Transforming Learning For Their Place In The World

Education Guide 2019-2020

Transforming LEARNING for their place in the world A CUSTOM PUBLICATION PRODUCED BY

Greenwich Country Day School Learning that matters: Nursery – Grade 12 Preparing young people to learn, lead, and thrive in a world of rapid change From nursery to twelfth grade, learning at Greenwich Country Day School is challenging, relevant, and purposeful. Through inquiry, analysis, public speaking, transdisciplinary experiences, and opportunities to present their work in exhibitions and apply their learning to real-world situations, GCDS students gain a strong academic foundation and Greenwich Country Day School is a co-ed, independent Nursery – Grade 12 college preparatory day school in Greenwich, Connecticut that graduates ethical, confident learners and leaders with a strong sense of purpose—ready to embrace opportunities and challenges in a world of rapid change ↗ www.gcds.net ↗ 203-863-5610 ↗ admissions@gcds.net ↗ 401 Old Church Road Greenwich CT 06830

acquire critical skills, habits of mind, and confidence.

A co-educational, independent, Nursery – Grade 12 school located in Greenwich, CT, GCDS is a joyful environment where curiosity and creativity are valued, \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ resilience is cultivated, and the health \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ and well-being of every student \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ is essential.

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2019 – 2020 Education Guide

Education Guide 2019-2020

PUBLISHED BY MOFFLY MEDIA Publisher & Editorial Advisor Hilary Hotchkiss Art Director Molly Cottingham

DAY SCHOOL & 5/7-DAY BOARDING

DISCOVER YOUR

MIGHT

Copy Editor Diane Sembrot Production Director Kerri Rak Digital Media Manager Amber Scinto Market Editor Megan Gagnon

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For all inquiries regarding education marketing, contact Hilary Hotchkiss: Hilary.Hotchkiss@Moffly.com Digital version of the 2019-2020 Education Guide: ilovefc.com • greenwichmag.com newcanaandarienmag.com • stamfordmag.com westportmag.com • fairfieldlivingmag.com

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2019 EDUCATION GUIDE

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2019 – 2020 Education Guide

Reimagining Education for a

Rapidly Changing World DR. KAREN E. ESHOO HEAD OF SCHOOL

H

ow many of us adults heard our parents tell us how much more difficult they had it when they were younger? I certainly recall growing up in the ’70s and ’80s and hearing my parents regale my brother and me with tales of how they were forced to do character-building activities as children without the benefit of such luxuries as comfortable Nike sneakers or how the entire family had to gather around just one television to watch the same show together. Growing up in California with a mother who was born and raised in Connecticut, I heard countless stories about how easy it was for me to ride my bike to school compared to her trudges through the snow as she walked to school in the winters. No computers. No multiplex theaters. No Walkman with headphones. All of the parents of my friends repeated the same refrain: You kids have it so much easier now than we did.

The world has changed immensely since then, of course. In 2019, smartphones are ubiquitous and “Google” is routinely used as both a noun and a verb.

New technologies emerge at an incredible pace, and

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companies struggle to find qualified employees who can stay ahead of the curve in their industries. In fact, changing jobs—and even careers—is becoming the norm rather than the exception. Generations of people are tethered to social media in ways that have disrupted our sense of time, connected us to real and also so-called friends for better and for worse, and disseminated information of varying levels of quality and trustworthiness. Given this new normal that our children have to navigate, I am certain that their generation should not hear their parents tell them that they have it easier.

Their world is complicated, unpredictable and challenging in ways that it has not been up to now.

Naturally, this raises questions about how schools should be thinking about how best to prepare our students for the world they will enter and how to best take advantage of the myriad opportunities they will encounter, as well as how to avoid the pitfalls that could derail them. All schools are facing a critical challenge in seeking to prepare students to thrive in a world that we cannot always easily

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KING SCHOOL

Above & Beyond

Innovative teachers turn blah, blah, blah into... Aha! Abby Abbott uses technology to connect modern students to ancient history—creating endless aha! moments. Watch Abby’s magic at www.stlukesct.org/greatteachers.

Open House - Join Us! October 20 (grades 5-8), October 27 (grades 9-12) www.stlukesct.org/visit St. Luke’s is a secular, college preparatory day school for grades 5-12 and a Best Private High School in CT - niche.com 203.801.4833 | 377 North Wilton Road, New Canaan, CT 06840

2019 – 2020 Education Guide

predict or define. While I know that schools have earned a reputation for being slower than other industries when it comes to changing with the times, I also know that the best schools are ready to start thinking differently about the skills we need to emphasize with students. The best schools are courageous enough to ask hard questions about programs and account for a new reality. The best schools understand that truly well-educated students must be prepared to take on the greatest challenges facing the planet and not just succeed, but also be ready to make the world an even better place.

In light of this challenge, schools have an unprecedented opportunity to begin to reimagine the elements of an excellent education for the twenty-first century. There is no question that we need to teach students hard skills and expose them to critical thinking across all disciplines. However, we need to think broadly about how to provide multiple experiences that will keep them engaged and curious in ways that will leave them hungry for more, that will help them develop grit, and that will empower them to see themselves as leaders for positive change. To that end, educators should think differently and strategically about how to design a program that is deeply challenging; teaches research methods across the curriculum that respond to our globalized and digitized world; provides regular opportunities for students to become nimble in their thoughts and action; and develops students’ emotional intelligence (also known as EQ) so that they can understand and practice the value of human relationships for professional success and personal purpose and fulfillment.

Authentic Challenge

Schools often tout the rigor of their programs and, as evidence, provide the high volume of homework and rigidity of requirements for their students. This approach, however, often leaves students exhausted and drained of interest before they even get to their chosen college or university, because they spend most of their time “doing school” rather than learning deeply and sustainably. Schools that seek to provide a rich and authentic challenge for their students are focused on helping students see the relevance of their learning to the world outside of their classrooms. Faculty who seeks authentic challenge for

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their students teach them to develop a sophisticated understanding of fundamental ideas that is driven by their curiosity to discover what they don’t know.

Students learn to think critically, solve real-world problems and make connections—all of which they will be asked to do in college and throughout their lives. While it can take a long time and a lot of work to complete fifty regular math problems, it is likely much more challenging and meaningful for a student to solve six complex word problems, then explain how she solved a word problem to her teacher and peers in her precalculus course. Deeper challenge not only emphasizes the kind of thinking and work habit that students will be able to apply to multiple situations down the line, it also holds teachers accountable for using class time—and the students’ time outside of the classroom—much more effectively and for a much greater purpose than the traditional approach.

How to Think

Information itself is both abundant and abundantly accessible. In order for students to become savvy and critical consumers of information, educators today have a deep responsibility to teach students how to think critically, proficiently and contextually without ever teaching them what to think.

While research has always been part of the preK– 12 experience to an extent, we need to increase the scope and consistency of programs across all disciplines that expose students to analysis and synthesis of information. Engaged and curious students can learn to ask questions that allow them to isolate and define the problem that needs to be solved; only through that process will they be prepared to begin crafting a solution to the problem.

Building a knowledge base that will enable students to better understand that problem in context, as well as solutions that have been attempted, will require them to differentiate between good and bad information; to analyze and synthesize that information; and to make meaning of, and draw conclusions based on, that solid evidence.

Students are in the position to construct their knowledge in these ways when they are led by highly skilled teachers who know when to step in and teach these skills directly and when to step back to allow students to practice on their own.

Founded in 1902, an independent, college preparatory day school, providing character-based education for boys in Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 12.

For more information on our admission reception, please visit brunswickschool.org/admissions/

2019 – 2020 Education Guide

Gone are the days when students are best served by memorizing facts; the best schools today teach students how to act, think and work like researchers no matter which subject they are studying.

Nimble in Thought and Action

When we think of nimbleness, we often think of the agility of great athletes, who move and respond quickly during a fast-paced game, remain light on their feet and stay focused under pressure.

