December 2023

A decade ago I visited St. Edmund’s Academy as a Head of School finalist. Observing an 8th grader’s composition during my tour, I felt as though I had come unstuck in time. “We are working on our Research Project,” he explained, in a quiet room except for the clacking of keys that sounded like a half dozen tiny horses trotting on cobblestone. 

The burgundy blazers kept me from sliding along the screens and settings of my teaching timeline. In classrooms and computer labs (remember those) I had coached 10th graders to write argumentative essays and graduate students to warrant their claims with data. The quality prose in front of me could have been on any one of those screens. I noticed the young researcher’s compelling hook, nuanced sentences of varying length, provable thesis, and logical transitions introducing quotations neatly rounded out with concluding observations.

Two affirmations emerged: first, having spent the majority of my career at a 5th through 12th grade independent school, I detected an unfamiliar confidence in this 8th grader’s voice. A quiet conviction seemed to come with being the top dog rather than in the middle of the pack. Second, I recognized that when dedicated teachers know, value, and challenge students to pursue high standards, anything is possible. 

Today I perceive that moment with even greater clarity. Namely, the past decade has revealed to me that there’s only one program for Preschool through 8th Graders focused on foundations in the core academic disciplines, timeless habits for personal success, and real-world learning experiences for broader global awareness in the context of their lives today. As 2023 comes to an end, I am thinking about the ways our program helps fulfill your child’s potential in our values-aligned community. I want to reflect with you on what it means to say there is only one program quite like ours. 

Throughout my nearly three decades in education, I have watched many fads come and go. A conversation with about a dozen of our alumni in secondary school at the time reminded me that the essentials endure. “Don’t ever get rid of Latin,” one student asserted. “Have you continued your Latin study?” I asked. “Absolutely not. I don’t like Latin. But I like knowing how to study. How to recall information and how to learn.” Of course, Latin continues at St. Edmund’s Academy and nearly 9 out of 10 or our alumni agreed in a recent survey that SEA “Better prepared me for my first year of secondary school compared to students from other schools.” A sign hanging on one of our classroom walls reinforces the point–I’m not telling you it’s going to be easy. I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it.

As an independent school devoted to supporting the developmental needs of young children and early adolescents, our program provides a reliable foundation, developing essential habits of mind and academic skills across the disciplines. In mathematics, our commitment to research-proven teaching and learning methods ensures robust numeracy skills and a flexible understanding of mathematical concepts. Concurrently, our focus on the science of reading provides comprehensive language proficiency, encompassing phonics, decoding, and spelling. Our dedication to inquiry-based learning throughout science and engineering encourages curiosity and critical thinking, fostering an innate love for exploration and discovery. St. Edmund’s Academy’s commitment to proven methods in the core content areas ensures a comprehensive and robust academic foundation leading to lifelong success. 

Our dedication to a rigorous curriculum within the core subjects matters. Yet, upon graduation our newly minted alumni do not hug their textbooks. They hug their teachers. As one of our graduates shared, “The single most important thing SEA does is meet students where they are and then push those boundaries. I remember the support systems in place and how understanding the teachers were.” From the playdeck to our classrooms to the performance stage, the most transformational moments happen when caring teachers help a child assess limitations, identify solutions, make improvements, and reflect on personal growth. The school's encouragement of grit and resilience in a nurturing environment makes excellence sustainable. 

That sustainability matters because at St. Edmund’s Academy, educational success is defined not by what gets taught, but by what students learn and understand. In our program we define understanding as the flexible use of knowledge and we believe it builds through cooperation among teachers, coherence from one grade to the next, and cumulativeness of knowledge systematically developed. We believe that understanding amplifies in significance throughout our school community where children live with a clear sense of purpose and responsibility guided by our Core Values. 

Every academic program’s relevance fits within broader social and cultural trends. In this respect, St. Edmund’s Academy’s program is distinctive not only from other programs, but from several concerning attributes of our world today. Something culturally relevant, timely, and inimitable happens in a program influenced by the dual commitments to high standards in all endeavors and an understanding and appreciation of the differences among people. Let me explain.

