Thanksgiving 2008

Dear Campbell Hall Families,

During this holiday season, I am reminded how grateful I am for this community and the clear sense of purpose and joy that may unite us.

I acknowledged in the November issue of CLIPS that we find ourselves in challenging times economically, and the best minds in the State and country continue to try to sort things out, with mixed immediate effect. I am sensitive to the trials that some in our community, and very many outside of it, are facing every day. At the same time, from my happy vantage point I bear witness to a remarkable sense of generosity and abundance in our student and parent bodies. Elementary students and their parents have supported the Outreach Gift Fair with their usual commitment and imagination, and have added energetic food drives for the hungry and clothing drives for the victims of the fires. Practically every week I hear of new causes and philanthropic projects among our secondary students; providing appropriate guidance and opportunity for so many student entrepreneurs is challenging, but what a great problem to have! Annual Giving remains strong because of the commitment of so many of you to keep philanthropic disciplines in the face of a broader, fear-based contraction in the economy. Alumni involvement in the life of the school is as high as it has ever been.

Numbers of applications to CH, and levels of enthusiasm among applicant families, point to another year of challenging admissions selections – and without being insensitive to those applicants, I note that from the perspective of the school’s long-term stability, this is another good problem to have. Fall sports programs were hugely successful (girls’ varsity volleyball and tennis are still in playoffs as I write), the fall production broke yet further artistic ground for us, and the Nutcracker juggernaut looks to be moving towards another exuberant production. Applicants these days have heard of, and are drawn to, any number of successful programs at the school, as well as a general sense that our academic rigor takes place within a context of supportive relationships.

On the financial front, the growth of our endowment in recent years, even though diminished over the past twelve months, has still created enough retained earnings to provide significant ongoing budgetary support. We are monitoring our budget for this current fiscal year and are planning for next year to make necessary adjustments. Thanks to prudent, skillful and conservative management of our resources (thanks in part to exemplary volunteers on our Board and Finance Committees), the school has produced balanced budgets for many decades now. Overall, we have been buoyed by the gains we have made in every domain over the last decade in admissions activity, unrestricted annual giving, endowment funds, capital contributions, increased financial aid, additions to the physical plant, and most importantly, increased leadership among our faculty, students, and parents.

By way of some historical perspective, you might be interested to know that over the last forty years (1967-2007), the United States has experienced six recessionary periods lasting six months or longer, during which enrollments and philanthropic support for independent schools have remained quite stable. Strong schools emerge from turbulent times in an even stronger position because they use challenges to focus laser-like on mission and core values. Our mission – to nurture academic excellence and decent, loving, and responsible human beings – is alive and very well, and I do not for a moment take that for granted.

So as we pause on the eve of the holiday season, let us together acknowledge that this year, the school’s 65th, is off to an excellent start. I can tell you from someone who lives on this campus every day that the students are not in the midst of a great depression, not even a recession! The market may be bearish, but Campbell Hall remains bullish on its mission. For that, for good health, for family and friends, and above all for happy children, I give great thanks.

Against Rankings

The September issue of Los Angeles Magazine included an article entitled “Best High Schools 2008.” The authors included Campbell Hall in their “Honor Roll” of the top 47 high schools in the city (public and private), but not in the list of the top 10. According to the article, schools were judged “based on a weighted average of scores assigned to a slightly different set of variables” than the magazine used for public schools, “including the average SAT score for students enrolled at the school. If a school was missing only its SAT result, the number was projected through a technique known as imputation.”

I have been asked a number of times since that article came out, why Campbell Hall did not divulge our average SAT scores. Consonant with the recommendation from the President of the National Association of Independent Schools (see below), Campbell Hall does not play the school rankings game. It is very well known among professional educators that average SAT scores in particular are a horrible measure of the “value added” of any particular school program. The best way to raise the average SAT or ERB score at a school is to admit students with higher scores, or dismiss those with lower scores, tactics that do indeed occur at schools seeking to raise their profile among anxious parentsin a competitive market. At Campbell Hall, our mission is to deliberately seek out admit, and then support students with a broader range of abilities, from those who test exceptionally well (and are admitted to the most competitive colleges and universities in the country) to those whose gifts lie elsewhere. We have continued this admissions approach as our waiting lists have grown, and will continue to do so in the future, though the selection of students with lower scores hurts our “ranking” on crude numeric scales.

