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Generative mindsets

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I had tears in my eyes last Friday as I sat in on our 21C meetings that Mr. Cowan, Ms. Sophocles, and Mr. Martinez were holding with students. After six months of reacting to covid, and all the attendant planning necessary to get the school year underway, it was moving to see students and teachers being generative and forward looking in their conversations. We’ve had to be far too reactive over these past six months, sadly; it was exciting to see the possibilities of being proactive in the months ahead. Education is, or ought to be, a generative exercise, and young people should be looking forward rather than backward. While our current circumstances have caused us to be looking over our shoulders for the past six months, a new school year, a hybrid schedule, and 21C projects give us encouragement that the future is brighter our past.
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Happy Labor Day!

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It is with a great deal of gratitude that we arrive at Labor Day weekend, the unofficial end of summer. Why be grateful that summer is over? Perhaps we can just be grateful that THIS summer is over.  It's been a summer unlike any other in my 30 years of school leadership. As with most in my profession, these past months have been filled with finding PPEs, cleaning companies, electrostatic sprayers, moving desks, upgrading HVAC systems, researching room air filters, following the Centers for Disease Control and state and local health departments for ever changing guidance, talking with parents who don't want their children coming to school, talking with parents who want their child to come to school every day, upgrading internet infrastructure, interviewing prospective families looking for a better match, planning online and hybrid classes, sorting out transportation... and on and on.  I'm blessed to be working in a school with a talented and committed group of educators who...
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Another First Day of School

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 This week marked my 58th first day of school. I have no recollection of my emotions in the fall of 1962, walking into Warrendale Elementary School, nor many of the later first days from first grade through high school. I imagine that some were filled with hopes and expectations, others with nervousness, particularly as hormones rose through adolescence, and I fell in love with various classmates. College was eye-opening in so many ways, but my most visceral memories of college revolve around dropping off my own children, and dealing with that rite of passage as a parent. None moved into their dorm without my tearing up. I recall my own parents bravely holding back tears as I headed to Washington DC to begin my teaching career in the summer of 1979. I wish I'd asked them about those emotions, but perhaps we all need to experience that sense of loss for ourselves. After college there were 11 years of the first day of teaching, followed by 30 years as a Head of School. There were but...
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