Parents Night September 2009

Let me begin by saying thank you. Thank you to our parents, for all the hard work you do to make sure your child is prepared for school each day. Thank you for willingness to enter into a partnership with us. Parents make a tremendous investment here at Maple Street—that investment includes time, energy, money, but perhaps most importantly, sharing your child with us. Thank you for trusting us. Your trust is a priority and we cannot be successful without you.

We are a school of distinction because we demand more of ourselves each year—and you demand more of us every year, and you should. Thank you for your feedback on our summer survey. I hope you will take advantage of grade-parent meetings, the Parent Association network and simply picking up the phone, dropping by or e-mailing us. The faculty and I talked about your feedback during our in-service time, and we value it. Your ideas have enabled us to make meaningful goals and become a Beacon of Excellence.

Speaking of goals, our 5^th and 6^th graders as well as our 7^th and 8^th graders, take time at the beginning of the year to make goals for their school year. Part of the retreat this year was listening to President Obama. One of our 5^th graders wrote him a thank you note, and I wanted to share it with you tonight.

Dear Mr. President:

Thank you for talking to everyone on the first day of school. It really inspired me to try hard and not give up. You told us that failing teaches us. You also told me that if someone is getting bullied, don’t just stand by and watch them get bullied; go and help them. It shows strength and courage. Now, whenever I’m stumped on a question, I don’t give up right away. I keep on trying to find the answers. I’m not just writing this because my teacher told me to. I’m writing this because this is how I feel. It was a privilege listening to you.

I am proud of this student, as I am proud of all our students. As a school, we are focused on 21^st century skills—and this student’s work embodies Howard Gardner’s “Five Minds for the Future:” a disciplined mind, a synthesizing mind, a creative mind, a respectful mind, and an ethical mind. These are our goals—ones you have asked us to focus on—for our school and for our students.

I want to tell a short story this evening. One of the things I am most grateful for is my very lack of ability as a cook in a kitchen. I am a camper at heart—give me an open fire, and I just love the challenge. So you can imagine I read with great interest the report on an experiment done in the 1960s having to do with marshmallows. It was the experiment where the researcher would bring a child into a small room and make a unique offer: the child could either eat one marshmallow right away or, if he or she was willing to wait while the researcher stepped out for a few minutes, he or she could have two marshmallows when the researcher returned. The child had the option of ringing a bell on the desk while the researcher was away. If the child chose to do so, the researcher would come running back, and the child could eat one marshmallow but would forfeit the second.

The initial goal of this experiment was to identify the mental processes that allowed some people to delay gratification while others simply surrendered. But over time, researchers began to notice a link between a child’s future academic performance and their early ability to wait for the second marshmallow.

What they found was children who rang the bell quickly seemed more likely to have behavioral problems. They earned lower S.A.T. scores. They struggled in stressful situations, and found it difficult to maintain friendships. The child who could wait fifteen minutes had an S.A.T. score that was, on average, two hundred and ten points higher than that of the child who could wait only thirty seconds. He or she had more friends, and was less stressed when faced with adversity. Let me return to what our 5^th grader wrote in his letter to Obama, “Now, whenever I’m stumped on a question, I don’t give up right away. I keep on trying to find the answers.”

Woven into intelligence is a patience factor. What we measure with the marshmallows isn’t just will power or self-control. It’s much more important than that. This task forces a child to find a way to make the situation work for them. It is a measure of patience. Again, our 5^th grader said, “It really inspired me to try hard and not give up.”

The correlation between intelligence and patience, the connections between a disciplined mind and the development of other 21^st century skills, are not new concepts but were almost everywhere I looked this summer. John Parker wrote in his book Once a Runner, “You don’t become a champion by winning a morning workout. The only true way is to marshal the ferocity of your ambition over the course of many days, weeks, months, and (if you could finally come to accept it) years. The Trial of Miles.” St. Augustine asserted, “Patience is the companion of wisdom.” Alexander Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers, “Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow - that is patience.” Homework can be hard. Learning to write and read is slow. The trickiest of math problems may take two or three tries. Having a difficult conversation or resolving a conflict with a friend takes time.

Hard and slow is phasing out of our culture, and we want to hold onto it here at Maple Street School.

I am confident, proud, and have full faith in what we do here at Maple Street School because we provide learning opportunities that take time. Madeline L’Engle, author of A Wrinkle In Time, wrote in her book Circle of Quiet, “We don’t hurt ourselves—except aesthetically, which is not to be taken lightly—by drinking instant coffee or eating powered eggs, but we do hurt ourselves when we try to take short cuts to find out who we are, and what our place is in the universe.”

How do we help each child begin to find his or her place in the universe? We begin by cultivating a disciplined mind, a synthesizing mind, a creative mind, a respectful mind, and an ethical mind. These five minds take time -- no one lesson does enough.

How do we teach these lessons here at Maple Street School? First and foremost, we teach them through a joyful backdrop and a loving and caring atmosphere. Our students are hugged when they fall down, they are applauded when they stand up. They are gently pushed to do better—not overwhelmed not underwhelmed. They are empowered to take ownership of their learning. It is this ownership that, over time, instills confidence and self esteem.

This is where our close partnership makes a difference. Thank you for helping us encourage a disciplined mind in your child, for establishing a good routine of homework, for allowing your child’s work to be your child’s work, for encouraging your child to remember the details, the instrument, sneakers, soccer stuff, for reading our weekly news so you can help coach your child for his or her week.

Thank you for your help developing a synthesizing mind in your child, for asking them the main idea, “What was the best part of your day?” “What is the point of the story?” Thank you for encouraging reading.

Thank you for your help and support in cultivating our children’s creative minds, for commenting on the art on the walls, for coming to our concerts, our dramatic productions, and our shows.

Thank you for your support and modeling of the respectful mind, for guiding your child through difficult conversations and letting them try to handle conflict themselves. It’s not the absence of conflict or trouble, but developing the skills that make those situations less intimidating and thus less problematic.

We will need your feedback especially on our work developing the ethical mind–a new approach to citizenship and service in our habits of the heart rubric. It is not just the number of community service hours students do—but the quality of their attitude and their approach to service.

Finally, I want to end on this. There are two things I promise about your child’s experience at Maple Street School: your child will be known and your child will be loved. I want you to understand these two significant promises—known and loved. Joyful learning and academic excellence do not mean constant happiness and constant success. We, as parents, know that there are times that our strongest love requires us to say “you can do better,” or address an uncomfortable situation.

Our commitment is to love–to go beyond the surface and to really embrace the whole child. Where a child is known and loved is where he or she will try to do his or her best. Yesterday, the teachers spent the afternoon reading over the ERB test results—really getting to know the type of learner each child is in our school, but that is just part of the story. I strongly believe that to know and to love are ingredients necessary for children to grow healthy—to develop a disciplined mind, a synthesizing mind, a creative mind, a respectful mind, and an ethical mind.

We want our children to climb tough mountains (not an immediate goal) and experience the feeling when they see the unbelievable view they earned themselves and can say, “I did it! I really did it!” And then, we want them to enjoy a marshmallow (or two) gently roasted on an open fire.

Dr. Mary F. Bisselle

Head of School

Maple Street School