“At Campbell Hall, we love it all!!”
I led this cheer during spirit rallies prior to Homecoming last month, followed by cheers for not just every fall sport but every arts program as well. It was oddly liberating to watch and hear hundreds of teenagers cheering wildly for photographers and poets as well as football and tennis teams. School spirit, it turns out, is not a zero sum game, with less available for academics and the arts if students support athletics. As the lyrics of one of the songs we sing in elementary chapel put it:
Love is something if you give it away
You end up having more
It's just like a magic penny
Hold it tight & you won't have any
Lend it, spend it & you'll have so many
They'll roll all over the floor!
This is a truth I see every week as I am lucky to share so many aspects of school life. I teach a junior/senior philosophy elective, and the students positively buzz with curiosity and a genuine sense of respect as they discuss each text with their peers. I pass by a jazz/rock combo class where students jam delightedly with a parent who is a professional musician. At the National Letter of Intent Signing Ceremony, every one of our four Division I recruits was praised for being a supportive friend and team-mate as well as a great athlete. Students stop in the third floor hallway to look appreciatively and pensively at the photographs on display.
Our little community here is what Emerson called a State based on love rather than fear. In the fear-based community, if one student succeeds, another must fail. In the abundance of the community based on love, every success breeds another, and every failure is a time for compassion and learning.
We’re not perfect, of course, but this sure is a fun place to manage by walking around!
Friday, December 14, 2007
Ordination to the Priesthood (CLIPS November 2007)
It may have been the first time that student voices chanted the ancient hymn Veni Creator Spiritus in Garver Gym – surely, in any case, it was never sung so beautifully. It marked the first occasion since last year’s Homecoming Spirit Day, anyway, that the Headmaster prostrated himself on the gym floor. Let us hope it’s not the last time that the Bishop of Los Angeles, the irrepressible J. Jon Bruno, celebrated at the altar surrounded by Campbell Hall students, one of them, a kindergartener, making faces into the golden chalice before him on the table during the ceremony.
Many people have kindly congratulated me on “my” ordination at the end of September, in which the Bishop and about a dozen priests lay on hands in the ancient rite of consecration.. However, from the beginning of my discernment process eight years ago, my advisors and mentors described the priesthood in terms of its context within a community. Without the community, the priesthood has no meaning.
Campbell Hall requires its Head of School to be ordained in the Episcopal Church. This reflects, not a narrow denominational loyalty, but an understanding that the truth has its roots in an indefinable Mystery, known to us as the ground of our being and the object of all our ultimate longings. Without such an understanding, all philosophy is at fault, as Emerson once said. It is a great honor and pleasure to serve this community of lifelong learners.
Many people have kindly congratulated me on “my” ordination at the end of September, in which the Bishop and about a dozen priests lay on hands in the ancient rite of consecration.. However, from the beginning of my discernment process eight years ago, my advisors and mentors described the priesthood in terms of its context within a community. Without the community, the priesthood has no meaning.
Campbell Hall requires its Head of School to be ordained in the Episcopal Church. This reflects, not a narrow denominational loyalty, but an understanding that the truth has its roots in an indefinable Mystery, known to us as the ground of our being and the object of all our ultimate longings. Without such an understanding, all philosophy is at fault, as Emerson once said. It is a great honor and pleasure to serve this community of lifelong learners.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Of Bathrobes and Green Beans (CLIPS October 2007)
A whimsical story my brother told recently may offer a clue why many of us love this remarkable place. He quipped that maybe I was destined to enter the priesthood because as a young child I loved to dress up in a satin bathrobe and make grand pronouncements over the rest of the family; he questioned my suitability for the role, however, by noting that I also loved to dance around like Steve Martin (before we knew who Steve Martin was) and stick green beans up my nose!
