Congratulations to the varsity swimming & diving team for bringing home another WMPSSDL Championship! Over the weekend, the team participated in the Washington Metropolitan Prep School Swimming and Diving League (WMPSSDL) Championship and finished with a 545-point victory! Upping their score from last year by 29 points, the Panthers were 363 points in front of the second-place finisher!

In the past eight years Holton has won this event seven times, including the last four in a row! In addition to winning the championship, Holton finished first in eight events. Sophie Duncan '22 set a new school record in the 200 IM with an automatic All-American time of 1:59.56. Other first-place finishes came from Tatum Zupnik '20 (50 Free), Ella Myers '22 (500 Free), and All-American consideration times from Jillian Johnson '20 (100 Fly) and Joyce Wu '23 (100 Breast), who also set a new school record of 1:03.78.

Holton's relay teams put up big numbers with wins in all three relay events: the 200 Medley (Johnson, Rachel Blackwell '20, Wu, and Valerie Mello '21), 200 Freestyle (Courtney Watts '23, Duncan, Tatum Zupnik '20, and Myers), and 400 Freestyle (Watts, Duncan, Myers, and Zupnik), which also finished with an All-American consideration time.

Coach Westerberg commented, "I am proud of the way our team responded this weekend. We had so much fun and it was great to see all of the fast swimming. I am happy for the kids. They deserve it; they work so hard day in and day out."

For more coverage of the win, check out the story in The Washington Post. Click here to check out the varsity swimming & diving page with the full year's schedule and results. Be sure to come cheer on the Panthers at the METRO Swim and Dive Championships this weekend at the Germantown Swim Center, and come out to Holton on Tues., Feb. 11, at 4 p.m. for the final swim meet of the year against Paul VI High School!

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court writes an annual Year-end Report on the Federal Judiciary. This year, the report attracted unusual attention because Roberts chose to focus on the importance of civics education, a topic of more general interest than he usually chooses. As a U.S. history teacher, I always believed that helping my students understand how their government works—civics education—constituted a key part of my responsibilities. I actually made them read the Constitution in its entirety and I tested them on it. In retrospect, I'm not sure that was the most effective method, but it gives you an idea of the importance I placed on the topic.

Roberts uses his report to draw attention to all the excellent educational work the federal, as well as state, courts and a number of other organizations are doing. However, one senses a larger purpose. He begins his report by talking about The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay's essays originally written to persuade New Yorkers to vote in favor of the Constitution. He calls them "America's greatest civics lesson," but his purpose in referencing these seminal works has little to do with the essays themselves and more to do with why Jay (whom Washington later appointed as the first Chief Justice) wrote so few of them. A rumor that medical students at New York Hospital were dissecting the recently deceased body of a young boy's mother sparked a riot. When the rioters stormed the jail near his house where the doctors and medical students had taken refuge, Jay grabbed his sword (he was a Revolutionary War veteran) and joined Governor Clinton in protecting them. In the fray, Jay sustained a serious head injury from a rock thrown by a rioter, preventing him from writing for several months. The power of a rumor provides Roberts' segue into civics education: "In our age, when social media can instantly spread rumor and false information on a grand scale, the public's need to understand our government, and the protections it provides, is ever more vital."

We are all very aware of the danger associated with disinformation. Effective civics education will not alone prevent the misinformation campaigns from gaining traction. It would, however, help by arming citizens with better knowledge about how their government works, knowledge that could serve as a bulwark against disinformation. Even without misinformation campaigns aimed at influencing elections, current events demand an understanding of how our government works to make informed opinions: for example, impeachment, the presidential election (including the actual powers of the presidency and how the electoral college works), and Virginia's historic passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.

At Holton, to make what can be a pretty dry topic engaging, we use an experiential approach to teaching civics. In fifth grade, after studying American colonial and Revolutionary history and learning about the different branches of government, students create their own political parties, complete with a name, slogans, and an animal symbol. At a "convention," each party presents its platform, which students have developed using the U.N. Sustainability Goals (which inform our entire Global Education Program) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They create posters, buttons, and other campaign paraphernalia and make speeches to convince their classmates to vote for their political party, a process done by secret ballot.

Eighth graders in U.S. Political History spend the first trimester on civics. They learn about the Constitution beginning with the Convention, each of them researching one of the delegates and representing them in a virtual environment. They learn about the branches of government, balance of power, and how a bill becomes a law.

The Public Policy Project, however, is my favorite aspect of the course. As the instructions explain, the purpose of this project is:

[To] learn about why laws get passed and what their purpose is. During this project, you will learn about public policy, its purpose, its effect on you, and how you can become an active citizen in your local community.

Each girl chooses an issue that matters to her neighborhood and then develops a public policy to address it. They identify what part of government would be responsible for addressing the issue. They research what kind of policy, if any, already exists that relates to the issue, and they identify stakeholders. Through a variety of sources, they find different perspectives on the issue. They even need to consider why people care about the issue as well as who is pressing for solutions and how they are conducting that pressure. As they develop their policy, they must answer the following:

• The advantages and disadvantages of their policy.
• The level of government that would be responsible for creating and passing this policy. What journey would this policy take from idea to policy? How would it get passed?
• The level of government that would be responsible for carrying out the proposed policy. Why is this level of government responsible and how would it carry out the policy?
• The policy's source of funding. If the municipal/state budget funds the policy, where will that money come from?
• The effect of the policy on stakeholders.
• Ways to drum up support in the community for the policy.

They finish by presenting their policy in poster form to classmates and teachers.

Girls have identified a wide range of issues, such as installing sidewalks for pedestrian safety, rezoning in Fairfax Country to alleviate overcrowding at McLean High School, developing a more effective and efficient composting program in Montgomery County, and lowering the voting age in D.C. to 16.

I really like the real-world nature of this project, as well its depth and breadth. The girls truly learn how to take action on an issue that matters for their community, gaining an understanding of the workings of local and state government in the process. They are learning how to be active, engaged citizens.

