Head of School's Message: October 31

For me, it was a special occasion. Mom was a student at Chandler when I arrived in 2001. She’s the first graduate during my tenure to apply her child for admission. A research scientist by profession, after high school at Westridge, she studied chemistry at UC Berkeley before earning an MS and a PhD in Chemistry at Yale. 

During the tour, she asked probing, detailed questions about Chandler’s commitment to DEI, to student well-being, how students and teachers use technology, what we mean by academic challenge and how we deliver it. As we walked around the classrooms, she commented on the prevalence of collaborative learning. Students in all grades worked on an assortment of assignments as teachers moved from group to group. There were moments of nostalgia when we walked into her former English teacher’s classroom. Ashley Laird was thrilled to see her, but our alumna’s focus was on Chandler as a good fit for her son and not as a place to rekindle memories of growing up. She’s looking for a school with the right chemistry.

Becoming You, an article by Joshua Rothman in October 10th’s New Yorker, asked the question, ‘Are you the same person you were when you were a child?’ Some people feel they have altered profoundly through the years, and to them, the past feels like a foreign country. Others and I imagine Chandler alumni who send their children to the school are in this category, have a strong sense of connection with their younger selves, and for them, the past remains a home.  

Rothman quoted from the ‘Dunedin Study’ conducted by the University of Otago in New Zealand. Starting in 1970 researchers began a longitudinal study checking in with a thousand and thirty-seven children and their family and friends beginning at age three until they reached forty-five. A book by the researchers, The Origins of You: How Childhood Shapes Later Life was published in 2020.

Rothman quotes the nineteenth-century philosopher John Stuart Mill who wrote that a young person is like “a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides according to the tendency of inward forces which make it a living thing.” The authors of The Origins of You offer a more chaotic metaphor. From their findings, they conclude, “Human beings are like storm systems. Each individual storm has its own set of traits and dynamics. Its future depends on elements of atmosphere and landscape. An individual’s fate might be determined by air pressure in another locale. Storms are shaped by the world and by other storms.”

When my wife and I moved with our boys from San Diego to Pasadena in 2001, we noticed one big difference was that many people who lived in Pasadena had grown up here. Most people we met in San Diego were from somewhere else. Returning to the place where you started and bringing back what you learned anchors a community and fosters its dynamism. There are 39 children of alumni who currently attend Chandler. That’s almost 10% of the student body. Chandler’s Asst. Director of Advancement and Community Engagement Jennifer Johnson ’94 does a phenomenal job keeping alumni engaged with the school. Many choose Chandler for their children. They perpetuate and strengthen our community.