I’ve been in a LOT of very good meetings lately, all of which have had some focus on the work we do with Webb students, in and out of the classroom. Through all of these conversations I have been reminded of one of my guiding principles in working at schools, that being, as simple as it might seem, to leave every place that I work in better shape than I found it. As our world changes, and at an alarming pace, one’s grounding in the foundation of his or her personal belief structure becomes increasingly important. It has always been my strongest belief that we have a responsibility to our students to assist them in developing more than an intellectual base from which to build their lives. As, if not more, important is to help them develop a conscience that will allow them to move forward in life confident that they have it within themselves to make a difference in the quality of their lives and the lives of those around them.

When working with faculty and students, I often find myself reflecting back on the teachings of Dr. Nel Noddings who so eloquently reminds us of the importance of having students learn to care about the things and beings around them – think of the applications and interpretations that can grow from such a simple idea. If students learn not to “do,” but to “care” about a subject, it will likely follow that their dedication to that subject will become a part of their learning process. This allows for a subtle shift of focus (and energy) away from teachers having to motivate (or entertain) students, to finding ways to have them channel their newfound energies.

Noddings also argues the importance of having students learn to know that they are cared for – in essence that they matter and that their contributions matter, however great or small. While we continue to encourage our students to learn and cultivate their own senses of identity and individuality, they must also learn that it will likely be through acts of communal collaboration that they are ultimately successful in school and in life, whether that collaboration be with a teacher, another student, a colleague or a life partner. It is essential that students learn to be aware that they play a role in a bigger picture – caring requires that they turn their attention outward, rather than inward – and they must be taught to constantly consider their impact on the greater good.

Daily, we struggle as a faculty to achieve that fine balance where we have confidence that we are teaching content and process in ways proportionate as to allow our students to be most successful in this new world. Constantly, we remind ourselves of the responsibility and opportunity we have as an independent school to equip our students with the essential tools that will allow them to distinguish themselves among the masses of capable and driven young adults who will shape the legacy of their generation. As an example, take the use of technology - our challenge is to guide our students in developing a conscience that will allow them to be discerning with their research, the choosing of applications, the sharing of resources, or the generation of original (and often very public) material, all while staying grounded in a true, not virtual, reality where they are capable of original thought. Learning this sense of responsibility is a transferable skill that they will need to sharpen to succeed at such seemingly simple tasks as interpreting the news or forming a political opinion. They must learn to wade, intellectually, through the white noise that our media-driven society produces. We are challenged constantly to find ways to provide students with skills of discrimination that will afford them a sense of balance from which to make constructive choices.

Simple, yes?  No, not really… but this work is so worthy of our full attention as we are challenged to secure the foundations of our students for “when the winds of changes shift.” In one of my meetings I was struck by the phrase “boundary dissolution” – its many implications and potential applications in the work we do with your children. Such a simple concept, yet consistent with a teaching premise that lends a different, critical importance to every, single thing that we choose to share with and inspire in your children, and the connections we guide them to make. This is noble, demanding, rewarding, ever-evolving work, and why I’ve spent my life in good places like this.

Any time you make a dramatic shift in pedagogical model there are going to be anxious moments.  On August 31^st we commenced the 2009-10 school year with a new daily schedule, one that features three eighty-minute blocks, allowing each class to meet three times over a seven day rotation, compared to our previous schedule where classes met four times in a week for forty-five-minute blocks – a significant shift in time commitment and frequency. 

In our preparations to teach in these extended class blocks we invited faculty to work in Science/Math and Humanities teams toward the end of last year, offering workshops to generate ideas for mixing modalities and creating lesson plans to fill eighty-minute periods, and to assign work for out of class that is more intentional and purposeful.  We also spent two days as a full faculty in year-end meetings working with a consultant who gave us more ideas with which to work.  Several departments took advantage of the week after faculty meetings in June to further collaborate.

The anxious moment for me came in mid-August when I expected people to come to me in a panic – and no one came.  And as I queried more and more faculty members it became clear that people were, in fact, embracing this opportunity to be able to change the dynamics of their classroom; classroom dynamics that had often seemed rushed and fractured.  And another reality became clear – just about everybody, or at least several members of each department,  had had some experience teaching in extended time, either in other (often public) school settings or in summer school.  The tone that has been set in starting the year has been one of increased collaboration all around – teacher to teacher, teacher to student, student to student – and it has extended, as we had hoped, into the realm of the everyday experiences outside of the classroom. 

We have adjusted the schedule to be able to give the students the gift of time, uninterrupted time, to meet with teachers and advisors, time to meet as members of leadership committees, time to meet as club members, and to be constructive and productive in ways that were impossible under the old schedule.  So the advantages we have created for teaching in the new schedule have also allowed us to be able to attend to those things that we deem to be important to us at Webb in the community as well.  The place just seems to be a bit more civil, and the way people are interacting more respectful and reasonable – we seem to be getting closer to achieving the ideal of a true learning community, where you are able to bring great minds together to learn and share on a higher plane – and my only remaining anxiety lies in the knowledge that we can’t settle into a complacency that limits what we do with the time that we have created for ourselves!