Reflection from Dr. Folan to the Board of Trustees and Senior Leadership Team

November 2024

 

I am grateful for this opportunity to speak with you this evening.

The older I become, the greater an appreciation I have for what truly matters in life. It was my hope tonight to share a reflection with you on what rests at the core of a school, its great teaching, and the work of its head of school.

I want to begin with a meditation that I hold dear.

There is nothing more practical and important than falling in love, in a quite absolute and final way. What you are in love with, what seized your imagination, truly affects everything.

What you love decides what will get you out of bed in the mornings, what you do with your evenings, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you.

Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.

The act of love fills our lives with amazement, joy, and gratitude. We have all experienced joy and love, and their lasting dividends. In turn, we aspire for our children to experience these qualities. A school must help its students to discover passion and joy. This requires a culture and ecosystem be built to foster opportunities, embrace learning, articulate hopes, and actualize dreams.

This is no simple task; it demands a strong and collaborative faculty. One that is formed and cultivated over many years. The best faculty are student-centric and doggedly hone their vocational craft, year-over-year. Strong faculty armed with a strong program are agents of potent pedagogy that reach and inspire students.

A school must have a strong academic program. It also needs engaging visual and performative arts, thoughtful co-curriculars, as well as a competitive athletic program. Excellence in all arenas should be the agenda and celebrated through the creation of well-rounded students.

To cultivate individual gifts and talents requires a school that is tailored to the individual. To do this well requires three principles. First, a school needs to have “low floors” or easy entry points for students to begin the learning process. Second, a school must have “high ceilings” to cater and encourage excellence. High expectations must be the norm. Third, a school must have “wide walls.” Wide walls ensure that there are multiple pathways from the lowest ascending to the highest. Students need access to a broad range of pathways, so different types of learners can obtain successful outcomes. The concept of low floors, high ceilings, and wide walls helps create a high-functioning school centered on student learning.

Education is more than just reading, writing, and arithmetic. A school needs to have a soul. A great school cultivates student character by upholding a common set of values and virtues. It challenges its students to consider the life they want to lead, and the kind of person they aspire to become. It is imperative that Dexter Southfield holds on to this tradition and the virtues it holds dear, as it has successfully shaped the character of its students for a hundred years. This charter can never change. 

Having and maintaining a core belief is essential; it defines our why, our value, and the most important value we can impart to our students: pride. This core belief is personified in the Dexter Southfield shield. This soul and the lifelong pursuit of these values is what connects graduates to their school shield—the embodiment of their school—over their lifetime.

While a school’s core cannot change, it cannot grow stale either. It must continue to evolve. A school must be resilient, adaptive, and expand with time. The reality that we face in this twenty-first century, amid the fourth industrial revolution, is that the adolescent brain is now wired differently. Parents and educators can’t ignore this reality, and we must face it head on.

The students who walk the halls of Dexter Southfield will face different challenges in their lifetimes than we did. It is our job to provide today’s students with the resilience and skills required to solve the complex set of problems that await them.

This requires that we tap into the idealistic ingenuity of our students. We must harness it. Students aspire to be involved and ideally solve problems. They want to understand how to apply their gifts to make a difference in the world. We need to teach students to think horizontally and embrace the fluid nature of interdisciplinary thinking. These skills will enable students to function better in teams, solve problems, and break down siloed thinking.

While a school needs to be innovative, adaptive, and forward thinking, it also needs to embrace the ethos of a traditional, classical education. Students should be taught great works and asked to debate key questions pertaining to the human condition. Thankfully, Dexter Southfield has always embraced this tradition, exemplified in a young, future president John F. Kennedy entering its halls; this work continues today with all of us. 

Dexter Southfield must always teach Macbeth and Hamlet. Girls and boys should always read poetry and deliver recitations, but we cannot stop there. We must also teach coding, statistics, design thinking, and environmental science. We must build upon this traditional foundation by teaching students to make interdisciplinary connections: arts and sciences — humanities and technology. This innovative mindset—the ability to foster linkages—will provide graduates with the ability to untangle complex issues and solve supposed, intractable problems.

The educational end goal should be to create twenty-first century renaissance women and men. A well-rounded, complex thinker, who can solve problems, articulate ideas with clarity and confidence, will never go out of style. In a world that is rapidly reliant on Artificial Intelligence, these intellectual difference makers will be invaluable. 

I have worked in many settings and have had the privilege of teaching girls and boys at every level from seventh grade to college to graduate school. Not every place I have worked has put students first. It is also rare for a school community to appreciate the unique gifts and talents of its young men and women. This is the heart, the essence of our work.

