Transformative School Leadership in Independent Schools - James Davison Hunter, Ryan S. Olson

Transformative School Leadership in Independent Schools (eBook)

Forming Character in Moral Ecology

James Davison Hunter, Ryan S. Olson (Autoren)

eBook Download: EPUB

2022 | 1. Auflage
72 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-6678-7551-4 (ISBN)

For most of America's history, schools were established to furnish more than just academic training: They were founded to form young people of strong character and civic conscience. We rarely think of our schools that way now. Ironically, we bicker over test scores, graduation rates, and academic standards, even as we are besieged by news stories of gratuitous misconduct and cynical, callous, unethical behavior. Might our schools provide a glimmer of hope? This is precisely the question that a team of talented scholars asked in a landmark study. To explore how American high schools directly and indirectly inculcate moral values in students, these researchers visited a national sample of schools in each of ten sectors: urban public, rural public, charter, evangelical Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Islamic, prestigious independent, alternative-pedagogy, and home schools. This new, 4-chapter edition is focused on prestigious independent schools and offers new resources for educators and others interested in character education. The findings point to a new model for understanding the moral and civic formation of children and to new ways to prepare young people for responsibility and citizenship in a complex world.

Prestigious Independent High Schools: Between Honor and Excellence

BY KATHRYN L. WIENS

INTRODUCTION

In this study, we defined “prestigious independent schools” as private high schools that charge substantially more in tuition than surrounding nonpublic schools. The prestigious independent school sector includes a wide variety of distinctive high school structures: The schools may be religious or secular, and they may be single-sex, coed, day, or boarding schools.

The body of empirical research focused on student moral formation in prestigious independent schools is admittedly small. Still, several studies provided a basis for exploring public and private virtue in our research, particularly in the realms of community, tradition, and curriculum and pedagogy.

Preparatory school communities offer an atmosphere in which excellence is expected of all students. Traditionally, in the prep environment, each student is expected to develop “character” through participation not only in the classroom, but in religion and athletics as well. Arthur Powell argued that as concerns about self-esteem arose in the 1960s, Outward Bound and other programs based on emotional and character development shifted prep schools toward a greater appreciation of “social virtues such as compassion, respect, and courtesy.” Prep schools go to great lengths to establish a strong school community through programs that teach students how to interact respectfully.1

Amy Gutmann has argued that private schools will tend to inculcate views that are inherently antidemocratic.2 In contrast, Patrick Wolf reviewed 21 studies of such civic virtues as “political tolerance, voluntarism, political knowledge, [and] political participation” and found that “the effect of private schooling [and charter schools and magnet schools] on civic values is most often neutral or positive”—a better overall result than what was observed for traditional public schools.3 David Campbell, citing evidence from studies of both private and public schools, has suggested that students’ civic engagement may be influenced by a school’s ethos, which he describes as “norms encouraged, shared, and ‘enforced’ within a school community—such as interpersonal trust and an expectation of public engagement.”4

OUR STUDY

Our qualitative research sought to understand the sample schools’ express reasons for valuing character formation; the ways in which the schools sought to form the character of their students; and the tensions that made it difficult for the schools to fully realize their mission. The six sample high schools in this study were as follows (using aliases):*

•East Coast Boarding School, a 200-year-old coed Friends school founded in the Quaker religious tradition and situated in a suburb of a major East Coast city

•East Coast Day School, a coed school aiming for top-tier academic rigor in an inclusive, welcoming atmosphere, situated in a suburb of a midsize East Coast city

•Midwestern Boarding School, a 120-year-old all-boys military school emphasizing leadership, citizenship, and global studies

•Midwestern Day School, a nationally respected, independent coed school known for its pioneering, inclusive, and pluralistic policies and situated in a major midwestern city

•Southern Boys School, a 150-year-old, internationally recognized, and highly selective all-boys school located just outside a midsize southern city

•Southern Girls School, an all-girls “sister school” to Southern Boys School, with a similar code of trust, honor, and citizenship*

Only the first of the schools—East Coast Boarding School—had a religious mission; the other schools were secular.

