The Putney School Newsletter for Parents

Parent newsletter September 1, 2010

Dear Parents,

It is lovely to see the students begin to return to campus – 36 of this year’s student leaders are already back, doing leadership training and planning orientation.  They are excited, energetic, idealistic and determined to make the school year the best it can be.  New international students arrive today, and they will be nervous, jet lagged, and often perplexed. So we begin to form our new community for the year.

We will have students from 15 countries* and 22 states at school this year.  One of Putney’s stated goals is to have our students graduate ‘culturally fluent’, which we define as having the ability to move between cultures with ease and grace.  Cultural divides can exist between one neighborhood and another as well as between nations, and we want our students to understand their own cultural lenses and to have the skills to see the world from other people’s points of view.   I have an image of students ‘coloring in their mental maps’- as they get to know people from a variety of places, those places acquire a reality and substance in their minds.  For example, the fact that we have a student here from Afghanistan makes that place real for others in a way that reading the news cannot.  Surprisingly, the same thing happens when students from Harlem and Soho meet in Vermont, or even students from Beijing and Shanghai, who come with their own mutual prejudices.   My hope is that along with cultural understanding will come an expansion of empathic capacity, so that each student broadens his or her understanding of who is meant by ‘we’.

The first weeks of the fall are busy ones.  We have various orientation activities, aimed at having new students feel welcome, having everyone reflect on the core values of the school and the goals for the year, and having new and returning students have a chance to get to know each other.  The first day of classes is September 7^th, and we have only two weeks of class before Long Fall.   This is a week of camping trips, replacing the Long Spring trips of the past.  Students will be hiking, canoeing, kayaking, doing service work in state parks, and generally enjoying the beauty that is Vermont in the fall.  By the time they return to campus, none of them will be new anymore.

We hope to see all parents October 8-10 for our Parents Weekend and Harvest Festival. I encourage all of you to make reservations for lodging early, as the area will be full of leaf peepers.  There is a list of inns and hotels with contact information on our website at http://www.putneyschool.org/resources/arealodgings.html.

All the best,

Emily

*An approximation – many students have dual citizenship, don’t live in the country of their passport, or otherwise don’t fit neatly into a ‘nationality’.

We are gearing up quickly for the start of the school year and are looking forward to having everyone back.  I would like to suggest some conversations you could usefully have with your children before they arrive here:

1. Living with a roommate:  As you may have read in this recent NY Times article, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/education/edlife/25roommate-t.html?_r=1

colleges are finding that incoming students are less and less prepared to deal with living with roommates.  College deans cite a variety of possible reasons, including the number of only children and the tendency of kids to communicate electronically.  Students who have been to boarding school are far better equipped for residential life when they get to college, but we occasionally see these same issues arising here.  If you think your child struggles with some of these challenges, you might read this article with him or her and see what responses you get from them.

2. Stuff:   We regularly caution students against bringing too much stuff to school, but some of them find it difficult to leave things behind.  We would rather they focus on what they do here, rather than what they have here.  The dorm rooms are not very large, and if student have great amounts of stuff they find that keeping their rooms organized and clean becomes almost impossible. That being said, we do ask that they bring their camping gear, if they have it, since Long Fall trips are only three weeks into the school year.  If they do not own any, don’t go buy it – we have gear to lend and places to get what they may need.

3. Being a host: One of the great educational opportunities at Putney is for students from very different cultural backgrounds to become friends and share ideas and experiences.  We have 44 international students this year, and we hope that all of them will find their way into American host families several times during the course of the year. This often results in the host student becoming a guest overseas during a summer or after graduation.  Some families host one student for each of the breaks, and some families like to invite different students. Some can only host for one break.  In any case, we often find that unless the student and parent have discussed this ahead of time, neither is willing to commit.  We need host families soon for our mid-semester break, and for Thanksgiving – if you would like to do this, please be in touch with Ann-Marie White, the Assistant Dean of Students, at awhite@putneyschool.org.

Please be on the lookout in the next couple of weeks for e-mails about book ordering and other start of year logistics.  We look forward to seeing everyone soon, and in the meantime, have a wonderful August.

All the best,

Emily

It is certainly a classic Vermont summer – hot, gorgeous, and good weather for swimming in the rivers. The growing season here is short enough that things grow really very fast, and we spend a lot of July and August beating back nature before it takes over the buildings and gardens completely. We are almost through the first three week summer session, and all over campus we have drama presentations, music performances, and new art on the walls.

The progressive education symposium went very well, bringing almost 150 progressive educators to campus from across the country. We looked at some of the basic tenets of progressive educational thought and analyzed how we can tackle some of the new issues that our world and our schools face. Howard Gardner challenged progressive schools to regain their national relevance by being willing to measure and analyze what we do, and being be able to state more clearly what students thrive most in this kind of environment. Since then he and I have discussed the longitudinal study that the school – and many of your children – are involved in, which has exactly this as its purpose. Several other interesting projects were spawned at the symposium, including one to train new teachers in progressive methods, and one to create a sort of lab school consortium.

Our teachers are doing a variety of professional development projects over the summer, as well as traveling and relaxing with their families. They are also working on their classes for the fall, and several groups are working on new curriculum. As you know, we will have a different class schedule in the fall. One of the things this allows us is a once a week grade-level seminar, in which we can work on topics particularly age appropriate to the different classes. The freshmen will be having one trimester each of health, technology and library skills, and music. The goal of the music class is to teach everyone the rudiments of reading music, since more and more students are arriving without this, and both Sing and the rest of their lives will be better for it. The 10th grade will be spending two trimesters working on cultural fluency – understanding their own culture and what lens this brings to their observations of others, and how they can learn to function gracefully in a multi-cultural society. In the spring the 10th grade will have a ‘booster shot’ of health class. The 11th grade will start the year with a leadership and ethics seminar, led by Ben Freeman and me, followed by college planning in the spring. The seniors will work on college applications in the fall, and have a senior seminar in the second half of the year, aimed at giving them some life skills and tips for handling the next steps. All of this is part of an effort to make time for some of the very important educational pieces that we were unable to fit into our previous schedule – we are excited about these seminars, and open to any suggestions you may have about materials or focus.

Today is the deadline for returning students to sign up for their evening activities for the fall – if you think they have not done it, please refer them to Kalya Yannatos’ e-mail of July 1 on All School Notice. We are in the process of creating student academic schedules, and will have that information to you by early August so that you can go to the online bookstore and order books.

