August 31 Riff: All for Haimish

In yesterday’s New York Times, David Brooks wrote an article describing the Yiddish word haimish.  Haimish is the qualities associated with an unpretentious warm environment in which you feel relaxed.  Brooks argues that the fancier or more elegant an establishment—be it a restaurant or a hotel—is the less likely it is to be haimish.  As he puts it, “Often, as we spend more on something, what we gain in privacy and elegance we lose in spontaneous sociability.” 

In the last few years, Duke School has moved into a nicer, prettier and, dare I say it, more elegant campus.  In lots of other ways we have become more professional—online forms, weekly centralized communications and a myriad of other advances.  However, as a school and a community haimish remains important to us.  Learning, dialogue between teacher and parent, and a love of school happen more easily when everyone is comfortable.  In lots of ways, Duke School is dedicating itself to haimish this year.  Having teachers and parents read the same book this summer was to help strengthen the community.  Writing a school song was meant to build community.  Encouraging attendance at sporting events, fall festival, and the end-of-year party all help build a haimish culture.  Further, Sandy and David will be holding coffees so you can talk with and feel more comfortable with them.  All for haimish.

We will never get the balance between growth and haimish exactly right.  However, as glad as I am about Duke School’s improvements, I do not want our sense of community to lessen.  Help continue to strengthen Duke School’s sense of community.    

Reflection for August 26

Today started with the welcome back assembly, complete with our dragon mascot.  After the assembly, I visited a kindergarten class, where a new student introduced herself to me.  She mentioned that she had seen me at the assembly and then stated, “at first the dragon scared me, but I remembered I was good at making friends so I gave him a high five and shook his hand.”  That is bravery and that is the kind of problem solving I wish for all of our students.    

Riff: August 26

For those who don’t know, Duke School adopted a new school song last year--written by the class of ’15 in response to a contest.  After a summer of not hearing the song, I heard it twice in the last two days--today at the welcome back assembly and most wonderfully at the conclusion of the PSO meeting last night.  It was great seeing our core volunteers join to share in the Duke School spirit.  

Clearly the song is important to me (and I would argue), to the students and at least some parents.  Why?  In many ways, the school song helps create community.  It is something that Duke School’s community shares uniquely among themselves.  It helps draw us together in spirit and emotion which is important.  And it does this without demonizing others.  Often symbols that draw communities together do it by condemning another group.  Because I root for the Yankees, I hate the Red Sox, by definition.  A school song leaves no enemies, it just creates friends.  

See the lyrics of the school song below and hear the Duke School community singing it.  

Reflection for August 24

Reflection for August 24:  On school’s first day do I focus on earthquakes and hurricanes or rather beginnings.  I chose beginnings.  The campus was alive again with energy and enthusiasm.  Classes from 1—8 were greeting and getting to know one another.  I asked a 7th grader how today was and she responded, “I learned so much, my head hurts.”  

My wish for the year: May all of our students’ heads hurt from so much knowledge and may all the hearts grow from gaining so much wisdom.  

Reflection for August 23

As a new year starts I am trying to use my blog in different ways.  My plan for this year is to write more often, two to three times a week, and to employ different types of entries.  Most regularly I hope to write a brief reflection, almost a tweet, though perhaps longer than 140 characters.  The second type of piece will be a riff, brief thoughts and conclusions about a reflection.  The third type will be a traditional magazine article piece about once a month.

Reflection for August 23:  It was great seeing students and parents reuniting after summer.  Children calling out to one another; parents with large smiles and big hellos.  Anticipation is running high and everyone is rejuvenated, looking forward to a great year.  This is one reason schoolwork is so rewarding.  

Is Duke School Diverse Enough?

Is Duke School diverse enough?  Do we have “enough” students of color?  Are we concerned that no Duke School lead teacher is African American and only one is Hispanic?   As a community do we believe that diversity is critical to a well-rounded education or is it a nice extra? 

Some of these questions were somewhat addressed in crafting the strategic plan.  As part of the process, Ian Symmonds, our consultant, surveyed various constituencies about what they most valued about Duke School.  For both parents and faculty, diversity was a top ten value.  However, in each group, it was tenth.  (Love of learning was number one in both groups.)  So it seems that diversity is an important value but perhaps not a critical one, based on the survey results. Duke School’s strategic plan mirrors that perception. 

The strategic plan does have diversity goals—15% of the student body should be either Hispanic or African American and 8% of the total faculty should be faculty of color (non-Caucasian).  However the goals do not require much additional work from the community and may not have been set high enough.  Currently, 24% of our student body is non-Caucasian with 12% being either African American or Hispanic.  In addition, 8% of our current faculty is of color.  Hence the addition of twelve more Hispanic and/or African American students and keeping the number of non-Caucasian teachers steady would allow us to reach the strategic plan’s goals.  Two questions arise in my mind—would these numbers give us enough racial diversity and if not what barriers make it difficult to improve our diversity numbers.