Without ascribing more weight to such silly idiosyncrasies than they merit, I do note that we rightly describe Campbell Hall as a leading edge, progressive school in traditional clothing. The school is progressive in its focus on the individual child and its passionate and pragmatic commitment to finding ways, any ways, to awaken each student’s joy in learning. There is always contemporary research – for example, on the nature of the brain and its functioning, on the apt role of technology in schools – to study and absorb. We remain passionately interested in incorporating leading edge technology into our teaching where appropriate. The way that something traditionally has been taught is not necessarily the way it should be taught. Examples of this progressive ethos at work at Campbell Hall include the incorporation of the Schools Attuned program and the supporting work of our learning specialists; our successful experimentation with single gender classes in the junior high; and the wonderfully spirited, varied, and technologically sophisticated expressions of the performing and visual arts programs at the school. I am personally very excited to participate in the many and varied special events this year, including the new CH Jam!, that promise an opportunity for wholesome (though sometimes noisy!) fun.
At the same time, Campbell Hall acknowledges that many of the approaches and values of true education are timeless and of ancient pedigree. Uniforms in the elementary school and chapel for all grades (with its ancient prayers and insistence on decorum and respect) are perhaps the most obvious outward symbols of the school’s more conservative nature. We have performed the Nutcracker ballet for decades, and will do so again this year. At its core, any strong liberal arts program is conservative, since the basic critical thinking skills it teaches are in many ways those taught by Plato and Aristotle 2500 years ago. The school’s core values are timeless, including its dedication to educating human beings who are decent, loving, and responsible above all.
Here at the feet of the Hollywood Hills, we do well to embrace the vibrantly creative spirit that fuels our souls as well as much of the local economy. In doing so, I believe we are being true to the spirit of this remarkable and unique school and the families that make this community home.
Without ascribing more weight to such silly idiosyncrasies than they merit, I do note that we rightly describe Campbell Hall as a leading edge, progressive school in traditional clothing. The school is progressive in its focus on the individual child and its passionate and pragmatic commitment to finding ways, any ways, to awaken each student’s joy in learning. There is always contemporary research – for example, on the nature of the brain and its functioning, on the apt role of technology in schools – to study and absorb. We remain passionately interested in incorporating leading edge technology into our teaching where appropriate. The way that something traditionally has been taught is not necessarily the way it should be taught. Examples of this progressive ethos at work at Campbell Hall include the incorporation of the Schools Attuned program and the supporting work of our learning specialists; our successful experimentation with single gender classes in the junior high; and the wonderfully spirited, varied, and technologically sophisticated expressions of the performing and visual arts programs at the school. I am personally very excited to participate in the many and varied special events this year, including the new CH Jam!, that promise an opportunity for wholesome (though sometimes noisy!) fun.
At the same time, Campbell Hall acknowledges that many of the approaches and values of true education are timeless and of ancient pedigree. Uniforms in the elementary school and chapel for all grades (with its ancient prayers and insistence on decorum and respect) are perhaps the most obvious outward symbols of the school’s more conservative nature. We have performed the Nutcracker ballet for decades, and will do so again this year. At its core, any strong liberal arts program is conservative, since the basic critical thinking skills it teaches are in many ways those taught by Plato and Aristotle 2500 years ago. The school’s core values are timeless, including its dedication to educating human beings who are decent, loving, and responsible above all.
Here at the feet of the Hollywood Hills, we do well to embrace the vibrantly creative spirit that fuels our souls as well as much of the local economy. In doing so, I believe we are being true to the spirit of this remarkable and unique school and the families that make this community home.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
After-Parties and Parent Pledge Program
[An edited version of this article was published in CLIPS for July 2007]
Last month I wrote in CLIPS about after-parties, parents who serve alcohol to others’ children, and the dangers to children and to the school community’s sense of mutual trust that such parties create. I received over 30 emails and several letters, phone calls, and office visits in response, all from parents (or grandparents!) who share my concerns.
After careful consideration, and in collaboration with representatives from both the administration and the PTC, Campbell Hall has decided to move forward with two programs related to this issue. The first program is designed to raise awareness and provide supportive networking among parents, while the second focuses on clearly communicating the seriousness with which the school views the issue of alcohol at after-parties.
