planning this dance. 

Optimism is not in our mission, but it is a prerequisite for leading a middle school!

Persistence

It has been widely reported for many years now that there is a significant gender imbalance in STEM fields.  A number of different initiatives were launched, which aimed to decrease this imbalance and to open the STEM fields to those that have not traditionally been attracted to these roles.  For example, The Beech Hill School has participated in the FIRST Robotics program for over a decade.  Our teams have generally been very well integrated in terms of gender, and the leaders of the team have often been young women.  Based on the widespread participation and popularity of programs like ours, one would imagine that the gender gap might be closing.

As I have shared several times, my son is in his first year at Washington & Lee University, a liberal arts school in Virginia, where there are slightly more female students than males.  I was shocked to learn that there were less than five female students in his Introduction to Engineering course, which has a total enrollment of just over 30.  While this is only one instance, I still found it hard to believe that the imbalance was so pronounced.

Fortunately, at the middle school level, Ms. Fries has boys and girls beating down the door to be part of the robotics and math programs at BHS.  We will continue to encourage all our students to strive for their dreams in any and all disciplines!

Awareness

Last spring, I took our graduating 8th Graders on a trip to Canobie Lake Park.  That day, middle schools from across Northern New England also decided it would be a good day to take students there as well.  Our kids had a great time, made great memories and really enjoyed the freedom to express their autonomy by walking around the park on their own all day.  As a chaperone, I roamed the park all day, and in some ways, this was a study in modern adolescence.  Despite working in schools with middle school students, observing the behaviors of the students “in the wild” was a totally different experience.  

What I found most interesting was their lack of awareness of their surroundings.  I must have been run into nearly 100 times.  Mind you, these kids were not bad kids - they were simply overwhelmed by the freedom, the fun, and their developing brains were overloaded.  However, I believe this is not how it has to be – while it is not easy, I believe that adolescents are capable of being more thoughtful.

On Thursday, I spoke at Community with our students about my experience at Canobie and the way that they have begun to move about BHS.  The other day, a student nearly knocked over a peer, and barely broke stride.  I immediately had a few words with that student, and immediately they realized that they were not even thinking.  Now that our students have acclimated to life at BHS and have become comfortable, it is incredibly important that they learn to become aware of others and their surroundings.  By practicing the appropriately thoughtful behaviors, our students will develop a sense of propriety that, may not come naturally for adolescents, but will become second nature in time.

A Different Way

This past Thursday, we welcomed parents and guardians to school to learn about what their children are doing throughout the day.  While I would like to think that the way that we do this is both effective and interesting, I realize that most quality schools have similar events.  In preparation for the event, I spent considerable time thinking about what our families might benefit from hearing.  As of late I have really been struck by how challenging it is to be a parent in this day and age – especially of a middle school student.  Just this summer, the Surgeon General advised that parents are “at wit’s end” and that their health and mental wellness is a significant public health concern.  Recently, I had the good fortune to read an essay in The Atlantic by Georgetown Day School’s Head of School,  Russell Shaw, titled “Lighthouse Parents Have More Confident Kids.”  In a time when parents and guardians are needing support, this essay is just what the Surgeon General ordered.

Early in the essay, Shaw shares a story of his middle school child sharing with him that a classmate was acting in an unkind manner.  Like most parents, his initial instinct is to do something.  Upon further consideration, however, he realizes that it is probably not his best course of action. In the end, Shaw outlines a parenting style that leaves the helicopter and snowplow aside and instead urges parents to act more like a lighthouse. He explains that “Like a lighthouse that helps sailors avoid crashing into rocks, Lighthouse Parents provide firm boundaries and emotional support while allowing their children the freedom to navigate their own challenges.”

The mission of The Beech Hill School states that we will “provide opportunities for discovery, adversity, and autonomy.”  As I pointed out to our families, our core beliefs align quite well with “Lighthouse Parenting.”  In addition, while students’ parents may be the lighthouse, our caring faculty and staff are buoys and markers that provide additional guidance and protection from catastrophe.  In the end, we share with parents and guardians the common goals of safety, success and well-being of the students.

I hope that Parents’ Night helped to put our families at ease and provided them a different way to think about the extremely challenging task of raising a middle school student in the world in which we live.  I look forward to exploring this topic further in the future.

Powerful Skills

Monday morning, I started my day by attending a networking event for admission professionals, school consultants and heads of school.  It had been about four years since I had attended an event like this, the pandemic required that my attention be undivided at BHS.  Likewise, many of the other heads in attendance were only just beginning to attend events of this sort.  Throughout the morning, I was able to learn from my peers, share stories, and simply connect.   I had forgotten how powerful, and empowering, it is to build relationships with peers.

Through the Skills program, the students at BHS spend time learning how to build and develop relationships.  One way that we do this is to prepare them for interacting with new people.  We actively teach them how to introduce themselves, the value of eye contact, a firm handshake and making meaningful conversation.  Not only do we teach our students these skills, but we provide them opportunities to put these skills to work in a real way.

On Thursday night, we welcomed 18 secondary schools from the area to The Beech Hill School.  These schools were excited to share the story of their school and were looking for potential students.  I was extremely proud of The Beech Hill School students, as I watched them move about the event, introducing themselves with confidence and putting to practice all that they had learned in Skills class.  Several of the school representatives went out of their way to express how impressed they were with the quality and polish of our students.

When families choose The Beech Hill School for their children, I am not certain that they are anticipating that their child will acquire the skills to network and build professional relationships.  As I watched BHS students at Secondary School Night and as I re-learned at the event that I attended – cultivating and maintaining relationships are critical for success.  It is exciting to think that our students are getting a jump on this important life skill.