Because today’s preK–12 students will be living and working in a world that changes quickly, we have to teach them how to apply these qualities to their learning and their work. Students who learn in a diverse environment—with other students who do not all look alike, sound alike, think alike or share the same life experiences—have been shown to actually learn more and more deeply because they are challenged to consider multiple perspectives. That willingness to keep an open mind when learning anything new helps cultivate

curiosity and encourages students to dig more deeply in order to solve problems. This approach also builds a set of assumptions that prepares them to see failure as necessary for learning, precisely because they can more easily see that failure is an opportunity to pivot and try a new path. The best scientists and artists, in particular, are hardwired to think and work this way, embracing processes of trial and error to learn more, to rethink, to retry and to remake. The more often we can put students in the often uncomfortable position of deciding to change course, the more we help them build a mindset that will serve them well in later years. The more often we celebrate the process of learning and the role of failure, the more we help them build resilience and authentic confidence in their ability to make their place in the world.

EQ: Emotional Intelligence

The intelligence quotient (IQ) has been part of the education landscape for generations as shorthand

Be ready for joy.

Be ready for wonder. Be ready to dream. Be ready for curiosity and complexity. Be ready to define what excellence means.

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Greens Farms Academy (GFA) is a prek-12 co-ed day school in Westport, CT. ATTEND AN OPEN HOUSE THIS FALL: WWW.GFACADEMY.ORG/ADMISSION

5/16/19 12:09 PM

Saint Andrew’s School MIND, BODY, SPIRIT

Recognized as a leading independent school in the Episcopal tradition, Saint Andrew’s School is a day and boarding school for students in Grades Pre-K through 12

. .

Experience academic excellence at our spectacular 81-acre campus located in South Florida Take the latest Advanced Placement course or earn an International Baccalaureate diploma

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Cross paths with students from 40 different countries

Travel to exciting destinations like Thailand, Ireland, or Costa Rica with our global programs

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Choose one of our 18 different sports including golf, tennis, swimming, and lacrosse If you like what you see... we should talk.

3900 Jog Road

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Boca Raton, Florida 33434

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561.210.2000

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www.saintandrews.net

2019 – 2020 Education Guide

PREP for Discovery

PREP for Life

open house

entrance exams

SUNDAY

• Sat., October 19 8:30 a.m.

2-4 p.m.

• Sat., December 7 8:30 a.m. or 1:30 p.m.

Oct.6

REGISTER TODAY!

FairfieldPrep.org FAIRFIELD PREP 1073 North Benson Rd., Fairfield, CT 06824

203-254-4210

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for academic and intellectual capacity. More recently, we also have been hearing more about the emotional quotient, also called emotional intelligence. It deals with our ability as humans to understand and control our emotions in order to develop stronger relationships with others.

Thanks to excellent research in recent years on the human brain and how humans learn, education professionals can design better learning experiences for students because we are smarter about what it means to be smart. Further, because colleges and businesses are saying clearly that they want to recruit people who can demonstrate both IQ and EQ, it’s time for preK–12 schools to get serious about developing programs that tap into both kinds of intelligence on a regular basis. An executive recruiter once shared with me that for a candidate to be worthy of consideration, he or she had to have the hard-core skills for the particular job. He added that the dinner the candidate has with the CEO and the other managers the night before the big interview is, in many ways, the most important part of the process. The most appealing candidates can talk about what they do in a way that demonstrates knowledge and passion, strong listening skills and thoughtful responses and shows a balance of confidence and humility, all within a social situation.

The best schools always have known that selfawareness, self-motivation, empathy and collaboration skills are important for academic success, and it is clear now that these skills are also essential for success in life. Our challenge is to start viewing these skills as necessary ones that need to be taught intentionally and assessed carefully and honestly.

Changes in approach and practice are essential for today’s students and can exist within excellent independent schools as visible, dynamic enhancements to existing programs. It will mean educators and parents taking courageous steps together toward creating the best possible education for students. When such partnerships exist, schools can graduate students who not only have the grades and scores that reflect their intellectual capacity, effort and achievement, but—because of the ways they have learned about themselves, the world, and their place in it—also are fascinating. Those are the people I hope to see running the world someday.

2019 – 2020 Education Guide

Fall Open House Events

October 3 and November 5, 2019 At Westminster School, students develop grit and grace in a setting that boasts some of the finest facilities in American private schooling. To register for a fall Open House event or tour, please call the Office of Admissions at (860) 408-3060.

Co-ed | Boarding & Day | Grades 9-12 | 200-acre campus | Founded 1888 Simsbury, Connecticut | www.westminster-school.org | (860) 408-3060 Westminster School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religious creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, ancestry and/or disability.

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Pre-K through Grade 9

BY DESIGN By focusing on the formative years of childhood, our students are equipped with exactly what they need to take the next leap, from subject to subject, grade to grade and to the nation’s best high schools, colleges and beyond.

COME TAKE A CLOSER LOOK! Fall Open House — Sunday, October 20 www.countryschool.net/openhouse

GO BOLDLY.

635 Frogtown Rd, New Canaan, CT • (203) 972-0771 • www.countryschool.net A co-ed, independent day school for students in Pre-K (ages 3 & 4) through Grade 9.

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Vindicating the Useless WILLIAM L. FOX PRESIDENT

I

graduated from St. Lawrence with many holes in my education. My liberal arts pedigree did not include courses in accounting, finance, public speaking, organizational theory or developmental psychology. Given my line of work, the irony gets worse. I confess that I missed taking courses in economics, environmental studies and computer science. And yet, the only regret I truly hold about the negative space on my academic record is that I did not find more time for art history or music appreciation. My strong intuition is that among thousands of Laurentian alumni, successful across the spectrum of all career fields and in local community leadership, I am not alone in declaring that I graduated from college with a few “incompletes.”

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Today, there is a whiff of dismissal in the air about the value of a broad liberal arts education, as measured by the immediacy of a vocational payoff, and this view is also accompanied at times by a touch of indifference, perhaps even hostility, toward the study of arts and humanities. Students and their parents increasingly voice their worries about the risk of the wrong bet on an academic major, such as one in art, philosophy, literature or languages.

The hesitation is not surprising in light of agitated public attitudes toward the importance of majoring in something “practical.” Nationally, the number of students majoring in the arts and humanities has been reduced to single-digit percentages. Fifty years ago, however, the comparative fraction at private

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ST. LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY

We think intellectual curiosity is the most powerful energy in the world.

Open House: October 20, 2019

At Hopkins, we’ve created a culture dedicated to perpetuating, fulfilling, and celebrating intellectual curiosity. We believe that education should be a multi-faceted pursuit of the whole intellect, where a diverse community of individuals bond together to inspire each other, challenge each other, explore, discover and achieve.

Hopkins School. We think.

A coed, college preparatory day school for grades 7-12 203.397.1001 • hopkins.edu • New Haven, CT

2019 – 2020 Education Guide

RYE COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL

AT A GLANCE A COEDUCATIONAL, COLLEGE PREPARATORY SCHOOL DEDICATED TO PROVIDING STUDENTS FROM PRE-KINDERGARTEN THROUGH GRADE 12 WITH AN EXCELLENT EDUCATION USING BOTH TRADITIONAL AND INNOVATIVE APPROACHES.

Rye Country Day has a diverse and inclusive student body.

Students come from a 20-mile radius surrounding the School, representing 36 school districts from NY and CT. Enrollment: 900 students Students of color: 34%

FOUNDED

1869

NOT FOR SELF, BUT FOR SERVICE —school motto from the founder, Susan J. Life

OPEN HOUSE DATES: October 6th & 20th, 2019 - 1 p.m.

Main entry points: Pre-K, K, 4, 6, 9

CAMPUS The 26-acre campus features state-of-the-art academic, athletic, and creative facilities and is located at the intersection of I-95 and I-287, 25 miles from Manhattan, one block from the Rye Metro-North station.

RCDS distributes $5.9 million in need-based financial aid grants to 16% of the student body.