First, the school will be sponsoring a voluntary parent pledge program, encouraging all parents in grades seven through twelve to sign a pledge that all parties in their homes that include students will be sufficiently chaperoned, and that they will neither serve nor permit the use of alcohol or drugs in their homes during events where students are gathered. Parents will be asked to sign the pledge annually, and the names of all parents choosing to sign the pledge will be published within the school community. Such programs already exist at many other schools, as a simple web search demonstrates. Our research into existing programs shows that some parents may refuse to sign the pledge as a matter of principle, and others may believe, for example, that serving a glass of wine with dinner teaches children the values of moderate social drinking and is a better practice than zero tolerance. Our community recognizes and honors a diversity of parenting styles. The pledge and a list of those families choosing to participate provide many parents much sought-after support in keeping their children safe, and that is a clear enough warrant that we are moving ahead with the pledge beginning this fall for the 2007-2008 school year.
Secondly, the school is adding policies that allow for suspension or dismissal of students whose parents knowingly serve alcohol at after-parties in their homes, or whose negligence allows such parties to take place, after school-sponsored social events such as homecoming, prom, and winter formal. Our previous practice has been to disallow the distribution at school of advertising or tickets for such parties, and to call the parents involved with the strongest warnings we can voice concerning the dangers of such events. Still, the after-parties continue. Parents who host such parties are showing a clear disrespect for the school’s ethos, and that disrespect warrants a stronger response on our part.
On the other hand, we will not follow the advice of some of you that we dismiss any family serving alcohol to minors under any circumstances. I repeat the reluctance to police families’ personal lives that I voiced in my article last month. It is simply not within our mission to investigate the rumors emerging from the many weekend social activities; we will instead focus on doing what we can to discourage parties after major school social events.
Safety has always been one of our primary goals, and we undertake the steps I outline above in that light. I do hope they will make a difference and thus be helpful to the broader parent community in our mutual goal of raising decent, responsible, and loving children.
Last month I wrote in CLIPS about after-parties, parents who serve alcohol to others’ children, and the dangers to children and to the school community’s sense of mutual trust that such parties create. I received over 30 emails and several letters, phone calls, and office visits in response, all from parents (or grandparents!) who share my concerns.
After careful consideration, and in collaboration with representatives from both the administration and the PTC, Campbell Hall has decided to move forward with two programs related to this issue. The first program is designed to raise awareness and provide supportive networking among parents, while the second focuses on clearly communicating the seriousness with which the school views the issue of alcohol at after-parties.
First, the school will be sponsoring a voluntary parent pledge program, encouraging all parents in grades seven through twelve to sign a pledge that all parties in their homes that include students will be sufficiently chaperoned, and that they will neither serve nor permit the use of alcohol or drugs in their homes during events where students are gathered. Parents will be asked to sign the pledge annually, and the names of all parents choosing to sign the pledge will be published within the school community. Such programs already exist at many other schools, as a simple web search demonstrates. Our research into existing programs shows that some parents may refuse to sign the pledge as a matter of principle, and others may believe, for example, that serving a glass of wine with dinner teaches children the values of moderate social drinking and is a better practice than zero tolerance. Our community recognizes and honors a diversity of parenting styles. The pledge and a list of those families choosing to participate provide many parents much sought-after support in keeping their children safe, and that is a clear enough warrant that we are moving ahead with the pledge beginning this fall for the 2007-2008 school year.
Secondly, the school is adding policies that allow for suspension or dismissal of students whose parents knowingly serve alcohol at after-parties in their homes, or whose negligence allows such parties to take place, after school-sponsored social events such as homecoming, prom, and winter formal. Our previous practice has been to disallow the distribution at school of advertising or tickets for such parties, and to call the parents involved with the strongest warnings we can voice concerning the dangers of such events. Still, the after-parties continue. Parents who host such parties are showing a clear disrespect for the school’s ethos, and that disrespect warrants a stronger response on our part.
On the other hand, we will not follow the advice of some of you that we dismiss any family serving alcohol to minors under any circumstances. I repeat the reluctance to police families’ personal lives that I voiced in my article last month. It is simply not within our mission to investigate the rumors emerging from the many weekend social activities; we will instead focus on doing what we can to discourage parties after major school social events.
