What Matters?

In a bit of timely coincidence the Independent School Management (ISM) November “Ideas and Perspectives” newsletter hit my mailbox mid-month featuring a research report titled “What Matters to Parents.” Being a life-long educator and a parent of 3 Brimmer graduates, this caught my attention, so I dug into the article presented. The timely part here is notable as the arrival of this monthly publication followed Lower School parent-teacher conferences by a few weeks and our recent Parents Association Meeting and Middle and Upper School parent-teacher conferences by just a few days. Timely coincidence? —No!—Cosmic serendipity.

 

Of course, with such a grabber of a title for this article, our interest is immediately piqued. We want to know what matters to us, even if it is not us but parents like us. We want to know the answer to the question—because as parents we are always asking ourselves questions—does everyone else want what I want or am I an outlier? (And, I am not pejorating “outlier” here—thank you, Malcolm Gladwell—and, yes, I just made up that word.) Without further ado, the top two items on the parents’ “what matters” list are, as you might expect or (bias alert) even hope: “a safe, caring community” and “evidence of academic quality.” Included with these results is generational information that does not change the results:  from Baby Boomers to Millennials, all responded similarly. Thankfully, no Gen Zers or Alphas, were asked about parenting!

 

From my experience as a parent (2000 - 2018, so a few years in the rearview mirror) and my experience as a teacher/coach/advisor/administrator starting in the previous millennium, I have to say (bias alert?) that Brimmer and May has a high capacity for meeting these expectations because it seeks to and does provide “a safe caring community” and does exhibit solid “evidence of academic quality” in all three divisions of the school. From PK-12 the school inspires a love of learning and confidence and strongly supports students in identifying and pursuing their passions. Again, I am speaking here as a parent of 3 boys who attended Brimmer and May in grades K-12 and as an educator with a few decades of experience under my belt, both at Brimmer and 3 other schools. And for proof, I offer our current students and our alums. These are good, smart people.

 

According to the report, the top two expected/essential outcomes for parents of independent school students are “confidence in their ability to learn” and “love of learning.” So when two Upper School students wandered into my office while I was writing this, I conducted a survey of them. Understand that they came to my office each seeking a different kinds of sustenance, neither of them having anything to do with me—one to do school work and the other to eat. One is a student in my class, the other is a regular visitor to my office; they are both excellent students—please note that you can’t swing a live cat without hitting one of those here. My proof: I just saw the Q1/Int 1 grades! (Also, I purposefully chose “to positive up” the imagery here with the cat, so that no cats would be hurt in the writing of this piece—and I just made up that phrase too. I am hoping to rebuild the language after the advent of texting.) Anyway, inspired by the ISM research report, I asked the two students these questions about learning and heard the following responses.

 

Question 1: Do you expect to learn at school each day?

Student 1 Response:  “Sure.”

Student 2 Response: “Yeah.”

 

Question 2: Do you learn at school each day?

Student 1 Response: “Yes.”

Student 2 Response: “I think so.”

 

Question 3: Do you have confidence in your ability to learn?

Student 1 Response: “I don’t know.” and “Yes, but I am not always confident I can focus.”

Student 2 Response: “90% of the time” and “Yes, and that’s about me.”

 

Question 3 begged for a little more nuance and led the students to “lengthier” consideration and thinking. And I had to ask in addition if they thought that was the confidence part was about the school or about themselves as learners, so I kind of went off the ISM rails there, plus the students aren’t parents, so I think I am actually cross pollinating trains and buses here…I didn’t ask anymore students because no one else came by in time to do so and I was already passed deadline with this piece of writing. If nothing else, you can tell by the answers above, I definitely surveyed real teenage students.

 

Finally, as we might expect, 12% of all respondents ranked “attendance at a highly desired college” as their top priority with “happiness” ranked number 2. Since I work closely with our college counselors this was interesting to me. As well, this statement in the report that stuck with me: “It is our observation that schools, even K-8 schools, place huge significance on policies, programs, and resources that make students competitive for selective admission at the next level, and comparatively fewer resources on supporting student happiness, well-being, and character development.” It is my observation that ISM is observing from a windowless duck blind. Brimmer and May, an independent school, places huge significance on teachers, teaching, and the development of teacher-student relations which and who support student happiness, well-being and character development. Our students do get to that next level at all kinds of great educational institutions, and they bring with them from here thinking and problem solving skills, confidence, a love of learning, and strong character—those qualities that matter to all of us alike.