Admissions decisions were sent to accepted students at 12:01 AM this morning! Proctor had another record setting admissions cycle, but when asked why there is such strong demand for a Proctor education, we often struggle to articulate a concise answer. Proctor’s educational model works not because of a single program, but because of the unique combination of programs and culture undergirding each student’s experience.
The New York Times published this article discussing the frustration of parents dealing with feigned incompetence in their children. We each struggle with this challenge with our own children, but at boarding school we have the unique opportunity of serving as in loco parentis to 360 Proctor students who are not immune to this phenomenon either.
Each program at Proctor exists for a reason. Our unique academic model did not develop by chance, but rather through the vision and commitment of those who came before us at this small boarding school in central New Hampshire. In its infancy, Proctor’s Learning Skills program became one of the first formal academic support program for dyslexic students in the country. Over the past seventy years, Learning Skills has developed into an integrated academic support program unlike any other.
In six short weeks roughly 360 students will arrive on Proctor Academy’s campus to start the 2015-2016 school year. The majority of these students will be returning to Proctor, while 130 students will be commencing a journey at Proctor with Wilderness Orientation.
One of the aspects of my job I am most thankful for is the excuse to write regularly. I fear I would lose my sense of why I do what I do without a creative outlet that involves writing. While we at Proctor Academy think everyone should read this article, this post is a plea to those directly connected to the Proctor community to take to heart the advice below.
Early in his career, former Proctor Academy Head of School Lyle Farrell (1952-1971), worked alongsideDr. Samuel T. Orton, who pioneered the psychometrics and pedagogy of reading disabilities. Farrell would take what he learned from Orton and establish at Proctor the nation's leading tutorial support system for college-bound, dyslexic students in the early 1950s. Through intentional programming aimed at helping young dyslexic boys, the predecessor to Proctor’s Learning Skills program, changed countless lives, many of whom would become benefactors to Proctor because of their life-altering experience at the school.
A few years ago this article crossed my desk. The message seems to ring as true today as it did when I first read it. The feature study of the article highlighted in the podcast from NPR discusses the work of educational psychologist Jim Stigler's work studying the difference between how different cultures approach the notion of intellectual struggle.
Tuesday evening, Proctor faculty and staff had the privilege of hearing Dr. Angela Currie from NESCA (Neuropsychology and Education Services for Children and Adolescents) speak about anxiety levels in teenagers today and the impact those increased levels of anxiousness have on the learning process.
