Weekly Message from Head of School 2022/09/25-2022/09/30
Dear Members of our Keystone Community,
Throughout my secondary schooling and college, athletics were a big part of my life. I loved being a member of a team and my enduring memories and friendships were part of those experiences in sports. While we all know the physical benefits of sports, the learning and cognitive outcomes of sports are equally important. Sports provide a great metaphor for excellent personalized learning, something we describe in our Keystone definition of learning.
Reflecting on the really memorable teams I played on, I think about the ones where I was not the best player but had the opportunity to play alongside and compete with teammates. We pushed ourselves and got better each day. We collaborated and worked to create plays that optimized each of our unique strengths. One high school soccer /football team comes to mind: Jamie was fast, Megan had a great shot and ball handling skills, Jessica was an extraordinary defender who could pass the ball the whole length of the field, Apache could pass the ball so accurately to the dominant foot of the forwards, the other Emily on the team was a great player, and played a role like a team psychologist, helping us recover from disappointment or frustration. We were a successful team because of our different strengths. This team provided so much enduring learning—writing this paragraph brings up fond and meaningful memories of those important people and moments in my life almost 30 years ago.
Before practice we would wait under a big maple tree; Jamie would be stretching or warming up by jogging around the field, Megan would be dribbling the ball in the shade, Emily would be chatting with friends. Each of us was practicing the things we were already good at-- it is natural for us to tend towards our strengths. Our joy for that kind of practice is probably how we got to be good at the things that we enjoy as our strengths.
When our coach would show up, his job was to make sure that we also practiced the things that were hard for us. Our coach was there to ensure that Jamie didn’t just rely on being fast, that she also worked on her ball skills. Coach made sure that the rest of us ran enough sprints so that we could try to keep up with her. He ensured that Emily stopped talking enough to learn the plays. Our coach was there to optimize our strengths, but also to ensure that we built our skills in areas that we needed more practice, and maybe didn’t come as naturally or as quickly to us. We all got better because of the excellence around us, and we got better at different rates in different areas.
In schools, we endeavor for students to learn and grow in contexts of healthy competition that not only build skills and knowledge, but also foster a strong sense of self-awareness, confidence, and resilience. It is more common to see that happen in healthy ways in sports than in traditional academic settings because on a sports team, it is easier to see the value of diverse strengths—we wouldn’t want a team of all fast people who can’t handle the ball. However, in traditional academic settings there is usually a smaller range of skills that are measured and celebrated in any given class and because of that, it is simple to sort and rank based on that narrow range of skills. Think about the moment a teacher hands back a summative assessment to a class: students look around the room and can quickly know how they performed in relationship to their classmates, and in that moment, it is harder to understand (and believe) that our strength is in our diversity.
At Keystone we don’t rank and sort our students, and because we want to personalize learning for our students, we do offer different experiences to different students at different points in their journey through the school. Our goal is to be just like the coaches on sports teams, creating opportunities for enhancing and celebrating areas of passion and strength, and accelerating growth and improvement in other areas. Excellent schools create environments in non-athletic settings that feel like sports teams because this is what our students will need in their professional lives beyond school.
I haven’t played on a competitive sports team in many years, but in my professional life I have been lucky to “play” on strong teams throughout my career. In each of those teams, our strength was in our diversity. At Keystone, we are preparing the team players of the future and doing the delicate work of creating an environment of healthy competition and collaboration across our learning environments—from the sports fields and courts to the classrooms and lecture halls. We all get better when we are surrounded by excellence and have exactly what we need to learn from where we are—this is personalized learning at its best. And at a great school, like Keystone, this idea is as alive in the classrooms as it is on the courts and fields.
It is certainly this fall weather in Beijing that is bringing my memories back to the fall sports seasons of my youth. I just love this time of year. Wishing all of you and your families a relaxing and rejuvenating golden week holiday! And I look forward to seeing you back on campus soon.
Warmly,
Emily McCarren
