Head of School Remarks 2024

I am often asked what I like best about Country School - what attracted me here, what keeps me here, and what I appreciate most about this place.  Luckily, there are many answers to these questions but, above all, for me, it is the unwavering focus NCCS has on childhood and on ensuring that we provide the very best for our children, with no exceptions or qualifications.  

That we have the best practices, the best curriculum, the best facilities, and the best people for our children and that we have the resources to continue to elevate them and to help them evolve as the world does.  This has been the mindset for more than 100 years - and it still flourishes today.

Some of that has to do with our philosophy about child development.  You see, we believe that children need to experience phenomena - not just be told about them - to learn best.  They need to be outside, they need to have freedom to wonder, they need to have the leeway to take some risks and make mistakes and try again, they need to have fun and play and discover, both by themselves and with others they need to have their minds blown by some new concept and the time to wrestle and play with it.  We know that the more children develop their own learning and discover connections themselves, the better they will retain that learning and the more they will enjoy it.  And the more they enjoy it, the more they will want to do it.  And we also know that this takes time.   There are good evolutionary reasons why human childhood lasts a decade and a half or more, and so we need to thoughtfully design experiences in that time that have the greatest long-term impact.  And NCCS has done just that for decades.  

Unfortunately, a combination of anxiety and uncertainty about the future and digital connectivity has been conspiring to put pressure on children - to accelerate and ultimately shrink childhood.  And with that acceleration comes tradeoffs. Schools in our country and world have piled on and pushed down curricula that are more advanced and faster paced and simply contain more work than in the past, and they’ve paired them with high stakes tests which have resulted in schools adding time to math and reading instruction while taking away from arts and physical education and science and recess.  And all this has actually had the opposite effect than it intends - children are less prepared to learn and to thrive, they are less healthy, they are less capable of dealing with setbacks or challenges, and they are less independent than ever before.   Look no further than the series of crises in higher education over the past decade for the results of these misguided decisions.  

So, what do we do?  We believe there is a better way, and the path is one that is already a part of us - it is in our DNA.  We know that it works, for our outcomes are as strong as ever, as Tucker shared.  Our students are getting into the best high schools at significantly greater rates than other applicants, they are thriving at those schools and being placed into leadership roles there, and they are “adulting” better than their peers too. So, we are doubling down on who we are and what we do and on our foundational beliefs about childhood.  And we are doing it in several ways - through curriculum, through people, through facilities, and through practices. 

Curriculum is the bedrock of a school.  As our strategic plan states, we aim to provide best in class childhood education focused on the “best of both worlds”: an exceptional foundation in academics, athletics, and the arts combined with unparalleled social-emotional framework resulting in students who love learning, know how to lead, and are nurtured with a high level of wellbeing. We know what that best looks like. We see ways to ensure our youngest students are even more prepared to learn so that they will be ready to thrive in an even more elevated program throughout their time here.  And as we work to lift that program, we will do so while keeping our knowledge of child development and our underlying educational philosophies at the center.  

For example, one of the complaints I sometimes hear is that our older students get too much recess, and why not give them more time in core academic classes instead.  We are not going to do that.  Brain science tells us of the value of unstructured breaks in between times of more intense learning so that the brain can process and ultimately store what it learned.  Our students, all the way through 9th grade, have no more than two consecutive classes in between breaks, and they have two full recess periods each day.  That actually makes the learning in class more valuable for them than even more time in those classes would.  Though, at the same time, we are always improving our curriculum within that framework, as our new math programs throughout the school illustrate.  

Beyond genetics and parenting, the most important components of a child’s learning are the people they learn with and the people they learn from.  

So, we are focused on raising funds for financial aid to ensure that our students can learn in and among a diverse student body and that we can intentionally admit all the most qualified candidates in admissions, regardless of their ability to pay.  Right now, we are not able to do that fully due to the limitations of our financial aid funding.

And we are focused on raising funds to continue to support teacher excellence in every way. We simply must continue to attract, retain, develop, and support phenomenal teachers just like the ones we honored earlier.  

Where you learn complements what you learn and from and with whom you learn, and we need to ensure that we have the best facilities to allow our teachers to deliver on their curriculum.  So, any discussion about facilities is really one about program.  Right now, we are focusing on outdoor spaces, knowing the value and impact being in nature and learning outdoors has as well as the significant investment we have recently made in so many of our indoor spaces like this one. 

So, we are looking to revamp our playing fields - expanding and redesigning one, improving irrigation and water management, and adding turf to one or two.  This will enable our PE program to be outside three times as much as they currently are.  Even on nice days right now, our morning PE classes are inside because the wet dew makes for a miserable day of wet feet for our students, and that would change.  This project will enable us to be outside for recess even more than we are, and since our physical education program in grades 5-9 is delivered through interscholastic athletics, we will be able to hold that program every day, as opposed to the 15-20% of the time when bad weather forces practice inside or the cancellation of a game currently.  We wouldn’t be ok with math class getting canceled once every week or two because the classroom was not usable, so how can we be ok with doing that with physical education?

We are also designing a large garden or, more accurately, a small farm, where we can raise chickens, grow vegetables and fruit, and perhaps more.  Once developed, our EC students could learn about the life cycle of a chick by gathering eggs themselves at our farm, then incubating and observing them when hatched as they do now, and then delivering them back to the chicken coop and even visiting them as they grow.  Or our lower schoolers studying the Lenape people who originally lived on this land could also grow the three sisters of corn, beans and squash themselves as the Lenape people did.  Or, our middle and upper schoolers and our Horizons students in the summer could grow food that everyone then eats in our dining hall in true farm to table fashion.  Or, they could learn business skills by getting a booth at the New Canaan Farmers Market and planning, planting, cultivating, harvesting, packaging, pricing, and selling the produce - and reinvesting the proceeds.  Imagine the impact on student learning.  