Seniors in Advanced Topics in Government have a similar experience. Teacher Bob Tupper observes, "In almost every unit, I try to encourage them to think about the ways in which citizens involve themselves in the American democracy." More specifically, he asks them to "put their classroom learning into action" by completing a "participation project" that resembles the eighth-grade assignment, but obviously at a more sophisticated level. For the assignment, they:

• Identify a way of attempting to influence policy making--other than voting.
• Write a paper discussing the issue or policy they hope to affect.
• Take action.
• Write a second paper afterwards in which they discuss the method of participation, their experience in participating, and the degree of efficacy they believe their actions have had.

Two members of that class, along with two other student volunteers, went to Annapolis last week to testify in support of a bill that our Assembly Delegate, Sara Love P '21, is sponsoring that closes a loophole in a law that prevents anyone except security personnel from carrying weapons on public school campuses; her bill will extend this prohibition to private schools. These students represented the school admirably and learned about the state legislative process firsthand.

These kinds of real-life experiences are obviously invaluable. Whether our students are undertaking action through school assignments such as those above or whether they do it on their own, working on a campaign, participating in Montgomery County's Teen Court, or attending protests, they are putting their beliefs into action and developing the habits of engaged citizens.

Taking action constitutes one of the four pillars of global competency. We want our students to be informed, engaged citizens who know how to take action. As Sandra Day O'Connor said, "The practice of democracy is not passed down through the gene pool. It must be taught and learned anew by each generation of citizens." We're doing our part.

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The 2020 Scholastic Art Awards recognized 24 Holton Upper School artists for their work in painting, drawing, photography, ceramics, and fashion design. These students earned a total of 31 awards, including one Gold Key Award, which will now advance to national judging.

Since 1923, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards "have recognized the vision, ingenuity, and talent of the nation's youth, and provided opportunities for creative teens to be celebrated." They are presented annually by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, a nonprofit whose mission is to spotlight students with "exceptional artistic and literary talent." In addition to earning recognition, top award recipients are eligible for scholarships. Last year, more than 340,000 works were submitted to this prestigious competition; fewer than 3,000 receive national honors.

We congratulate all our awardees, as well as all students who entered, and their talented, dedicated teachers!

A full list of awardees appears below.

See a slideshow of their award-winning work here:

Ceramics

Maya Anopolsky '21 - Honorable Mention, Blue Rain
Kate Bohigian '21 - Honorable Mention, Pushing Boundaries
Kate Bohigian '21 - Silver Key, No Escape
Michaela Corcoran '20 - Silver Key, Floating
Grace Darcey '20 - Honorable Mention, Ikebana
Grace Darcey '20 - Honorable Mention, Water
Natalie DeSarbo '21 - Honorable Mention, The Waterfall
Kelsey Frederick '21 - Honorable Mention, Fragments of Nature
Kelsey Frederick '21 - Honorable Mention, Happy As a Clam
Maryam Garavi '21 - Gold Key, Safe and Accessible Water
Anna Hoernig '22 - Honorable Mention, Poppies: The Poison Within
Serena Hong '22 - Honorable Mention, Poppies Poppin
Kyley Rymsza '20 - Silver Key, Chasing Waterfalls
Maya Valmon '20 - Honorable Mention, Geometric Waves

Drawing

Portia Gharai '22 - Honorable Mention, Childhood

Painting

Lillian Broeksmit '20 - Silver Key, Ethereal Glow
Emery Cilluffo '20 - Honorable Mention, Expression
Catherine Crocker '21 - Honorable Mention, Anubis
Pascale Schmidt '20 - Honorable Mention, Attentive Goat
Wendy Wang '21 - Honorable Mention, Fishing
Wendy Wang '21 - Honorable Mention, Forks and Knives
Katherine Yoon '23 - Honorable Mention, What's in My Backpack?

Photography

Jemma Bazemore '20 - Honorable Mention, Hypnosis
Joanna Dematatis '21 - Honorable Mention, Bachelor in Paradise
Evan Israel '20 - Honorable Mention, The Blue City
Evan Israel '20 - Honorable Mention, Sunrise Hike
Mairead Levitt '21 - Honorable Mention, Beach Bike
Mairead Levitt '21 - Honorable Mention, Prizes
Mairead Levitt '21 - Silver Key, Candy Apples
Valerie Mello '21 - Honorable Mention, Who's There?

Fashion Design

Josephine Stark '21 - Honorable Mention, Holographic Disco Set

Writopia Lab DC has announced the D.C.-area recipients of the 2020 Scholastic Writing Awards. A panel of professional novelists, editors, teachers, poets, librarians, journalists, and other literary professionals selected this year's local winners from 1,546 submissions.

The following five Holton students earned a total of 20 awards for the works listed below:

Lillian Broeksmit '20
The Beginning of Forever, Personal Essay & Memoir - Silver Key
A Paternal Portrait, Personal Essay & Memoir - Gold Key

Sophia Hall '23
Walking On Eggshells, Poetry - Honorable Mention
Holden Caulfield Goes Camping, Humor - Honorable Mention
Where I Am From, Poetry - Silver Key
Harvey Milk: A Change Maker, Critical Essay - Silver Key

Esther Kim '21
smorzando; paper thin; when ready to sky, Poetry - Silver Key
could orange skins; it's 7:48 pm, Poetry - Silver Key
sleepless; on prayer, Poetry - Silver Key
a goddess of, Poetry - Silver Key
metamorphosis of night; 2:46 charlotte to washington, d.c., Poetry - Silver Key
what we carry with us; open, Poetry - Silver Key
To undrown; "The father and daughter lie," Poetry - Silver Key
10 stories taken from a car, Poetry - Honorable Mention
yellow filter; Mother lies, Poetry - Gold Key
dear franny choi, Poetry - Gold Key
Exhibition, Poetry - Gold Key

Irene Qi '21
The Nuremberg Trials: Weighing the Scales of Justice, Critical Essay - Honorable Mention
Beyond the Bubble, Personal Essay & Memoir - Honorable Mention

Josephine Stark '21
How Many Kids Did You Kill Today?: America's Youth Confront the Life-or-Death Risks of the Vietnam War and Recent Mass Shootings, Critical Essay - Honorable Mention

All local award winners will be honored at the D.C. Metro Scholastic Writing Awards Ceremony on March 8 at the UDC Theater of the Arts in Washington, D.C. Gold Key recipients will advance to judging for the national-level Scholastic Writing Awards, which for nearly 100 years have recognized the talents and efforts of creative teens across the U.S.

