We feel more fragile than we did two years ago. We worry our children are more fragile, too; their childhood upended by a global pandemic, school interrupted, screens trying in vain to replace the human interaction that we know fuels their soul. And yet, as we step into the bright light of a post-pandemic world, squinting our eyes against the flood of “how it was before”, we must realize it is through challenge that our children are strengthened.
Our Accepted Student Day panel conversations with our students serve as a powerful window into the adolescent brain. Unscripted, the stories these teenagers possess a seemingly contradictory dichotomy of principles that has long guided Proctor’s educational model: academic rigor alongside integrated support, a powerful sense of community on campus alongside an ever-changing community due to more than 75% of students study abroad on off-campus programs, informal relationships between faculty and students alongside accountability and clear expectations. While this land of apparent contradictions is not for everyone (some families want a far more linear educational model than we are willing to subscribe), we are deeply confident it is in this space that students grow into the adults this world desperately needs.
During Tuesday’s off-campus panel, River shared, “If anything seems uncomfortable - on-campus or off-campus - run toward it because that is where you will change and grow the most.” Colin ‘22 followed almost immediately with a deeply personal reflection from Mountain Classroom, “Be comfortable with growing and being in new environments. My growth on Mountain Classroom came less from being in the outdoors, but rather in making relationships in my group, understanding group dynamics, and learning to depend on others for survival. Learning to trust others, and them trusting me, that is where I grew.”
So what is this sorcery that affords our students the opportunity to grow in the face of the uncertainty and disruption that has surrounded them during the pandemic? THIS recent article in the NY Times provides additional, timely context to River ‘22 and Colin’s ‘22 comments. One of our primary goals as educators is not to develop a feel-good, cheerleader relationship with our students, but instead to develop a trusting relationship in which the adult knows the child, and the child learns to trust the adult because they give honest, consistent, constructive feedback.
Stanford University psychology professor Carol Dweck is quoted in the piece linked above, “The answer isn’t taking away challenge, it’s giving more tools to deal with challenge.” We cannot, and should not, prevent our students from encountering challenge, instead we must continue to use frameworks, feedback mechanisms, and the teaching of self-advocacy skills to help young people step into the learning opportunity before them.
As parents and educators, we have to fight the tendency to smooth the path of our students as we emerge from a trying two years of pandemic disrupted education. We are at an inflection point, both in our children’s lives and our lives as educators, where we can choose to lower expectations for our students because we are worried about their well-being, or continue to push them toward challenge because we know that is where growth and confidence blossom. At Proctor, we believe we must trust that challenge, when combined with consistent feedback and support, yields powerful learning experiences for our students.
Now, more than ever, our work must be focused on continuing to find that sweet spot of accountability AND trust, rigor AND support, demanding expectations AND honest feedback. This is what Proctor does so well. We see our students thrive when we are willing to embrace these dichotomies as a community. We are confident this next generation of Proctor students visiting campus for Accepted Student Days is ready to jump with two feet into the inherent challenge at the core of Proctor’s educational model.
