NAIS Blog: On Serious Secondary School Scholarship

National Association of Independent Schools
April 17, 2013
Bassett Blog: On Serious Secondary School Scholarship
by  Patrick Bassett, President, NAIS

NAIS President
Patrick F. Bassett

I’ve often said that all NAIS schools are “college-prep,” even the early childhood schools like The Children’s School (Connecticut) [age 2 through eighth grade], and the learning differences (LD) schools like Lawrence School (Ohio) [grades K – 12], and scores of other independent schools like them across the country. They, like their more traditional cousins in our membership, are college-prep because parents choose them with college in mind, believing, rightfully, that an independent school with a mission that matches their child’s needs and proclivities will be the surest path to success in secondary school and college. And all of our schools deliver on that expectation.

I’ve also often said that the early childhood programs in NAIS schools and our LD schools (or the LD “schools within a school” in the traditional school model) are often the most innovative, often the first to adopt the new thinking, the new technologies, and the new research (especially on brain-based learning and differentiated instruction). That said, we are collectively, in the independent school world, on the cusp of significant re-engineering of schools, and what it means to be an outstanding place to learn. This is exemplified by Grant Lichtman’s blogs on his journey across America to discover where innovation is sprouting up in independent schools. No better time, no better place for every independent school leader and teacher to think about where, and how, we will innovate at each of our schools.

While “Change is inevitable, growth optional” (John C. Maxwell), I’d like to note that a rapidly changing landscape does not mean that everything old should be subject to change. For me, character first is the defining quality that makes independent schools strong. The founders of the first independent schools in America knew that, as do the founders of our newest schools. For example, the constitutions of both Phillips Academy (Massachusetts) and Phillips Exeter Academy (New Hampshire) include a charge to the masters (teachers) exhorting them to attend to the character of their wards: “[T]hough goodness without knowledge (as it respects others) is weak and feeble; yet knowledge without goodness is dangerous; and that both united form the noblest character, and lay the surest foundation of usefulness to mankind.”1 Have truer words ever been spoken? Or clearer insight into what makes great schools and successful (“good and smart”) graduates?

So, character first. And the adults are the moral mentors and models. But for college-prep schools, a second maxim should be “academics second,” meaning what one might call “serious scholarship.” While the means of conducting serious scholarship (video oral histories, crowd-sourcing, data mining via the Internet, etc.) are indeed changing, I like the case made by Will Fitzhugh, editor of The Concord Review, (fitzhugh@tcr.org), that serious scholarship in the form of a substantial publication-worthy research paper is the entry ticket for future academic success (and selective college admissions).

The Concord Review, launched by Fitzhugh in 1987, is an excellent periodical of secondary school research in the subject of history. As Fitzhugh is fond of pointing out, The Concord Review is more “selective” than Princeton: one out of 20 submissions to the Review published vs. one out of 19 applicants to Princeton admitted. And the requirements of the paper would be daunting to all but the most ambitious student (typically 4,000 - 6,000 words, but sometimes much longer, 10,000 words or more).2 A quick scan of the research paper titles from the most recent issue of the Review reveals both the most esoteric and fascinating of subjects chosen by these young scholars.

I recommend that all teachers read (and perhaps weep about) any student essay from past Concord Review papers archived on the magazine’s website to find out what serious scholarship at the secondary school level looks, and sounds, like. (In fact, from what my college president colleagues tell me, much college student writing today wouldn’t have a chance of publication in The Concord Review.)

The remarkable college placement results of students published in The Concord Review speaks for itself: Many of the authors have sent reprints of their papers with their college application materials and thereby established their credentials as budding scholars. And they have been rewarded with matriculation to an impressive list of highly selective colleges and universities: Brown (25), University of Chicago (18), Columbia (21), Cornell (16), Dartmouth (20), Harvard (115), Oxford (13), Princeton (60), Stanford (37), Yale (96), and a number of other fine institutions, including Amherst, Bowdoin, Bryn Mawr, Caltech, Cambridge, Carnegie Mellon, Duke, Emory, Johns Hopkins, McGill, Michigan, Middlebury, MIT, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Reed, Rice, Smith, Trinity, Tufts, Virginia, Washington University, Wellesley, and Williams.

Top Ten Colleges Attended by Authors from The Concord Review

Of course, “serious scholarship” exists in all the disciplines and in “cross-disciplinary” courses as well. And “Varsity Academics”* emerges in science, drama, and robotics competitions as much as in history research competitions. (*Varsity Academics® is a registered trademark of The Concord Review, Inc. a 501(c)(3) Massachusetts corporation.)

So, dear reader, is your school committed to “serious scholarship”? How is it manifested? With all the changes sweeping over schools, will the tradition of substantial research paper writing survive?

Endnotes:

1.  The constitutions of both Phillips Academy (in Andover) and Phillips Exeter Academy are almost identical. Although signed by the two brothers, Samuel and John Phillips, the constitution of Phillips Academy is reported to have been written by John’s nephew Samuel. That particular phrase appears in a section that outlines the expectations of the Master: “But, above all, it is expected, that the Master’s attention to the disposition of the Minds and Morals of the Youth, under his charge, will exceed every care; well considering that, though goodness without knowledge (as it respects others) is weak and feeble; yet knowledge without goodness is dangerous; and that both united form the noblest character, and lay the surest foundation of usefulness to mankind.” When John wrote to his nephew indicating that he was thinking of starting his own school in Exeter, on his own, the nephew wrote back saying, surely the seal and constitution that we have just adopted for Phillips Academy can be modified for your own school. Source: Edouard L. Desrochers, Assistant Librarian and Academy Archivist, Phillips Exeter Academy.

