Leading In

HEAD OF SCHOOL JENNY RAO

Wellbeing

Everyone at Emma Willard School—students, faculty, staff, and alumnae—is by nature hard-working and ambitious. We are a community of people who are serious about our work and our learning. I have no doubt that each of us knows how to rev up our engines, but I am not as sure that we always know how to take things down to a lower gear. As COVID-19 pushed us all to the red line, these last two years have been a reminder of the importance of attending to our wellbeing.

Wellbeing is a term we hear often, and it seems straightforward. But what is wellbeing, truly? If it were easy to define, wouldn’t it be easy to achieve? We often talk about a balanced life as a part of wellbeing. Is balance the right objective when seeking to cultivate wellbeing in our lives? We must be wary of confusing wellness with comfort. Don’t we grow stronger when we step out of our comfort zone and work to overcome challenges? Is it realistic to assume that our wellness will come without challenge?

Well before the pandemic, we were actively investigating student wellbeing at Emma Willard. What we observed in our students is a mistaken belief that in order to be successful one must forgo personal care and wellbeing. Even when our students felt depleted, rattling off a long list of commitments and little rest seemed to fuel a sense of worthiness. As we gained insight into our students’ beliefs and habits, we made a decision to address the wellbeing of our students head-on.

In 2018, faculty and parents read Enough As She Is by author and educator Rachel Simmons. Simmons argues that girls have developed unachievable definitions of success which they are pursuing with a perpetual feeling of failure. While the world has witnessed an opening of more doors for girls and women, girls have heard an unintended message in the process: we said they can be anything; they heard that they should be everything.

To address this misconception, we realized we must examine our students’ wellbeing and definitions of success. Nurturing wellness and strengthening resilience are vital to the delivery of our mission: Our students’ learning, creativity, and full engagement in and outside of the classroom depend on it. Therefore, student wellbeing is a key priority in both our Leading with Purpose strategic plan and in our Infinite Horizon campaign. Our work on this critical area has begun in earnest and we have early progress and successes to celebrate. Here are three decisive steps we’ve taken that are already positively impacting our students.

First, we have moved our curriculum beyond the Advanced Placement™ (AP) courses into our own unique Advanced Studies (AS) curriculum. AS courses maintain the rigor that AP courses are known for while focusing on what matters most in learning—relevance, understanding, and multidisciplinary connection. At their core, AS classes fuel a love of learning which nurtures students’ wellbeing. Second, we have redesigned our daily schedule with a later start time for classes that better aligns with the sleep patterns and biorhythms of adolescents—students feel and focus best when they are well-rested! Third, we have expanded our READY program to all grade levels as a small-group seminar series. Our READY curriculum helps build students’ understanding of personal and community wellbeing, while the small-group setting fosters deep connections and a healthy exchange of ideas.

In addition to changes to our program and schedule, our student body also took part in Authentic Connections, a national survey of wellbeing for teens in high-achieving schools. The survey assesses mental health and modifiable aspects of personal and community life that can be targeted to improve wellbeing. A team was established to examine the results of our investigations and make recommendations to continue to strengthen our support for mental health and wellbeing in our students and community.

I look forward to the road ahead as we continue to pursue holistic student wellbeing, both personal and communal. You can read more about our growing efforts in that direction in this issue of Signature magazine. Paying attention to our wellbeing is essential to success, and perhaps most importantly, it will allow us to be present and enjoy the wonderful journey of lifelong learning.