Head of School's Message: January 21

On several occasions during this school year, a deputation of angry second-grade boys has come by my office to demand action on a matter of grave concern. It is infuriating to them that during touch football games at recess, there are boys who occasionally make false claims about their yardage gains. The amazing Mr. Donny typically mediates these disputes, but if our head football official is otherwise engaged, it’s left up to me to be Roger Goodell. Our meetings usually end with me urging the boys to work out their dispute without adult intervention, to which they respond, “But they won’t listen to us,” so I find the perpetrators and remind them of the game’s rules.

 

‘If you cheat to win, are you a winner?’ Last week’s revelations that our Dodgers may have been cheated out of a World Series by the cheating Astros provide teachable moments about morality and ethics. We want children to tell the truth, keep their promises, not to cheat and not to hurt anyone. Those are the reasons why parents choose independent schools like Chandler.

 

In his book The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life, New York Times columnist David Brooks writes, “the public square has been denuded of moral conversation, and yet it’s completely hungry for it.” As teachers and parents, we are obligated to hold moral conversations with our children that are not finger-wagging lectures. They are the antecedents for becoming an honest adult. Children who don’t cheat grow up to be adults who don’t cheat.

 

In an article on the baseball scandal last Friday, the New York Times reported on the Play Like a Champion program run by F. Clark Power. He worries that by flouting rules, more is being lost than a sense of fair play. He says, “Every seven year old knows that to have a fair game of hide and seek, you’ve got to keep your eyes closed while you count. We need to understand; if we are going to endorse cheating as a means to an end, the children are watching. So it becomes a question of how do you want to raise your kids? We can’t get much lower as a culture if cheating is no longer a moral issue but a form of coping. We need to change the conversation.”

 

I’m often in the middle of something when the second-grade boys come by my office, and there are times when I don’t treat them as seriously as I should. Last week’s revelations about sign stealing reminded me that unscheduled moral conversations started by children are the most essential parts of my day. The opportunity to impact a child’s moral development requires my undivided attention.