FINANCIAL AID

“RCDS taught us how to learn,

and it gave us an understanding of the importance of an open mind and a civic spirit. Our teachers cared about us. They taught us that what we thought, what we hoped, and what we dreamed was important.” —RCDS Alumna

THE 20 MOST POPULAR COLLEGE MATRICULATION CHOICES FOR RCDS STUDENTS 2015-2019:

Cornell University (30) | University of Pennsylvania (28) | New York University (19) | Duke University (16) | Brown University (15) Harvard University (15) | University of Michigan (15) | Colgate University (14) | Georgetown University (14) | Vanderbilt University (14) Washington University in St. Louis (14) | University of Southern California (11) | Bucknell University (10) | Stanford University (10) Dartmouth College (9) | Yale University (9) | University of Chicago (8) Northwestern University (8) | Wake Forest University (8) Wesleyan University (8)

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institutions showed nearly half the total among all majors was not in something “useful.”

Is the current anxiety supported by the facts? This is an important question for St. Lawrence because we are a significant outlier from the swirling discourse about higher education in the United States. On our campus, 25 percent of today’s students are majoring in the humanities and arts, and because of our flexible curriculum, many of them pair their majors with other fields in science and social science. We may represent a counter-trend, but doesn’t that also make us leaders?

The concern about employability, while weighty in its aggregate within the U.S. economy, is truly misplaced when one looks at the jobless rates for degree holders. It is often around one percent, which even liberal arts graduates know is not statistically significant. St. Lawrence’s placement rate over the past nine years is about 97 percent, which is among the best in the nation. Is there any variance in that measure between an English major and a government major? None. What about the imagined differences between average starting salaries in the first couple of years out of St. Lawrence—any premium for an economics major or disadvantage for a performance and communication arts major? None.

Nevertheless, why should we strongly encourage the study of arts and humanities, albeit rowing against the shifting current? I have experienced and witnessed the American journey by living in great cities and also small towns and by learning the habits of large regions upon the continent, the two oceanic coasts, and the two great river valleys—the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence. While I have benefitted from visiting major museums and renowned art galleries, one of the great lessons of my life is to avoid underestimating what one can learn in the small places. In such places, owing to the scale, I

2019 – 2020 Education Guide

suppose, what really matters to human beings, their minds, curiosities, values, habits and wills, is deeply knowable and unhidden. You see their detailed apparatus for living more readily.

One spring evening while living in California, I was invited by a retired couple to their modest home for dinner. It was a one-bedroom, one-floor house built on the grounds of an old orange grove.

The space was so small that the dining table barely had room for four chairs, but the Greek food was abundant. In other words, you could see their apparatus for life in closer detail. Among the framed family snapshots displayed on the center wall was also, improbably, a picture by Marc Chagall, the twentieth-century French modernist. I assumed it was a copy or a print. When our hosts saw that I had noticed the art, they winked at each other and then told me it was the real thing, a Chagall painting, probably a study for a larger work. They had once traveled on a dime to Europe, sometime in the

1950s when, by some happenstance, they acquired the art in Paris. Drained of travel money thereafter, they cut short their tour and came home joyously with their treasured little Chagall. It became the centerpiece of their lives, enduring all the issues and pressures they would face. They built a home around a single work of art, the reference point of their shared pleasure and happiness.

Before young men and women need definition, before they discover an identity or even ask instruction, they seek expression. Giving sufficient attention to that need while they are in college goes back thousands of years to the red ochre drawings of a reindeer on the walls of a Spanish cave. It is a core impulse that shapes their capacities to observe, reflect and be sensible about their choices in life. The paradox of our liberal arts success is that the ultimate ability to do “useful” things consistently and superbly depends upon a prior courage to enjoy “useless” objects, activities and moments.

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It all happens here.

Rumsey H all scHool rumseyhall.org

Our setting — New Hampshire’s White Mountains — inspires us every day, in every season.

9 - 12 co-ed boarding school + rigorous academic program + robust offerings in athletics and the arts + leadership and experiential learning programs

SCHEDULE A VISIT | admission@holderness.org | (603) 536–1747 | WWW.HOLDERNESS.ORG

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2019 – 2020 Education Guide

Becoming Happy & Healthy

AARON COOPER

30-Year-Olds W

@MALTIASE-STOCK.ADOBE.COM

hat are your hopes and dreams for your child? Before you read on, take a minute to picture your child (or grandchild, student or other young person in your life) and then answer that question. Chances are that you want this child to be happy, successful and fulfilled.

Perhaps you hope that he or she will make an impact on the world or simply be a good person.

Though the exact words we use to answer this question may change according to the latest trends or parenting buzz words, nearly every response has one aspect in common: It refers to a future, long-term state.

HEAD OF SCHOOL

NEW CANAAN COUNTRY SCHOOL

For the first time in our country’s history, young Americans are feeling less optimistic about their futures than their parents did. Seemingly every week there is an article in a major publication about outsourcing, job losses or a future filled with jobs that do not yet exist. This paints a fairly grim picture. Yet, there is hope. If we want our children to grow up to be happy and healthy thirty-year-olds who make a positive contribution to the world, we can take steps now to set them up for success. The key is knowing which actions and decisions will matter in the long run and resisting the distractions and temptations of those that lead only to short-term gains.

In a dynamic world, one that will surely be quite different when our young children graduate college, we need to focus on cultivating the habits of mind and disposition that will enable them to pursue any direction they choose, rather than training them in discrete skill sets for particular jobs. During childhood, particularly during early and middle education, it is essential to lay the foundation for happiness and success in adulthood.

The specific mindsets that are essential building blocks are: flexibility of intellect (being able to react to change and seek opportunities ahead of the curve); curiosity (to continue asking questions and forming connections); communication skills (particularly across teams and cultures); social skills (empathy and understanding to work well with others); and the personal traits of focus, discipline and perseverance.

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Schools have a unique opportunity to create an environment in which children can learn and practice these skills. Here are ten ways that great schools can create a long-lasting foundation.

it hands-on.

1 Make An oft-quoted Chinese proverb had it right.

“Tell me and I will forget, show me and I might remember, involve me and I will understand.”

To spark joy and interest, students need to see how a concept exists rather than just be told about it: to raise salmon and observe their growth before releasing them into the wild, rather than simply learning about life cycles. That relevance leads to deeper understanding and a better chance of sparking curiosity and interest in a student.

frequent opportunities 2 Present for teamwork.

In the professional world, there are few positions in which an employee works alone; teams are the preferred method of accomplishing progress, and the literature and research on the effectiveness of teams is overwhelming. A great school finds ways for students to tackle concepts together regularly, learning about the various roles people can play, learning about their own strengths and weaknesses in a group setting, learning how to overcome challenges together and, ultimately, learning that the final product that a team produces is usually far superior to the product any individual can achieve on his or her own.

children how to think, 3 Teach not what to think.

We live in a time of information ubiquity and accessibility such that the entirety of the world’s supply of information resides in each of our pockets.

Excellent teaching involves helping students learn to differentiate information, to use it to develop deeper understanding and to form connections with other pieces of information. In other words, teachers have the opportunity to focus on knowledge and experiences, the building blocks of wisdom, much 16

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more than information. For example, rather than simply memorizing the state capitals, students can learn about the roles of local, state and federal government and how each impacts their daily lives.

a broad and deep curriculum 4 Offer that encourages self-knowledge.

Happy and successful adults know themselves well and have often pursued a variety of interests in order to find what fits with their values and strengths. For most people, the seeds of self-knowledge are sown in childhood. Think about your own passions.

When did you first feel the spark? Chances are it was in elementary or middle school. A great school fosters that self-knowledge. Programmatically, that looks like equal emphasis on breadth and depth.

A broad program includes robust offerings in arts, athletics and academics and allows students choice and compels them to dabble in various subjects (an elective program is perfect for this). Such a program ensures that they experience a wide range of activities and content areas, any of which may spark their interest. A deep program lets students pursue a topic at various levels of advancement.