Congratulations to all our award-winning writers and their teachers!

In addition to his many roles at Holton, MS/US Choral Director and music teacher Trevor Fanning also enjoys sharing his passion for music with others off-campus. This includes serving as a clinician, adjudicator, and guest conductor across the country and internationally.

In early February, Fanning had the honor of serving as guest conductor for the Cape Cod Music Association's All Cape & Islands Honor Music Festival, celebrating its 60^th anniversary. Fanning conducted the Treble Choir and for the special occasion, he selected a program of all-female, living composers to continue his ongoing theme this year of presenting music of positivity and empowerment, strength, and celebration. The choir, made up of 63 girls from every high school on the Cape, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket, met for three days and concluded the festival with a public concert.

Fanning says that opportunities like this are "extremely powerful and special for both myself and the participants."

He adds, "What I gain every time I work with new choirs, I look forward to bringing back to use in my work with the Women in Blue at Holton, who inspire me every day with their dedication and musicality, passion, and commitment."

Four Upper School students had a unique opportunity to flex their civic engagement muscles earlier this month. On Feb. 5, Mina '20, Roshini '20, Nikki '21, and Billi '23 traveled to the Maryland State House in Annapolis to share their opinions on a bill that would extend to private schools an existing law that bans carrying deadly weapons on public school grounds except by security personnel.

Sara Love (P '21), the Maryland Delegate for Holton's district and sponsor of the bill, invited students both for and against it to voice their concerns for lawmakers, and four Upper Schoolers enthusiastically volunteered.

Mina, a Holton senior who spoke in favor of the bill, says she was somewhat nervous going into the hearing, but that she ultimately found the day empowering and eye-opening. "I realized how many sides there are to one issue and that being engaged in our political process really does make a difference. I think I'll be more confident engaging in our political system in the future," she says.

Mina is grateful for the opportunity to participate in the legislative process and for the chance to put her education into action. "I realized Holton prepared me in many ways for this experience," she says. "I was probably most confident in the statement I wrote and the research that I used. [The experience helped me] become more comfortable advocating for my beliefs, even if they aren't shared by everyone."

Faculty chaperone Maggie Spak says she was extremely proud of all four Holton students who testified. "They were all well-prepared and eloquent," she says. "One student even got to field a question from a delegate... I think they really appreciated seeing how a hearing works."

As Head of School Susanna Jones recently wrote in her Head's Notes blog, a strong grounding in civics education and understanding of the how's and why's of civic engagement are key components of the Holton experience. The School cultivates these skills every day through formal assignments, extracurricular activities, opportunities to create and shape campus programs and offerings, and encouraging off-campus engagement like the recent hearing at the State House.

"We want our students to be informed, engaged citizens who know how to take action," Jones writes.

While most education books focus on public schooling, I believe I should be aware of the broader thinking about education and, while Holton stands out as a very effective educational institution, we should always be looking for ways to improve. What School Could Be: Insights and Inspiration from Teachers Across America by Ted Dintersmith and In Search of Deeper Meaning: The Quest to Remake the American High School by Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine both offer insights worth considering. Dintersmith, who is described as "one of the nation's leading voices on innovation and education," visited all 50 states, meeting, in the process, with 12 governors, half the state commissioners of education, half the state legislatures' education committee chairs, and over 100,000 teachers, students, parents and interested citizens. His goal was to find and share examples of the kind of teaching and learning he thinks American children need to prepare them for the age of innovation. Mehta and Fine, through their tour of 30 schools and conversations with more than 300 students, teachers, adminstrators, etc., aimed to find evidence of deep learning.

Dintersmith is worried about the obsolescence of our current educational system, whose foundation dates back to 1893 reforms instituted to prepare students for factory work in the industrial age. We should replace this system, he argues with one that incorporates what he calls PEAK learning, whose four characteristics are:

• Purpose – Students attack challenges they know to be important, to make their world better.
• Essentials – Students acquire skill sets and mind-sets needed in an increasingly innovative world.
• Agency – Students own their learning, becoming self-directed, intrinsically motivated adults.
• Knowledge – What students learn is deep and retained, enabling them to create, to make, to teach others. (xvi)

While I would describe Dintersmith's book as a popular work—almost a call to arms, Mehta and Fine take a scholarly approach. Like Dintersmith, they have concerns about the U.S. educational system: little improvement in standardized test scores, mediocre showings on the international PISA test, and a lack of engagement on students' parts. In addition, outside forces have increased the value of deeper learning. Economic changes now require higher skill levels for most jobs than was true a generation ago. Young people need to be prepared to address complex global problems and deal with the technology revolution (from the information and disinformation perspective). Finally, they see equity as a force for wider emphasis on deeper learning since its value is clear, but to the extent it has been achieved, it has generally been among higher tracked and more affluent students.

Sounding much like Dintersmith, Mehta and Fine call for "education that asks students to think versus education that asks them follow directions, and education that has purpose and meaning for students versus education that does not." (11) Their formulation for deep learning involves three elements, "mastery, identity, and creativity." By mastery, they mean gaining a strong foundation in a discipline, including not only knowledge of content, but truly understanding how that discipline works, how knowledge is structured along with the ability to recognize patterns within the content, and being able to transfer knowledge, meaning actually using it in some way. It means acquiring a level of expertise. This might sound like where one gets in graduate school, but there are ways, especially if one emphasizes depth over breadth, to get secondary-school students to that point. It both takes engagement and promotes engagement and, once achieved, it is very empowering. Identity addresses how the learning connects to oneself, through intrinsic motivation, by the ways the learning connects to a person's own identity, and ultimately how it becomes "a core part of the self." (16) Teenagers are searching for their own identities, exploring who they are and how they fit in the world. I think we can see how deep learning could be part of that process. Creativity comes in being able to apply knowledge to create something, an ability that generally requires mastery to achieve. They give the example of taking "an analysis of how a play is written" and "writing a play" yourself. (16) You can easily see the crossover between Dintersmith's PEAK learning and Mehta and Fine's deep learning.