The best and last words on school rankings have been spoken so eloquently by the President of NAIS, Pat Bassett, that I will quote him at length here:

The National Association of Independent Schools is and always has been opposed to the ranking of schools. The "best" school — public, parochial, or independent — is the one that uniquely meets the needs of each particular child.

In the independent school sector, each institution, in its mission statement, defines its own objectives: the kind of program and campus culture the school provides, and often, the qualities that will help a student to succeed there. These schools were not created from one mold. They have different missions, offer different grade ranges, curricular emphases, pedagogical approaches, and extracurricular programs. Some schools are highly competitive by design, others intentionally create a nurturing atmosphere in which certain students will thrive; some focus on the arts, some on mathematics and science, others on outdoor education. Different schools offer programs for different types of students — bright students with learning differences, the gifted, students of average ability, children who face particular challenges.

Independent schools are to be judged, through their rigorous accreditation processes, according to what they individually set out to accomplish. Ranking such wonderfully different schools against one another misrepresents the institutions, misleads consumer-minded parents about the factors that should be considered in the complex process of choosing a school, but most importantly, can hurt children. Ranking elementary and secondary schools is a de facto labeling of vulnerable children and adolescents and is inherently wrong.[1]

The alternative to ranking schools is, admittedly, more labor-intensive, but it is far more reliable. The National Association of Independent Schools, along with 35 partner associations, has developed a checklist to help parents judge the quality of schools. These criteria— rooted in real research, not quick and easy yardsticks— are palpably evident in great schools: high-quality teachers, low student-to-teacher ratios, an ethos of academic challenge for all students, a partnership with parents, and a climate that supports achievement. Find those five qualities in evidence in a school and any parent will be able to find the very short list of "the best schools for my child."[2]

Campbell Hall is not the best school for every child in the city, but 97% of the respondents to last June’s Parent Survey said they would recommend us to their friends. I believe that’s because we do an excellent job meeting students wherever they are, and taking them to the next level. Isn’t that the real value all parents want their child’s school to add?

[1] “NAIS Statement: On Ranking Schools,” NAIS Board of Directors, January 1 1997, as found at: http://www.nais.org/about/article.cfm?ItemNumber=145361

[2] Patrick Bassett, “Letter to the Editor of Newsweek,” 6/2/2003; as found at: http://www.nais.org/about/pressrelease.cfm?ItemNumber=144398

Swamp Issues

I read the following recently on the Servant-Leadership Blog. I'm not even sure who wrote it, but I find it thought-provoking.

Ellen Schall, who is Dean of Health Policy & Management at NYU, once wrote an article titled: Learning to Love the Swamp. In the article she talks about these things known as swamp issues - tangled, complex problems that resist technical analysis and thus stand in contrast to the high, hard ground issues that are easier to address but where less is at stake for the organization or the society. Swamp issues call for changes of heart and mind - the transformation of long-standing habits and deeply held assumptions and values.

When organizations make the decision to make progress on these difficult issues, or swamp issues, the practice of leadership now begins to focus on questions of purpose - and suddenly the criteria for determining whether or not one is exercising effective leadership shifts. No longer are the traits of individual personalities as critical; instead the focus is on the capacities of individuals to intervene in complex systems. It is a focus on presence rather than personality.

What are the swamp issues within your organization? Is the organization ready to begin tackling these - or are personality and personal power still too important to allow these discussions to take place?

Responding to Student Drug Use

I feel some days that I have 1100 children instead of two! Day after day I delight in the wit, sensitivity, creativity, and sense of fun of Campbell Hall students. When I get to teach a class or lead a discussion group, I almost always leave the classroom hopeful and excited that our future is in such good hands.

The greatest threat to my optimism regarding some of our children comes from their use of alcohol and drugs. Although reliable figures are hard to come by, it seems that Campbell Hall mirrors national statistics in that a majority of students experiment with alcohol during their high school years and a small minority try drugs. Both parents and educators need to be realistic in addressing those temptations. Campbell Hall has long sponsored drug and alcohol awareness programs; currently we teach several units in the junior high and high school through our human development classes, and touch on the subject many times in chapel and other classes. While we believe that every youngster who makes a mistake deserves a second chance, we have long made clear the seriousness of our approach to drug and alcohol problems through a “no tolerance” policy towards those students whom we find are using but have not come to us asking for help. In recent years we have become more assertive in investigating rumors of off-campus use (including parent-sponsored after-parties) that reach our ears and reduce the sense of safety and common mission on campus.