2. Essay Requirements

• You may submit a paper to The Concord Review if you completed the paper before finishing secondary school.
• You must be the sole author.
• The paper must be in English, and may not have been previously published except in a publication of a secondary school that you attended.
• Essays should be in the 4,000 - 6,000 (or more) word range, with Turabian (Chicago) endnotes and bibliography. The longest paper published was 21,000 words (on the Mountain Meadows Massacre...see it on the website—www.tcr.org).
• Essays may be on any historical topic, ancient or modern, domestic or foreign, and must be typed, or printed from a computer.
• Essays should have the notes and bibliography placed at the end (Chicago Style).
• Essays must be printed and accompanied by a check for $40, made out to The Concord Review, and by our 'Form to Accompany Essays' and mailed to Submissions, The Concord Review, 730 Boston Post Road, Suite 24, Sudbury, MA 01776 USA. www.tcr.org, fitzhugh@tcr.org

Bend it Like Truman

SchoolInfoSystem.org; Madison, Wisconsin
EducationViews.org; Houston, Texas

Bend it Like Truman

Will Fitzhugh
The Concord Review
3 April 2013


In the United Kingdom the number of reports of the verbal and physical abuse of teachers is growing at a sad and steady rate. In the United States as well, a number of fine teachers say that they are leaving the profession primarily because of the out-of-control attitudes and behavior of poorly-raised children who will not take any responsibility for their own education and don’t seem to mind if they ruin the educational chances of their peers.

David McCullough tells us that when Harry Truman took over the artillery outfit, Battery ‘D’, “the new captain said nothing for what seemed the longest time. He just stood looking everybody over, up and down the line slowly, several times. Because of their previous (mis) conduct, the men were expecting a tongue lashing. Captain Truman only studied them...At last he called ‘Dismissed!’ As he turned and walked away, the men gave him a Bronx cheer....In the morning Captain Truman posted the names of the non-commissioned officers who were ‘busted’ in rank...the First Sergeant was at the head of the list...Harry called in the other non-commissioned officers and told them it was up to them to straighten things out. ‘I didn’t come here to get along with you,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to get along with me. And if there are any of you who can’t, speak up right now, and I’ll bust you back right now.”

Now, I do realize the classroom is not a military unit, and that students cannot be busted back to a previous grade, however much their behavior suggests that they don’t belong in a higher grade. But Truman realized poor discipline would endanger the lives of the men in his unit, and teachers, no matter how much they yearn to be liked, relevant, and even loved, need to realize and accept that poor discipline in their classes will destroy some of the educational opportunities of their students. As it turned out, his unit respected and loved Truman in time, and lined Pennsylvania avenue for his inauguration parade.

For years, the Old Battleaxe was offered as a stereotype of the stern, demanding teacher who represented the expectations of the wider community in the classroom and required students to meet her standards.

In The Lowering of Higher Education, Jackson Toby quotes the experience of one man with an Old Battleaxe:

“Professor Emeritus of Religion at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, Walter Benjamin, wrote about a demanding freshman English teacher, Dr. Doris Garey, whose course he had taken in 1946, in an article entitled ‘When an ‘A’ Meant Something.’ Professor Benjamin praised the memory of Dr. Garey and expressed gratitude for what her demanding standards had taught him.

‘Even though she had a bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke and a doctorate from Wisconsin, Miss Garey was the low person in the department pecking order. And physically she was a lightweight—she could not have stood more than 4-foot-10 or weighed more than 100 pounds. But she had the pedagogical mass of a Sumo wrestler. Her literary expectations were stratospheric; she was the academic equivalent of my [Marine] boot camp drill instructor...The showboats (other instructors) had long since faded, along with their banter, jokes and easy grades. It was the no-nonsense Miss Garey whose memory endured.’”

In my view, too many of our teachers have been seduced by the ideas that they should be making sure their students have fun, and that their teaching should include “relevant” material from the evanescent present of her students, their egregiously temporary pop culture, and from current events of passing interest.

Once discipline and student responsibility for their own learning is established and understood, there can be a lot of interesting and even entertaining times in the classroom. Without them, classes are in a world of trouble. Samuel Gompers used to read aloud for their enjoyment to a room full of employees making cigars, but they continued to make the cigars while he did it.

In education reform discussions in general, in my view practically all the attention is on what the adults are and/or should be doing, and almost no attention is given to what students are and should be doing. Leaving them out of the equation quite naturally contributes to poor discipline and reduced learning.

A suburban high school English teacher in Pennsylvania wrote that: "My students are out of control," Munroe, who has taught 10th, 11th and 12th grades, wrote in one post: "They are rude, disengaged, lazy whiners. They curse, discuss drugs, talk back, argue for grades, complain about everything, fancy themselves entitled to whatever they desire, and are just generally annoying." And one of her students commented: "As far as motivated high school students, she's completely correct. High school kids don't want to do anything...It's a teacher's job, however, to give students the motivation to learn." (!)

As long as too many of us think education is the teacher’s responsibility alone, we will have failed to understand what the job of learning requires of students, and we will be unable to make sense of the outcomes of our huge investments in education.