I hope you are all having wonderful summers!

All the best,

Emily

On June 6^th 62 seniors graduated from Putney, in what was a lovely occasion despite torrential rain. Our graduation speaker, Josh Viertel, president of Slow Food USA, spoke about the importance of living a life that uses the mind, the heart and the hands.  He warned the seniors that society would expect that if they live a life of the mind, they will not be assumed to know how to do anything practical with their hands, and that if they choose a life of working with their hands, people will not expect them to use their minds, and he urged them not to be narrowed in this way.*

We are gearing up for our Progressive Education Symposium next week. One hundred forty teachers, administrators and trustees from 45 schools are coming to campus to discuss the future direction of progressive education at the secondary level. Designed to honor Putney’s 75^th birthday, this promises to be a fascinating event. Videos of the sessions, including talks by Howard Gardner, Alfie Kohn and Tom Wessels, will be posted on the conference website.  We know that many Putney parents are educators, and we are eager to share this with you.

During May, all returning parents as well as new parents should have received an email with a website link that includes information and forms for the next school year. If you did not receive it, please write to Lucy Matteau, Registrar to obtain the website with your forms and information. I want to call to your attention the summer reading list ** for all students that is part of the information on the website you were sent.

I was asked for some book suggestions for adults as well, so here are a few.  I recently read Better, by Atul Gawande.  Although nominally about the medical profession, it is about how one can learn to look unflinchingly at one’s own performance and improve it, and it has much to say to teachers as well as doctors.  Our faculty will be reading part of it this summer. Since sometimes it feels as if I don’t get off the hill much, I’ve also been reading books which give me windows into worlds I don’t inhabit. Of this genre I recommend Country Driving, by Peter Hessler, the most recent of his brilliant descriptions of modern China, Our Kind of People: Inside America’s Black Upper Class,  by Lawrence Otis Graham, and Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead, The Frank Meeink Story,  Jody M. Roy. I’m always looking for good reading suggestions, so please pass them along.

All the best for a wonderful summer,

Emily

*In the hurry to move the graduation ceremony indoors, we neglected to record it. There were lots of video cameras in the audience—if one of them was yours, may we have a copy of the recording?  Thanks!

** http://www.putneyschool.org/registration/summer_reading_list_2010.pdf

Every diploma from The Putney School is a handcrafted work of art that’s as individual as the recipient. To see all of this year’s diplomas, click here.

Putney has many traditions, but we are not generally a very ceremonial place. At this time of year, however, we take seriously the instinct to celebrate the transitions students are making. As the spring progresses, seniors find themselves more and more recognizing themselves as a group somewhat separate from the rest of the school, simultaneously pulling away and holding tight to what they know they are about to give up. They recently “kidnapped” the freshmen and took them down to the river for an ice cream party, just for fun. (I knew how lucky we are to live in Vermont when I realized that a busload of kids were driven down Main Street by a driver (Brian Cohen) with a stocking mask over his face, full of kids ‘guarded’ by similarly garbed teenagers—and nobody called the cops.) Last night we had the “Senior Dinner” down at Rockwell House, where Gordon and I live. Each senior read to another one a page of observations that classmates and teachers had written about them—a great demonstration of how observant the kids are and how much they appreciate each other. There are senior sweatshirts and yearbooks, as well as exhibitions and final projects. All of these things help to mark what has been a four-year journey for many seniors, and a period of great growth for all of them.

Of course the final celebration and “rite of passage” is Graduation Day, this Sunday. We are counting on good weather, and looking forward to seeing all of you. Unlike many graduations, which are just for the graduates and their families, this celebration is for our whole community. It is important, we think, for the younger students to be able to imagine themselves as seniors, and imagine themselves actually graduating. It helps through the tough times and increases their determination to make it.

Schools’ rituals and celebrations should, if the community is a healthy one, reflect the values of the place. Ours are inclusive, a little idiosyncratic, lacking in neckties, and involve quite a lot of music. And, importantly, they work around the daily facts of life—the cows still have to get milked, the dinner cooked, the dishes washed. Perhaps the best part of the end of the year for me is watching a student who arrived in the fall never having done chores in his life not only being amazingly useful, but already able to see what needs doing without being asked. He will be one of the teachers of the new crop in the fall.

All the best,

Emily

PS – Please do the Parent Survey if you have not—we have heard from 100 parents so far!

Annual Fund
If you haven’t yet given to Putney’s 2010 Annual Fund then you probably recently received a request from us. As you may or may not be aware, Putney’s Annual Fund helps bridge the gap between what tuitions bring in and the true cost of a Putney education. Alumni are key contributors, but Putney must also rely on our parents to guarantee the success of the Annual Fund. A third of you have donated already, and for that we are very grateful. For those of you who haven’t yet given, please consider a gift to the Annual Fund by June 30, when our fiscal year ends. Your generosity is much appreciated!

Students played Frisbee this week on the front lawn in sight of the fruit of the season’s first haying.

2010 Parent Survey:  Please Click Here to Offer Feedback Now

Dear Parents,

As all of you who work in organizations know, how an organization gathers and uses feedback is crucial to its functioning and healthy progress. Of course the question of assessment is important pedagogically, and our faculty are embarking on an analysis of our academic assessment practices and our grading system. The teachers themselves are also evaluated regularly. Students respond to a set of questions about each of their teachers and courses each semester, and the teachers discuss this feedback with the Dean of Faculty. Every five years (approximately) teachers go through a year-long review process, in which classes are observed and all aspects of their work here is looked at. I evaluate the work of the administration, and I am evaluated by the Executive Committee of the board of trustees. On a larger scale, we are assessing all sorts of things through our longitudinal study; most 9^th and 10^th graders are involved now, and next year all but the seniors will be.

It is useful to have as much information from parents as we can in all of these processes. We like to hear feedback from you whenever you have it, but we like to gather your thoughts in a more systematic way at the end of the year in our annual parent survey. You will find some of the language of this survey a bit stilted—we first used some of these questions when we were doing our last accreditation review, and continue to use them so that we can track changes. Some questions we add new each year for input into something we are working on—you will see some assessment questions this year. Although there are boxes to tick, there is also lots of space to write comments, which we hope you will. I ask that you take a few minutes to complete the survey at www.surveymonkey.com/s/7L5RR85.

