Berwick Academy Head of School

It is amazing to acknowledge that this will be my final Friday blog of the 2015-2016 school year. It is time for me to spend some time coming up with new material for the fall – I am quite sure the audience needs more of a break than I do. Earlier yesterday I participated once again in Young Author’s Day, watching as we pushed Lower School students out of their comfort zone to present their work in a public way. Simultaneously the push is on in the rest of the school to motor through exams and final assessments. There are final athletic and musical events, and awards ceremonies abound; there seems to be an infinite amount of activity on this campus right now. It is the time of year when schools want to see tangible evidence of progress as a validation of our collective work to date. Sometimes that evidence is a bit more qualitative than quantitative in nature. Earlier this week, I was deeply touched by the number of parents who have approached me to indicate just how proud they ar...

I have never been particularly good at accepting compliments or celebrating success. Both as a student and now as a school leader, I tend to focus on the next challenge in front of me or how my performance should improve. Leading a school feeds my natural wiring in this regard, as there is never enough endowment, tuition, or campus improvement to make one feel like the work is done. And of course that is the point – if we do not gear our sights towards improvement, then mediocrity and decline will inevitably set in. Late May, however, asks me to write a lot of speeches. Many of them focus upon honoring classes, students, or even careers. I am also asked to bring some kind of reflective perspective to the year as a whole. Additionally, the Board of Trustees requires a thoughtful self-evaluation about my own performance. When this writing is taken in totality, a Head of School can’t help but reflect upon all that we have accomplished in a year. In fact, I believe this year has been ...

As I leave Whipple’s lobby, recently transformed by singed senior paintings and brake pads reborn as sculpture, I gulp down the remains of my makeshift Arnold Palmer and amble towards the third floor of Fogg. It is Senior Arts night. Each year, I know something will amaze me in this kaleidoscope of senior expression ranging from the comical to the nostalgic to the moving. I enter our slightly tired Upper School study hall to see it gratefully returned to its original purpose: as a space for performance. I remember that we will be painting walls and adding new carpet in Fogg this summer – I bet the kids will like that. Next year’s kids. A bit tired from what has been a truly long day in B-D, I plop myself into the first back row seat I can find. I try to be as inconspicuous as a Head of School can be with only three weeks until graduation. This is their night, after all. Watching the stage mystically framed by waning sun streaming through stained glass, I am struck by a num...

I have always thought our recital week in April is one of the hidden gems of the ridiculously over crowded spring Berwick calendar. Behind the scenes, our applied music teachers work with so many Berwick students to encourage them to grow and develop as performers. At the heart of this experience is compelling growth in their confidence and sense of identity. Each year I am struck by the fact that separate from anything having to do with musical skills, the experience of performance reiterates to children that their own personal expression really matters to us. I was lucky enough to have two daughters involved this year. In the first case, Kenna was set up behind a complex set of electronic drums as she rocked out to a Katy Perry song. Watching the intensity of her counting and her seriousness of purpose made me acknowledge just how much this performance mattered to her. Avery, on the other hand, had her first recital in the theater playing our massive Steinway piano under a rat...