June 2023

Nearly a decade ago, three kindergarten students sat across from me avoiding eye contact. They had found a tattered coupon for California Pizza Kitchen during recess and fought over who should keep it. 

I reminded the students to use their words during conflict and insisted that, “pushing is never acceptable and certainly not over a coupon for California Pizza Kitchen.” I continued, “Now, I need the three of you to decide what I should do with this coupon.” 

Following a brief sidebar discussion, one of the children offered, “I think you should give it to Ms. Miller.” Their friend added, “We think she looks like someone who would go to California.” 

At that moment the students gave me two gifts: first, an affirmation that high standards and clear boundaries matter; second, a child’s perspective on Ms. Miller’s sophistication. I continue to appreciate both. 

Through my experiences as a classroom teacher, basketball coach, dormitory parent, and Head of School, I have found it nearly always true that students rise to the standards we set. From the quality of their sentences, to the consistency of their jump shots, to their treatment of others, our students’ pursuit of excellence begins with clarity on the standards their teachers, coaches, and parents establish and maintain.

Yet, the wonder lies not in the standards themselves, but in the art of empowering children to believe in their capacity to achieve them. Children require an entire ecosystem of influences–parents and teachers most importantly–to learn from the frustration, disappointment, and even failure necessary to master something complex and worthwhile. Like any ecosystem, this one requires balance and alignment, parents and teachers recognizing their mutual interdependence in words and actions. 

Parenting derives from the Latin and means “to bring forth” and bringing forth Core Values aligned children is exactly the opportunity we share. In Grit, Angela Duckworth (2015) notes, “emerging research on teaching suggests uncanny parallels to parenting.” She draws on Harvard economist Rod Ferguson’s study with the Gates Foundation where his research concluded that, “teachers who are demanding—whose students say of them, ‘My teacher accepts nothing less than our best effort,’ and ‘Students in this class behave the way my teacher wants them to’—produce measurable year-to-year gains in the academic skills of their students.” Yet, the best effect occurs when these high expectations align with equally high support. 

Ferguson’s conclusion continues, “teachers who are supportive and respectful—whose students say, ‘My teacher seems to know if something is bothering me,’ and ‘My teacher wants us to share our thoughts’—enhance students’ happiness, voluntary effort in class, and college aspirations.” In other words, high standards matter and contribute to students’ thriving when they are accompanied by the support required to achieve them.

Parents and teachers face a fundamental question: what does support for a child’s pursuit of high standards look like in action? The answer not only shapes the resolutions to their momentary conflicts, but also establishes beliefs about the world and their capacity to thrive within it. 

St. Edmund’s Academy’s Core Values link the value of high standards and the importance of taking responsibility. We believe that developing a child’s confidence and capacity to pursue high standards requires their practice navigating difficult experiences and the personal responsibility to understand & manage their emotions. 

To bring forth a disposition of personal responsibility, care from teachers and parents comes not in the form of obliterating adversity before the child faces it or hovering to intervene when times are tough. Such preemptive preparation of the world for the child may short-circuit the very processes essential for the child’s complete development.

Rather, we may cultivate childrens’ confidence to overcome adversity & pursue high standards by encouraging their productive behaviors by providing a steady stream of feedback, coaching them through challenges rather than directly intervening, and holding them accountable for shortcomings. The approach invites teachers and parents to see children as “antifragile.”

In his book, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, Nassim Taleb (2012) explores systems that benefit from stressors. Just as a child’s muscles grow stronger from exertion, so too does their capacity for personal responsibility increase through handling adversity and experiencing accountability. 

Beyond merely resilient, being antifragile means that something important happens through hardship. It means that experiencing social disappointment, being required to wait, hearing no for an answer, missing a game winning shot, and receiving a poor grade are not only acceptable aspects of childhood, they are vital preconditions for a successful life. Parents vaccinate their children for this very reason—a small dose of something unpleasant develops within the person the capacity to fend off the greater risk that may come later.

Antifragile children learn to accept conflict and misfortune as an opportunity to learn and grow. They don’t rely on someone to fix the world for them because they possess the hard-earned confidence to thrive through difficult circumstances. Likewise, teachers and parents of antifragile children view the sacred bonds of care not as pathways to solve their problems, but as conduits to coach them through those problems. 

As a thought exercise on ways to nurture this disposition, consider two types of responses to the California Pizza Kitchen coupon crisis–the first externally focused and the second internally focused. 

An externally focused response to the conflict may begin with a question for the school:

There may be value in this question external to the child, but it may also send the implicit signal that the opportunity to thrive comes not from self regulation, but as a result of other people preemptively adjusting circumstances to avoid conflicts or disappointments in the first place. 

Alternatively, an internally focused response may begin with a question for the child:

The internal focus implicity affirms the child’s dignity and individual capacity to thrive despite disappointment. Faced with setbacks in pursuit of our expectations, internally aware children confidently look within themselves to find developmentally achievable solutions. 

The wonder of high standards takes the form of children almost magically rising to their best potential. Yet, there proves to be nothing magical about it. Bringing forth in children the calm confidence to pursue high standards and the courage to take responsibility benefits from deliberate alignment among all parts of a child’s ecosystem of influence. 

At St. Edmund’s Academy, we cherish the opportunity to be part of that ecosystem with you. 

One of my California Pizza Coupon kindergarten friends graduated from SEA last night. His parents’ thoughtful collaboration then and now have helped him tend to his own internal landscape. Like others in his class, his self awareness will help him discover his purpose and passions, participate in civic life as an informed citizen, contribute meaningfully to the world, and understand that people can see things differently–and those differences merit respect. Even if the only point of agreement is that Ms. Miller is the most likely among us to one day go to California.