The previous dusk marks the beginning of each school day. As night falls, homework is completed, teacher preparations are set in place, and parents witness the conclusion of the daily cycle. Dawn signals the passage to school where students are greeted by the Head of School and the Associate Head of School. Order in the day is established. Students carry confidence, concern, and the expectation of a protected routine.
Confidence is the essence of each day, be it scheduled field trips, class presentations, homework discussion, or anticipated athletic afternoon contests. Expectations are essential too, that students will be challenged, behaviors upheld, and ideas and themes probed.
Diversity is acknowledged in terms of outlook, interests, abilities, and identities. Diversity in teaching methods and expectations are the norm here as well as a clear acceptance that the learning processes have clear procedures grounded on respect and civil discourse. Diversity is also part of the upward spiral flow of layered development where “learning” embraces not only class work but also expanding moral awareness.
The support and planning for such student-faculty exchanges is to be found in a strong administration, a concerned and interactive parent body, and a visionary board of trustees. These elements are key but often “out of sight.” The off of the school bus greeting and handshake is the visible element of this strong and consistent underpinning of parental loyalty, trustee leadership, and administrative planning.
This “out of the spotlight” strength allows teachers to plan diverse curricula with confidence and to attend to the span of student development and abilities. Likewise, further backstage but strongly evident on special occasions is alumni support and enthusiasm. Thanksgiving Soup is an unsolicited “marker” of alumni appreciation. And, as is often the case, only after leaving BCD do the alumni come to “see” themselves as inheritors of traditions, of academic successes, and of confidence in matters of judgment.
As with many paintings, there are three levels: the foreground, middle distance, background. The foreground is the daily life from handshake, through classes, to the last kick of a ball. The middle distance is comprised of the constant workings of administration, parents, trustees, and the background is the panorama of alumni and friend—remembrance of things past. The well assembled elements of the background and middle distance become the unobtrusive factors that push the foreground into prominence. And thus a day in a BCD cycle.
Written by Jim Fawcett, Upper School English Teacher, November 2012
wow… imagine all this goes into our children EVERY DAY.. they/we are lucky ducks! thanks bcd
Thank you, Mr. Fawcett, for such an artfully written expression, evoking the elaborate composition in which each element of BCD is integral to the whole. When this composition is working seamlessly, we are all helped to advance our lives, our internal and external communities, and the lives of future generations.
Many thanks to all who, though invisible in the foreground, are integral to the beauty and integrity of the BCD experience at its best!