LEARNING AT THE SEVEN HILLS SCHOOL
Portrait of a Seven Hills
Graduate
In my role as Head of School, I’m often asked what distinguishes Seven Hills from other strong schools in our community. My answer is that we define our mission more ambitiously: preparing our graduates not just for college, but also for rich and meaningful lives. Of course, Seven Hills effectively prepares students to excel in the nation’s leading colleges and universities. But just as important, we also arm our young people with the skills and habits of mind they will need to assume roles of leadership in an increasingly competitive global economy. This commitment defines the Seven Hills of today; but it also drives a process of continuous improvement that continues to shape our future as a school.
Christopher P. Garten Head of School
PORTRAIT OF A SEVEN HILLS GRADUATE
Lifelong Learners Our students are prepared to excel in college and beyond.
They enjoy learning and respect knowledge. They regard learning as meaningful and fulfilling.
They have confidence in themselves and in their peers and the persistence to work together to solve problems and surmount difficulties.
They value a healthy, balanced lifestyle, embracing a range of interests and valuing the arts, athletics, and their personal relationships as fully as academics.
You may have seen Thomas Friedman’s 2009 New York Times op-ed, “The New Untouchables.” In it, Friedman describes an incredibly prepared class of young people so well educated that he designates them as “untouchables,” immunized against the vagaries of our increasingly volatile world economy.
“Those who are waiting for this recession to end so someone can again hand them work could have a long wait. Those with the imagination to make themselves untouchables—to invent smarter ways to do old jobs, energy-saving ways to provide new services, new ways to attract old customers or new ways to combine existing technologies—will thrive. Therefore, we not only need a higher percentage of our kids graduating from high school and college—more education—but we need more of them with the right education.” But what do we mean by the “right education?” Leading educational theorists offer explicit answers that can help us make the Seven Hills experience even more valuable for our students.
Searching for best practices:
should model
Ideals we
Tony Wagner—co-director of the Change Leadership Group at Harvard University— cites the increasingly bleak data comparing American schools with their counterparts in Asia and Western Europe in The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the Survival Skills Our Children Need—And What We Can Do About It. He argues that American schools have generally failed to respond to the educational revolution wrought by the Internet.
They understand the components of a rewarding life. They recognize their own strengths and weaknesses, and they know their own emotions.
They understand how they learn and solve problems. They can monitor their own learning. They are well-spoken, articulate communicators.
They advocate for themselves. They adapt easily to different environments and cultures.
They know how to lead and recognize that there are many ways to do so effectively.
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In a world where people can access virtually everything they need to know instantly, most American schools still emphasize knowledge acquisition and memory tasks. Wagner argues that our schools need to respond more quickly to how the information revolution has transformed our economy. He lists seven “survival skills” that prepare students to compete in the global landscape: •
Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving
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Collaboration and Leadership
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Agility and Adaptability
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Initiative and Entrepreneurialism
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Effective Oral and Written Communication
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Accessing and Analyzing Information
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Curiosity and Imagination
Several components of Wagner’s list dovetail nicely with the thesis of another influential book, Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind. Pink suggests that after a long era dominated by left-brained thinkers and “knowledge workers,” we’re now entering a new “conceptual age.” Success in this new age depends much more on right-brain abilities, namely creativity and empathy. Survival today depends on being able to do something that overseas knowledge workers can’t do cheaper…that is why high tech is no longer enough. We’ll need to supplement our high tech abilities with abilities that are high concept and high touch. For Pink, high concept means “the ability to create artistic or emotional beauty, detect patterns, craft narratives, and combine unrelated ideas into novel inventions,” and high touch involves the ability to “empathize, understand subtleties of human interaction, and pursue purpose and meaning.” In a similar vein, Pat Bassett, the former President of the National Association of Independent Schools, has recently argued that providing the “right education”—going beyond knowledge delivery to emphasize the skills and habits of mind—amounts to thinking about education in a different way. Many of the nation’s strongest schools adopted such an approach some time ago. He suggests that schools need to reach an agreement about “what well-educated students should be able to do” as opposed to “what they know.” To this end, Bassett advises that each school develop a unique list of “essential demonstrations”—culminating activities that would validate “student readiness for the next stage of schooling or life.” In this spirit, Seven Hills faculty members have spent considerable time crafting our own “Portrait of a Graduate,” a statement that defines the skills and habits of mind we seek to produce in our young people.