After meeting the strategic plan goals would we then have enough racial diversity?  To answer that question, we need to wrestle with why racial diversity is important at all.  Some answers are obvious.  Our children will be entering a diverse workplace and will be interacting with people who are from different races, countries and religions.  They need to feel comfortable in such environments and early exposure to diversity is one way of creating such comfort.  Throughout their careers, our children will work for many diverse bosses.  As a result, they should have experience of seeing diverse people leading.  Further racial and ethnic diversity exposes children to different outlooks and thoughts, enriching our children’s education.  Perhaps less obvious, diversity tends to highlight similarities between people as much as differences.  As a result, stereotypes are broken.   

So if we agree that diversity is important, why focus on racial diversity?  Inevitably, when discussing this concept someone will comment, “There are many forms of diversity which add to the community.  Focusing on race is counterproductive and diminishes other forms of diversity.”  My response to this concern is threefold.  First is the objection correct?  We all bring diversity and enrich our environments.  However, racial diversity is critical to a community because racial diversity is visually obvious in a way that religious diversity or sexual orientation diversity is not.  

If we believe that diversity is so important why not just accept more black and Hispanic students and hire more diverse teachers? Well, as they say, it ain’t so easy.  First, our educational philosophy does not appeal to everyone, white or black.  So the pool of potential students and applicants is relatively small.  Second, our deeply ingrained custom of calling teachers by their first names strikes many African Americans as disrespectfully informal.   The rationale for that informality must be made clearly and articulately.  Finally, it is difficult to ask people to be trailblazers.  So we must create a warm and embracing school for diverse faculty and students. 

To overcome some of these obstacles, the board appointed a Diversity Committee, consisting of board members, community members and school staff.  We are currently working on crafting strategies to improve the climate for diverse faculty and students. 

Being a diverse and inclusive school is a journey.  We can always do better; we will never be perfect.  However, in a rainbow world, Duke School should have more colors shining brightly.  It will happen; but it takes work.     

Naughty or Nice?

Sometimes I worry about Santa Claus.  He might only work one day a year, but the scale of his task is immense and indeed most likely impossible.  And when I think about it, Santa does not just work one day a year; he spends the year evaluating the behavior of the world’s boys and girls.  Perhaps due to the large “class” size Santa exhibits the worst evaluation practices.  Let’s compare Santa’s approach of assessing students to Duke School’s, which follows best practice.

Understanding the Task:

Santa’s class knows they are trying to earn a grade of “nice” (rather than “naughty").  However, they do not know what they need to accomplish to earn a nice.  They do know that sometimes they are naughty and sometimes nice.  They wonder if one naughty erases all the nices.  They also wonder if being nice at the end of the year helps erase the naughtiness of last spring.  On the other hand, students should know what exactly is expected of them at the start of an assignment.  Hence Duke School teachers are clear about the parameters of a task and often distribute the final evaluation rubric at the lessons start. 

Guiding along the Way:

Santa’s students only know how they did at the end of the year—either when they get coal or a passel of presents.  On the other hand, Duke School teachers continually assess students and give them regular feedback.  More importantly, the feedback revolves around how students can improve—it is forwarding looking rather than backward looking on how they did. 

Nuances in Evaluation:

Students cannot be productively placed in only one of two categories—naughty or nice.  People and their performances are more nuanced.  We all have strengths and weaknesses and good evaluation should highlight both.  Santa is compelled to make a summary judgment with limited options.  At Duke School, our rubrics address many aspects of a task and the teacher often adds a comment, so students have a strong sense of what they did well and what they need to do better. 

Power Dynamic:

Santa may be portrayed as a jolly old elf but in his grading regime, he has all the power.  He is all knowing and the relationship with students is one of master and servant rather than partners in learning.  As Benjamin Zander, states in his wonderful book  The Art of Possibility, working in partnership with students “allows the teacher to line up with her students in their efforts to produce the outcome, rather than lining up with the standards against the student.  In the first instance the instructor and the student….become a team for accomplishing the extraordinary; in the second the disparity in power between them can become a distraction and an inhibitor…”   Santa focuses on the end product rather than the process.  Duke School focuses on the process of learning and knows skills and knowledge come from doing school right.

Locus of Control:

Santa tries to motivate his students through the use of carrots and sticks—presents vs. coal.  Even if this tactic motivates his students, they are working not for themselves but for an arbitrary reward. However, study after study, indicates the best work gets done when students are internally motivated.  That motivation comes, as Daniel Pink discusses in his book, Drive (see this great video about it), from improving mastery, feeling autonomous, and working not just for yourself.  Duke School allows students to fulfill these needs.  Further, Santa never asks his students to think about why they got coal or presents.  As a result students do not gain self-knowledge.  One of the hallmarks of Duke School is that we are regularly asking students to evaluate their own performance.  Self knowledge and motivation lead to better performance.

Grade Inflation:

Let’s be honest, no child gets coal.  Despite all his threats, Santa is a pushover and as a result, sends the message that you really need not work hard to get rewards.  His threat actually acts as to reduce motivation.  (See article about grade inflation at colleges particularly at elite schools.)  On the other hand, at Duke School, students tend to work to improve themselves and want to do the best job possible.  Comments and rubrics do not lead to grade inflation as they are grade free.  They do lead to accomplished students. 

Santa has a tough job and does it well, but he ought to leave the pedagogical aspects of his job to the experts. 

Have a great holiday season.