We are also planning an expansion and improvement of our woods trails for student use in various subjects, for our cross country teams, and for our community to use for walking, jogging, or simply enjoying nature.  

How we engage with one another and with the community also plays an important role for our students and their learning.  

The education topic of the summer involved phones in schools.  Local schools have been announcing changes to their policies to require or recommend that students not have phones in school, and recently the Connecticut Department of Education came out with similar guidance.  

Well, we have been ahead of that curve as well.  We have had phones banned throughout the school for the last 4 years, with students who bring phones with them turning them in at the beginning of the day and picking them back up at the end of the day.  That decision, notably,  stemmed from student input when it was implemented in 2020.  

But after 4 full years of experience, we now know that is not enough.  There is now ample data to illustrate that what we intuitively feared is true - smartphones are, by and large, really bad for children.  A combination of the impressionability of the adolescent brain, the lack of simple oversight, and companies incentivized to compete for more time on their platforms has made it far too easy for students to make bad choices on their phones.  The relative or falsely assumed anonymity of social media has made kids be far meaner to one another than they should, and the access to damaging material like pornography, extreme violence, and other dangers is too easy.  

And we bear some responsibility with this dynamic, too: as a generation of parents, we have gotten stricter with our kids in the real world, which is safer on an individual level than it was when we were growing up and yet more lax in the virtual world, which is where so much danger happens.  I have a tremendous amount of empathy for parents of our generation.  We had a model in how we were raised for virtually every decision we make as parents - except phones.  It is like the Wild West for us, and by and large we are allowing our children to explore with virtually no supervision.  That is a mistake.  

So, while I recognize and honor and value that these areas are parental decisions, we as a school are making several related recommendations, and we are doing so in the strongest possible terms for the wellbeing of our children. 

First, no smart phones until upper school at the earliest. There are plenty of good alternatives that allow for text or voice communication which help with logistics and other reasons that many people cite for getting smartphones for their younger kids.  

Second, no social media until 16 or even 18. While the federal regulations in what is called the COPPA Act state that no one under the age of 13 is allowed a social media account - and we certainly know many children younger than that register for accounts by giving false birthdates - those were devised without consideration of child development.  Early adolescents have shown time and again that their brain development is not at the point to handle social media in a healthy way.  All together, there is simply no reason for any student at NCCS to have social media. Don’t approve it, and if they have it, I recommend removing it, even as that is sure to be a very difficult discussion with your child.  

And when they do get it, be very deliberate with your oversight.  I learned that the hard way.  Our daughters - now 16 and 18 - first got cell phones towards the end of 7th grade, near their 13th birthdays.  They got social media around winter break of the year after they graduated from NCCS - when they were about 15.5.  In February of the year Julia, our oldest, got social media - about five weeks after we approved her downloading Snapchat, I took her and three friends on a weekend ski trip.  It took me about two hours of listening to them all talk to realize that the group’s main inside joke was about how addicted Julia was to SnapChat.  In five weeks.  She went from not having social media to her use of it being the butt of inside jokes. You see, we thought that waiting was enough to better ensure she would use it in a healthy way.  Nope.  Make sure you put strict limits on time with social media once you give that approval.

Third, - Be very mindful of your own use of your phone in front of children. Specifically to NCCS, we love how much you as parents come to campus to be an active part of your child’s education.  You show up so well and it makes a difference. But - but - being on the phone while children are presenting or performing impacts them.  We understand that emergencies happen and we know that many of you juggle work to be here for your children.  So, moving forward, please step outside if you need to use the phone.  That way, kids aren’t reading their poem or reciting their lines or singing their song and looking out into an audience of [pull out phone and look at it].  They are seeing you looking right back up at them.

I want to be clear that this is not about technology in general.  There are incredible technology tools and the facile use of them is essential to thriving in today’s world.  Rather, these recommendations are about social media and smartphones in particular. 

Related to all this, the Parents Association is starting a new Resource Group for parents to come together to discuss phones and social media and to have some strength in numbers for the inevitable moment when your kids say “everyone has one” as well for related support to navigate this most challenging topic. I thank the PA, under the leadership of Sarah Vrabac and Andrew Greig, as well as the handful of parents who surfaced their desire to help convene such a group last year for making it happen this year.  

So, throughout all the ways we are doubling down on who we are and who we have been - the curriculum, the people, the facilities, and the practices, we need your help to make them successful.  We need your support in engaging with these practices.  We need your support in your presence on campus to be there for our students, both your children and others’.  We need your support in promoting our shared values of education. And we need your support philanthropically, both in the Annual Fund, without which much of what I talked about would not be possible, and in helping us gather the resources for the projects I described.   

Together, we can combat the challenges of today to raise the leaders of tomorrow. That is my great passion, for despite all the issues in our world and the imperfect society in which we live, I am an optimist at heart.  I believe in children. I believe that what and, equally importantly, how they learn now sets the stage for what they can do in the future.  I believe that future will be better than today because of our children.  And I believe in NCCS.  I believe in our philosophy and unwavering focus on childhood.  I believe in our mission and its call to our greater purpose.  I believe in our history of excellence. I believe in our teachers and staff members, who inspire our students immeasurably.  I believe in our families and the ways that our shared values about education and goals for our children brought you here.  And I believe in our plans and priorities and how they will help our students - your children - meet the dynamics of today and of tomorrow.  

So thank you for being here this evening.  Thank you for being a part of this community.  And thank you for your support in helping us make sure your child has the very best education and the very best foundation.  We have a lot to do, and I cannot wait to get to work with you. Thank you.