Interwoven Experiences

INTERWOVEN EXPERIENCES

H

ad you asked me as a child whether I’d grow up to live in a school one day, I would have laughed, thinking that the silliest idea ever. It turns out that the silliest idea ever is not only a real possibility, but the reality I live. I not only live on Hackley’s campus, but in the main school building.

The days for my family include Upper School students offering high-fives and shout-outs to our two year-old, Mo, and their friends stopping my husband, Lacarya, as he walks by to see if he has time to review chemistry with them before Ms. Awad’s or Mr. Boluch’s test (he somehow always finds time for Hackley kids). For us, advantages of campus life are clear: I’m certain Mo began speaking early because from infancy students engaged him in “conversation” and Lacarya loves the contrast between explaining scientific concepts to students and the financial models and diligence calls of his work in private equity.

While it is lovely to have my family so nearby and immersed in my school community, I would find myself bringing Lacarya and Mo to work with me even if we did not live on campus. As an educator and an administrator, it is crucial to every conversation I hold, to every decision I make, that I step out of my own experiences and imagine the possibilities, attempt to see the perspectives that others carry. Since its founding, Hackley has been a school of diverse students. Though what diversity has meant in the 111 years since its doors first opened has changed vastly, anyone who works at Hackley is charged with creating an inclusive community. Yet achieving inclusivity, successfully creating a school environment where all feel welcomed and at home, is challenging. It is to this responsibility and to this challenge that I bring Lacarya and Mo. Lessons from Lacarya

Lessons from Mo

Although both Lacarya and I graduated from Princeton, his upbringing and mine could not have been more different.

I grew up in Los Angeles, the daughter of a rabbi. Lacarya grew up in Greenville, SC, raised by his grandmother, herself the great-granddaughter of slaves. My nursery school teachers joked that they wouldn’t “graduate” me unless I got into trouble and they could bench me; Lacarya was placed in remedial math and reading because his fifth-grade behavior was so poor. I’m still lucky if I can catch a ball or remember why condensation occurs; he regularly benches over 400 pounds and holds an MBA, an MS in biochemistry, and an MS in biotechnology.

Mo, on the other hand, is not yet old enough to understand his bi-racial identity, let alone share reflections of his experience with me. However, he has certainly, in the span of just a few years, taught me a huge amount about being a boy and the kind of kinetic energy that can come with gender. It’s not that I hadn’t known ever since my own childhood that boys and girls often have different amounts of Mo Scott energy (my best friend Ben was always eager to slide down banisters while I was content to play with puzzles), but when one’s own child’s absolute need to be on the move from 4:00 a.m. onward, his total willingness to leave behind a bowl of ice cream in order to pursue a ball of any sort, one does develop more understanding for the student who simply cannot sit still.

It is his stories, though, of his frustration at being placed in remedial classes when he knew he could do the work of honors, of the challenge of being the only Black kid in his AP classes, of the embarrassment of not knowing when he arrived at Princeton what the Hamptons were, that have impacted me most. The question becomes, how do I, as a teacher and administrator, ensure that his experiences are not replicated here on the Hilltop where we are charged by our mission to help students “learn from our community’s varying perspectives and backgrounds”? After sixteen years of life together, I cannot say that I have come anywhere close to walking in Lacarya’s shoes, but I know without doubt that I have a better understanding of just how he, and probably, by extension, others like him who feel outside of the mainstream and dominant culture, might experience a place like Hackley.

With these Perspectives in Mind Regardless of our own backgrounds—African American, Jewish, Latino, Protestant, Asian, etc.—we may assume that

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INTERWOVEN EXPERIENCES

others have little understanding of our experience. We may make that presumption based solely upon the physical attributes or names of others. (In the space of the same day I was called racist by one family and anti-Semitic by another; though such comments will always leave me scratching my head and wondering how this could be, I have learned over time to get a good chuckle at the irony of them.) While my own story may be quite different from my colleagues’, the vast majority of us have sought out experiences that broaden and deepen our perspectives.

•• Offer examples of excellent work and help students understand what makes the work superior •• Cultivate agency in students through community service and athletics •• Hire teachers with diverse backgrounds and experiences •• Work closely with parents They found no evidence, however, that single-sex schools are inherently better able to serve boys. They did find, though, that the strongest predictor of academic achievement was relational engagement. In schools where boys feel connected to even a single teacher, students reported, “these adults helped them recognize their own potential and open doors that they did not previously know existed.”

As a school, Hackley has worked diligently to offer diversity training—with diversity understood in the broadest sense of the word—to its faculty and staff. For the past four years Hackley has sent a minimum of five teachers and administrators, and often more than ten, to a variety of diversity-focused summer conferences and workshops. This past fall we launched a year-long inquiry into the role of gender in the classroom and were able to bring Peg Tyre, author of The Trouble with Boys to campus. This spring our own Upper School students, members of UNITY and the GSA, prepared and led segments of our professional development day, during which they shared hurtful remarks they have overheard on campus. This day-long experience was then followed up with lunch-time conversations during which teachers brainstormed how they might intervene when they hear comments that could be exclusive or cause pain.

What is striking, though, is that while establishing a meaningful relationship with a teacher may be key for Black and Latino boys, this same sense of connection is crucial for all of our students, Black, Latino, Asian or Caucasian; Catholic or Muslim; male or female.

So how does Hackley help foster such connections? In part, we do so by seeking to hire teachers and administrators whose own life experiences nurture their ability to understand and relate to a diverse student body; in part by recognizing the range of ways through which such relationships can be established, from the classroom, to coaching, advisor-advisee pairings, and then encouraging teachers to wear a number of hats; in part by creating shared experiences through field trips, assemblies, and common readings.

More recently, six teachers attended one-day workshop on embracing diversity and Andy King, our Upper School Director, and I attended “What Works for Boys: Promising Practices Symposium” co-hosted by George Jackson Academy, an independent middle school for boys of color, and NYU’s Steinhardt School of Education, and co-sponsored by the The Clark Foundation, The Coalition of Schools Educating Boys of Color, and New York State Association of Independent Schools. There we heard Dr. Pedro Noguera of NYU share findings from his three-year national study, “Is All Male All-Right? An Intervention Study of Schools for Black and Latino Males.”

Although I am confident that Hackley is well on its way to establishing a community where all feel welcomed and at home, I also know that even after more than a decade and a half together, Lacarya and I are still learning about each other’s perspectives and experiences. If it is true for just the two of us, it must be true that we all have more to learn from one another. So in the interest of strengthening the fabric we call Hackley, come share your experiences with us. Weave your story together with ours.

—Alona Scott

Noguera and his team of researchers set out to determine whether single-sex schools better serve African-American and Latino boys. Observing classes and interviewing students, teachers, and parents at seven independent or charter single-sex schools and seven independent co-ed schools, the researchers discovered that boys do best when schools: •• Develop a strong sense of school community by establishing rituals and customs •• Use discipline to educate and assist students in becoming people of good character

Noguera, Pedro. The Trouble with Black Boys: And Other Reflections on Race, Equity, and the Future of Public Education. Josey-Bass: San Francisco, 2008, p. 15.

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