Berwick Academy Head of School

My former Head of School was fond of saying that late January, in the context of all enrollment and employment contracts being sent out, was the time when he suddenly found himself with no students and no employees. There is no denying the challenge that exists in sending out all kinds of offers to be a part of Berwick’s next journey and having to wait for seven or eight hundred different contracts to emerge in various ways. Some of those eight hundred stories will be straightforward, and some will take lots of follow up and persistence. There will be happy surprises and surprise disappointments along the way; there are every year. It is hard as a leader, and harder as a parent, to acknowledge that certain things are out of our control. I heard recently from a Berwick parent that their freshman in college was back in the house for the past month and how hard it was to figure out the proper parenting role. Mostly this person just hoped and prayed that good decisions would be made. W...

We often lament in the Admission Office that we wish we could bottle up the Berwick spirit in our marketing efforts. Bringing clarity and data to all that makes Berwick unique is a difficult task. To some degree, one has to experience it to believe it.  In fact we just celebrated one of those nights last week at our Trustee/Faculty/Staff dinner. At that event, our guests from the Taktse School in Sikkim, India were in attendance as were their Berwick host families. One of the added bonuses of this arrangement was that a few of our Berwick parents caught a glimpse of this special event that is generally not open to our parent community. I hope my musings today might offer some of you a glimpse as well. It is a rare and special tradition that after our January Board meeting, our employee community sits down with trustees to share a meal and celebrate the school. January strikes me as a good time to do this, when we are in the thick of the year rather than the excitement of the b...

As we have all returned to the busy pace of Berwick life once again this week, I have been struck deeply by the rather insidious expectation and unquenchable thirst we seem to have for communication of all types. This is not to dismiss the need at schools for great communication. To the contrary, I would offer that most of my toughest and most important moments as a leader have revolved around challenges associated with communication – whether to our internal or external audiences. The need for transparency and informed expectations are essential component to running a solid school these days. I certainly know that I have plenty of room for growth in this area. But it is also true that I spent the majority of my time last week with my cell phone off, my computer gone, and in the presence of a roaring fire. Music, backgammon, cribbage, and conversations were ubiquitous. Without such immediate access to email or CNN, a rather cliché epiphany emerged: I had everything I needed right ...

I don’t think everyone is aware that for this period between Thanksgiving and Winter break, grade levels within the Middle School temporarily re-organize themselves to offer interdisciplinary learning experiences to break up the regular routine of class. This year, I was asked to participate in the “Machine Pilot” aspect of the seventh grade effort to explore the concept of extra-terrestrial life (E.T.). Seventh graders are asked to consider who, out of anyone on the planet, they would choose to send into outer space to interact with alien life forms and why. Our students are told they can literally choose any person on the planet, and the focus need not necessarily be someone with experience in space travel. In fact, they are asked to envision a pre-programmed ship with one seat, leaving them to consider not just technical skills but who would we want to represent human kind in this first interaction. They research, create resumes, write persuasive cover letters and are ultimately as...

Well, there is no denying that this week sent me into the world of meteorology mania for the first time this year. I suddenly found myself at 4:15 a.m., cross-eyed and staring at weather websites, trying to make sense of what would happen during the morning commute. While this was no blizzard, it was a perfect storm nonetheless – a true Berwick Academy nightmare: snow on campus, rain on the coast, not too much in Massachusetts, and mucho snow in Manchester. Local districts revealed no clear pattern of cancellation, delay, or opening at the regular time.  There was nowhere to hide – no moving with the herd on this particular day for sure. After a long bleary conversation with the decision makers, we went with a truly inspirational and intellectual decision: the riveting two-hour delay. By 10 a.m., I was at my window reminding the sky that it was supposed to be raining by now. I was questioned by an employee at lunch why we were even here. All day long I watched our maintenance ...

Last week I had the amazing opportunity to travel with a few people from Berwick to the NAIS People of Color conference. If you are not aware, it is a gathering of independent school educators from around the country who come together to think about the challenges and opportunities in work supporting inclusivity and diversity. I had not been for a few years, and I was drawn to a number of the speakers – most notably a keynote address from Ta-Nehisi Coates. Interestingly, this conference has now grown larger than the traditional national industry conference, with over 6,000 people in attendance, 1500 of which were students. For me, there is really no other professional forum that affords one a chance to learn by leaning into discomfort in quite the same way. Each time I sit in a session at this gathering, I am aware of my minority status in the room, as it is so different from my daily life. I am also struck by the ways in which employees of color need these kinds of opportunities to n...

I have always believed that, whether schools like it or not, there are two structures that are the clearest expression of one’s mission: budget and schedule. How a school chooses to spend its limited resources ultimately reveals what it thinks is most important. Similarly, how the community chooses to spend its time with students expresses what we believe to be most important in promoting virtue and useful knowledge to the rising generations. This week on campus, consultants have visited us from ISM (Independent School Management), who will try to help us unlock new possibilities in our usage of time as we work to implement Curriculum 2020 more completely. I should start by saying considering schedule change within a community like ours can be highly emotional and quite scary. The layers of complexity are endless when one tries to consider the demands on a PK-12 schedule. We have cross-divisional employees, part-time employees, academics, athletics, arts, wellness – all couched wi...