While reading these books, of course, I have asked myself what Dintersmith, Mehta, and Fine would find if they visited Holton. Would they observe PEAK learning? Deep learning? I believe they would, although I know they wouldn't see every student having such experiences in every class every day, nor would I expect them to. As Dr. Lisa Damour reminds us, we can't—and shouldn't—expect girls to love every class they take. That said, we should expect our faculty to be creating PEAK learning and, at the upper grades, deep learning.

Previously, I shared several examples of civics education that certainly meet these criteria: The fifth-grade political party project, the eighth-grade Public Policy Project, and the senior government course's "participation project." We could find others across the School, such as the Lower School Design Technology curriculum and the 10^th-grade term paper, in which English students can choose to write about almost any topic they choose. In another example, after observing an Advanced Biology lab that involved DNA splicing, a peer (from another department) described the girls receiving "training...in sophisticated tasks so that they can go out and make contributions in whatever field they choose, including those that have long been male-dominated." Moreover, he noted, "Those who don't choose STEM careers...are learning life skills about trying one's best, correcting mistakes, collaboration, and transferring knowledge to a specific task."

Seventh-grade "Problem Solving" also provides a great example of this kind of learning. The course starts with learning about problem solving in general and then moves onto technology as an aid to problem solving. Then the students identify a problem that is preventing a country from realizing one of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. Choosing something they really care about, they research what is happening on the ground and narrow their focus to a problem that an app could address. Then, they engage in design thinking as they develop their ideas, getting feedback from their peers. Finally, they translate what they have on paper to programming language, both HTML and Javascript, and ultimately create an app. Here are two examples:

Econ App is a babysitting cooperative app. The developers felt that the one of the problems preventing the goal of education for all is that many girls are expected to care for their younger siblings. The app provides a platform for these girls to team up and create a schedule for sharing childcare so they can attend school most days of the week.

Clean Living is a location-driven app that puts the user in touch with all the means for reducing their personal carbon footprint through their transportation choice. This includes finding bus and subway schedules, ebike memberships, and carpooling groups in their city.

I hardly need to explain how this course engages students in mastery, identity, and creativity, as well as PEAK learning.

On an institutional basis, we decided to move away from Advanced Placement courses because we believed that our teachers can create curricula that will better serve our students, both in college and life, with exactly the kind of learning that Mehta, Fine, and Dintersmith promote. We were early members of the Mastery Transcript Consortium (which Dintersmith highlights) and have been moving toward competency-based education for several years.

All this takes work, rethinking, to some degree, how we teach. At the same time, it connects in powerful ways to values and practices we have espoused for a long time. We're fortunate to be an independent school, free to choose the path we believe best meets our students' needs.

Congratulations to the five Holton seniors recently named National Merit Finalists: Francesca Cetta, Alicia Colomer, Jenna Einhorn, Sydney Pham, and Emily Shapland.

These students join a group of 15,000 Finalists, who are all now under consideration for one of 7,500 National Merit Scholarships that will be offered later this month.

All of Holton's Semifinalists this year were named Finalists. Nine seniors were also recognized in the fall as National Merit Commended Students: Morgan Bedingfield, Lillian Broeksmit, Lauren Cooke, Shifra Eskin, Jillian Johnson, Kyley Rymsza, Maya Valmon, Skye Worster, and Lilly Zheng. These students placed among the top 50,000 scorers on the 2018 PSAT.

Three students—Alicia Colomer, Nina Nichols, and Gabriela Tuncer—were honored by the National Hispanic Recognition Program. These young women placed in the top 2.5 percent of Hispanic and Latino PSAT/NMSQT takers in the region.

We are proud of our Panthers!

For those looking for something to read over Spring Break/while practicing social distancing, Scribbler, the US newspaper, has published its fabulous latest issue online! Stories cover a broad range of topics, including Women's History Month and the benefits of all-girls education, a student's experience testifying about a bill with classmates in the Maryland State House, the Special Olympics Polar Bear Plunge, Holton theater and the recent Oscars, and dispatches on Panthers' athletic prowess.

Check it out!

I’m trying to figure out how to start this column without sounding numbingly redundant. How many times have we heard that we are all stressed—anxious about the state of the world; worried about our own health and that of relatives and friends; concerned about our finances; missing social interactions; feeling closed in by the narrow confines in which we live during stay-at-home orders—the list goes on. If you work in a hospital, you are obviously dealing with a whole additional level of stress and worry, and teachers, too, have found themselves working in what is, for most, a whole new universe. Add to those worries a high level of uncertainty. We can look at models with peaks of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths, but we cannot know exactly what the next few weeks and months will look like and what that will mean.

My family and I are incredibly fortunate. Granger House has ample space for my husband, 20-something son, two dogs, and me, including work areas for all three of us. We also live on this 60-plus-acre campus where we can take lovely walks without worrying about social distancing from others. Trust me, I am grateful every day. Even with these advantages, however, like all of us, I am stressed.

This week, I also had the experience of teaching, giving me insight into what our faculty are accomplishing daily. I have decades of teaching experience and I am actually quite proud of the unit on women in the developing world that I teach as part of the junior Global Perspectives class. Its structure lends itself well to an online environment. I’ve also taught the unit multiple times and, unlike many teachers, I attend and even lead video-conference meetings with some frequency. All this is by way of saying, I might think, “I’ve got this.” I did not feel that way. I was apprehensive about not being with the girls in person. I prepared more than I normally would, cutting out some parts, substituting a Kahoot quiz for a place where girls would normally call out answers, carefully reading an email about how to show videos in Google Meet, practicing the presentation to figure out how I could show slides and see the girls’ faces simultaneously.

