DISCERNING WESTTOWN’S QUAKER PEDAGOGY

Chris Wills

Background

In the summer of 2022, I found myself sitting around a table with the rest of Westtown’s senior leadership team. We were asking questions and proposing answers that drove to the heart of who we are as a Quaker school community. Earlier that spring, we completed our accreditation process through the Pennsylvania Association of Independent Schools (PAIS). Our goal for this meeting was to review the recommendations from our accreditation committee and determine how the school would move forward as an institution. The committee lifted up the resonance of our mission statement in our community and the way that it holds true for various stakeholders and guides all of the work we do. Simultaneously, they acknowledged the weighty and aspirational goals outlined in the school’s Strategic Vision which had been adopted in January 2020.

By the end of our administrative meeting, we had decided that the school needed to engage in a comprehensive curriculum and program review program that would take multiple years. We determined that we needed to review all aspects of our program (academics, co-curriculars, residential life, student leadership, etc.) to determine both where we are now and where we aspire to be. This process would drive decision making in terms of our teaching practices, hiring goals, spiritual community, and approach to marketing and retention. From the outset, we determined that we needed to clarify the ways that Quakerism undergirds every aspect of school life, and that this process should examine and audit our program through that lens and in turn clarify that our commitments to equity, justice, and belonging (EJB) and sustainability are grounded in our Quaker values.

Exploration/Learning

The tremendous scope of this project required the full buy-in of our employee community. Faculty would need to examine, document, and potentially rewrite the curriculum while our external facing staff offces would need to communicate the process and outcomes of this work to internal, external, and prospective audiences. We knew that to be successful, we would need to engage in this work through Quaker decision making processes that would seek input and wisdom from students, faculty, families, trustees, and alums. A Curriculum and Program Review Process Committee was formed in the fall of 2022 and charged with researching and recommending a curriculum review process. The committee engaged in this initial research and planning phase for fve months. The frst step of our process was to review Westtown’s mission and Strategic Vision, as well as the PAIS committee’s recommendations.

From there, the committee developed a list of guiding principles and essential questions that were presented to the Principals’ Group, Upper School Department Chairs, the Equity, Justice, and Belonging (EJB) team, the Sustainability Committee, and all faculty for feedback. We then began work on our timeline and recommendations. Some of the essential questions guiding this process include:

• How do we defne Quaker pedagogy at Westtown?

• How do we ensure that the principles of equity, justice, and belonging are effectively embedded throughout our program?

• What are the experiences and outcomes that are expected of a student completing each division?

• How do we leverage our unique position as a regional three-divisional day school and a global boarding school for the betterment of our students?

In the spring of 2023, we began our Curriculum and Program Review and engaged the faculty in the work of analyzing and documenting our academic program. During an in-service day, our Head of School, Chris Benbow, posed the question, what is it that we endeavor to do as a school community? His own response to this question was to offer an outstanding program in an environment of intentional belonging and explicit Quakerism. As a school, our goal is to ensure that Quakerism is clear and visible in everything that we do. We began to document four types of learning that are integral to Friends schools:

• Learning to Know (Content)

• Learning to Do (Skills)

• Learning to Be (Dispositions)

• Learning to Live with Others (Community Agreements and Expectations)

Thus far we have made tremendous progress in this work and have continued to fnd ways to engage our constituents in this process. Highlights have included designing and building our own software application for curriculum mapping, developing a parent engagement series highlighting the role of Quakerism in our program, leading in depth professional development on backwards design, essential questions, and spiraled curriculum, and making recommendations for ameliorating the effects of the pandemic on interrupted learning particularly in the areas of social-emotional learning and executive functioning behaviors. Additionally, our curriculum mapping process embeds our EJB work directly into course, unit, and lesson design by incorporating anti-bias frameworks into our instructional approaches and daily instructional practices.

Next Steps

Westtown’s commitment to Quaker values remains at the center of this project. Over the course of the 2023-24 school year, community stakeholders engaged in brainstorming to consider what dispositions we seek to cultivate at Westtown. Faculty, parents, guardians, and alums began to identify the attitudes, mindsets, and ways of being we seek to nurture in our students, and consider the ways that Quakerism shapes and informs these shared dispositions. As we look ahead, we plan to create a Portrait of a Westtown Learner that would demonstrate how qualities such as peacemaking, inquiry, leadership, collaboration, and listening guide our work with students from daily interactions to the sustained effort of “preparing [our] graduates to be stewards and leaders of a better world.”

The Curriculum and Program Review is estimated to take two more years to complete before we enter a cycle of maintenance, improvement, and review. The work ahead includes identifying signature experiences, continued curriculum mapping, and ensuring horizontal and vertical alignment across all three divisions. This process has been an exercise in change management, requiring leadership, shared vision, skills, resources, incentives, and strategy. Through this collaborative process we have strengthened our cross-divisional connections and community through Quaker decision making and are laying the foundation for an innovative school of the future that is deeply connected to its roots.

As I think about my own learning through this process, I have come to know myself as a leader. I recognize that my strengths lie in motivating and empowering a community, making complex information accessible, and connecting diverse teams for the greater success of the school. Most importantly, I have learned that I must move at the pace of my community and listen to and respond to their needs. By prioritizing the growth and development of our faculty and giving them agency in this process, we have been able to promote collective action and foster sustainable change.

CHRIS WILLS

Dean of Faculty and InnovationWesttown SchoolWest Chester, PA

Chris Wills is an artist and educational leader based in Philadelphia, PA. He serves as the Dean of Faculty and Innovation at Westtown School working across all three divisions of the school looking at the community and holistic curriculum from a bird’s eye view and seeking to build bridges and connections across the Lower, Middle and Upper Schools. Chris has worked and taught in independent schools across the country. He advises on educational trends and programs, leading professional development at the national level for teachers in both public and independent schools. With a background in visual art and arts education, Chris seeks to fnd creative solutions that balance the needs and aspirations of students, families, and school communities.