I love that Dexter Southfield appreciates and celebrates the similarities and differences between girls and boys. It is critical to recognize the differences between a third grade girl and an eighth grade boy, as well as the common developmental pressures that await high school juniors.

Each gender, each age group requires something different, something that focuses on their unique developmental needs. This requires great pedagogical skills, understanding, and training. It requires we harness the best of single-sex and co-education.

Dexter Southfield is unique in its educational approach. No other school in the country has embraced this blended gendered, framework. My doctoral studies at UPenn centered on single-sex education, and I can attest that this school’s PreK-12 approach is unmatched.

We can all agree that a school is a complex organization, because it is filled with complex beings and requires complex outcomes. At the heart of the work are teachers, coaches, and administrators, who care and dedicate their time to building meaningful relationships. Relational teaching, a hallmark of Dexter Southfield, ultimately strives to inform, form, and transform the lives of its students. We can’t hope for anything more.

While much has evolved, core aspects of teaching have remained constant over my nearly thirty years in the field. Students need to be inspired and called to greatness. Students also need to be engaged with sincere benevolence. School leaders must have common sense and patience. A great school has dedicated teachers, who do three things incredibly well.

      i.         Great teachers fall in love with what they teach.

     ii.         Great teachers fall in love with who they teach.

   iii.         Great teachers fall in love with where they teach.

The best educators love to teach, love what they teach, and love whom they teach. Dexter Southfield is filled with many great educators, who embody these traits; none better than Todd and Kristen Vincent. This community is better because of their leadership, devotion, and their love for students and Dexter Southfield.

While my role leading a school over the past decade has grown increasingly complex, the core of the work can be stated simply. The Head of School needs to recognize that the school’s mission enables its work, but vision inspires it. The Head’s role is to steward resources and traditions, while leading a school towards an enhanced vision that awaits on the horizon.

Traditions, like schools, are living entities. They mature and evolve through channeled experience and expertise. This is why a school, and its Trustees are engaged in a constant conversation, one that is extended over time, about the goods at stake in the life of the school. This is why our leadership roles are so important because they shape the future of our school.

A school, like a tradition, is a not-yet complete story that draws from its past to give life to its future. Dexter Southfield has done this exceedingly well over the past fifteen years. The progress made here is extraordinary. This is a world-class institution from its facilities to its faculty.

Everyone in this room should be proud of what they have accomplished. This is an impressive place. To bring such a vision to life is not easy. It requires great effort, hard work, and the sharing of talent and treasure from all stakeholders. I am grateful for your efforts and look forward to carrying on the work. We will continue to strive to be better each day, carry forward the legacy, and enhance it.

A veteran school leader, who passed away recently, instilled in me that the work of a Head of School could be boiled down, in its essence, into three, secularly defined, roles.

      i.         A Head of School must act as a prophet to set the vision for a school and its direction. Leading a school is essentially a moral act. It is the cultivation and assertion of a vision of what a school is for and about, and why it matters now, and will continue to matter in the future. To bring a vision to life requires choices be made, collaboration occur, plans be executed, and great effort be devoted to the right work.  

     ii.         A Head of School is called to be preacher. It is critical that a Head share the vision and values of the school in all forms possible: words, writing, and most importantly through actions. This work must be done constantly, and it must come in different forms for each constituent and age group. Most importantly, a Head must do more than talk the talk; a leader must walk the walk. Being an authentic educator is critical to sharing a vision and inspiring others to follow.

   iii.         A Head of School also needs to be a pastor. Leading a school of 1,000+ students and 250+ employees is important work. I fully recognize the obligation to manage the business of the school. While we are hired to lead, we are more often called to love. Working with students requires that we walk with them in good times and in bad. A school leader must also love the community that he serves and the people within it. To effectively lead students, faculty, parents, and alumni requires commitment, dedication, and a true desire to build lasting, transformative relationships. Schools are deeply personal, and this requires much patience and love.

While I would love to share more of my thoughts and dreams for the future of Dexter Southfield, I have not even begun the work. To be successful will require me to listen, observe, and learn during my first year about this community. I need to come to feel the ethos of this place. I remain thrilled about the work ahead and learning more about this great community.

I am grateful to carry forward the legacy of Mr. Vincent, who is adored by so many. He is the embodiment of Dexter Southfield. I am also very grateful to Dexter Southfield Board President Scott Gieselman and the search committee for this incredible opportunity.

I remain confident that we will achieve great outcomes by working together. Our success and impact that we can have will only occur through our collective efforts. By working together, we can achieve our best today and become even better tomorrow.

Thanks again for this incredible evening of conversations and camaraderie.

Dr. Peter F. Folan