We are looking forward to seeing many of you on campus for the various events of the end of the year, and especially for graduation. Putney’s graduation is a community celebration, and although not every student is required to attend (sometimes siblings are graduating elsewhere) almost everyone is there, and all parents are welcome. There is generally a senior party (not organized by the school) somewhere off campus the evening after graduation. We strongly advise parents of non-seniors not to allow their children to attend. Their time will come.

All the best,

Emily

Here are seniors Maggie and Oliver practicing with their rock band The Exhibitionists! in preparation for their Senior Exhibition presentation next week. They will perform a mix of original and cover tunes after Social Dance on Saturday, May 22 to complete their months-long odyssey of composition, organization, rehearsal, and technical fine tuning.

Dear Parents,

Students will be registering for their classes for next year on the evening of April 28^th. The timing of this is set so that you may talk about course selection with your student and his or her advisor during Family Weekend. The advisor has your child’s transcript, the graduation requirements, and the departmental recommendations. We are stressing with the students that they need to think seriously about their whole year, as there will not be an option to change their minds half-way through the year, as with the old semester system.

I was asked by a parent recently why I do not report on disciplinary incidents in this newsletter, and I was glad to be reminded to explain. I realize that parents hear rumors and often inaccurate accounts of things that have happened at school, and this must be very unsettling. Unfortunately, we are constrained for legal reasons not to make any public statements about matters involving individual students. We try to be as forthcoming to students as we can, and always encourage them to come to talk with me or Ben if they have questions about something that has happened. We also encourage parents to give us a call—if you have heard something that sounds like it can’t be true, it probably isn’t, and we can at least let you know that.

Local parents are welcome to join us for the Nuclear Disarmament Conference, jointly sponsored by The Putney School and the Windham World Affairs Council, Saturday 9:00 – 3:00.  We have an extraordinary group of speakers coming; you can see the line-up at www.safeguardingourfuture.org.

It’s not too late to send your gift in support of Putney’s Field House campaign. No tuition dollars go toward this fabulous new facility; funding is coming entirely from donations from parents and alumni. We have raised over $5.3 million to date toward this $7 million project, including a $221,000 economic stimulus grant from the State of Vermont to help fund the building’s net-zero energy technology. Even with snow, howling winds, and below-zero temperatures, our first two energy bills for the facility showed a credit! That is, we produced more energy from the photovoltaics than the building used. We’re proud that the board of trustees decided to spend the extra amount to make the Field House a net-zero energy building. With your help, we will raise the remaining funds to complete the campaign and retire the debt we took on to complete the Field House construction. Please send your check or go to the Field House donation page today.

All the best,

Emily

On April 3, Putney students worked in the community doing yard work, cleaning garages, painting, and so on, raising $6500 for Partners in Health, a relief organization benefiting victims of Haiti’s earth quake. We received many letters of thanks, much like this one from Judith Petry, “…The three students who appeared on my doorstep this morning have made this the best spring in recent memory. My gardens are clean, my windows are spotless, my labyrinth has been raked, the llamas have pristine stalls, and there is a hole dug waiting for the witch hazel tree to arrive. Thank you, Putney students…” In February a student art sale made $1000 for the cause. Thanks to all who participated and hired students.

Dear Parents,

It is lovely to have the students back, and although it has been a cold and rainy week, it is clearly trending towards spring, and the temperature promises to hit 70 F on Saturday! That would terrific for our Haiti Work Day, which promises to be a splendid event. There are still a few students needing jobs, so if you would like to have student labor that day, and live close enough, please email now to haitirelief@putneyschool.org.

I am not yet back at school, but my health improves daily, and it won’t be too long now. I look as if I’ve been in a serious bar fight, but since I managed to avoid that all these many years of my life, I guess I shouldn’t complain. Thank you for all your kind words, cards and good wishes—they really did help!

During Family Weekend this year we have replaced the All Parent Meeting with four separate meetings for parents from different grade levels. It seemed to make sense to be able to address some of the particular developmental and calendar topics that each class is in the middle of. Although we have some of these in mind already, I would love to hear any particular suggestions you have. You could suggest something you would like to discuss now with other parents of your child’s class, or things you wish we had talked about back when he/she was a freshman. I look forward to having this opportunity to hear your reflections on the year so far as well as to give you our perspectives.

As I have mentioned several times along the way, we will be changing our academic schedule for next fall. School scheduling is right up there with air traffic control for complexity and detail, and with theology for decided opinions, but we are pleased with what we have settled on. A description of what will change, and what will not, is here on the news page of the website.

Emily

The snow is gone and the students are back. It must be spring!

Dear Parents,

I hope you are enjoying having your students home for the break. I know that some of you are still waiting to see your children when they get back from the Peru trip, but the rest of them must have got through the ‘sleep for three days’ part of vacation and be up and running. Here it is high mud season—they are not missing much!

As you know, we believe in experiential education, and there is no better way to do this than to travel and be immersed in different cultures. The cognitive dissonance that ensues is how we come to understand ourselves, challenge our assumptions, and learn cultural fluency. Often we think we need to go abroad to do this, but there are also plenty of opportunities in the U.S. The last week before break Dr. Reginald Nichols, the President of Piney Woods School in Mississippi, visited Putney, addressed an assembly, and met with many students. I have rarely seen our community so excited. I had invited him up in the hopes that we can create a relationship between the two schools, and next week I will be visiting their campus for several days. If you are curious about the school, have a look at www.pineywoods.org.

April will be a very busy month on campus. The first Saturday after the students return is the Haiti Work Day, in which students will raise money by hiring themselves out in the community. The following Wednesday is Admissions Revisit Day, and the next weekend we have board of trustees meeting. During this time we’ll have a show of Sally Mann’s photography in the Currier Center Gallery, and we are hoping she will be here to speak about it. Saturday the 17th we are hosting, with the Windham World Affairs Council, a joint conference on nuclear disarmament, which you can read about on our joint website, www.safeguardingourfuture.org. If you are close enough to come, we’d love to have you join us.

The following weekend, April 23-25, is Family Weekend, and we hope to see you all here. You will be hearing from your child’s advisor soon to talk about setting up teacher conferences.

All the best,
Emily

Yuanyuan Zhang’s Clay Puzzle was among the entrants at the 30th annual Arts Council of Windham County Student Art Month competition. For more photos and info click here.