The administrators and faculty of the schools that participated in this study were eager to counter the conventional view that prestigious independent high schools are junior country clubs for the adolescent rich. These educators believed that their schools, rather than being elitist, reflected the best in character education.

The sample schools had differing rationales for the value they placed on moral formation. For example, Midwestern Boarding School had a long history of alumni who exercised great power in the public and private sectors; the school therefore felt a tremendous responsibility to instill a moral compass in its students, since they might hold similar power in the future. This concern contrasted with the view at East Coast Boarding School, which believed it was simply harnessing the “inner light and goodness” of its students so that they could promote justice around the world. The school’s focus was not on the students’ professional life to come, but rather on ensuring the students’ values, dispositions, and decision-making were consistent with the school’s Quaker worldview.

MORAL IDEALS

The highest avowed ideals at each school were variations on maintaining personal honor and showing respect for others. Personal honor was also referred to as personal integrity.

These ideals were part of the explicit academic and educational aims of the schools; indeed, based on the sample schools, the two ideals seemed almost inherent in the nature of a prestigious independent school. Although the popular assumption might be that the schools’ students are entitled and selfish, the faculty arrogant, and the administration out of touch with the “real world,” the culture of the schools did not appear to be elitist. In general, students at the schools seemed outwardly focused and convinced that they had a responsibility to put others before themselves. In fact, the more a school promoted individual growth, the more uniform and selfless the student body appeared to be.

Two other findings may run counter to popular perception. One was the attempt of several of the schools—East Coast Day School, Midwestern Day School, and to a lesser extent Southern Girls School—to create a neutral moral zone in the name of inclusivity. The schools’ moral logic seemed to be that a student demonstrating integrity and honor implicitly respected diversity.

A second reversal of conventional expectation was each school’s ethos of student service to the broader community. The schools sent a clear message that the privileges and opportunities the students received gave them a responsibility to help those less fortunate.

MORAL COHERENCE

Each of the schools we studied had a mission, a new strategic plan, or an academic or co-curricular program that directly related to moral formation. Moreover, we found tight couplings between the curriculum, the pedagogy, and the schools’ guiding moral framework.

With their financial and relational capital and their independence from external governing authorities, the schools were able to galvanize their faculty and administration behind their goals extraordinarily well. Because honor was to varying degrees the most overtly emphasized moral ideal, the schools were able to construct their leadership opportunities, student culture, and curricular and co-curricular programs around this ideal.

Our school sample, in fact, may have been unintentionally skewed. The sample schools’ interest in, and focus on, moral formation seemed uncommon.

Several specific factors at the sample schools seemed to contribute to moral coherence—factors that may or may not be entirely present in other prestigious independent schools. Students, interestingly, often attributed the strong culture of their schools to an admissions process that helped ensure that the students had a solid moral character. With the exception of East Coast Day School and to a lesser degree East Coast Boarding School, the schools could be very selective in the students they admitted. Similarly, students—and some teachers—at each school contended that the people who chose to attend their schools were already virtuous, and that the school’s role was to reinforce the virtue or perhaps to draw it out. All of the schools’ policies, expectations, and norms seemed to contribute to a unique focus on individual honor. What resulted was an uncommon culture of trust within the student body and, to a varying degree, between the adults and students on campus.

Parents, moreover, were expected to be a part of the school community. Each of the day schools we studied had incredibly robust parent volunteer networks. The parents understood what is referred to as “the dance” at independent schools—the expectation that parents will give of their time and treasure in addition to paying tuition. The expectations placed on families all but required a sole focus on school commitments. A program that touched every part of a student’s life—even family life—helped these schools create a coherent culture and a dedication to that culture.

Indeed, at each of the sample schools, we observed a strong commitment to the students outside the classroom. As we spoke with top-level administrators, we realized that these schools, boarding and day schools alike, sought students and families who were comfortable with students’ dedicating all but a few waking hours a week to their school responsibilities....

Erscheint lt. Verlag	10.11.2022
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Sozialwissenschaften ► Pädagogik
ISBN-10	1-6678-7551-5 / 1667875515
ISBN-13	978-1-6678-7551-4 / 9781667875514

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