some thoughts on education

As most people who know me know, I care deeply and passionately about education and believe deeply in the far-reaching power and potential of great educational experiences. You may also know that I have a dream and a vision for a new kind of school that I would like us to create one day in Israel, a school which does things right. Well that sounds nice, but what does 'right' mean? I'm copying below the letter I wrote to the new headmaster at Charlotte Country Day School, where I spent 14 years, and while the geographical, cultural, and religious contexts of Charlotte and Israel are very different and have some specific demands, there are some common fundamentals. Thoughts, feedback, disagreements are welcome.

Dear Mr. Reed,
Firstly, welcome to Country Day! By all accounts of your past achievements and recent first impressions, we are incredibly luck to have you at our helm. I'm sorry to have tarried in responding to your email seeking alumni feedback, though the time has given me opportunity for some considered reflection. I want to answer the questions you asked in brief, and the ones you didn't ask in greater length. A brief word about myself so you have some personal context:

My name is Danny Cohen. After moving to Charlotte from Philadelphia when I was one year old with my South African parents, my older brother and twin brother, I began at Country Day in JK when I was 4. Fourteen years later I graduated in 2005, meaning I've probably spent more waking hours there than any other place. I now have 4 siblings, 3 (boys) of whom have graduated from Country Day and the littlest sweet girl now beginning ninth grade (hard to believe for her older brothers). I took a gap year to study and volunteer in Israel and am now entering my senior year at the University of Pennsylvania, where my twin brother recently graduated and my younger brother is starting his sophomore year. I owe more than I know to my parents, Andy and Tammy, who are as amazing as they come, and have long been very committed and involved in Country Day life.

I am most passionate about connecting to people, understanding the human experience, and helping young people grow and develop meaningful and socially-sensitive and responsible identity. My dream job is to be a teacher and hopefully to innovate new approaches to school, ideally in Israel.

One of the things I cherished most in high school was the relationships with my teachers- in fact, I am in touch with more teachers than students. Among the gems are Win Robinson, Darrell Bach, Molly Williams Pugh (no longer at CCDS, but worth contacting), Peter Floyd, Marsha Newton-Graham.

I was most touched and inspired at Country Day by Tom Anderson, my 11th grade AP US History teacher, and 12th grade 'Perspectives on War and Peace' teacher. I would look to him, and to Dr. Waples, for creative, dynamic, important vision about what a Country Day educational experience would look like. It was Mr. Anderson who first really introduced me to educational as a dynamic, organic discourse and the notion of the classroom as a forum for the development of, in Parker Palmer's terms, a community of truth, or, a community of knowers gathered in discourse around a subject, interweaving the grand story of the particular discipline and the particular stories of our individual lives. He helped deconstruct outdated models of knowledge and education and planted the seeds which have grown for me into a deep and abiding conviction about the transformative place and process that a school could be for individuals and communities.Of course, the view from the heights offers new perspectives and insights on the ordinary lowlands, and my experience with Mr. Anderson as well as many educational experiences hence, in Israel, at Penn, and in my own pursuits, I find that if Country Day truly strives to be the benchmark of excellence, as our mission statement proclaimed for many years, there is much room for improvement. With great appreciation for the superior education and training, love for knowledge, sports achievements and camaraderie, and humility for the commitment of so many teachers over so many years, I'll turn to some shortcomings that bear remark.

