FEARLESSLY Future BOUND

Head of School Peter Becker Reflects on What’s Next for Gunn

As Winter Term was winding down in late February, we asked Head of School Peter Becker to reflect on his 11 years here, and why he is confident that the momentum the school has achieved will continue uninterrupted in the months and years to come. What follows is an excerpt of that conversation.

You have long been a proponent of boarding school. What is it that makes the boarding school experience at The Frederick Gunn School so special?

Boarding schools have particular educational potential because they are total institutions where students and faculty do all of life in the same place. The Frederick Gunn School’s particular advantage there is a function of Frederick Gunn’s, and Abigail Gunn’s, insight into how young people actually develop as whole beings — mind, body, spirit, emotions — and their insight that it takes the experience of the whole community to get the most positive transformation out of the student. They did that from an early age, whereas most educators at the time really were engaging the head, and they sort of left the heart and the body alone. So that’s one advantage this place has. Another is its actual, physical geography. We are not a school just anywhere. We are a school in the Litchfield Hills, surrounded by outcroppings of nature. Humans in Washington, Connecticut, have to conform themselves to the natural environment, and that makes us better humans. So the more the school is capitalizing on those things, and the philosophy of Frederick and Abigail in this particular place, the more we’ll be playing to our inherent advantages as a boarding school.

What are some examples of ways you see Mr. Gunn’s vision of an ideal school reflected in our school today?

It isn’t about any one person. We have programs now that really are a contemporary manifestation of Mr. Gunn’s original insights as an educator. The growth of the outdoor program is one obvious and very important example. Mr. Gunn had in mind that a way to address the total humanity of the child was to include regular time in the outdoors. That is now something that all students are required to do. The Center for Citizenship and Just Democracy embodies his commitment to active local citizenship, and his bias to connecting thinking with doing. Our athletic coaches are increasingly intentional about connecting how they approach coaching with our Core Values, and this is also true in our residential life program as well as our academic program. Mr. Gunn, again, ahead of his time, saw the really important role that active participation in the arts has in drawing out parts of the learner that can’t be drawn out in any other way. So I think the shape of the school life today, while always evolving, is a very good sort of 2023 version of the ideal school that Mr. and Mrs. Gunn set out to create in the first place, always keeping in mind that he said he’s never seen it, actually.

What are some examples of how our faculty are guided by Mr. Gunn in their interactions with students?

That question makes me think of the work that our classroom teachers are doing to translate specifically the model of Mr. Gunn as an educator into day-to-day classroom practices. For example, the centrality of building trust with the student; that the teacher needs to be a curious, active learner, and needs to find ways to address the whole student, mind, body, spirit, emotion, in the classroom, to the end of developing active citizenship. The fact that our teachers identified these practices together and now are pursuing them explicitly is a really important step towards the goal of making sure that our teaching and learning culture reflects the educational insights that Mr. Gunn championed.

The school has achieved tremendous momentum over the past 11 years. Why are you confident that momentum will carry on uninterrupted?

I am confident because I think the story, both internally and externally, has become about this visionary and remarkable founder, more clearly and more proudly than at any time that I can identify in the school’s history since Mr. Gunn passed away, and that that is resonating in terms of the student experience, the faculty experience, and in the independent school market. There is a lot of evidence that Mr. Gunn’s original message resonates with people on a deep and profound level, that people are attracted to it, and people want to be part of it and invest in it. So momentum is not inevitable but, I really believe as long as the school stays focused on that story in a sincere way that the opportunities for the school are limitless.

We’ve heard that almost every head of school before you considered changing the name. What was it that gave you the confidence to know that this was the time to do it? And how do you see that change guiding the school for the next 50-100 years?

The conviction that led me to put the question on the table was really an outgrowth of why I was attracted to the school in the first place. People are probably tired of hearing the story, but I read The Biography of Frederick Gunn, and I don’t think it’s too strong to say that in some ways it changed my life. It certainly was unique among anything I’d read about American education up to that point. Through no one’s fault, the school’s strengths were masked by a name that only insiders really understood, and in many ways the school was not living up to the promise of what Frederick and Abigail set out to do in the first place. I was confident that the school was prepared to be committed in a new way to our founder’s vision and model, and that the best way to get credit for that and to stay clear on that, both internally and externally, was to make sure that the name reflected the person as clearly as possible. One reason for making the name so straightforward and clear is that future generations of Board, faculty, staff, students, and alumni can essentially hold the school accountable to whether or not it is living up to its name in a way that was not possible before.

How do you see Graham House, the Thomas S. Perakos Arts and Community Center, and the LIzzie and Jonathan Tisch Center for Innovation and Active Citizenship propelling us forward in terms of our people, place, and programs, and setting a new standard?

I’ve appreciated the Board’s willingness to visit other schools and understand the market in which we compete, to understand what choices families are making when they are admitted to multiple schools, and to recognize that the great teachers and programs that we’ve always had can actually be limited in certain ways by the quality of the facilities, and then to commit to a terrific new standard of buildings for the school. What each of those buildings has in common is not only are they architecturally beautiful and interesting, but they connect very intentionally the outdoors and the indoors. They are great places for adults and for students to be throughout the entire school year. They all have significant community spaces at the forefront, at the heart. And in addition to being great for the students and faculty who are here day in and day out, they are just innately attractive to people who are visiting the school for the first time, and they give very clear material expression to the quality and the type of teaching and learning experience (and living experience, in terms of Graham House) that we have and constantly aspire to. They do that very much in concert with the rocks, hills, and trees of campus. None of them dwarf the humans who live and work and learn in them, and they don’t dwarf the natural landscape that is their context.

What makes you optimistic about the future of the school? We’ve accomplished so much, tell us why you believe the future is bright here.

I think it is because we are so clear on who we are, what makes our educational model so distinct and effective for young people in 2023, and that the story, vision, and model of Frederick and Abigail Gunn resonates as clearly as it does with people on a very deep, human level. I think as long as the school continues to focus on and innovate on those central Frederick Gunn elements, there isn’t another boarding school in America that has the advantages that this school has.

Looking back on everything the school has accomplished over the past 11 years, if you could choose one thing that you think will have the most lasting, positive effect, what would it be?

The name change and the incredible philanthropic support led by the Tisch family. I would be remiss in not mentioning their support, and the support of so many other people, some of whom are anonymous. But I think the name change is a line in the sand. And I really think that the school could easily emerge as a leading model of education in independent schools in the country.