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!
