Prep School Moments

On Friday, I took my government students to a display at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. This exhibit on the election was perfectly timed for my classes and we had a good time. We weren't the only school visiting that day, but we were the best-behaved group. While students from some other schools were loud and ill-mannered (frankly bordering on disrespectful), my group was incredibly well-behaved in just the manner I have come to expect from them. They laughed and joked and they had fun, of course.

But they also showed themselves to be the responsible young men and women of whom I am justifiably proud. I walked away from the museum really glad to teach at my school. I returned to school that afternoon to yet another revealing instance of our school culture at work.

One of the things that I value about my school is that we encourage students to take risks and challenge themselves. Sometimes that results in success as the students discover that they can master a subject they were afraid of. Sometimes, the risk reveals some limits and boundaries that must be honored and so a class or two must be switched around in order to scale back.

As a result, every once in a while, a student needs to switch out of one of my classes. That happened in one of my courses last week. While I was away, one of the classes I left behind was taking their first big test of the quarter. A student in that class was in the process of switching to a new section. But my class met early in the day, before the necessary signatures were affixed to the transfer form. As of the afternoon, S knew that he would no longer be enrolled in my class. But that morning, he took the test anyway. Then he found me after I returned on Friday afternoon to explain what he had done: took my test in the morning and then went to his new class in the afternoon. He wasn't bragging, just explaining what had happened while I was away. Talk about a work ethic.

I will file these stories in my store of prep school moments. In my 7th year here, it's a pretty large file. And when someone asks me why I love my job so much, I will tell a few of these stories, which ably explain why my school is a really special place.