Despite our best efforts and those of many parents, this year’s ninth grade class has suffered as a number of students have either admitted, or have been witnessed, possessing, using, and/or selling drugs. Eight students have left the class at different times during the year. Adolescents are notoriously unrealistic in assessing the consequences of their behavior and adjusting accordingly; this year has seen a small number of more public users. While there is no evidence of any larger trend in the student body, it is still heartbreaking to us as idealistic and hopeful people that a small group could have veered so much off-track.

The number of drug-related incidents has occasioned much reflection and discussion in our administrative teams, and proposals for reviewing and modifying our drug and alcohol education program, our messages in chapel, and our disciplinary policies abound, which is as it should be. At the same time, it’s clear from conversations with families that parents play the central role in keeping their children safe from the temptations of drugs and alcohol. Campbell Hall’s Parent Education program was started about fifteen years ago in recognition of that central role that parents must play.

In response to recent drug-related incidents, we have also formed a joint PTC/administrative Drug and Alcohol Awareness Committee to review the school’s curriculum, policies, and practices, and to support the work of the Parent Education program by planning networking opportunities for parents. The following issues were prioritized in the Committee’s first meeting on the morning after the Town Hall:

-Greater clarification of the following issues in the Student Handbooks: 1) Explanation of “zero tolerance”; 2) Emphasize that “zero tolerance” includes major off-campus infractions; 3)Emphasize that families who come to the school asking for help for a student’s drug problem before a disciplinary issue arises may be able to remain at school if they participate in appropriate rehabilitation programs and stay incident-free moving forward.

-Explore Secondary “Summer Socials” for each grade level, grade level coffees, and Breakfast Clubs.

-Explore the possibility of having incoming secondary families meet in smaller groups with administrators, perhaps even one-on-one, to review expectations and policies.

-Use case studies on drug and alcohol issues in advisor groups.

-Expand community service opportunities for parents and students at local rehabilitation centers.

I emphasize that the most important thing you can do at this point as parents is to attend, in the weeks and months ahead, grade-level networking gatherings and also events sponsored by our Parent Education program. Get to know more parents in your class, and talk about parenting issues. As one parent noted in our well attended Town Hall meeting last week, we hope to see the same high attendance in all of our programs throughout the year.

Community of Inquiry (May CLIPS)

The introduction to the Strategic Plan 2000 noted that “Discussions around the word community and its meaning for Campbell Hall permeated every meeting of the committee.”[1] Certainly as the board’s Strategic Planning Committee prepares the new Strategic Plan 2008 for publication, it remains true that “when asked what they most valued about the school, current students along with student applicants and their families consistently described the strong aspect of community that the institution represents.” In some ways, the meaning of community in this context is quite clear: at Campbell Hall, we expect and work towards relationships and communication of high quality. We strive to be decent and thoughtful towards one another. When relationships are discordant, that stands out and worries us.

During this round of planning, I have become interested in expanding our common understanding of the notion of community to include our academic work more explicitly. My motivation comes in part from my own teaching experience. About a decade ago I taught a fantastic program with a horrible name: Philosophy for Children (the sixth graders informed me that they were definitely not children). Among other things, the course taught middle school students how to use critical thinking skills to approach very complex topics. The curriculum’s creator, Matthew Lipman, referred to the importance of creating a “community of inquiry” that would facilitate joint investigation and discussion of subjects where truth was not the sole possession of any one participant, including the teacher, but rather emerged in the process of dialogue.

The phrase “community of inquiry” seems to have originated from the American philosopher of science Charles Peirce, who recognized in the professional scientific community a paradigm for pursuing complex truths in every field. John Dewey in turn claimed that inquiry-based models should form the basis of all education. Retired Bishop of the Episcopal diocese of Los Angeles Frederick Borsch places inquiry at the center of even our spiritual lives in his excellent book, The Spirit Searches Everything. I recently purchased copies for every trustee of a book entitled Culture of Inquiry that extols the virtues of healthy debate in the boardroom. My administrative colleagues and I have begun to investigate how the notion of a “community of inquiry” may be central to our identity as an Episcopal school.