In the early 2000’s, I was an English teacher at a rather traditional college preparatory school by day and a graduate student in the same field by night. By day I shaped students’ perceptions of great writers–Hawthorne, Poe, Melville, Twain, Hemingway, and other mostly monochromatic literary giants. By night I used freshly acquired analytical tools to deconstruct that canon. The experience was mildly disorienting. 

The deconstructing work at graduate schools like mine in the second half of the 20th century led to changes in what would be taught and how it would be taught for the decades to follow. These changes include a broadened literary landscape offering more inclusive representations of human experiences and perspectives, a greater appreciation for the fluidity and ambiguity of texts, and the exposure of inherent biases and assumptions present in literature, inviting readers to critically analyze how language and narratives reinforce or challenge dominant societal structures.

While this work proved to be liberating, it also led to confusion in my day job. If literary merit didn’t exist in the way we had come to define it, then what stopped us from discarding the curriculum entirely so that we might each pursue the literature and history that spoke to us? In 1999, I didn’t think to wonder if this curricular shift from shared texts of literary merit to individual choice could undermine our shared humanity? Might we inch our way deeper into echo chambers encouraging distrust of people with contrasting perspectives or divergent identities? Worse yet, it never occurred to me that unimagined technologies could keep people continually connected in depersonalized ways, deepening our biases, coarsening our language, and eroding our civility. 

Yet, St. Edmund’s Academy’s commitment to high standards in all endeavors and understanding and appreciation of differences among people offers an alternative to that dystopia. Our diverse school community reaffirms daily that each teacher, child, and family’s unique standpoint contributes to a collective strength greater than the sum of our individual parts. Humming with the energy of diverse voices, our classrooms highlight the power of blending and remixing various cultural perspectives into a cohesive whole, reaffirming routinely that all of us are smarter than any one of us. When we live out the nation’s motto, “Out of many, one” we create a genuine experience of unity fueled by curiosity and respect. 

The dual commitment to high standards in all endeavors and an understanding and appreciation of the differences among people results in a unifying cultural core reflective of the best we all have to offer. All children at St. Edmund’s Academy should see their excellence reflected in the highest quality books we read and the history we study, allowing us to see ourselves and each other more completely, where high standards and appreciation of differences are two sides to the same coin. 

In this context, we believe that a foundational and inclusive command of American history and literature empowers people with insights and language that have endured the test of time, strengthening their arguments for varied purposes throughout their lives. Cross cultural literacy does more than merely confer our students’ access to power, it instills in our graduates a quiet confidence that transcends societal divisions. Our program not only prepares people to thrive in all types of secondary schools, it empowers our graduates to approach real world problems with humility and conviction while valuing the opportunity to collaborate with people with diverse backgrounds and life experiences.

There’s only one program quite like St. Edmund’s Academy. And this program never gets old. When our students return from Winter Break, the 8th Graders will begin their Research Projects. Many of the critical thinking skills on display a decade ago will be honed once again. Moreover, in partnership with their families, we will help students identify personally meaningful topics leading to research questions that will support a love of learning and commitment to personal growth. As you have likely noticed, I am feeling nostalgic for the start of my St. Edmund’s Academy journey and grateful for my opportunity today.

Which reminds me–one other memory stands out from that tour back in 2013. When I entered the preschool classroom, a child wearing a white lab coat from the dress up closet asked, “Do you want to see Edwina?” “Of course I do! And who is Edwina?” With a seriousness only a three-year-old could muster, the child said, “She’s our class pet and taking care of her is our responsibility!”

Fast forward to October 2023. My son, a member of the SEA Preschool class, informed me that we had the opportunity to take care of Eddy and Edwina over the weekend, the same stuffed guinea pigs that have graced so many of your homes. “Can we bring them to the Penguin game?” Hugo asked. We did. Because taking care of them is our responsibility.

I hope you and your family have a wonderful Winter Break. We look forward to seeing you in 2024.