Skip to main content

What makes a great teacher?

It is definitely hiring season on the Hilltop, and the amount of candidates I have been interviewing in the past few weeks has been a bit overwhelming. This is a year when we have a few retirements and a few departures, so it is a chance to bring amazing new talent to the school. Assistant Head of School Ryan Feeley has done such an amazing job that I feel like we are in a better position than we ever have been to make great decisions in the weeks ahead. It has been particularly noteworthy to see how many candidates are resonating deeply with Berwick initiatives like Curriculum 2020, the Berwick Innovation Center, Wellness, and our cherished core value of balance in all that we do.

Hiring, however, also makes me appreciate what an amazing faculty we already have. I find myself asking questions of new hires about collegiality, love of children, innovation, self-awareness, and personal growth. To be a great teacher at Berwick, one needs a unique blend of loving the complexity of children, having passion for an academic area, and enjoying hard work. Time and again I am amazed not only by the quality of learning happening at our school, but the work of our faculty outside the classroom. Parents and students often forget that every long trip for a student down to Portsmouth Abbey or a field trip for a debate competition over a weekend represents time for our faculty away from their own families – never mind the nightly preparation and grading for class the next day. It does not take much to see that their jobs go so far beyond a typical forty-hour workweek. They are not paid nearly enough for their exceptional work, in my opinion. Part of this is the relative societal value placed on teachers in comparison to other professions, but part of this is based on the limits of an independent school model that is so expensive to produce in the first place.


So we know that money is not the prime motivator for our teachers; this work is a calling of sorts. When I think of the collective effort and energy that our teachers share in coming to know Berwick students, I truly feel inspired to do more. I feel moved to create an environment and culture where teachers can do their best work. I feel deeply motivated to find them new, innovative, collaborative partners in our hiring process. I have a suspicion the results will be particularly exciting this year. Wish us luck.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Piercing the Bubble

This week we were so fortunate to have former NH Senator Kelly Ayotte address grades 7 – 11 in our theater about Civil Discourse in a time of Political Polarization. Senator Ayotte spoke to the need to take the high road in tough conversations and put an incredible primacy on building relationships with people who hold different opinions. She was able to speak to some of her own successes in working across the aisle to develop legislation to address the opioid crisis in New Hampshire as one powerful example of how this can be possible. Additionally, Senator Ayotte offered a strong reminder to our students of the need for more women in positions of leadership within our government, citing that she had only been the 53rd woman to serve in the US senate during her tenure. With a down-to-earth style and but an appropriately impassioned call to action, she challenged our students to become the leaders that they could be. Her call to action and example of service were powerful reminder...
Post a Comment
Read more

Arts Underground

One of Berwick’s great strengths is its arts culture, and I have always felt that there is both a public and private face of this culture. The public face includes our amazing concerts, our ambitious productions, and the various art shows we produce throughout the year. The private face tends to include things like private lessons, coffeehouses, assembly performances, murals painted on walls, and unexpected artistic expressions that emerge on campus throughout the year. One of the great traditions I will miss at Berwick will be the annual recital week in April. So many of our students hone their craft on private music lessons throughout the year in the hopes of having a public performance at this time. Simultaneously, we have a week of performances in the theater and in Chip Harding’s coffeehouse lair – the space he likes to refer to as his “smoldering ruins,” referring to the carnage left there after every Middle School electric guitar class. This year, for my second and final time, I...
Post a Comment
Read more

Curriculum 2020 in Action

Last week I took my oldest daughter to Global Ex , and she told me she wished she had a chance to build something now rather than waiting for seventh grade. As she dropped marbles in various contraptions, she asked for deep explanations as to how all of the moving parts worked together. Perhaps more than any other indicator, her comment told me that our interdisciplinary revamp of our traditional science fair is working. Global Ex is now a long-term project that combines seventh grade World Cultures and Science, forcing students to collaborate, do research, consider social change, and quite simply - to build stuff. There was huge evidence of work that had been done in our fabrication studio, not to mention the coding, circuitry, and presentation skills all on display. Continuing with a long-standing tradition at this school, Berwick students were asked to put on a public display of what they had learned. Earlier last week, I engaged a group of parents in a brainstorming session ...
Post a Comment
Read more