They are able to cultivate seeds of interest that take deeper root as students develop their overall sense of themselves.

Nurture a diverse and inclusive learning environment.

We live in time of global interconnectedness—yet, at the same time, we are each unique. The more we understand others, have a broad perspective and learn through difference, the better. There is ample research on the impact of diverse teams—diverse in terms of the major social identifiers (race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, ability, religion, nationality and socioeconomic status), and in life experience, personality and communication styles,

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and interests. Also, corporations everywhere are attempting to diversify their employee base. A diverse learning environment, both in terms of fellow students and teachers, creates opportunities to practice learning from other perspectives; this reallife practice is irreplaceable. A great school creates a learning environment that invites each member to be heard and valued and intentionally designs a variety of ways for members to contribute comfortably.

a commitment 6 Demonstrate to character development.

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Character education is as important as academics, and a great school makes it visible to its students. It can be offered in many ways, including communitywide projects that celebrate kindness and empathy, shared book readings, articulating a set of core values and continually returning to them in all-school meetings and in daily conversation. Service learning is an important form of character education, because service is more than raising money or donating used items; it is about truly understanding the ways in which we are all connected.

students grapple 7 Have with real-world issues.

Children are capable of great thinking and often present novel solutions. Rather than asking students to regurgitate information or analyze the same items exclusively, great schools incorporate opportunities for students to grapple with current events and issues, some of which may seem to be intractable.

Yes, the rules of such disciplines as math, language and grammar are important to learn in order to apply them to higher-order thinking. Beyond that, presenting students with topics that allow them to think in an open-ended fashion, the better prepared they are for the world and the more likely they are to enjoy what they are learning. Students benefit from having a sense that they have an impact on their learning and thinking. Who knows? Maybe a child will come up with a path forward that adults have not yet considered. If not, grappling with real problems will, nonetheless, help students learn the nuance and complexity that exists in the world, thereby better preparing them to live in it.

2019 – 2020 Education Guide

them to communicate 8 Ask frequently and in a variety of ways.

If someone cannot effectively communicate their own ideas, how likely is it that those ideas—no matter their strength—will get adopted? Not very. Great schools give students ample practice to communicate their ideas, their solutions and their processes, in writing and out loud as well as in small groups in class and in larger settings. The act of public speaking builds confidence, resilience and poise in addition to foundational communication skills, and demystifies this fear-inducing activity at an age when it is possible to overcome the fear through repeated experience.

time and space for creative 9 Make and entrepreneurial activities.

According to LinkedIn, the top skill desired by companies looking to hire in 2019 is creativity. At the youngest ages, creativity is a natural and easy part of life. As children age, they often become less overtly

creative due in large part to the rhythms of school.

A great school, however, recognizes the importance of creativity and design and builds a program that has both formal opportunities (art classes, music classes, wood shop class, 3-D design labs, etc.) and informal opportunities (daily classroom) for expressing one’s creativity by designing something to solve problems or by making something beautiful.

to make it fun 10 Remember Children learn more and retain lessons more

deeply when they are enjoying the work. This creates a cycle of engagement that leads to further, deeper learning. It is an outdated notion that if it looks like they are having too much fun, then they must not be learning. The opposite is true. When we give our children these opportunities, we give them the tools they need to succeed no matter what life throws at them and no matter what dreams they choose to pursue—and, the best part, we set them up for a life that is full of meaning and purpose.

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The Age of Fake News Promoting Information Literacy MARSHALL CARROLL DIRECTOR OF THE LIBRARY DEERFIELD ACADEMY

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e are living in the information age, yet personal outrage and irrational indignation bully facts and truths.

Diseases eradicated by vaccines decades ago now cause public health crises as well-intentioned parents support what they find emotionally persuasive over proven science. Colleges and universities cower to ideological anger and disinvite speakers, rather than model productive academic discourse between those who disagree. Talking heads yell, babble, point fingers and spread falsehoods, as any semblance of civil discourse drifts away from our democratic republic.

We are living in the information age. Why then, instead of advancing knowledge and enjoying Jetson-like amenities are we are engaging in Flintstone-like arguments? In short, when you see only what you want to see, you see a lot of it—especially online.

Social media companies make money by selling advertisements and your data. They benefit from tailoring your personal experience to what you like to see. The longer you are on a social media platform, the more likely you are to look at, and click on, additional ads, which generates more ad

vertising revenue for the website. This is why social media will highlight and promote posts that you like and comment on. In fact, various platforms will even promote content that you spend more time looking at, even if you eventually do not like or comment on such posts. These companies want you to stay online and engage. They are not concerned about what you are actually engaging with, as long as you continue to do so. That data alone can lead to revenue for them.

This curation of content creates what is known as a filter bubble, or echo chamber. Within these echo chambers, people hear the same content and arguments again and again, often affirming a preconceived notion. This self-fulfilling prophecy further isolates contrary points of view from discourse. The resulting exclusion leads to separate and self-contained communities online. For example, the MIT Media Labs conducted a semanticlanguage analysis of Twitter in the year leading up to the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. They found distinct liberal and conservative communities developed. What was most disturbing was that each community was engaging in the same topics of conversation, but there was minimal, if any, cross2019 EDUCATION GUIDE

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over on that topic with the other community. Although they were engaging in the same topics of conversation, their discourse took place in relative isolation to each other because of the filter bubble.

The polarization of the content within these filter bubbles can be demonstrated by the Wall Street Journal’s Blue Feed, Red Feed website (graphics.wsj .com/blue-feed-red-feed/), which provides a sideby-side comparison of live newsfeeds from liberal and conservative news sources. Even though identical topics are covered, the information and headlines are presented in drastically different manners, which creates a different experience for whomever is consuming that information.

Political and cultural division is being exploited for advertising revenue. In this environment, unscrupulous people will engineer false, tabloidlike content to garner attention and attract traffic, clicks and revenue for their websites. This kind of dishonest nonsense has existed for decades,

often adorning supermarket checkout aisles. Unfortunately, this fake news perfectly fits the social media business model that curates content to keep people engaged on various platforms. Concern for the greater good goes out the window. More often than not, fake-news sites are hosted internationally by teens and twentysomethings with the primary purpose of making money. Any potential political tampering aside, money is the crux of the matter.

As a society, we are falling victim to this bad content because of bad information practices. By not consuming news in a purposeful manner, and by allowing social media to be a driving force of information access, our exposure is limited to the views of those with whom we associate, as we continue to click and self-curate. Limited exposure allows for echo chambers to foster and incubate misinformation and fake news. People naturally glom onto exciting, yet false, information to affirm

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preconceived worldviews. All the while, these sites are exploiting emotions and tricking people in order to collect advertising revenue in what is a multibillion-dollar industry.

Fake news did not create this situation. It is a symptom of our dysfunction. How do we correct dysfunction and promote truth over misinformation? I propose three steps: support libraries, purposefully read the news and delve into discourse.

Support Libraries

Libraries and librarians are more important than ever. The role of the librarian has changed drastically, from the gatekeepers of a professionally curated repository of information to guides who help navigate the way through a sea of information by teaching information literacy.

Information literacy can be defined as the ability to find and vet information in order to create knowledge in an ethical manner. Fluency

in engaging information needs to be taught to our students. There is a misconception amongst some decision-makers that our students—most of whom are “digital natives”—are proficient researchers simply because they can navigate a computer better than previous generations and find information on the internet. However, just because someone can order a meal in a foreign language, does not mean they are fluent in that language—nor that they will receive the meal they thought they ordered.

Students need to learn the nuances of information. What constitutes an author’s intellectual property? What is considered common knowledge?

Without the ability to discern between what is the product of someone’s analysis and a fact, one will not be able to identify what needs to be cited within one’s own scholarly writings. Once one identifies an author’s argument, one needs to be able to vet the source to identify the authority of the source and determine whether it is credible or not.