PORTRAIT OF A SEVEN HILLS GRADUATE
Creative and Critical Thinkers Our students ask why and what if.
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They know how to problem-solve: how to approach problems critically and creatively, and how to ask probing questions. They habitually reflect on ideas.
They have the confidence that comes from engaging legitimately difficult questions. They have the confidence to challenge received wisdom and to explore their own novel solutions.
They possess a healthy skepticism and the skill to identify fallacious reasoning. They can analyze, synthesize and evaluate the credibility of data gathered from a variety of sources.
Putting theory into practice:
The Seven Hills Method
The teaching methods I observe on both our campuses are explicitly designed to foster the skills our graduates will need to thrive in an increasingly competitive global community. Indeed, I would maintain that the “meaningful difference� between Seven Hills and many other schools is more a matter of how we teach rather than what we teach. Here are a few specific examples: 1
At Seven Hills, we make learning discovery-based, participatory, and highly interactive. Students talk a great deal more than their teachers. And we foster critical thinking by encouraging students to challenge their teachers and each other in respectful ways.
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Teachers expect more than individual mastery of information. Seven Hills students work a great deal in teams, collaborating on experiments, investigations, and problem-solving.
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Students use technology for meaningful purposes: for research, data gathering and analysis, presentation, and communication.
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Seven Hills emphasizes global awareness across the curriculum, particularly in history, social studies, foreign language, and literature.
As a demanding academic environment, Seven Hills doesn’t primarily call on students to complete more work. Instead, the very nature of the work differentiates our school. We expect students to demonstrate creativity, critical thinking, judgment, and originality. Our teachers not only evaluate what students know; they also evaluate how students can apply what they know to new situations. This, in turn, has implications for the relationships between teachers and students here. In many schools, teachers act as distant authority figures that stand in the front of a classroom and pass on what they know to their students.
Hard Workers They are comfortable using technology to collect, analyze, and present information. They seek and find solutions.
Our students display tenacity and persistence.
They take initiative. They know how to manage time and how to cope with the challenging pace and complexity of the modern world.
They display the will to persist in the active pursuit of creative solutions. They know how to work hard now for rewards that will come later.
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But at Seven Hills, teachers see themselves as collaborators and facilitators. They respect their students’ independence and intelligence. They see their job as educating students to think and solve problems in creative, original ways. They give students tasks that demand focus, persistence and self-governance, and then work alongside them to help students develop the skills they need to attain mastery. True to our tradition of continuous improvement, we do not rest on our laurels. Each summer, dozens of teachers design new units of instruction or inquirybased projects to help fulfill the goals of our “Portrait of a Graduate.” We are committed, each year, to examining our practices and aligning our methods as intentionally as possible with the habits of mind we seek to produce in our students. As we continue to refine our curriculum and adjust our instructional methods, our focus remains steadfast: to fully prepare our graduates to excel in an increasingly competitive global community, equipping them with the habits of mind and strength of character they’ll carry with them throughout their lives. Notes: 1. Thomas F. Friedman, “The New Untouchables,” New York Times, October 20, 2009. 2. Tony Wagner, The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the Survival Skills Our Children Need–And What We Can Do About It, Chapter 1. 3. Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind, p. 51-52. 4. “Demonstrations of Learning for 21st Century Schools,” Patrick F. Bassett, Independent School, Fall, 2009.
PORTRAIT OF A SEVEN HILLS GRADUATE
Global Citizens Our students embrace cultures other than their own. 4
They are open-minded and collaborative. They enjoy interacting both socially and professionally with people of different backgrounds.
They believe that working together with others can engender clearer understanding. They understand the importance of developing relationships and of understanding other cultural perspectives.
They affirm their individuality and celebrate the unique gifts of others. They have the courage to explore other points of view and the willingness to build bridges that connect them with others.
Ethical Individuals Our students live with integrity.
They seek out strong communities and participate responsibly in their world, demonstrating empathy through service to others near and far.
They recognize a moral dimension to their lives and their learning. They appreciate their own good fortune in the gifts life has given them.
They are courteous and respectful of others. They are good sports on and off the playing field.
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