Thursday mornings at St. Edmund’s Academy mean so much to all of us.   Through Commendations and the Lead Student ceremony, we elevate and celebrate our shared values.  We recognize individual children for their goodness, a process reminding them that of course we know who they are and we care deeply about how they treat each other and conduct themselves. 

Several recent conversations with parents of 5^th and 6^th graders have me thinking about the importance of taking responsibility for one’s own conduct.  Instead of ushering in more mature perspectives, puberty seems to send many tweens spiraling backward into near toddler-like behavior.   Research shows that spatial learning and certain kinds of reasoning may decline at this stage. 

This can lead to confusion—children who seem inexplicably incapable of taking a note from the car into a teacher, or carrying laundry to their bedroom without getting lost along the way. 

As adults we can coach them in organizational skills and help them think through sound decision making processes.  Leaving reminder post-it notes, setting phone alarms, placing a gym bag by the door, organizing school supplies before bed all can help.  Most importantly, parents remaining warm and supportive as children struggle to take responsibility for their own conduct leads to less anxiety and sadness through the increasingly complex teenage years to follow.  

As I reflected on our hopes for 5^th and 6^th graders, I thought about our opportunity to model responsibility for them.  Specifically, I thought about St. Edmund’s Academy’s responsibility to offer the very best possible education and the most enriching experience for your family.  Now more than ever we have a responsibility to understand what research tells us about the connection between social-emotional learning and academic achievement, the importance of helping children develop a growth mindset, and the increasing awareness of each student’s personal engagement in his or her schoolwork.

In short, we feel a responsibility to model the behavior we expect from our students.  So, it’s worth asking—in what ways does St. Edmund’s Academy define and carry out its responsibility?

First, we have a responsibility to understand our tradition—those uniquely St. Edmund’s Academy commitments that have led to our success in the first place.  As the founding Headmaster at our school, “Sir”—Robert Izod—shook each boy’s hand as he departed school at the end of the day.  This signaled his knowledge of individual children and their families.  It reflected the school’s focus on character and an underlying commitment to providing a well-rounded education in core academic subjects.  Today we embrace our strongest traditions, not in timid adherence or blind repetition, but in an evolutionary process that never loses sight of the original intention.

Second, we share a responsibility to know what matters most to our current families and to measure our success in meeting their expectations.  Alumni will not be surprised to learn that in a community-wide survey conducted in 2015, families cited these top reasons for choosing St. Edmund’s Academy:

In each of these attributes, St. Edmund’s Academy families ranked our school above benchmark and we view these as areas of strength that will continue to define our program.

Simultaneously, in our realistic appraisal of our effectiveness, we know that St. Edmund’s Academy families also value:

and in each of these attributes we rank below benchmark and see these areas as opportunities for mission-appropriate improvement. 

Third, we understand our responsibility to overlay this data onto our recent alumni’s current experience in secondary school.  That’s why in the fall of 2015, along with the Academic Dean, I visited our alumni at the six local secondary schools that are most often selected by our graduates.  In focus group style conversations, we learned that our alumni nearly universally share outstanding critical thinking skills, excellent organizational habits, and exemplary writing abilities.  We also learned that when faced with open, inquiry-based, group assignments, our alumni occasionally experienced frustration.  Piercing clarity on what our outcomes tell us about what’s going well and where we can improve created the perfect backdrop for determining St. Edmund’s Academy’s strategic priorities for the next several years. 

Fourth, guided by our internal data, we have a responsibility to understand meaningful changes in the field of education ensuring that our program prepares children to thrive in a changing world as it has through our storied past.  Imagine the world that existed when St. Edmund’s was founded in 1947.  The nation and city’s industrial economic infrastructure, with its rigid assembly-line logic and compliance focus, gave rise to schools as we know them.  Within that context, children consumed information along an assembly line of classrooms organized around their teachers’ needs and punctuated by bells triggering their next move. 

Shifts at all levels of education, from preschool to graduate school, have reimagined the nature and purpose of learning.  St. Edmund’s today has a unique opportunity to blend time-honored modes of teaching with new engaging initiatives.  In short, we share an opportunity to make learning deeply meaningful and relevant to our students’ lives.

Finally, guided by awareness of St. Edmund’s Academy’s enduring traditions, understanding of our current families’ expectations, insight into our recent alumni’s secondary school effectiveness, and appreciation for meaningful changes in education, we have a responsibility to use our resources to advance our program. 

I am pleased to share with the St. Edmund’s Academy community that the early phase of our first capital campaign in nearly twenty years has begun.  While significant work must be completed before our public launch, we look forward to augmenting our school’s commitment to core values with an expanded emphasis on core competencies including critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication skills. 

At a time when we could point to our near-record enrollment and take comfort in our success, we dare to dream bigger.   Inspired by our strategic planning process, we have begun to imagine “Signature Experiences” at every grade level.  We imagine children in interdisciplinary, project-based, deep dives, where during a concentrated period of time they collaborate to create something or help someone. 

 

This blend of entrepreneurial and service learning projects will offer children an opportunity to apply traditionally acquired skills to undertakings that ignite their imagination and fuel their curiosity.  We imagine a day when St. Edmund’s Academy graduates will leave with an electronic portfolio showcasing products they have made and people they have helped. 

 

Vital improvements to our facility will provide improved spaces for children to learn and grow, create and innovate, in ways not possible given current limitations.  We embrace our responsibility to inspire our students through an engaging program built on core values and infused with 21^st century learning experiences.  I look forward to sharing with you additional details about our plans as they emerge.

 

Meanwhile, I hope that all of us at St. Edmund’s Academy will follow Stella, Ava, Vanessa, Alexis, Marcell, Tom, Melina, Maeve, Campbell, and Christian as we take responsibility for our conduct.  They earned their commendations and taught all of us something in the process.