The Promise and Joy of Learning and Teaching

Goals

Trinity will seek to be a community in which the terms of our motto, Labore et Virtute, “by means of hard work and moral excellence,” are seen in and supported by all that we do and say as we pursue “the promise and joy of Trinity School.”

We will continue to create a culture that promotes the joy of teaching, aspires to the highest ideals of pedagogy, and nurtures the personal and professional well-being of every member of the faculty and staff.

We will build a K-12 academic program for our students that encourages depth of engagement and exploration, risk-taking, academic agency, and personal integrity in our classrooms, in our gyms and on fields, and in performance spaces and arts studios.

Recommendations

We will examine our assessment and grading policies and practices, seeking to improve their value in communicating with clarity and integrity each student’s progress towards important shared educational goals. We will seek to enhance the power of assessment and grading to foster intellectual engagement, deepen enduring understanding, foster creative thinking and risk-taking, and valorize the intrinsic rewards of authentic learning.

We will seek to create an academic schedule that promotes deep learning and intellectual growth for students; provides time for reflection, collaboration, and professional development among faculty; facilitates interdivisional interaction among students and among faculty and staff; and contributes to the health of our community and the well-being of its members.

We will examine our learning support programs, structures, and practices to assure that all students have access to the assistance they need to engage deeply, learn authentically, and flourish at Trinity.

We will examine our capacity to create a variety of educational opportunities in each division that will enable students to engage in curricularly-aligned, increasingly independent, self-directed “passion projects,” such as capstone experiences at Grades Four, Eight, and Twelve or a “city-semester” program in which New York City is the classroom for a semester-long program of study which might rotate among the academic departments.

We will assess the efficacy of our current models of compensation and professional evaluation and development in providing for continuing growth, creativity, and professional fulfillment.