I didn’t sleep particularly well on Sunday night. The class on Monday went reasonably well; the Kahoot worked; the video did not. Once the girls got in their groups in different Google Meets, they started making good progress on their assignment to identify an issue related to women in their Junior Journey destination countries; indeed, they seemed to be making quicker progress than they generally do in a classroom. We finished the unit on Thursday, as they created hypothetical NGO’s to address the issue they had identified. While we weren’t able to discuss the challenges they might face in the depth we normally would, they did a good job and I feel reasonably satisfied that we, more or less, achieved the goals of the unit.

What I keep thinking about, however, are not the students, but other teachers who are doing what I did for two class meetings for four different sections and several different courses day after day. Obviously, teaching in distance learning mode, like anything, will get easier with practice, and people are actively working out kinks and getting their stride. Indeed, from reports at Wednesday’s divisional faculty meetings, the vast majority of teachers feel pretty positively about distance learning so far. They are consummate professionals who care deeply about their students. I’m proud of all they are doing, and now I have a much greater appreciation for how hard it is.

Just as all of us have multiple sources of stress, teaching Global Perspectives constitutes just one of mine. I have adopted the email signature “Stay safe and sane” that I picked up from someone a few weeks ago. As a leader, I need to help others manage their anxiety. To be able to do so, I must follow my own admonition and try to stay sane. So how am I doing that?

I am a great believer in rituals. They give life rhythm and structure; they can provide welcome breaks in routine as well as time for fun, celebration, reflection, or mourning. During this difficult period, they also allow us to exercise some control over our lives. Every evening, my husband, son, and I walk around campus with the dogs. This is a lovely interlude of family time when we catch up on our days, since, despite being in the same house, we barely see each other during working hours. The dogs provide entertainment and distraction. Last week, I started posting a photo of the day, featuring our Scottish terrier, Percy, somewhere at School. For example, on Monday we photographed him coming out of a school bus with the caption “Can I go back to School yet?” Choosing where and how to pose him, and setting up and taking the photos (terriers are not known for their cooperation and he is no exception) have become part of our evening ritual. It’s a family activity now, and one that demands creativity, using an entirely different part of our brains. It also makes me feel good to provide this small gesture of humor and connection to the campus to our community.

I look forward to these walks all day. I love stopping on the bridge to the track field, leaning on the wall to watch and listen to the creek as the water gurgles over the rocks. Often the wall still holds some heat, gently warming my arms and hands. The sound of the water and the feel of the warm stone are deeply soothing, helping my churning brain to slow down and relax. Each day we also observe the changes in the campus, as trees progress from blossoms to leaves. The variety of plantings ensure a parade of pinks and whites as we move from cherry blossoms, long gone, to apple and other fruit trees to the dogwoods, which are just beginning to unfold in flower. While the daffodils were blooming, I cut them and filled a vase on the dining room table. They lifted my spirits every time I passed them. With the campus almost entirely empty of people, nature is taking over. Foxes regularly cross our paths, dogs and fox occasionally facing off, eyeing each other with suspicion and maybe curiosity from a distance. The other evening, six deer, their white tails raised like flags, forded the stream and crashed through the woods on the other side. Clio, our flat-coated retriever, judging the creek bank too steep, restrained herself from chasing them.

In this time of so much uncertainty and anxiety, nature offers balm and perspective. Oblivious to the disaster ravaging the world, the trees bloom with utter predictability. The water level rises and falls with rainfall, but keeps flowing swiftly over the rocks, always in the same direction. The sun warms the stone. The rain filling the indentations in the parking lot forms puddles that reflect the clouds. Every night, the moon rises, a mottled disk in the pale evening sky. My body unwound and my brain recharged, I return home, ready to reenter the arena.

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On Wednesday, April 15, we celebrated six Holton Panthers continuing their athletic careers at the collegiate level next year.  Five of these seniors are committing to play NCAA Division III athletics and one is off to Division I next year!

Brooke Evans '20 will play tennis at Washington University at St. Louis; Eliza Gichner '20 will run track at Dickinson College; Aisling Mockler '20 will row for Hamilton College; Sydney Pham '20 will play lacrosse at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Tatum Zupnik '20 will join the swim team at Bowdoin College; and Rachel Blackwell '20 looks forward to being able to continue her swimming career at the University of Pennsylvania. These girls join classmates Francesca Cetta '20, Jillian Johnson '20, and Sophie Whiteway '20 as NCAA-bound student-athletes.

For Brooke, Eliza, Aisling, Tatum, Sydney and Rachel, the recruitment journey started earlier than the normal college process. All four girls knew they wanted to compete at the collegiate level well before this year. These athletes took their training seriously, giving up other sports, sacrificing free time, dedicating long hours to practice, and perfecting their craft. Not only did the girls dedicate themselves to hours of practice, but also to hours of recruiting work. For most of them, the process began early in their high school career which included emailing and calling coaches and visiting campuses.

In celebrating their commitment, we recognize not just this milestone day, but the years of hard work that led to the occasion. We are proud of Panthers who have found a place where they can both compete in their sport and continue to receive an outstanding education.