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Purposefully Read the News

If one regularly gets news from a social media feed, rather than from purposeful engagement, one can

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easily fall into an echo chamber. It is important to read news from multiple sources and to evaluate where the truth resides within dissonance. It is necessary to also recognize the bias one shows in the selection of one’s primary news source. There is a political leaning associated with every news source, and there is value in reading news from sources that affirm and challenge one’s preconceived world views.

Delve into Discourse

If we do not call out bad information, we are complicit. As we personally know the majority of people we are connected with on social media, asking for feedback or clarification should not be a problem.

While starting arguments online is not productive, it is reasonable to hold people accountable to the ideas and stories they are sharing. For example: Ask where people are getting their information. Ask for their sources behind a claim. Perform a critical analysis in a kind manner. Share an article and ask for their perspective. Model the kind of discourse you want to see. The free exchange of ideas is crucial and necessary for our democracy to function.

Leaders in the Information Age

The information age needs leaders. We need leaders who will stand up for science and facts. We need educational leaders to take a stand and establish values as to how we are going to engage in academic discourse, and establish a standard for information literacy amongst middle- and high-school students.

We need civic leaders to model how we engage in civil discourse and make sure our schools have funding for libraries and the arts.

We need leaders to actively inhibit misinformation by supporting libraries, purposefully reading the news and delving into discourse. We need to advance knowledge, not arguments. Do not allow outrage and misinformed indignation to run rampant. We all need to stand up for facts and truths. If we do not, who will? @MIMOMY-STOCK.ADOBE.COM

Students are not being prepared to perform these tasks. These shortcomings are so glaring that they are showing themselves at the undergraduate level.

As a result, colleges and universities are pouring resources into information literacy instruction and copyright centers to teach students how to perform these basic tenants of scholarship, which used to be taught by middle-school librarians, before programs were cut for budgetary reasons.

In addition to not receiving the instruction that used to be standard across the country in most middle schools, students today have the disadvantage of not experiencing print resources.

Instead, many students have engaged only with digital formats, which, generally, present in the same manner: text on a screen.

Text on a screen does not clearly illustrate the difference between resources as it would if students were able to physically hold an academic journal or a popular magazine and see how they are organized and visually presented. Without these life experiences, today’s students need information literacy instruction more than any previous generation, as they have more information to engage with than their predecessors. This is especially evident as the internet continues to grow exponentially.

Discerning resources, identifying an author’s analysis and critically vetting sources for credibility and bias are among the skills that will help curb misinformation, or so-called fake news. However, rather than doubling down on this type of educational engagement, school libraries and librarian positions are often being cut along with arts programs whenever there are budget issues. Google searches will provide examples of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, our nation’s three largest school districts, cutting librarians and library programming during the 2017–18 school year. This trend needs to be reversed sooner than the undergraduate level. For a properly functioning democracy, the whole populace, not just college-bound students, need to be information literate. We are magnifying the problem by ignoring perhaps the most important life skill of the information age due to fiscal concerns.

2019 – 2020 Education Guide

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Mindset toThrive Is Forged in the Early Years

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he digital revolution has spurred breakneck changes in the world economy, and it’s clear that our education system is straining to keep pace and prepare students for a transformed workplace. Donna Orem, the president of the National Association of Independent Schools, shares that “the next ten to twenty years will bring many shifts in society. In fact, there will likely be more change than we have seen in the past 100 years.

External forces will put unprecedented pressure on long-standing educational institutions and systems, causing them to transform or perish… .We are at the beginning of not just an evolution, but a revolution.”

Understandably, much attention has gone into retooling higher education to meet the needs of students and adult workers in an economy in which many tasks, and much complex decision-making, will be executed by smart machines. Our universities and community colleges have responded to the predicted decline in full-time career employment with a range of innovative programs, from making training in systems thinking and data literacy more commonplace and widespread, to giving students the option to have a mission-driven or entrepreneurial focus, to making lifelong learning

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easier—and cheaper—to access. The retooling of college programs—and finding ways to help adult workers develop or retrain with the skills needed for contemporary jobs—is a worthy and necessary catch-up to new realities in the workplace.

However, I believe a more profound response to this changing landscape would be to look closely at education in the early years. My perspective, as the head of an independent school that serves children from ages three to eight, is that the workplace of the future demands a certain kind of mindset: a flexible and curious approach to learning. Having the confidence to master new skill sets across one’s life, and to approach those challenges with zest, is the frame of mind that will best serve students.

Those inner qualities are best cultivated in early childhood, at the very beginning of a student’s educational journey.

Fortunately, in my view, schools that work with younger children are ready to take on this responsibility. We know that the early years offer an ex-

traordinary window of opportunity to nurture the beginnings of this mindset in children. This period, from birth to age eight, is not only formative, but also explosive in terms of a child’s cognitive, emotional and social growth: As much as 85 percent of an individual’s intellect, personality and social skills are established then. A child’s brain size increases fourfold, and as an abundance of gray matter arranges itself, a breathtaking degree of complexity—far greater than that of a personal computer—emerges in the brain as a vast communications network is created among billions of brain cells.

By taking advantage of this intense phase of development and growth, schools are able to seed in young children an openness to, and excitement about, learning. Research has shown that children are most enthused about, and retain more of, what they learn when they are permitted to follow where their curiosity leads them. Thus, it makes sense to honor students’ natural inquisitiveness as well as their desire to explore and try new things.

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What Interest Can Do for Learning

Consider a child’s rapid-fire questions about a spider web she’s discovered on the playground. Why is a spontaneous moment of excitement sometimes a gift to a teacher, an opportunity for deeper exploration, rather than a distraction? These expressions of genuine interest are a powerful opening for learning. Paul Silvia, Ph.D. and professor of social psychology at the University of North Carolina, describes interest as being both a cognitive state and an affective state, what he calls a “knowledge emotion.” Interest is characterized by overwhelmingly positive feelings—a sense of being invigorated and energized, captivated and enthralled. And interest has a profound effect on cognition, effectively enhancing our thinking. When a child is deeply interested in what she’s learning, she pays close attention, processes new information more rapidly and makes strong connections between old and new knowledge. An added benefit in the classroom is that one individual’s driving curiosity and en-

thusiasm about a subject can be infectious, spurring others to contribute their ideas and becoming a springboard to teamwork.

After all, it was an intriguing question from a high school student that prompted NASA to conduct a famous series of experiments into the ability of spiders to spin webs in space.

Because the research shows that learning is greater when children can follow their individual interests or work on their own self-directed projects, the approach many schools are now embracing is to offer many pathways to learning. Having the freedom to shape their own learning, while being guided and encouraged by a skilled teacher, gives children a sense of purpose and excitement in school and makes them eager to acquire and practice new skills. In this way they begin to build the confidence and

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independence needed to become autodidacts. “The Future of Learning: Redefining Readiness from the Inside Out,” a 2017 report from the education-policy nonprofit KnowledgeWorks, lauded this emphasis on self-discovery, noting that it creates opportunities for children to develop an image of their future selves and to work through uncertainty, ambiguity, risk and failure as they pursue their own projects.

Learning Is a Journey

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Another way in which today’s schools seek to nurture children’s intellectual curiosity and motivation is to foster what is called “a growth mindset.”

As defined by the work of Carol Dweck, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Stanford University, this mindset is an inner belief that one’s skills and intellectual capabilities can grow through practice, effort and patience rather than being fixed or innate qualities. Teachers now encourage continued effort and resilience in children rather than stigmatizing

failure. This emphasis on a child’s ability to navigate setbacks, through practice and focus, poses a challenge to the obsession with assessments and testing. The educational goal instead is to build students’ mettle to take on a challenge or investigate a new area of study without being gripped by a fear of failure.