Dear Parents,

I am writing this newsletter from San Francisco, where I am attending the annual conference of the National Association of Independent Schools.   It is giving me a chance to hear some of the top thinkers in education, and to compare notes with people working in other schools. Since much of the serious work in progressive education is happening on the West coast, it is worth it for me to travel this far to meet with some of these people. It is nice to note that most of the speakers are urging traditional schools to do more project based work, to create space for student creativity, and to make schools more sustainable. Music to my ears…

I heard an especially fascinating lecture by Juan Enriquez, the founder of the Life Sciences Project at the Harvard Business School. His thesis was that all progress derives from code, that code keeps evolving (writing, digital, genomic), and that genomics is moving from reading, to copying, to writing life code.  He showed us pictures of mice created from skin cells, suggested that twenty years from now you won’t be hired by a symphony orchestra unless you have an enhanced hearing implant, and showed us how his group is making programmable cells. Obviously excited about the pace of biological change in the next 5-10 years, he said “This is like having a front seat in the renaissance—on steroids.”

I get an unintended lesson from attending conferences such as this—I am a restless student, and I have a tendency to walk out of sessions that don’t seem to have much meat to them. I hate to be talked at, talked down to, or to hear mediocre thinking. It reminds me of the enormous responsibility we bear in confining our students to classrooms for hours every day, and just how important it is to make every class engaging and valuable.

I am looking forward to getting back to campus,

As I wrote in my letter of February 18, we lost one of our five senior cabins to fire. Luckily nobody was hurt, and having concluded with the fire chief and the insurance inspectors that this was a simple accident, we are beginning to think about how and when we might rebuild. I would love to see a student design contest to come up with a new kind of cabin—one that follows green building principles, and provides a modern eco-cabin counterpoint to our old Thoreau style cabins.  We have already had generous offers of help from parents and others, for which I am very grateful. Since we are in the early stages of a master planning process, we’ll wait to be sure we know where we’d like to have it.

All the best to all of you,

Emily

A Note From Ceramics Teacher Naomi Lindenfeld for Local Parents:

Presented by the Arts Council of Windham County, the Student Art Month show includes artwork from eight area high schools.  Show dates: March 5th – 31st.  The opening reception is during Gallery Walk on March 5th from 5:30 to 8:00 pm.  The two-dimensional works are at The River Garden and three-dimensional works are at Vermont Artisan Designs, both on Main Street in Brattleboro.

Three works from each school will be selected by a panel of judges plus there are Best in Show awards for each medium.  Artists whose works are chosen will receive a gift certificate for art supplies from Zephyr Designs. The Putney School will have multiple entries and usually does quite well, so it’s well worth your time to have a look.

A plethora of Alices, Mad Hatters, and Rabbits showed up for the Alice in Wonderland-themed annual Snow Ball on Saturday night. See more photos from the dinner and dance here.

Dear Parents,

One of the cardinal rules of our founder, Carmelita Hinton, was that all entertainment needed to be generated on campus.  A Yankee to the core, she disapproved of students being passive spectators or even listening to recorded music.  Radios and phonographs were forbidden, and sporting events were for the players only.  Of course she would not have been able to imagine the amount of entertainment (and distraction) available through technology to our students today, and how few of them come to us with any experience in amusing themselves.  (I note that Putney has held out against TVs on campus for long enough that they are no longer relevant.)

We do have a lot of entertainment arriving on campus through broadband, iPods, cell phones, DVDs, etc.   We also enjoy watching each other perform, whether on stage or on the basketball court or soccer field.  We create an enormous amount of music on campus, and Putney students still do find ways to create many of their own amusements.  Winter here brings out their most competitive natures in the form of the Dorm Olympics. It turns out that in a school that values cooperation over competition, almost anything can be turned into a contest!  To give you some flavor of these Olympian events, I give you a list of some of the competitions: Gutter Shoveling, Stump Rope, Six Word Story Challenge, Crossword Puzzle racing, Ping Pong, Spelling Bee, Dorm Songs, Dorm Videos, and the Green Cup Challenge.  The last is a contest to see which dorm can lower their per capita energy use the most during the month of February.  Although all of these are designed for fun both for participants and spectators, it is interesting to note that most of them require a kind of complete undivided attention that electronic entertainments rarely require. One of the central questions of education now is what impact the fracturing of attention is having on long term learning. Click here to read an interesting article on the subject, in case you are interested.

I  remind those of you who live close enough that you can hire strong and willing labor on April 3^rd, all proceeds going to Partners in Health for Haiti relief.  You can paste this form into an e-mail to Ryan Kim at rkim@putneyschool.org.  Please help by seeing if your neighbors or co-workers would like to sign up as well.

All the best,

Emily

THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT OF “THE PUTNEY SCHOOL WORKS FOR HAITI.” WE’RE FULLY COMMITTED  WITH 202 JOBS TO BE DONE, BUT HAITI STILL NEEDS YOUR HELP, SO CONSIDER MAKING A DONATION DIRECTLY TO STAND WITH HAITI/PARTNERS IN HEALTH.

The Putney School Works For Haiti:  April 3, 2010

Name:____________________________________________________

Phone Number:_____________________________________________

Best Time to call:___________________________________________

Email:____________________________________________________

Home Address:  ____________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Description of Job __________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Do you need additional tools or equipment? If yes, what are they?

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

I will hire ___________ workers (2 minimum) for____________ hours,

for a total of _______ work hours. At $8 hour, this comes to $________

The Putney School Madrigals performed recently in the High School Acapella Concert at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center under the direction of Music Director James Wallace. (photo courtesy of Development Director Christie Baskett)

Dear Parents,

Our students, in their short lives, have already seen the Asian tsunami, hurricane Katrina, and the Kashmir and Sichuan earthquakes—and now Haiti. In the face of these great natural disasters it can be hard for students to know what to do. They see governments and aid agencies sending millions of dollars, but they also feel compelled to help in whatever way they can. The instinct of many is to want to leap on a plane and start digging people out of the rubble, but they are wise enough to understand that this is unlikely to be genuinely helpful, and that Haiti’s recovery will take sustained effort over a long time. I am delighted that our students have created a plan that allows them to put their own sweat and talents into the effort to help others, and one that taps into Putney’s particular strengths as a community.