Rachel Blackwell, University of Pennsylvania, Swimming

Rachel considered committing to a school during the recruiting process, but it was her dream to attend the University of Pennsylvania, so she decided to forgo athletic recruiting for the chance to attend Penn. This was her top choice because of, as Rachel said, "its great academics, commitment to diversity, and the opportunities that accompany an Ivy League school." Now that she has gained admission to Penn, she will be walking onto the swim team. During her junior year, Rachel explored a number of recruiting opportunities. "I think the recruiting process for any sport can be very mentally draining, but it teaches you how to deal with rejection and that no two schools are alike," said Rachel. She adds, "I think my biggest advice for the recruitment process is that rejection is inevitable, but it is important to not give up, because there is a place for everybody." She says she has plenty of practice balancing the demands of a rigorous academic program and a busy swim schedule. She adds, "Holton athletics and Holton swim, in particular, has prepared me for life as a student-athlete because I think the coaches, as well as the swimmers, hold you accountable for not fulfilling commitments, which is going to be what I will experience at the collegiate level. I want to thank my parents, friends, and the entire Holton swim team, coaches included, for always supporting me through all of my decisions and never giving up on me. "

Brooke Evans, Washington University at St. Louis, Tennis

After dedicating years to the sport and putting in countless hours of preparation, Brooke couldn't image her college experience without the presence of tennis. Brooke thought that the Division III level would give her best balance between tennis and academics. In addition to Washington University at St. Louis, Brooke considered a number of other options, including Tufts, Amherst, Washington & Lee, and Williams College. While these were all incredible schools, they did not offer all of the things Brooke was looking for. Brooke is looking forward to the putting her Holton training into action and balancing all her responsibilities on the court and in the classroom. She wants to thank her high school coach Yann, "who has taught me so much about competing and mental toughness during tennis. For always believing in my potential and always pushing me to do my best. He taught me how to fight, compete, and play with heart."

Eliza Gichner '20, Dickinson University, Track

After running in the Penn Relays her sophomore year, Eliza was stopped by a Holton alumna who went to UPenn. The alum asked Eliza if she planned to run in college. This was the first time Eliza thought about it, and it fueled her journey to the collegiate level.  Early in the recruiting process, Eliza considered running track at the Division I level. However, during her recruiting process, she realized how great a fit Division III could be. Eliza said, "I loved the environment of a DIII team and that I could participate in other things outside of my sport if I ran DIII." Through this process, Eliza considered a number of schools, including Connecticut College, Denison, Kenyon, and Dickinson. "I chose Dickinson because I loved the school environment, the town around the campus, the education/teaching program, and I especially loved how close the team was. I visited a bunch and did a track clinic there, but knew I wanted to go to school there after my overnight visit." Eliza is ready to take on the challenges of being a collegiate student-athlete, thanks to Holton's preparation. In the classroom, she said, "I have learned how to overcome hard tasks. I have also learned a lot about the importance of a strong mentality. Through sports at Holton, I have learned to be very strong mentally." She added, "I would love to thank Coach Valmon for working with me and helping me develop as an athlete and as a person. I would also like to thank Coach Mac for helping me understand the importance of mentality in sports. And most importantly, I would love to thank my mom for all of her endless support and time she has given me to help me get to where I am."

Aisling Mockler, Hamilton College, Rowing

The balance of Division III athletics has always appealed to Aisling. A student of many talents, Aisling always knew she would row at the DIII level because she felt it would give her time to explore her many interests. A number of other schools appealed to her, but according to Aisling, "what drew me to Hamilton was the unlimited amount of friendliness that I saw on campus and with every student or alumnus I met." Even though Aisling started the recruiting process later than most, she never doubted her desire to compete at the next level. Aisling is eager and ready to continue her journey as a student-athlete. She said, "Holton does not shy away from hard work and I have learned how to balance a busy schedule as a student and an athlete. I have learned during my time as a Holton athlete that I am much stronger mentally and emotionally than I think I am. I had to learn to not be afraid of making mistakes or 'failing.' I want every student-athlete to learn how to love playing their sport both for their team, and their self." Aisling added, "Thank you to Coach Acerra for supporting me during every step of this process, whether she was offering to reach out to schools or helping me draft my emails to coaches. I remember being 14 and meeting her at the end of eighth grade to tell her how excited I was to join the crew team."

Sydney Pham '20, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Lacrosse

As Sydney went through the college recruiting process, she gained clarity about what she wanted in her collegiate experience. In the end, it was the opportunity to attend a rigorous academic institution that would not only challenge her but allow her to explore her multiple passions and interests, including the opportunity to play on and impact the lacrosse team. The lacrosse recruiting rules changed Sydney's freshman year, and while this gave her more time to make her decisions, it also required a lot of her time and attention over three years. Throughout this process, Sydney stayed focus on pursuing opportunities that fit her interests and vision of a college experience. In the end, MIT stood out as the perfect fit. Sydney is ready to take on the challenges of a college student-athlete. "Holton's challenging curriculum has constantly pushed me to not settle. By having sports after school and other clubs or activities during the day, I've also learned how to manage my time well and work efficiently. Through Holton athletics, I've become more confident in myself and grown as a leader. I've learned a lot about what it means to be a part of a team and that sports are so much more than just what you do on the field," Sydney said. "I thank my parents and my sister for supporting me through the whole process. From driving me to practice and tournaments and sitting in traffic on 495 to catch the second half of a game, to just being great mentors I could talk to and get advice from, they've been my biggest supporters since day one."

Tatum Zupnik '20, Bowdoin College, Swimming

Spending the last six years swimming for Holton, Tatum knew that she wanted to continue swimming competitively beyond high school. "I still have more that I want to accomplish," she said. Considering both DI and DIII schools, Tatum ultimately selected Division III for the balance it provides its student-athletes, offering a shorter season without compromising on the rigor of athletics or academics. Tatum looks forward to fully engaging in all that the Bowdoin community has to offer. During this process, Tatum leaned on her network to guide her. Coaches, teammates, and teammates' parents were all invaluable resources. Throughout her tenure at Holton, Tatum has been challenged both in the classroom and in the pool to help prepare her for life as a collegiate student-athlete. Time-management skills are something she knows she has and will need at the next level. "The Holton swim and dive team has taught me that hard work and commitment to your team pays off," she said. "It's also showed me how amazing a close and supportive team community can be. The many strong relationships I have developed with the swimmers and coaches during my time have been so meaningful to me. I am proud of what I have accomplished on the Holton swim team, and I know it has prepared me well for swimming at Bowdoin. I'm looking forward to working hard and continuing to improve! I also want to thank my parents, sister, Mr. Westerberg and all the other Holton coaches, Mrs. McEnroe, my club coaches, and the Holton swim and dive team members for their help and support!"

