“I think SSFS can become a North Star for the educational system in the DC metropolitan area, and for America at large.”
This is a quote from a Lower School parent with two kids at Sandy Spring Friends School and “one on the way.” It is a wonderful thought, sunny and hopeful. As the Quakers say, “that Friend speaks my mind.” So what does a North Star school look like?
As you may have gathered, there is not much dogma in Quakerism, but at the heart of our views is that there is that of God within each person. So let’s run with that. Every child is born with what I will call Great Natural Talent (“GNT”). Speaking as a Late Bloomer, I can say that our GNT is not always obvious. But when we dig deeper we find in ourselves and in each other aptitude, passion and creativity. Regardless of the vocabulary that we prefer to use when talking about these matters, the promise and potential for the globe is pretty much wrapped up in this being true. One person can make the world a better place, and does make the world a better place when their GNT is harnessed. That’s why education matters.
By education I do not mean (just) the curriculum or (just) standardized testing. I mean the teaching that provides kids with the tools that they will need to discover and unlock their own GNT while also developing a lifelong passion for learning. Having said that, a robust curriculum is important. After all, we have to decide what a student needs to know before taking Algebra 2 and which way we are going to teach how to make the letter Q when we write with cursive. In other words, our curriculum must be coherent, transparent, and not obscured by jargon. Similarly, standardized testing is important because it can be an important diagnostic tool. But testing has its limits. The skills and characteristics shared by the most successful people I know include determination, integrity, humor, grit, curiosity, independence, and the capacity to connect with others. None of these can be measured by standardized testing. It is a mistake to place overriding importance at arbitrary points in time during the steepest period of a youth’s development cycle on certain skills and characteristics simply because they can be measured. I will leave it to you to do a search of the literature on the veracity of testing even those narrow bits of knowledge that the prevailing US education system obsesses over.
A second verity recognized by Quakers is that the truth is not revealed in linear fashion - and neither is GNT. Again, this is why education matters. iPads alone won’t get the job done no matter how many apps you have downloaded. Discovery is more a verb than a noun; it is organic, unpredictable, and volatile and is not respectful of mid-terms, grade levels or even college essays on the topic of what adversity you've overcome so far. Those of us with two or more children know that even closely-related members of our species do not learn or develop in a linear fashion. As a matter of fact, consider where you are today and where you have been. Has your journey been a step-by-step linear process?
If I were to say that I would like Sandy Spring Friends School to be a North Star for college prep education, would anyone's response be "I'm sorry, there is no more room in that niche; it is already occupied"? I doubt it. That is not to say that there are not plenty of good schools. In fact, we're a good school.
A North Star should be replicable, not dependent on an extraordinary level of financial resources or on a student body consisting of only the most precocious kids.
We have been, we are and I hope that we will always be, a family school where siblings all get dropped off and head into classrooms (or theaters or gyms or community service projects or whatever they have first period) where they will be recognized and respected for the individuals that they are, with their unique combination of learning style, needs, strengths, passions and GNT. We will only do this as well as it can be done by being a diverse and culturally competent community, affordable (a terrific value proposition), and full of faculty and staff who are a little bit amazed that they are actually paid (and, by the way, fairly paid) for what they love doing.