On April 3^rd our students will fan out across the local towns and work for any community member who will hire two or more students—they will rake up the mess the snow melt leaves, clean gutters, paint buildings, organize garages, clear land—whatever anyone will pay $8 an hour for. In the period between now and then they will work to gather job assignments and organize transportation. They are hoping to find a venue in Brattleboro for a mid-February sale of student art, with accompanying music and dance, at which they will do publicity for the work day. The proceeds from both the art and the work day will go to Partners in Health, which has been chosen by the student body as the organization they most want to support in Haiti.

Shortly there will be a webpage on which anyone who wants to employ students on April 3rd will be able to sign up. I hope that those of you who live locally will begin imagining what you might be able to get done with a crew of strong and willing labor, and that you will look at this as another way that you can support both our students and the relief efforts in Haiti.

Between mid-semester break and Spring vacation, students will elect many of their leaders for next year. Elections will be held for Student Heads of School, Student Trustees, Standards Committee, and Education Program Committee. The rest of the student leadership positions will be chosen in the spring; there are about 35 positions overall. If you are going to see your children during the mid-semester break, you might want to ask them if they are interested in running for one of these positions, and get them thinking about what kind of leadership they want.

Pictures from the winter music and dance concerts and the plays at the end of project week are up at http://www.putneyschool.org/putneynews/

All the best,

Emily

We are coming to the end of Project Week – and I find myself reflecting that is a very pedestrian (and inaccurate) name for a ten day period of such intense focus, creativity and perseverance.  I love wandering around campus during Project Week to see what’s going on.  Students often invite me to see what they are doing and launch into an explanation. Sometimes they are so absorbed they don’t even notice I’m there.  In the quiet room of the library one student is trying to figure out what kinds of economic aid to Africa are most useful.  Another is studying the mathematics of arcane financial instruments. In the main library every table has a teacher and one or two students in earnest conversation. In the hallway in front of the deans’ offices a crew has built a robot that throws things, and is practicing by remote control, to great applause. In front of the library building a beautifully built geodesic dome has appeared.  In the sculpture studio I’m invited to learn about a new casting technique, and at the other end of the building seven students draw in deep silence from a live model. There is music coming out of windows all over the school, and this project week seems to be producing a great deal of writing. After assembly there is a line to sign up for times to perform for the community.

We do all this in place of exams.  Do we lose something?  Clearly.  Exams are good for causing people to review and synthesize, and for giving practice in working under pressure.  Students taking exams for the first time in college will have to learn this as a new skill.  I am convinced, however, that our students learn so much more, and will remember so much more of what they learn, by spending their time doing project work.

They learn to plan, to manage time, to realize something doesn’t work and try another way. They learn to focus on one thing for a long time, and then to look at it and judge their own work. They finish by writing a self-evaluation, and by presenting their work to be seen by the rest of the school.  These are real world skills, much more than exam taking skills are.  And students are able to work on what they love, which is a great gift for an adolescent.

Our second semester begins on Monday, January 18^th. This is Martin Luther King Day, and we will spend the day seeking to continue the work he started and challenged us to carry on.  If you are curious about the materials we are using, you can see them at:

Race: The Power of an Illusion:

Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai.

This second film was made by a Putney graduate, Lisa Merton, who will be coming to talk with our students about it.

All the best,
Emily

Barber of Seville cast and crew

Figaro’s Marriag cast and crew

Happy New Year!

My daughter gave me a wonderful little book for Christmas, titled Dear Me, A Letter to my Sixteen-Year-Old Self.  Published in the UK, it is an anthology of letters from various successful people to themselves as adolescents. I was reminded of a project that she and some of her 8^th grade buddies did, involving asking all the women they liked what had happened to the ‘popular girls’ from our 8^th grades. (They were much relieved and not a little triumphant to learn that most of them had peaked early and led dull lives, or worse.) This book of letters illustrates much the same—that although adolescence is a pivotal time for almost everyone, being an outwardly successful teenager is not a predictor of much. Even those kids who look ‘together’ on the surface are secretly convinced that nobody else feels as unsure and awkward as they do. One of the things I treasure about Putney students is the acceptance they give each other, which frees students to grow toward being who they were meant to be, rather than spending so much time trying to be who others expect them to be. Nevertheless, even here, they too often believe that their social standing, attractiveness, success in school, and overall happiness is a predictor of their future lives.  We as adults know this is simply not the case.  There are other things, I believe, that are pretty good predictors – but only pretty good.  Among these would be idealism, a capacity for perseverance, a disposition to see the glass as half full, curiosity, compassion.  These are things that teenagers don’t usually recognize in themselves, although adults around them can often discern them. These are the things that we seek to write about when we describe our students to colleges,  and the things that we water and fertilize when we see them newly sprouting in a student.  These are things that are also contagious among teenagers and we find that our students teach each other, without knowing it or meaning to.What advice would you give to your own 16-year-old self—and is this the advice you find yourself giving your child?

When your students return, I will be urging them to begin to think about their summer plans. Not only is this a great way to get though the winter, but it allows them to spend time really reflecting on what they might dare to do.  I will counsel them that they should do something new, with new people, and for juniors and seniors, in the adult world.  We know that adults will treat a 17-year-old like and adult, but treat a group of 17 year olds like children.  If any of you have the capacity to offer a summer internship to one of our students, please do let us know.

With best wishes to all of you for a wonderful 2010.

All the best,

Emily

NiRey ’11 conducts a chemistry experiment in class. Photo by Lynne Weinstein.

Dear Parents,

As we wrap up our first semester, it is tempting to try to sum things up, but this is probably a mistake. We are really in the middle, not at the end, in terms of how the rhythm of an academic year proceeds. Certainly there are things that mark the end of a semester—papers and projects, concerts, lots of great food, lots of cleaning up – but it is a holiday, not an ending.

On the other hand, I can’t help speculating about the fact that it is the end of a decade, the decade in which our students have spent most of their conscious lives. TIME magazine calls it “The Decade From Hell”, citing wars, financial meltdowns, public moral turpitude and climate crisis. (They also call it ‘the worst decade ever,’ which is just silly) As adults we can look at the past ten years and recognize that the world has become a very uncertain place, both because of the pace at which things change and the stubbornness with which they don’t. How will this have affected children growing up in this decade, for whom this level of change and uncertainty is normal? How much of the hand-wringing of their elders have they internalized? What impact will this have on them in the long run, as their generation takes over the reins of our culture?