With the coronavirus still escalating and its economic impacts hitting hard, most of us are understandably focused on immediate issues. In no way do I want to minimize the multitude of challenges many are facing. However, I do believe that with every crisis comes opportunity, and it's not too early to start thinking about what that might look like. Moreover, we need to start doing this now to set the stage to take advantage of those opportunities once life stabilizes.  Crises can lead to critically important advancements. Wars always lead to advances in medicine. The New Deal, with its reforms impacting almost every sector of society, came in response to the Depression. At the same time, however, when a crisis ends, we can fall prey to a powerful human instinct to return to "normal," the way things were before. Think of all the women who had to give up their jobs after WWII. Plenty of evidence shows that epidemics set back women's progress. If we want to capitalize on the opportunities that this pandemic offers, we need to begin now.

On the plus side, some positives have already emerged from the pandemic and we should try to build on these when we return to "normal." The first of these involves teachers. As schooling has moved out of schools and into homes, parents inevitably have ended up having to help their children, especially younger ones and especially those living in school districts that have not been able to mount robust programs. Parents, in the process, have learned how much teachers do and how hard this work is. I'm sure you've seen the memes of frazzled mothers and fathers. Historically, American teachers have not received much respect, and their pay reflects that. Increased respect for teachers and even higher pay would be wonderful outcomes of this terrible situation.

Rarely—if ever—has an entire profession had to dramatically change how they conduct their work in a matter of days as our teachers have. They deserve enormous credit for their flexibility, creativity and dedication to their students. Most have experienced a steep learning curve—intensive professional development on a scale heretofore unimaginable. We should not underestimate how hard teaching virtually is. At the same time, however, we are finding new ways to teach, discovering resources and tools we were previously unfamiliar with, and bearing down on essentials. At Holton, in recognition of the stresses created by the pandemic, we are also accelerating integration of social and emotional learning into our work, through Advisory and also in the context of classes. We will want to take stock of all we've gained and ensure that we incorporate it into our in-person practice.

Finally, while we must not forget the enormous challenges the "stay-at-home" orders present for many people, we can also recognize that our isolated lifestyles have offered benefits to many others. Frenzy and overscheduling characterizes so much of American life, conditions that have evaporated in the pandemic, leaving families with time to connect with one another. We have certainly heard from our own students that they are enjoying spending time with their parents and siblings, engaging in a whole range of activities—biking, hiking, baking, cooking, knitting and playing games. This calmer, connected lifestyle is unquestionably healthier for our students and adults alike. In addition, we all benefit from spending time outdoors, something many people have been doing more of in the past several weeks. I continue to think about the Upper School teacher's sharing that several of her students said they discovered nature for the first time over Spring Break. Hopefully that discovery spurs an appreciation that persists well past the pandemic. People who have hobbies also tend to be happier and more fulfilled, and the new interests we may be developing during this period will also serve us well. Finally, many girls have rediscovered reading for pleasure, something I also hope they will be able to continue doing in the future.

We all want to return to a world that includes social interaction outside a Zoom call. However, we will need to be deliberate about what habits and activities we reestablish if we want to maintain some of the benefits we are currently experiencing. I know some parents worry about whether students are learning enough. I would wager that they are learning more than most of their peers around the country. We're going to have to figure out how to test this supposition, but I also believe that what they are learning, they may be learning better. They—and we in competitive schools across the country (and around the world)—drive themselves hard. They take demanding courses with attendant heavy homework loads; they engage in multiple activities both in and out of school. We know that all this creates stress, which interferes with learning; moreover, the amount of content that many of them expect to learn may well be unrealistic. We know from brain research that we actually only function effectively for relatively short periods of time—90 minutes, at the longest. That means that they probably aren't securing long-term knowledge. 

If we question that assertion, we might want to consider a study that Ted Dintersmith references in his book, In Search of Deeper Meaning. For two years across a variety of subjects, Lawrenceville School tested their students in the fall after summer vacation to determine what "essential concepts" they had retained from the previous year. The result: "not one student retained all of the essential concepts that the school expected every student to have mastered." Lawrenceville is a selective school with highly qualified, caring faculty; in other words, not unlike Holton. 

I have written quite often in this column, most recently this winter, about the stress and anxiety prevalent among teenagers, especially girls. You may even remember that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine have categorized students in high achieving schools as "at risk." The coronavirus has forced us to turn down the dial, giving less homework and deconstructing their packed schedules. We certainly don't want to maintain this type of schooling forever, but we should take this opportunity to hit a reset button—to focus on depth over breadth, to foster deep learning, and to keep our students' overall well-being a top priority.  

COVID-19 is a tragedy of incalculable magnitude, especially for those who have lost loved ones. There are silver linings, though. Let's not squander the chance the tragedy is giving us to make things better.

This is Teacher Appreciation Week, so it seems fitting to reflect on the art of teaching. I began my career in education the fall following my graduation from college. I majored in history and my first job consisted of teaching history to middle and upper school students at The Spence School, a girls school located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. I was thrilled to have landed such a plum job. My greatest concern, quite honestly, was what to wear on the first day of school to impress these hip New York girls. My mother, a woman of infinite style, helped choose an outfit and I launched myself into what proved a lifetime vocation.

I quickly made several important discoveries: 1) Teaching is incredibly hard work. In some ways, I worked harder that first year than I even do now. 2) Teaching is incredibly rewarding work. Observing students' progress, helping them wrestle with difficult questions, watching light bulbs go on, knowing that you are connecting with them in a meaningful way–nothing quite matches those experiences. 3) Teaching is about relationships. I quickly made connections with my students, and that made all the difference to my success as a teacher. 4) Teaching is an art and a science. The science aspect (content knowledge, understanding of pedagogy, etc.) constitutes a necessary component. However, great teaching depends on the art, a quality harder to learn. At the heart of the art lie two characteristics: the ability to build relationships with students and passion for one's teaching. Creativity, understanding developmental stages, knowing one's subject area, and having a command of pedagogy are all critical, but they cannot substitute for personal connection and passion. And, by the way, once you've gained the girls' respect and affection (the former being the most important), what you wear no longer matters–though students will comment every time you get a haircut.

