Head of School's Message: September 26

One of the conference sessions was on the use of technology as a tool to engage students. When it came time for Q + A, an older gentleman in the audience raised his hand, and in a skeptical tone said, “Let’s face it, there are no new truths in education, just reformulations of old truths.” He was pointing out that the primary cause of student engagement is not the tool but the teacher. That was the only note I took in that session.

Twenty years on from the conference, I am now older, and like the man in Boston, I believe that there are no new truths in education, just reformulations of old truths about the way teachers teach, students learn and parents parent.

I went back through old notes and press clippings during the summer, and I came across a 2003 New York Times article by Susan Gilbert on How to Raise Good Kids. She listed several conditions that allow caring and compassion to develop in children. These included having parents who regulate their emotions, who model caring behavior, who set appropriate limits on their children’s behavior, who communicate to children that they are responsible for their behavior, and who use reasoning to direct children’s attention. Those were not new truths then, and they are not old truths now.

In the article, Susan Gilbert encouraged schools and parents to nurture a child’s capacity to be moral. She wrote, “Children are born with moral sense which can be stunted if its development is neglected. Discussions that get students working through moral quandaries based on their experiences and through the literature they read have measurable results.” One conclusion she drew was how a children’s innate desire to be good can falter when they regularly see people getting away with doing wrong.

Chandler is not a school for perfect children. Students make mistakes and occasional poor decisions. They grow by learning from them. A month into the school year, we have examples from all grades of learning and growth! Chandler teachers are obliged to establish boundaries and to set limits and students often feel obligated to test them. That was true of Chandler and Chandler students when the school was established in 1950, and it’s true of Chandler students in 2022. 

Chandler School is in service to the values of respect, trustworthiness, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship. Thanks to the principled men and women who teach them, and raised by loving parents who choose to send their children to Chandler, we are partners in the great purpose of education that dates back centuries, to teach young people how to be good.