I know I am an optimist, but I think they are going to be fine, and perhaps better for it. It was striking to me that the children who grew up in the 1990′s were the most emotionally fragile generation that educators can remember. American children of the ’90′s were brought up in conditions of peace, prosperity and stability almost unprecedented in history. Our culture turned itself upside down to make them happy and safe—everything from Chuck E. Cheese to padded shopping cart seats. Fathers of the 90′s engaged in parenting in a whole new way, and perhaps as a related development untold hours and dollars went into children’s sports and other extracurriculars. When these children grew into adolescence, they were a compliant and high achieving group. SAT scores rose and top colleges were flooded with highly qualified applicants. Nevertheless, college health offices were also flooded—with eating disorders, depression, and anxiety. Suicide rates went up among the very students who seemed to have all the advantages. As educators, we also became anxious—what was going on?

My belief is that young people yearn to be needed, to be useful, to find something worthwhile to dedicate their lives to. When the culture tells them that their own personal achievement is the route to happiness, proposes that we buy them tutors when they stumble, medications when they feel sad, extra coaching when they don’t make the team, when they are not clear about how to make their lives meaningful in a larger sense, then they often struggle. We look back to what Tom Brokaw called ‘The Greatest Generation’, who grew up in the depression and fought WWII, and we see the power of need to draw young people out of themselves and draw them together. The difficulties facing our students are not of that same immediacy and magnitude, and have less clear mandates for action, but they may have much the same impact. Because Putney attracts more robust young people than is perhaps the norm my calibration may be off, but I sense that far from being daunted or incapacitated by the challenges facing them, this current crop of students both here and elsewhere may be healthier, happier and more committed to finding ways to solve problems than their immediate predecessors.

I wish you all the best for a wonderful holiday with your children. We actually miss them when they are gone, and look forward to having them back on January 6^th.

All the best,

Emily

First home basketball game ever – we won!

Today was the first day of the winter season here – which meant new work jobs and new afternoon activities. We follow a slightly different schedule in the winter, to take advantage of the daylight while we have it, and to allow the alpine skiers to get to the mountain on Wednesday afternoons. Each season means new job training – today a new crew learned to milk and feed, others to man the KDU three meals a day, and others to clean effectively. I am always encouraged by how many students embrace the harder jobs, and with what good spirit they set about learning a new skill. The requirement that they constantly learn how to do things they have not done before gives them a long term confidence that they are competent and useful people. As I was touring a visitor around this afternoon it was great to see all this activity, as well as our very first home basketball practice in the new gym.

This is a short stretch of school before Winter Break, and I’ve encouraged all students to be sure to be on top of their academics, as the semester ends soon. When they return in January we’ll be in Project Week until January 16^th. The second semester starts on the 18^th.

I hope to see as many parents on campus as can make it in the next few weeks. When you are here be sure to see the show in the Currier Center of Brian Cohen’s work. The Gallery is exhibiting 140 of his etchings and watercolors, comprising 25 years of work. We also hope to see you at the Music and Dance concerts on December 13^th at 2:00 and December 14^th at 7:30. Students will be ready to leave for the holiday after their last commitment on Tuesday December 15^th. Please be sure to communicate with the Dean’s office about any unusual travel arrangements.

All the best,

Emily

March of the Turkeys Feast in the KDU:

Dear Parents,

The field house is open! All of us here thank all of you who helped us to make this dream a reality. It is truly wonderful, both as a place to play and be healthy, and as a walk-our-talk demonstration of Putney’s commitment to a sustainable future. This is only one of the many things we are thankful for.

I would also like to thank all of you who have been referring potential students to Putney. We know that about 80% of new families find us through word of mouth from alumni or current parents and students. This fall we’ve had a wonderful group of visitors through the admissions office, and many of them came because one of you suggested they should.

We know that students from a wide range of backgrounds and interests thrive here, so there is really not a ‘Putney type’ that we are looking for. As one recent graduate said the other day- “Putney brings out the Putney in people.”

Parent participation in the Annual Fund climbed from 56% to 61% last year—another thank you! This is likely at least partly because of the long hours our parent volunteers spent making phone calls. Once again, parent volunteers will be calling to ask for your support. (If you want to save them the trouble, give soon!) The Annual Fund makes it possible for us to respond more fully to requests for financial aid. We hope to reach 75% participation this year.

So, I have many thanks to say to our Putney parents, not the least of which is the trust you show us by giving us your children.

One logistical note:

On Tuesday November 24^th, classes will end by lunchtime, and students will be free to go for the Thanksgiving holiday. PLEASE do not take your student out early, as tempting as that may be. It disrupts the educational efforts not only for them but for other students in their classes.

All the best,

Emily

DRIVER’S EDUCATION CLASSES

The Putney School has asked Westminster Driving School to provide driver education classes. Successful students will receive a Vermont Driver Education Certificate that is accepted by most state DMVs. If you are interested in the program or have questions, please go to http://drivewds.com/PutneySchool.htm or call Mike Henkle at 802-387-4014 or email him at mhenkle@sover.net.

Parent Newsletter

As I mentioned on Parents Weekend, we have created a new website for you at www.putneyparents.org.   This is intended to bring together all the news, resources and information for families that is now scattered around the website. We hope that you will bookmark this so that it’s easy for you to find.  It is a work in progress, so please do send your feedback.

We will shortly be posting on the website, for both parents and students, opportunities for Spring break trips.  We hope to have these up before Thanksgiving break, so families will have a chance to discuss opportunities.

On the same general theme of communication, I wanted to write about how we communicate about the inevitable problems and issues that arise at school. When 226 teenagers are living in close quarters, we know that sometimes students will have bad ideas or misgauge things. When a student violates the standards of the community in some way, there is always a tension between respecting that student’s privacy and being sure that others can both learn and understand.  We do not generally make formal announcements in assembly about these matters, but there are times that we will talk with the whole school about something that has gone wrong and has had serious impact on others.  There may be personal circumstances that we cannot share with students, and sometimes we know that rumors or misinformation gets out there.  I hope that if you hear something from your child, and find that you have the reaction “That can’t be true!”, that you will realize that it probably isn’t true, and feel free to call me or Ben Freeman to verify.

