Taking Time To Look Back At Home From Away

I have just returned from spending two days with lots of other boarding school people at The Association of Boarding School (TABS) conference. TABS is the annual confab when boarding school educators and heads from all over the country come together to share ideas and discuss new developments.

While I was initially reluctant to go as I struggled to think about being away from Winchendon during a very busy time, as always it was a very energizing and provocative use of time. I thought that I would share a few observations and interesting ideas that I came away with:

• I attended a number of interesting presentations including a terrific talk by the “Head Learner” (headmaster) David Bouton of the Blue Ridge School in Virginia talking about the design of their program. There are many similarities between Blue Ridge’s and our approach, but he also provided some great ideas to think about and reinforced some things that we have already been contemplating. One of the things that David is very purposeful with his teachers about is the emphasis on the idea that they are students as much as they are learners (hence his title). This is something that I am proud to see with our faculty at Winchendon.

• The concept of boarding school teachers as change agents was discussed in more than one context. We often lose sight of the fact that our role is more often than not life changing for our students, but that it can be easy to lose sight of this in the pace of daily life at our schools.

• There was a great forum for head of schools featuring a panel of former heads including our own former head Bill LaBelle. Bill was being heralded for not just his twenty years leading Winchendon but the fifty years of service at three boarding schools (Trinity Pawling, Wilbraham and Monson and The Winch).

• There was lots of wonderful perspective there including the idea that while many schools have chosen the more political “Head of School” title, those of us in this role must not lose sight of our role as master teacher, master of the house and even our pastoral responsibilities to our community.

• The retiring heads also challenged the rest of us to make sure that we don’t succumb to all of the other pressures from boards, parents, financing, fundraising and others at the cost of the time that we can spend with our two most important responsibilities, our students and the faculty.

• In that same session, long time and retiring head of the Moss Porters School Tracy Burch offered her three “C’s”, the three characteristics of a head that she feels are most important. Her guiding words of “clarity” (in terms of mission and vision), “conviction” and “courage” seem especially appropriate in these times.

Perhaps most interesting was the number of people who wanted to know what was happening at Winchendon and whether we still used the great teaching approach and methodologies that we had in years past. Winchendon has not had much of a presence at events like this in recent years, and some worried that we might had strayed from our core emphasis on skills and study habits. People were pleased to hear that we are true to our commitment to small classes, clear expectations, constant feedback and individualized coaching.

A theme throughout the conference was the need for heads, teachers and schools to have very clear focus, and we benefit from that at Winchendon. There are lots of schools that are wonderful places but have trouble differentiating themselves or articulating their mission or goals concisely. That is not the case here at Winchendon where we will continue to have our commitment to the “Winchendon Way” (individualized support, clear expectations and constant feedback, multi-sensory learning…) guide all that we do. It works for our students and is compelling to others.

It's often hard to find the time to step away, look back and hear from others. But when you are looking back at The Winchendon School, it is a wonderful view!