In her 2014 TEDx talk, “The Power of Believing You Can Improve,” Carol Dweck shares examples of how teachers are motivating students to tackle greater difficulty with verve. “In one study,” she explains, “we taught [students] that every time they push out of their comfort zone to learn something new and difficult, the neurons in their brain can form new, stronger connections, and, over time, they can get smarter.” Her research reveals that children given this lesson showed a sharp rebound in their grades, particularly for students who had been struggling. Dweck also highlights

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one school’s strategy of giving children who were unable to complete a tricky assignment a grade of “not yet.” As she notes, “Just the words ‘yet’ or ‘not yet,’ we’re finding, give kids greater confidence and a path into the future that creates greater persistence.”

Self-Insight and Empathy

Lastly, the set of skills that will be of the essence in the face of rapid change are self-insight and emotional intelligence. Given the challenges presented by a global, interconnected economy, Donna Orem writes, “Deep self-knowledge, emotional regulation, responsible decision-making, and empathy and perspective-taking will be particularly important.” That these all-important social and emotional skills are acquired and practiced early in life is a point not lost on our schools. Much of my work as a head of school is to train teachers to communicate thoughtfully with children and to give them rich opportunities to express their thoughts

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and feelings. After all, the roots of a strong future for any child lie in the experience of caring, attentive relationships and a learning environment that is nurturing and responsive. It is paramount that schools offer their students a culture of respect and warm relationships, in order to provide a model of how to work in a cooperative and adaptable community.

To thrive in a rapidly evolving workplace, in which people are likely to need training throughout their lives to keep up with the pace of change, our students’ inner qualities, their “soft skills,” will be invaluable. Skilled teachers can encourage and nurture these kinds of strengths—confidence, adaptability and perseverance—in young children. This is a unique time to prepare them to thrive in the digital world ahead of them and lay the groundwork for discovering for themselves how exhilarating and meaningful it is to learn and how capable they are of making meaningful and important contributions.

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Personalized Learning W

henever adults in a school get together to discuss an idea or program, they should be in the habit of asking, “What does this mean for students and their learning?” This seemingly obvious question may derail conversations and planning in schools that are aligned with traditional practices and adult needs, rather than with the learning needs of students. When used as a touchstone, the question can reveal motivations and

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influences that take attention away from what works best in terms of learning and human development for individual students. It can also reveal that the habit of designing schools and learning experiences based upon what the “system” wants, not what science and research tell us works best for students.

Consider the Advanced Placement (AP) program. What does Advanced Placement mean for students and their learning? Based upon what brain science tells us, AP courses and tests aren’t great. AP usually means too much, too fast, too shallow, too much pressure, and so on. Research also tells us that students will fail to retain the vast majority of what was “learned.” When looked at from an emotional and psychological perspective, the results are even more alarming—stress, anxiety, sleep deprivation and achievement-focused self-esteem issues abound.

How is it that this is the “gold standard” for learning in so many of our schools and communities?

To find an answer, we need to change the question: What does Advanced Placement mean for adults and the high school/college achievement complex?

The answer: AP helps high schools and colleges sort and sell. Adults in the business of education love it because it is one-size-fits-all—or, rather, all-fit-onesize-or-else. AP provides a superficial achievement paradigm to classify students as “smart” or “not so smart.” In fact, most AP programs make a point of emphasizing that if students can’t keep up with the pace of instruction, they shouldn’t be in the class. It’s a common practice for an AP teacher to spend the first class talking about how difficult the class will be, how ungodly the volume of work, how acute the misery to come. The message is clear: If you don’t fit, you shouldn’t even try to learn.

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2019 – 2020 Education Guide

The reality is that AP is more about who is better organized, who works hardest at things that may not interest them, who plays the “game” of school better, who sacrifices more time and sleep. It’s also about resources—who has had access to the greater resources over time and which parents will pay even more for additional tutoring. For most, the experience is far more transactional than transformational.

For many schools, this traditional paradigm, exemplified by AP, is no longer acceptable. These schools reject the transactional and industrial (one size for all) in favor of responding as best as they can to the needs of each student. They are “learner centered” and “personalizing” learning.

Being learner centered means that from the Board of Trustees on down, whenever a new policy, program or any expenditure (money, time, other resources) is considered, they ask, How will this decision impact the learning of our students? Schools that are learner centered acknowledge that their understanding of what is most important for students to learn must

continue to evolve with the world. More important, they embrace the perspective that there is more to learn each day about how we learn.

Traditional schools don’t talk much about what is most important to learn because they accept that, for the most part, that was decided a long time ago. These schools are “teacher centered” in that the teacher is at the center of the classroom, dispensing knowledge and teaching skills, while also owning most of what gets taught. As a result, decision-making around change often focuses on the effect on teachers and their programs, rather on students. They talk less about changing how students are learning in their schools because it would lead to the uncomfortable truth that they need to change. Students, parents and teachers would have to get used to a fluid system, which evolves as knowledge, methodologies and technology emerge to improve learning.

A traditional teacher-centric paradigm is not uncommon; in fact, it is still the norm in most schools. The people who work in such schools are

Preparing students for college and for lives of meaning and consequence A co-educational college preparatory boarding and day school for students in grades 9-12

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2019 EDUCATION GUIDE

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2019 – 2020 Education Guide NURTURING

his relationships AT EVERY STEP

BOYS GRADES K-9 203.319.4299

LINKS ACADEMY Learning Without Limits

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not bad. Many are hard-working and gifted teachers who want what’s best for kids. They are just stuck in the same system in which we all grew up, as did our parents, grandparents, etc.

Ironically, transitioning from a teacher-centric to a learner-centered paradigm starts with a school’s most important resource: teachers. The first step is creating the time and training for teachers and leaders to become stronger learners. For example, schools could develop teacher facilitators and collaborative working groups that are centered on understanding how thinking and learning are connected and how educators can best understand and improve students’ thinking. Schools could also support teachers who are curious about how to expand their own skills, promote authentic learning and experiment with new ideas and methodologies in the service of better learning.

Learner-centered schools must find, nurture and support hard-working teachers who inspire students and are excited about teaching and building relationships. Teachers and school leaders must be continuous learners. They might explore books like Make It Stick, Visible Learning for Teachers, Eat Move Sleep and The End of Average; find helpful articles and podcasts; attend conferences and push one another and emerging ideas through collaboration.

Learner-centered schools intentionally and relentlessly incorporate what they’ve learned into their school vision and into the day-to-day practices in their learning environments. These schools don’t just talk about being learner centered or simply post it on their websites, they live what it means.

For example, they might create parent-studentteacher conferences, abandoned AP in favor of a teacher-developed deep learning initiative, design a multidisciplinary humanities program and add multiple days of reflection for students and faculty.

Also, methodologies and practices—like thinking routines, reflection, journaling, opportunities to continue working on assessments without penalty, fewer and smarter homework assignments and the application of learning in authentic contexts—that support the research and brain science of learning have to become the norm. To be clear, this work never ends, nor should it. As knowledge of learning and the brain deepens, so too must the work evolve.

It follows that when teachers in learner-centered schools look out on the faces in their classrooms,

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they understand that each student has different skills, disposition and knowledge. Science and anecdotal data reveal that students learn differently, depending upon what is being asked of them. We are all different physiologically, psychologically and contextually—and it matters. If you have more than one child at home, look at them during dinner tonight and think about how different their learning experiences have been, and how you parent them differently. You know people are different, and, therefore, learn differently by design. Shouldn’t schools know this as well, and embrace it as the gift that it is?

Finally, people learn better when they have some choice in how they are being asked to learn. When students have choice in their learning pathway, earned through demonstrated actions (what we call “agency”) and independence, they’ll do more.

Students should be given alternative pathways that all lead to mastery of the same skills, dispositions and knowledge that we use to define success along a continuum. The overarching goal is for students to be able to transfer knowledge—“eduspeak” for can use what is learned to actually do something— rather than just saying what is learned.

Talk of learner centeredness and personalization often leads the uninitiated to conjure up visions of chaos: students left to their own devices (figuratively and, these days, literally); students deciding, without guidance or a plan, what they want to learn and when they want to learn it; teachers rendered powerless or replaced by a computer; and ultimately, no one learning anything. Yet, a well-designed learner-centered environment requires more structure, more talented teachers and operates at a level of complexity that makes traditional classrooms look primitive.