I have been asked to write a piece entitled “What Makes Putney Different”.  We are quite different from other schools, as you know, but although you feel it as soon as you come on campus, it is surprisingly difficult to describe.  An early author spoke of Putney’s ‘density of purpose’,  a phrase I think says a great deal about why it is so hard to capture the essence. Of course I have my own ideas and convictions, but I am hoping to gather many voices.  All the students wrote a few sentences for me, and I would love to hear your parent voices as well.  If you feel moved to write, please send it by e-mail to ejones@putneyschool.org.

Important information for parents’ of students who would like to participate in the Winter Alpine Recreational Skiing Program: Form and Information

Photo Galleries

Jean Hinton Rosner Fall Work Day 2009
Harvest Festival

We are eagerly awaiting the big weekend – Parents’ weekend, the ribbon cutting celebration for the field house, and Harvest Festival, all packed into October 9-11. We are looking forward to having as many of you here as can make it. It is an especially important time for those of you who are parents of ‘new’ students – you last saw them when they were nervous and unsettled, and you can now let them show you their world here as old Putney hands. We also can’t wait to show you the field house – it’s gorgeous!  I hope to see all of you who are visiting at the Parents’ Meeting at 5:00pm on Friday.

Putney’s third annual Silent Auction, with proceeds going toward financial aid, will also take place over Parents’ Weekend.  Online bidding will begin Thursday, October 8 and the auction will run Saturday evening, October 10, and Sunday, October 11 from 10:00-3:30.

Mid-semester break starts as soon as Harvest Festival has been cleaned up, which is generally about 5:00 pm on Sunday. Please do not plan for your child to leave campus before that time.  Juniors and Seniors are expected back on campus between 3:00 and 7:00 on Friday October 16^th, and Freshmen and Sophomores the same time on Sunday.

As we wrote before school started, we are pretty constantly in touch with state health officials about protocols for the swine flu. We’ve been lucky so far, but we expect that sooner or later we’ll get some of it here.  We will be a vaccination site, when the vaccine becomes available.  It turns out that the flu shot permission forms are not adequate for the H1N1 vaccine, so we need to start over.  We’ll have the new permission form available at Parents’ Weekend, and will post it on the website as soon as the Department of Health sends it to us.  If you have a child with a chronic medical condition, it would be helpful if you consulted your child’s own doctor for advice about the vaccine and let Marianne Buswell in the health office know.

Putney’s 2008-2009 Annual Report of Gifts is now online. We appreciate all the donors who made last year so successful and invite you to read the report, look at the photos, and listen to the music.

All the best,

Emily

Science teacher Glenn Littledale in discussion with his students.

The school year is well underway. Our new students have delighted both the faculty and the ‘old kids’, and most of them are doing a great job of getting where they need to be and meeting all their commitments. I found a batch of new students singing at the top of their lungs while washing dishes yesterday—it was hard to realize they had only been here a couple of weeks!

We spend a lot of time at the start of the year talking about the big picture—what we are doing here, what we hope to achieve, what Putney’s values are. Some of this happens at Convocation, and I am attaching a link to the text of that so that you can know what your children heard. In classes we also stress the overall goals of each course, with essential questions and overarching themes. Our student leaders have set a wonderful tone of responsibility and fun.

On the evening of October 2^nd, Sven Huseby will join our Board of Trustees, faculty and students to show his film “A Sea Change.” Sven, a former Putney Director, has made this film about the plight of the oceans, including some Putney footage in his work. Parents are welcome to join us that evening. You can see more about the film at www.aseachange.net.

From time to time there are things that the school would like to have, which we think probably exist somewhere and could use a new home. We’ve made a ‘Recycling Wish List‘ on the web, so that if you are getting rid of any of these items you will think of us.

Information about Parents’ Weekend and Harvest Festival, October 9-11

We look forward to seeing as many of you here as can make it to Parents’ Weekend and Harvest Festival. This year we will also be having the Field House ribbon cutting celebration on Saturday afternoon. Please let us know if you will be coming, and how many by sending an e-mail to RSVP@putneyschool.org. I encourage you to make hotel or B&B reservations soon, if you have not already, as things will fill up quickly. We do have several offers of beds from day student families—if you would like to take advantage of this, please be in touch with my assistant, Pat Dodge at pdodge@putneyschool.org.

Your child’s advisor will contact you before September 28 to talk about setting up conferences times for you to meet with your child’s advisor and two teachers.

The attached schedule shows conference dates and times. Please let the advisor know when you will be on campus and the two faculty members that you would like to meet.

The advisor will be able to let you know your conference schedule after October 2. The registration table for Parent Weekend will also have a list of your conferences with meeting places.

You can see a list of classes and teachers by logging on to NetClassroom and going to the classes, schedule menu. If you need NetClassroom login information again, please email Lucy Matteau, Registrar, at lmatteau@putneyschool.org.

Parents Weekend and Harvest Festival Schedule

Dear Parents,

The start of school is here!  The faculty have been in meetings for a week, looking at a whole variety of topics, including curriculum design, assessment practices, diversity education, sustainability, meditation in education, and technology. The admissions office has introduced the new students, advisors have read files, dorm heads have discussed plans for the fall, and teachers of each grade level have reviewed syllabi together.  We are all very eager to see the students back and get underway.

Some notes about arrivals (these are not changes, just reminders)

Sept. 1: Student leaders arrive and register in Library 1 between 2:00 and 4:00 pm.

Sept.  2: New International Students should arrive at the Faculty Room between: 100 and  4:00 pm. They will be helped to find their rooms and unpack,and there will be campus tours. Registration will be in the Faculty Room from 4:00 – 6:00 pm. Dinner is at 5:30 pm.  Parents may stay through dinner if they would like to and then say good-bye.

Sept. 4: New American Students should arrive at the Currier Center between 12:30 and 3:30 pm for registration.  Students will be given their room assignments at the end of registration, and student leaders will take them to find their rooms.  Between 3:00 and 4:00 pm parents may meet with their student’s advisor. At 4:15 all students and parents should be in Calder Hall for the Director’s Welcome.  After that parents should say goodbye, and are invited to dinner at the Director’s House (Rockwell House) at 5:00 pm.