Insofar as Country Day is a college prep school, I think the following introductory paragraph about a school where a friend of mine is teaching in New York bears relevance:

"One of the goals of schooling is to socialize children to be participants in their culture. This is, without question, an important goal, but schools can meet this goal too well if they educate children only to succeed in society as it is rather than to help envision a society that expresses their highest values and to help build such a society. " (Devora Steinmetz, article attached)

Country Day does an admirable job of preparing students to 'succeed' in college and beyond. I think, however, the standards of success bear critical consideration in light of the above quote. Of late I have become particularly interested in Critical Pedagogy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_pedagogy) and believe deeply in the mission, espoused by Paulo Freire and his successors, to cultivate critical consciousness, or

"Habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pronouncements, traditional clichés, received wisdom, and mere opinions, to understand the deep meaning, root causes, social context, ideology, and personal consequences of any action, event, object, process, organization, experience, text, subject matter, policy, mass media, or discourse." (Empowering Education, 129)"

While the book I was most recently studying, The Art of Critical Pedagogy, focuses specifically on the relevance, importance, and implementation of critical pedagogy in urban schools, usually constituted of students of lower socioeconomic classes and minority backgrounds, I think the approach is at least as important, and perhaps more so, in communities of privilege and power. No doubt a significant percentage of Country Day alumni go on to a great variety of positions of influence, and therefore, as Mrs. Otey said in my sister's 4th grade moving up ceremony some years ago, "From those to whom much is given, much is expected." I believe that there is significant room for improvement in bringing this mentality to the Country Day community and creating a school that is a training ground not just for college, but for working and personal lives of transformative impact.

Intimately tied up with developing such a critical consciousness is personal exposure to the variety of societal challenges and the processes of their amelioration. Academically Based Community Service, or service-based learning, a pedagogical approach offered in some 160 classes at Penn and growing in popularity and the realization of its importance around the world, this is a process that connects the classroom to the world around us and turns it into a place for considered reflection on the way things are, the way they could be, and learning how to bridge the gap, using the lens of the particular discipline. The social consciousness of students and commitment to community service of students while I was at Country Day left something to be desired. While events like hosting Special Olympics are very important and looked-forward to by all involved, they don't created the kind of sustained commitment and awareness of systemic issues cultivated by more regular involvement and facilitated critical reflection. I was thinking earlier today of an article I read by Kate Throneberg ('06 or 7) in the Perspectives magazine a couple years ago about an experience she had in the developing world, while still in high school or perhaps recently graduated, that upended her schema, sensitizing her to the suffering and challenges of people elsewhere and changing her life course. I acknowledge the difficulty of creating such sensitivity in the well to do surroundings of south Charlottte, but I wonder how we might help more students have such experiences

As so many have said, if you want to change the world, start with yourself. This lesson points me to a deep conviction of the importance of education addressing the whole person. As one of my favorite thinkers, the late Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, outstanding spiritual and civic luminary said,

"It’s true, the schools give plenty of information, food for the mind, but do nothing about training of emotions, do nothing about the training of the will. -AJH

Here is the place of character education, learning to listen, and room for contemplative pedagogy, a new field spreading around the country. I think we must reconsider the role of the right brain and the sensitivities, the frameworks within which we assimilate the information we take in and which determine how that will be put to use. For some articles on contemplative pedagogy, you can look to:
http://www.naropa.edu/cace/pre_read.cfm, articles connected to a seminar run by Naropa University on contemplative education. I read and enjoyed 'The Question is the Answer'.

Also, considering how much schooling affects creativity, an insightful and amusing video from expert Ken Robinson on ted.com:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Finally, I think psychology should be taught as a regular and important course in high school, with an emphasis on positive psychology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_psychology) and resilience training.

With that all said, I do not want to give the impression that I am not grateful for my time at Country Day. I learned so much, was usually happy, grew, had opportunities for leadership, expression, and growth, and learned a tremendous amount which serves me well today. I hope it is clear that my thoughts are borne of hope and inspiration, the kind I saw in many of my CCDS teachers, and a deep belief in their importance if our school is to continue its part in creating fulfilled, informed, and responsible citizens and leaders.

I wish you all the very best as you begin in Charlotte and at Country Day and will look forward to meeting you some time in the future. A final thought,

"A man should always be gentle* as the reed and never unyielding as the cedar." -Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Ta'anit 20a, *alternatively translated 'flexible'

Yours,
Danny Cohen



Also, I would love for all teachers to read 'The Courage to Teach' by Parker Palmer.