In the end, only the teacher in the presence of a student can make it work. When the teacher has better data and can provide more personalized feedback, and the student better understands the plan for learning, the relationship is strengthened and progress is made. The magic happens when they spend time working through problems and sharing ideas. There is nowhere for individual students to hide in a personalized learning environment, and so everyone has to learn. Failure is not an option because students have to keep working at it until they get it right. That’s one size that truly fits all.

TH E

2019 – 2020 Education Guide

YO

OT UR T RU E P

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I wish I had found Pinnacle sooner.

- Pinnacle Parent

The Pinnacle School enables students with language-based learning differences to thrive through small class sizes, individualized academic programming, collaborative problem-solving, and relationship building.

Grades 2-12 • www.pinnacle-ct.org • 203.409.0068

I’ve got a lot of ambition. That’s why

I Am HARVEY.

Grades 6–12 with 5-day boarding for 9–12 in Katonah, NY. For more information: www.harveyschool.org

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VILLA MARIA SCHOOL

Over 40 Years of Success in Inspiring Students with Learning Differences

A Special Education School that Makes Success a Reality!

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at Stepinac High School.

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2019 – 2020 Education Guide

Better Together

Helping Low-Income Students Reach Their College Goals TERESA SAPUTO STRATEGY & MARKETING ADVISOR JESSE KOLBER FOUNDATION

N

@VERIS STUDIO-STOCK.ADOBE.COM

avigating the college selection and application processes can be especially challenging for low-income students. According to “College Enrollment Surges Among Low-Income Students” (Preston Cooper, forbes.com, Feb. 26, 2018), 83 percent of wealthy students (top quintile of income distribution) enter college immediately after high school versus 67 percent in the bottom income quintile. The gap is even greater when considering four-year versus two-year college enrollment. Among families earning below $30,000 annually, 39 percent of students enroll in four-year colleges versus 61 percent of students from families earning above $100,000 per year.

Taken together, the arduous college application and financial-aid process, the rising costs of college tuition, and the competition generated by increasing number of applications create an especially significant challenge for low-income and first-generation students. These students have access to fewer resources to navigate the process of applying to college versus their higher-income counterparts. For example, students who attend high school in high poverty areas often do not have access to Advanced Placement classes and other college-preparation coursework, let alone standardized test prep and college application support.

However, provided one-on-one pro- bono instruction and college advising, low-income students can reach their academic potential and goals. And Jesse Kolber saw it. He provided pro-bono tutoring and college guidance to high-achieving, low-income students in northern Westchester and Connecticut, where he had attended college on scholarship, met and married his wife, Lindsay, and in 2007 started a business.

He founded LogicPrep, a for-profit test-preparation and college-advisory firm based in Armonk.

Over the next ten years, Jesse and Lindsay, and their close-knit team, built the company into an educational enterprise, with locations in four cities, to guide thousands of students through an academically and emotionally challenging period. In 2017, after spending most of his career working directly with students and dedicating teaching hours to underserved students on a pro-bono basis, Jesse died of cancer at the age of thirty-eight.

While still mourning the loss of her husband and three-months pregnant with their daughter, Eve, Lindsay found herself suddenly the sole leader of LogicPrep. She launched the Jesse Kolber Foundation to honor her late-husband and make his vision of sup2019 EDUCATION GUIDE

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2019 – 2020 Education Guide

The best way to predict the future is to design it.

Stamford, CT 203.329.8815 www.childrensschool.org

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porting students of all backgrounds a reality. Today, she recalls that her decision to start the foundation felt like the “most obvious thing in the world” and adds that the idea actually started to take shape at the shiva in her home as team members and students gathered to reflect on the impact Jesse had had on their lives— and how they could pay it forward. Since that time, LogicPrep’s tutors have stepped up and pledged to provide pro-bono instruction and college advising to Jesse Kolber Scholars. All funds raised by the foundation are granted directly to the participants once they are admitted to college and help cover tuition and other costs of higher education.

Lindsay is committed to the understanding that intelligence is varied and diverse, which is reflected in the hiring and instructional philosophy at LogicPrep and the Jesse Kolber Foundation. She also recognizes that standardized testing is a highly important part of the college-admissions process, and it can be especially challenging for low-income students who lack access to the appropriate resources to prepare. In fact, research shows that students from low-income backgrounds have a more difficult time getting into college and adjusting to its demands of undergraduate education. The foundation is dedicated to identifying candidates through a testing and application process and supporting them.

“My guidance counselor told me at my college meeting that: ‘There are Ivy League students in this school, and that’s 1 percent of this school, and you’re definitely not in that 1 percent,’ ” recalls Ariana Thomas, a sophomore at Columbia University. She adds that after meeting LogicPrep’s volunteer tutors and advisors, she felt like she “finally had people who believed in me.”

Jamie Kenyon, who serves on the board of the foundation and has been an instructor and curriculum strategist at LogicPrep since its beginning, believes in the power of education and opportunity for all students. “One of the best feelings you can have is seeing a dream that a student thought was impossible become a reality,” Jamie says. “Here at the foundation, we look for students who can demonstrate an economic need, great personal resilience and a commitment to academic excellence.”

Admissions to the scholar program is on a rolling basis and can start as early as a student’s freshman year of high school. Currently, it has the capacity to assist up to twelve students per high school grade.

2019 – 2020 Education Guide

As fundraising grows, so will the class size. Most tutoring sessions can be done over Skype, which allows students who lack access to transportation to participate in the program.

Additionally, several partners provide students with brick-and-mortar space and computer access.

Currently, the foundation is working with the Boys & Girls Club of Northern Westchester, The Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice (Brooklyn), The McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research (Harlem) and Reach Prep (Stamford). A partnership begins with a no-cost two-hour workshop for a large group of students at the agency’s office or school. This offers an overview of the testing process and a lesson on strategies for success. Students also receive test-prep workbooks, which are donated by LogicPrep. Jamie then provides partners with diagnostic SAT and ACT tests to be administered at a later date. After the tests are scored, Jamie calls each student to discuss the results and invites him or her to apply to the scholarship program. Whether or not a student applies, he or she has benefited from the

workshop and started to prepare for the admissions journey.

Current enrolled students include an immigrant from Vietnam who strives to create a better life for her parents and siblings; a dedicated student and athlete who is pursuing higher education to help her parents resolve their immigration status; and an aspiring doctor who seeks the financial stability her mother could not provide without a college degree after losing her job. Through their work with the foundation in the past year, the instructors and advisors have spent more than 400 hours helping the students prepare for SATs or ACTs and the college selection, application, and admissions process. Current graduates of the program include a student who was accepted to five Ivy League schools, one who will enroll at Dartmouth University, and another who will attend Carnegie Mellon University.

With her husband’s passing and his lasting legacy in mind, Lindsay concludes, “What we do have power over is our impact on others and the meaning we choose to find—and make—during our time here.”

Providing Families and Students with Premier Educational Advisory Services Your partners in educational excellence since 1994

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TIPS for Students Start Early

The best decisions are made when students and families have time to research, visit and reflect on the best fit school for their child.

VICTORIA C. NEWMAN, M.S. ED, CEP FOUNDER & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR GREENWICH EDUCATION GROUP

Do Your Homework

When parents and students have a clear understanding of what they are looking for in a new school, it leads to a more successful school search process and outcome.

ALYSON HENNING WALKER FAMILY EDUCATION ADVISOR HENNING & PARTNERS

Be Yourself

The most important strategy for a successful school search is for students to be authentic. Secondary schools and colleges value integrity, curiosity and resilience. Celebrate your genuine self and let that drive the process.