Sept. 6: Returning Students should arrive between 12:00 and 4:00 pm to register in the Currier Center.  Students should not go to their dorms before registering.  (New students will be engaged off campus – on a hike)

All students and faculty will gather for Convocation at 5:00 pm. Day students will be free to leave after Sing (8:00 pm) and will be expected  back at 8:00 am Monday for Orientation.

There are many changes to see on campus since students were here in June.  The new Field House is nearly ready, and very beautiful.  The new wood-fired bread oven has transformed the KDU, the new Learning Center is being painted as I write, and we have a new bookstore and post office.  Most of the dorms have switched genders over the summer, just to make sure nobody gets stale!  Although we can’t let people into the Field House yet, parents are certainly welcome to visit the other new places on campus while dropping off their children.

We are looking forward to seeing you all,

Emily

Master Chef Marty Brennan-Sawyer with sons Logan’03 and Noah’08 in front of the new wood-fired bread oven.

Dear Parents,

Although there are still several weeks until school begins, we are already gearing up here and looking forward to having the students back.  Our formal meetings begin on the 17th, and the first students start to arrive on September 1st.

For those of you whose students are boarders: please urge your students not to bring too much stuff!  As you know, one of the main challenges for adolescents is in keeping themselves organized, and this is far easier if there is not too much to organize.  The rooms are not large, almost everyone has a roommate, and one of the biggest problems we face in the dorms is simply clutter brought on by students who have too many things.  Have the conversation about the difference between wants and needs, and encourage your child to at least start the year ready to live the simple life.  We thank you!

For those of you who have day students: There are a couple of changes this year from the usual start of school routine.  We have decided to let the Day Student Picnic go – this will not be held this year.  Instead, we have another day of orientation after all the students are here, and before classes begin. The idea is to work on having all the students get to know each other, rather than having them ‘bond’ in smaller groups. 

I do want to spend some time with local parents, however, and we will have our first local parent meeting of the year on Thursday September 10th, at 7:00 pm in the faculty room. Whether your child is a day student or a boarder, if you live within 30 miles or so of the school, we hope that you will attend these meetings. 

As you have heard from our registrar, Lucy Matteau, we will be having students buy their school books online this year, which will save you money and save us time. You will be receiving information on how to see your child’s schedule in NetClassroom, and how to order books for each class.   I urge you to make sure you have all the other needed paperwork done, if you have not already – it will make your child’s start of school much smoother. 

Several of you have inquired about our plans for HINI virus (swine flu), when and if it hits Putney.  We have been making our own plans, but have been notified that The Secretaries of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and Education and the CDC Director will be doing a joint briefing for schools this week, so we’re waiting for that before we publish anything.  The good news seems to be that the idea that closing schools and sending everyone home seems to have passed.

All the best.  We are looking forward to seeing you here.

Emily

Dear Parents,

 The 74^th Putney School Graduation was a joyful occasion.  It was a lovely day, with families and alumni gathering to celebrate and applaud our graduates.  Reid Hoffman ’85 spoke, and reflected back to his own graduation when Wally Shawn ’61 was the graduation speaker. He pointed out that to keep to the 24 year cycle, a member of the class of 2009 needs to be the commencement speaker in 2033.  In helping them see how to be the entrepreneurs of designing their own lives, he advised the seniors about how to distinguish in their life decisions between painful risks, which may be worth taking, and mortal risks, which are those that, if you fail, you don’t get to play again.  He also encouraged each of them to be sure that they set aside time to work for others. 

The weekend after graduation alumni from selected classes from each decade returned for Reunion Weekend, filling seven of the dorms.  Some of them had not seen each other for 50 years, and some had been on campus regularly since they graduated.  They sang a great deal, danced quite a lot, and talked in between, catching up on what is happening in their lives and at the school.

In spite of the economy, we have ended the year on a high note.  We had 100% participation in donations to the Annual Fund from both the Class of 2009 and the faculty and administration.  The school is full for next year, with a waiting list.  The field house will be finished by September, as will the new wood fired bread oven in the KDU.  Summer Programs students arrive on June 28^th, and will be on campus until early August.

One of my projects for the summer will be to work on designing a conference on progressive education that we will hold in the summer of 2010, in celebration of Putney’s 75^th Anniversary. Putney held such a conference for our 50^th, and it is time to examine once again what great education should consist of.  Changes in the world culture, economy and environment, together with new brain research and new technologies, challenge us to redesign secondary education, and this conference will bring together some of the best minds in the country to look at this future.  If any of you have ideas or suggestions for people who should be invited to this conference, I’d love to hear from you.

I hope that you all have wonderful summers,

Emily

______________________________________________

Graduation 2009

Project Week Results

More March Break Travel Photos

Dear Parents,

The last week of the school year!  The campus is buzzing with students working on their final projects.  We finished a terrific set of 34 senior exhibitions last week, on topics ranging from bio-engineering, Euclid, and health care, to dance, photography and car design.  The exhibitions were well attended by students and outside guests, and each one had an outside evaluator who is an expert in the relevant field.  The depth and clarity of the work done on the exhibitions is testimony to the fact that project weeks over the years have taught these seniors how to work independently at a high level.

 Graduation is Sunday at 11:00.  All students attend graduation, and parents of non-seniors are of course welcome, as well as the senior parents.  Students should be mostly packed up before graduation, but they will need to finish packing and make sure their rooms are clean before they leave.  If you are picking up your child, please don’t whisk them away before they have cleaned up.  Dorms close at 4:00.

 During the week of May 18, parent volunteers, both on and off campus, were busy calling for your participation in the Annual Fund. Many of you were quick to show your support. As a result we saw an immediate jump in parent participation from 40% to 51%. Many more pledged to make their donation before June 30. I thank all of you who have understood how important it is that we have broad participation.   I am delighted to be able to announce that this morning the seniors announced in Assembly that 100% of them were making a contribution to the annual fund – there’s a challenge!

 I look forward to seeing many of you here next weekend for our celebrations.

 Emily

End of School Schedule  

 2009 College Destinations  

Spring Project Week Details   

Social Dance   

Spring Dance Concert  

Dear Parents,
All students and most teachers are out on Long Spring trips this week – it is lovely and warm and I envy them!  They are hiking, canoeing, climbing, and exploring. I am looking forward to hearing all the stories when they get back on campus.

I expect that many of you saw the NY Times article "Ear Plugs to Lasers: The Science of Concentration" last week. It is certainly worth a read.  Read the rest of this entry »