Travel as Teacher

Last week, I had an amazing opportunity to travel with my immediate and extended family.  This trip was originally planned to celebrate my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary.  Because of the pandemic, we had to reschedule several times, finally making it all happen last week.  To say it was worth the wait would be a huge understatement.

On one level, the trip was about spending time together as a family.  My sister and her husband live in Seattle, and my parents live in Connecticut, so it is rare that all of us can spend time together.  Throughout the trip, however, I found myself thinking about the value of travel in relation to personal growth.  For example, I taught my 6th Grade Geography class about the island of Hispaniola this year, but while in Haiti, I gained an entirely new sense of the island’s volcanic past and steep, lush mountains. 

In the end, I believe that travel is truly amazing and a humbling teacher.  On occasion, I have told my Geography class that if I were able, I would have them spend the entire year traveling the world, as that would far surpass any learning that we could do in the confines of our classroom.  Alas, I also teach them about economics and scarcity.  While it would be an amazing opportunity to travel the world, this is not feasible. 

As Head of School, however, I have always hoped that at some point in the future of The Beech Hill School, a significant travel experience would be a part of the required curriculum.  To make this a reality, it would require significant funding and staffing.  However, as I wrote about last week, it is good to be aspirational.  Hence, I will continue to build a foundation at BHS that will one day provide our students an opportunity to participate meaningful international travel.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

I have high hopes for the new calendar year, and always look forward to the opportunity to make resolutions.  Every year around this time, there are many articles debating the value of resolutions.  Some suggest that there is a futility to making resolutions, as naysayers point out that most people will come up short and within a few weeks forget what it is they resolved to do.  For me, however, I feel that the annual ritual of making New Year’s resolutions allow for a moment of reflection and evaluation. 

In many regards, this process is not dissimilar from the work that we do on a regular basis at The Beech Hill School.  We ask that our students participate in a regular cycle of goal setting, followed by evaluation and feedback, then the resetting of goals.  Underlying this process is our belief that “aspiration” is one of the Foundations of Community.  We define aspiration in 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.”

Thus, making a New Year’s resolution is a very BHS thing to do.

As I start 2023, I am excited, hopeful, and confident that, individually and collectively, we will continue to “improve our communities and ourselves,” and that 2023 will be a great year!

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year!

Snow Day!

It wasn’t long after I accepted the position of Head of School that I realized one of my responsibilities would be deciding when to close or delay school due to weather.  My inner child immediately thought – this is so COOL!  Unfortunately, I am a child no more, and balancing the need to keep people safe with the integrity of the BHS program is no easy task.  In the winter, I become an avid weather watcher and always rise just a little earlier to check for an unexpected snowstorm.

Recently, school administrators have begun to hedge their bets, instituting remote learning days, requiring students to attend school remotely and counting as a day of school.  I am all in favor of using technology to further our students learning; however, I feel that the joy of a snow day is something that kids in New England should know and savor.  So, while it might make it harder on my decision making, I do not intend to institute remote learning days.

Prior to this first snow day, I spoke to the students and let them know that snow days do not absolve them from completing work that is assigned.  Likewise, I encouraged them to go outside and have fun in the snow.  In the end, we have structured so many other parts of our kids’ lives, that it can seem that even middle schoolers are like young professionals.  By preserving snow days, we can hold sacred some of the joys of an unstructured and unexpected snow day.

Always in Season

Yesterday, the school hosted a gingerbread house decorating event, which we have done for a number of years.  This year, the event was spearheaded by the Beech Hill School Parents’ Association, with Kelly Conn P ’24,  ’26 and Emily Ricard P ’23, ’24 leading the way.  On Friday afternoon, every student and faculty member had a hand in making this event possible.  We cleaned, decorated the school, built gingerbread houses, and in less than 2 hours transformed BHS into a winter wonderland.  On Saturday morning, countless volunteers helped bring joy to many as they decorated their gingerbread houses with copious confections.  The entire endeavor was amazing. 

On Friday morning during Community, I spoke about why we put forth such a great effort for this event.  I let them know that our hard work would lead directly to the joy of those that participated in the event – and it did!  This sense of joy – sometimes called the spirit of the season was made possible by the hard work of our students, faculty, and Parents’ Association volunteers.

Fortunately, this spirit of giving and altruism is not seasonal at BHS – throughout the year we all give freely of our time and energy, and I believe that it always comes back to us in multiples.  If you are feeling a bit humbug this holiday season, I hope that the BHS Community can help serve as an example of a community that gives as it receives.

What Once Was Old Is New Again

On Wednesday, our Board of Directors met for their Fall/Winter meeting.  As a nonprofit, the Board plays a critical role in governing the School, and we are fortunate to have directors that are bright, committed and insightful.  As Head of School, I am a non-voting member of the Board, and I can provide our directors with a sense of day to day life at BHS.  As such, I typically am provided an opportunity to brief the Board on the “State of the School.”  Most days,  I am very focused on individual trees in the forest that is BHS, but when I take a moment to consider the “State of the School,” I am forced to pull back and look at the forest.

It was a genuine pleasure to provide the Board with an incredibly positive report.  By all measures, The Beech Hill School is doing quite well.  I am especially pleased to report that, despite the persistence of individual cases of Covid, we have completed the fall trimester in a most “normal” manner.  As the overwhelming majority of the faculty have been teaching since before the pandemic struck, we were thrilled to reintroduce those things that we had to put on hold during the pandemic.  Only 5 students, however,  attended The Beech Hill School prior to the pandemic.  Thus, for almost all our students, normal is not the same as pre-pandemic.

Perhaps it is because I am teaching history this year, but I could not help but compare the current state of the Beech Hill School to The Renaissance – or rebirth.  Out of the dark times of the pandemic, the school is a buzz with activity and our students are reaching new heights.  Like the Parents’ Association’s reintroduction of Friday Pizza Lunch and the upcoming Gingerbread Fundraiser, things that were at one time old, have become new again.

As I shared with the Board, I am grateful that I am able witness all the numerous ways in which our school community is flourishing.  Overall, it is truly and exciting time to be a part of The Beech Hill School!

- SPECIAL ADDITION TO THIS WEEK’S BLOG -

The Beech Hill School’s Robotics team placed 3rd overall in Saturday’s FIRST LEGO State Championships; far and away the best finish in school history!  What an incredible accomplishment - Ms. Fries and her team should be so proud of this extraordinary feat – I know that I am so incredibly proud of them!