CAMILLE M. BERTRAM CERTIFIED EDUCATIONAL PLANNER FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, THE BERTRAM GROUP

Connect Further

REACH PREP • reachprep.org

THE ASSOCIATION OF BOARDING SCHOOLS • boardingschools.com

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THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS • nais.org

INDEPENDENT EDUCATIONAL CONSULTANTS ASSOCIATION • IECAonline.com

CONNECT -

2019 2020

ADVERTISERS

AVON OLD FARMS SCHOOL Avon, CT avonoldfarms.com ARCHBISHOP STEPINAC HIGH SCHOOL White Plains, NY stepinac.org BERKSHIRE SCHOOL Sheffield, MA berkshireschool.org THE BERTRAM GROUP thebertramgroup.com BRUNSWICK SCHOOL Greenwich, CT brunswickschool.org CANTERBURY SCHOOL New Milford, CT cbury.org THE CHILDREN’S SCHOOL Stamford, CT childrensschool.org THE ETHEL WALKER SCHOOL Simsbury, CT ethelwalker.org FAIRFIELD COLLEGE PREPARATORY SCHOOL Fairfield, CT fairfieldprep.org FAIRFIELD COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL Fairfield, CT fairfieldcountryday.org

GREENS FARMS ACADEMY Greens Farms, CT gfacademy.org GREENWICH ACADEMY Greenwich, CT greenwichacademy.org GREENWICH COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL Greenwich, CT gcds.net THE GUNNERY Washington, CT gunnery.org HAMDEN HALL COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL Hamden, CT hamdenhall.org THE HARVEY SCHOOL Katonah, NY harveyschool.org HOLDERNESS SCHOOL Plymouth, NH holderness.org HOPKINS SCHOOL New Haven, CT hopkins.edu HYDE SCHOOL Bath, ME hyde.edu IONA PREPARATORY SCHOOL New Rochelle, NY ionaprep.org

THE FORMAN SCHOOL Litchfield, CT formanschool.org

KIMBALL UNION ACADEMY Meriden, NH kua.org

GERMAN SCHOOL OF CT Stamford, CT germanschoolct.org

KING SCHOOL Stamford, CT kingschoolct.org

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Ge tpired I ns

2019 – 2020 Education Guide

LINKS ACADEMY Stamford, CT linksacademy.org

THE SPIRE SCHOOL Stamford, CT spireschool.org

THE LONG RIDGE SCHOOL Stamford, CT longridgeschool.org

ST. LUKE’S SCHOOL New Canaan, CT stlukesct.org

THE MASTERS SCHOOL Dobbs Ferry, NY mastersny.org

THE UNQUOWA SCHOOL Fairfield, CT unquowa.org

MILLBROOK SCHOOL Millbrook, NY millbrook.org NEW CANAAN COUNTRY SCHOOL New Canaan, CT countryschool.net THE PINNACLE SCHOOL Stamford, CT pinnacle-ct.org RIPPOWAM CISQUA SCHOOL Bedford, NY rcsny.org

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RUMSEY HALL SCHOOL Washington Depot, CT rumseyhall.org RYE COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL Rye, NY ryecountryday.org SACRED HEART GREENWICH Greenwich, CT cshgreenwich.org SAINT ANDREW'S SCHOOL Boca Raton, FL saintandrews.net SCHOOL OF THE HOLY CHILD Rye, NY holychildrye.org

VILLA MARIA SCHOOL Stamford, CT villamariaedu.org WESTMINSTER SCHOOL Simsbury, CT westminster-school.org WESTOVER SCHOOL Middlebury, CT westoverschool.org WHITBY SCHOOL Greenwich, CT whitbyschool.org WILBRAHAM & MONSON ACADEMY Wilbraham, MA wma.us WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL Easthampton, MA williston.com WINSTON PREPARATORY SCHOOL Norwalk, CT winstonprep.edu WOOSTER SCHOOL Danbury, CT woosterschool.org

EXPLORE and DISCOVER 2019-2020

Fy ind our fit

SCHOOL FAIRS & EVENTS

Secondary School Fair Greenwich Catholic and Whitby School

Thursday, September 12, 2019 6:30 p.m.

Greenwich Catholic School 4571 North Street Greenwich, CT gcsct.org

Secondary School Fair Ridgefield Academy Wednesday, October 2, 2019 7–8:30 p.m.

Summit Gymnasium Ridgefield Academy 223 West Mountain Road Ridgefield, CT ridgefieldacademy.org

Private Day and Boarding School Fair Greenwich Education Group Tuesday, May 12, 2020

5:30–7:30 p.m.

Eastern Greenwich Civic Center 90 Harding Road Old Greenwich, CT ctschoolfair.org

Reach Prep Annual Benefit Luncheon

Monday, April 27, 2020

11:30 a.m.

Hyatt Regency Greenwich 1800 E. Putnam Avenue Old Greenwich, CT reachprep.org

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Looking Ahead N otice E xplore W onder T hink E laborate A ssociate C reate H arness E xecute R ecreate Awakening, not enlightenment.

Students transform when they develop a love of learning,

which in turn transforms the rest of their living days. This is what makes them finding their place in the world such a responsive and exciting journey from which they will continually draw aspiration and joy.

BRIAN P. EASLER HEAD OF SCHOOL WILBRAHAM & MONSON ACADEMY

The skills that the leaders of tomorrow will need

—resilience, fortitude, empathy, mindfulness—are all learned in early childhood. Early childhood programs shape our future leaders; our youngest members build foundational aptitudes that will guide them not only into college but the world beyond.

CHRISTINE D'ALESSANDRO HEAD OF LOWER SCHOOL SACRED HEART GREENWICH

DR. MEERA S. VISWANATHAN HEAD OF SCHOOL THE ETHEL WALKER SCHOOL

Leadership is a daily activity,

of products, academia must be guided by the deliberate development of the mind.

EILEEN DIECK, M.D.

PRESIDENT IONA PREPARATORY SCHOOL

a conscious set of choices intended to improve the world around you.

ETHICAL LEADERSHIP COORDINATOR THE MASTERS SCHOOL

Technology will spur, but only human connection will transform education.

Great teachers teach the value of every student and the lasting lessons for life.

MARK DAVIS HEAD OF SCHOOL ST. LUKE'S SCHOOL

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BRO. THOMAS R. LETO, ED.D.

@RUSKPP-STOCK.ADOBE.COM; @MALTIASE-STOCK.ADOBE.COM

If technology suffers from the "planned obsolescence"

SPARKING PASSIONS Build a robot.

Explore the universe.

Study abroad.

Put your best foot forward.

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We inspire young women to be thoughtful global leaders.

FALL OPEN HOUSES Upper School—Thursday, October 17 at 6:00 p.m.

K–12—Saturday, November 2 at 9:00 a.m.

Barat Center—Friday, November 15 at 9:30 a.m.

CSHGREENWICH.ORG

— DISCOVER THE —

IONA PREP DIFFERENCE

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TO THE CLASS OF

2019!

AN IONA PREP EDUCATION IS ONE OF THE BEST

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Ĥ Iona Prep’s Class of 2019 earned more than $20 million in merit scholarships, with an average award in excess of $60,000--more than $120 million has been amassed by the last five graduating classes! Ĥ To ensure college success, Iona Prep provides a two-tiered college counseling approach where students are assigned a college counselor in their junior and senior years, serving as an additional support to the student’s regular school counselor.

Ĥ Seniors have been accepted to their top choice schools, including Boston College, Bucknell University, the Cooper Union, Colby College, Cornell University, Georgetown University, Howard University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Notre Dame, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Syracuse University, Trinity College, the United States Coast Guard Academy, Vassar and many others.

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BEGIN YOUR COLLEGE PREPARATORY JOURNEY THIS FALL Contact Admissions@IonaPrep.org or visit IonaPrep.org

#IAMIONAPREP Iona Preparatory Upper School 255 Wilmot Road New Rochelle, NY 10804 (914) 600-6154

Iona Preparatory Lower School 173 Stratton Road New Rochelle, NY 10804 (914) 633-7744

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