If community just means that we all get along, it can lead to calls for oppressive conformity. If our understanding of community includes the awareness that all knowledge is provisional and mysterious, then we value the courage, civility, and discipline we show when we inquire together into difficult subjects as much as the fact that we cheer together at basketball games. We prepare students best for a larger world where highly complex and messy problems dominate the landscape by nurturing the skills of the community of inquiry so they know how to respond with grace, focus, and intelligence.
[1] http://www.campbellhall.org/aboutus/sp_1-community.asp

Digital Natives Running Amok (March CLIPS)

Have you heard Marc Prensky’s metaphor that we adults are “digital immigrants,” strangers and late arrivals in a land where our children are “digital natives”?[1] My six-year-old sure looks like a natural as he intuitively navigates software and games while I’m still leafing through the paper manuals. Kids today grew up using computers, the internet, and text messaging, and therefore, says Prensky, their brains just work differently from ours. He concludes that “the single biggest problem facing education today is that our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language.” He continues, "Smart adult immigrants accept that they don’t know about their new world and take advantage of their kids to help them learn and integrate. Not-so-smart (or not-so-flexible) immigrants spend most of their time grousing about how good things were in the 'old country.'" So those of us who grew up warning each other, “Don’t trust anyone over 30!” are now fogies who must defer to our kids in this brave new digital world.

I’m not sure that this dynamic is as new or different as Prensky suggests. Haven’t the young always deemed their elders hopelessly square and out of touch with all that is new, fresh, and exciting in the culture – partly because elders do not in fact take to the new technologies as quickly? And haven’t the best parents and teachers both learned from the enthusiasms of youth, and nevertheless refused to abdicate their role as guides and mentors? I remember my favorite teachers introducing me to virtual worlds I barely knew existed, let alone valued.

I just read a very recent report that “today's students are anything but masters of the technology universe. In fact the report casts major [doubt] on the view that teens are better with technology than are older adults.”[2] According to these authors, today’s youngsters “prefer interactive systems to passive ones. Therefore they love technology and yes, they do exhibit fairly strong basic technology skills.” However, today’s students also (1) “have real difficulty choosing good search terms” when searching the internet; (2) are deficient in their ability to evaluate information that they obtain through electronic media (in fact the study indicates that “students often fail to evaluate such information at all”); (3) like interactivity so much that they mistake cutting-and-pasting for analysis; and (4) “show a real preference for visual information over text,” even when images are virtually incomprehensible without the accompanying text.

Have you ever had the experience of speaking to an immigrant who knew more about your own country, and perhaps even your own language, than you did? I submit that we pre-digital fogies must stop letting the natives run amok and take back the technological high ground we have ceded! The latest research insists that students are in dire need of “a mental map of how search engines work,” as well as a greater vocabulary to give them the ability “to move beyond natural language” in search queries. I would further submit that they need adults to help them understand the values and pitfalls inherent in all the technology they use, including camera cell phones and social networking sites.

As it ever was, we adults need to learn to speak our kids’ language. But the research also notes that “perhaps the greatest issue and the one that is the most difficult is to actually get these youngsters to understand their current shortcomings.” Sound familiar?! Now that we baby boomers are over thirty, let us not be so insecure about technology that we neglict our job to teach youngsters how to use it.
[1] Marc Prensky, “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants,” 2001; found at http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

[2] Thomas Hanson, “Student Shortcomings – Anything but Masters of Technology,” 2008; found at http://www.authenticeducation.org/bigideas/article.lasso?artId=64&-session=Auth:40D5C404055942874CLHFF61800B

The Public Purpose of Campbell Hall (February CLIPS)

The soon-to-be-published update of our Strategic Plan includes a goal to "Foster a sense of the public purpose of a private school, elevating Campbell Hall’s visibility and responsibility in the broader communities." I am struck as I review this issue of CLIPS how rich and profound our connections to the broader world already are. Students, families, faculty and staff bring gifts for the children at Hillsides and raise support for Children's Hospital, for cancer and diabetes research, for the many causes of the Outreach Gift Fair, for myriad worthy purposes that evidence a sense of reaching out, and thus learn at every turn to think of their broader responsibilities. Guided by dedicated faculty advisers, student clubs investigate and strategize ways to bring focus to local and global concerns. The People of Color and Student Diversity Leadership Conferences encourage students and faculty to see their lives at Campbell Hall as part of a larger narrative concerning race (and diversity in general) in American society, and Campbell Hall's role in that heroic narrative. The ongoing work of the Sustainability Committee and its many supporters keeps us all mindful of our connections to the whole web of life and our connectedness. This community thrives on both basic schoolwork and also connecting to a future alive with all kinds of potential. In the words of our founder, Dr. Alexander Campbell, we are proud and humble to say, "Carry on friends!"