Safety has always been one of our primary goals, and we undertake the steps I outline above in that light. I do hope they will make a difference and thus be helpful to the broader parent community in our mutual goal of raising decent, responsible, and loving children.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
After-Parties
[A version of this was published in CLIPS for May 2007]
Katie and I struggle with parenting as much as any parents do. There’s no instruction book, family life is stressful and complicated, and media conspire against us with questionable messages for children.
On the other hand, we have had the benefit of raising our children while living and working within cohesive independent school cultures and among many of the ablest parents. I have long dreamed of cataloguing the wisdom of those parents as a kind of loose guidebook for the rest of us, a parenting casuistry for the twenty-first century. I don’t know whether such a project is practical or even advisable, but I do feel strongly enough about a pair of issues to suggest some best practices myself.
Among parents of teenagers, there seems to be some tolerance about serving alcohol to minors. I hear occasionally, for example, that “the kids are going to drink anyway, so I’d rather they do it at my house where I can keep an eye on them.” In the extreme, parents host after-parties with kegs and dozens or even hundreds of underage drinkers. Some parents turn a blind eye to smaller gatherings in their homes.
Parents who serve alcohol to others’ children are breaking more than the law; they are violating the trust and sense of community that constitute one of the greatest assets of a private school. Though Campbell Hall administrators have no interest in interfering in families’ personal lives, it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore how such behavior on the part of some parents impacts the rest of us.
I also find it astounding how many youngers students say they have computers and TVs in their bedrooms. Experts are virtually unanimous in recommending that computers be housed in family rooms rather than bedrooms, particular for younger children, though perhaps even through junior high and high school. There’s simply too much unsavory content, and too many opportunities for students to waste time or worse, even with blocking and monitoring software.
I welcome your feedback, via this blog or email at bullj@campbellhall.org. Perhaps Campbell Hall will someday undertake to collect best practices from across the grade levels, though I maintain as much respect as anybody for different parenting styles. But frankly, it’s difficult to see how serving alcohol to minors or allowing unmonitored access to computers (particularly to younger children) could be justified under any style of parenting.
Katie and I struggle with parenting as much as any parents do. There’s no instruction book, family life is stressful and complicated, and media conspire against us with questionable messages for children.
On the other hand, we have had the benefit of raising our children while living and working within cohesive independent school cultures and among many of the ablest parents. I have long dreamed of cataloguing the wisdom of those parents as a kind of loose guidebook for the rest of us, a parenting casuistry for the twenty-first century. I don’t know whether such a project is practical or even advisable, but I do feel strongly enough about a pair of issues to suggest some best practices myself.
Among parents of teenagers, there seems to be some tolerance about serving alcohol to minors. I hear occasionally, for example, that “the kids are going to drink anyway, so I’d rather they do it at my house where I can keep an eye on them.” In the extreme, parents host after-parties with kegs and dozens or even hundreds of underage drinkers. Some parents turn a blind eye to smaller gatherings in their homes.
Parents who serve alcohol to others’ children are breaking more than the law; they are violating the trust and sense of community that constitute one of the greatest assets of a private school. Though Campbell Hall administrators have no interest in interfering in families’ personal lives, it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore how such behavior on the part of some parents impacts the rest of us.
I also find it astounding how many youngers students say they have computers and TVs in their bedrooms. Experts are virtually unanimous in recommending that computers be housed in family rooms rather than bedrooms, particular for younger children, though perhaps even through junior high and high school. There’s simply too much unsavory content, and too many opportunities for students to waste time or worse, even with blocking and monitoring software.
I welcome your feedback, via this blog or email at bullj@campbellhall.org. Perhaps Campbell Hall will someday undertake to collect best practices from across the grade levels, though I maintain as much respect as anybody for different parenting styles. But frankly, it’s difficult to see how serving alcohol to minors or allowing unmonitored access to computers (particularly to younger children) could be justified under any style of parenting.
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