Many schools are undertaking the difficult work of (re)establishing our practices and procedures as we enter what I am calling a post-COVID era. As the Head of the Upper School at Collegiate in NYC, I have found this to be an opportune time for us to take stock of “what was” and determine whether it should continue on, be adjusted in some way, or perhaps set aside in favor of a better practice.
With this in mind, I am writing today about the value and place of fun for fun’s sake in schools. Not the fun that we have in the classroom while learning a new concept or the fun that takes place in the “non-traditional classrooms” – hallways, dining halls, athletic fields, performing arts spaces, buses and more. Rather, I am talking about activities that are primarily aimed at allowing students to enjoy each other’s company and that of the adults who take part in this fun with them. This work, and the interactions that adult facilitators have with students in these contexts, may not directly advance learning in any one subject area, and it is a powerful tool for helping us to teach and students to learn in all facets of school life.
Learning is a difficult enterprise because it requires a person to try something they haven’t done before, potentially fail at it, and learn from that failure. This is challenging for most people to do, especially for students and families that are increasingly feeling as though failure of any sort is detrimental to their futures – a reality we must combat. In her book Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, Zaretta Hammond asserts that building trust is a key component of creating the learning partnerships that facilitate deep and meaningful learning:
Trust and fear are inversely related; fear activates the amygdala and the release of cortisol. Cortisol stops learning for about 20 minutes and stays in the body for up to 3 hours… Trust deactivates the amygdala and blocks the release of Cortisol. Trust, therefore frees up the brain for other activities such as creativity, learning, and other higher order thinking. (Hammond, 74)
That is, students are more likely to have the neurological capacity to learn if they trust their teacher will keep them safe, even in the face of failure.
How then, do we build trust between students and teachers? Zaretta Hammond suggests five “trust generating” activities that teachers can rely on in interacting with students; selective vulnerability, familiarity, similarity of interests, concern, and competence. Some of the trust generators are naturally built into our day-to-day life in school. Whether it’s an English teacher conferencing with a student over a paper, or a science teacher preparing her classroom for a lab to be completed the next day, the competence and outright expertise of independent school faculty and staff is clear to me on a daily basis and I know is felt by your students. Similarly, I am lucky enough to see the manifestations of the concern that faculty demonstrate for our charges regularly. The work that so many of us did to keep schools running is an example of the care and compassion that we have for our students which should never be forgotten.
And some of these trust generators can be difficult to facilitate in the course of a normal school day which makes opportunities for interactions between students and faculty vital to our work. Collegiate recently had an “Upper School Day Away” which featured each grade level taking on activities primarily aimed at facilitating community and fun, and I was fortunate to see so many manifestations of these trust builders. It was in a discussion with a mixed 9th grade advisory group that I got to share some of my own experiences with the strictures of toxic masculinity, and I don’t know that I would have had that moment of selective vulnerability with those students otherwise. Each and every member of this year’s senior class got to see our Dean of Students and Modern Language Department Chair race each other for faculty go-karting superiority, and that is a moment of familiarity that they will share for the rest of this year and beyond. And I got to see a Science Teacher, Math Teacher, and Learning Specialist talk with students about their shared interest in/fear of terror movies in advance of seeing Nope by Jordan Peele.
It will not always come in the form of a day away trip, and the kinds of moments I mentioned above are all important in building learning partnerships based on trust that allow students to try and fail and learn and grow more boldly than they might have otherwise. And this is to say nothing of the impacts that these kinds of trusting bonds have for creating a more equitable experience – Zaretta Hammond asserts that effective learning partnerships are key to ensuring teachers provide each student with the unique things they need to succeed.
So as your school continues to evaluate its practices and procedures, I hope that you will give voice to the value of activities designed to generate fun and community. They are vital to all that we do.
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Andrew is the Head of Upper School at Collegiate School in NYC. Prior to his time at Collegiate, Andrew worked as the Dean of Multicultural Education at the Taft School in Watertown Connecticut. Andrew has also taught at Montclair Kimberley Academy, Chinquapin Preparatory School, and volunteered as a part of the Jumpstart program which teaches language and literacy skills to preschoolers. Andrew earned his A.B. from Harvard University where he studied Political Theory and minored in Moral Political Philosophy and his M.A. in Private School Leadership from the Klingenstein Center at Columbia’s Teachers College. Andrew lives with his wife Courtney, sons Austin and Archie, and two (big) dogs, Toby and Ginsburg.