As we operate in a distance learning mode, connection and passion are determining the success of our girls' ongoing learning. Teachers are working harder than ever right now, and they return to the computer screen day after day because they care about their students and their learning. They are spending untold hours figuring out how to teach most effectively in this mode for the same reasons. This year, more than ever, they deserve our appreciation.

In my effort to celebrate Holton's teachers, I asked them to share things that they feel good about or are proud of that have been happening in their classes during distance learning. Sixth grade math teacher Mike Hannam has consciously cultivated connection in his distance learning "classroom." He takes "the first 10 minutes (almost a third) of each class to connect with the students, troubleshoot tech issues, and just hang out. Pets, siblings, and food are usually the main topics of conversation." This community-building time relaxes students, ultimately promoting the learning that follows.

Passion for teaching is prompting virtually everyone to examine their practice. Middle School science teacher Lucy Piacenza expressed pride in the way the Middle School science team is covering the material differently, allowing the teachers to engage students in different ways, and to "more organically assess their understanding." The 10^th grade history teachers have also been rethinking how they teach, in this case, the Industrial Revolution. Using an activity called the Urban Game, students learned "firsthand" the challenges of industrialization "as they struggled to fit factories, schools, hospitals, and cemeteries into their once bucolic village map," as an English village evolves into an industrial city. By doing this activity first, they had context when they read about industrialization. Middle School history has also been engaging in experiential learning, not so much a curricular shift, but rather a demonstration of how a more student-centered, project-based approach shifts to virtual learning relatively easily. Here are two examples from eighth grade U.S. Political History:

• After learning about the use of propaganda during WWII, students created their own propaganda poster for an issue they feel strongly about today. Some examples included stopping the spread of Covid-19, ending the practice of texting while driving, and cyberbullying.
• After learning about the home front during WWII, students created a "yearbook" page as if they were a graduating senior. They highlighted things that would be on their minds at the time, like the loss of a loved one, growing a victory garden, and the changes in women's fashion.

Like the eighth grade history teachers, chemistry teacher Xu Duan had his seniors connect chemistry to the pandemic. In a project he called "Weatherizing Covid-19 Through Polymerizing," each student identified a favorite polymer related to the "stay-at-home" experience. Some chose polymers that maintained or enhanced their daily routines, while others chose those that delighted, comforted, or protected them. An artist chose acrylic paints; a rower chose acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS); a cozy blanket had polyacrylonitrile (PAN); while Teflon (polytetrafluoroethylene) in a non-stick pan helped another "elevate her cooking skills"; and the nitrile butadiene of rubber gloves aids in handling and disinfecting packages.

In another example of shifting an existing project successfully online, Mary Kline "dispatched" her Latin 2 students to their kitchens to do a project in which they "reconstruct roads as laid out by the Roman architect and engineer Vitruvius." They had to "build in a clear dish (so we could see the cross-section); create layers that represent Vitruvius' instructions; and make it completely edible (taste notwithstanding)." Without prior notice, they completed the project creatively and faster than anticipated. "In the end," according to Mary, "their roads were well-built, and (mostly) tasty looking." One student ate hers immediately after class.

Similarly, without clay and a kiln, ceramics teacher Nandini Giridharadas reimagined her "dinnerware" project, asking students to use "techniques such as paper mache, weaving with paper, quilling, and working with yarn. The students have made vases, flowers, bowls, cups, glasses, silverware, and serving dishes, working with whatever materials they had at home." She told me she is "incredibly proud" of her students for being "nimble thinkers."

Before leaving on Spring Break, Linda Baily anticipated the shift to online learning for her fourth grade Design Tech students by preparing and sending them kits to build little cars powered by blowing through a straw. Linda called her students "remarkable" as they persevered in building their cars, exercising their problem-solving abilities, and producing a much wider range of designs than if they were in school influencing one another. By the way, never underestimate these fourth graders–remember that they were responsible for our Holton Unplugged Afternoon last week.

As you can already see from these descriptions, above all, teachers are proud of their students, who have transferred skills to the online environment, pushing their own learning forward in the process. For example, U.S. history teacher Christopher Wilson explains, "Because of the Harkness skills they've developed on the Holton campus, the girls have figured out how to listen to each other and build on each other's ideas on Google Meet." Like many of the experiential examples already mentioned, one might think that Harkness discussions wouldn't translate to the online environment, but "spirited discussions" are still happening.  Seventh grade science teacher Nic Ryba says her students have "picked up the gauntlet and worn it proudly." PE teacher and coach Graham Westerberg describes his sixth graders as having "the best attitude towards this new way of learning." Upper School math teacher Art De John sums it up nicely: "I feel proud of our students. They haven't missed a beat when it comes to being prepared to learn. They're optimistic, resilient, and a pleasure to teach as always."

While the teachers–as all good teachers do–turn the spotlight back on their students, it's passionate teachers with strong connections with their students who are making this learning happen. Let's sing their praises!

This season will go down in history. Back on February 24, the first day of winter sports tryouts, no one would have guessed just how historic this spring would be. Not because of records set, team victories, or championship banners raised, but because of the lack of competition and cancellation of the spring season due to COVID-19. Our athletes, however, lived our motto and found a way to make the most out of the season through virtual training sessions, team workouts, team bonding, and games. Though they were not together in person, the dedication, camaraderie, and spirit of the girls allowed them to get the most out of the spring season.

To officially close out the spring season, spring coaches, athletes, and parents gathered via a Zoom meeting for the seasonal banquet. Head of School Susanna Jones and Athletic Director Julie Treadwell welcomed families, then HAA President Isabelle Wilson '20 induced three new members, Annika Chidambaran '21, Joanna Dematatis '21 and Avery Sion '21. Treadwell next recognized three seniors who have played a sport every season in Upper School, Clare Flood '20 and Kaley Katz '20, with special recognition to Sophie Whiteway '20, who not only played 12 seasons of sports, but all of them were with a varsity team! Treadwell also announced that Bella Motsco '21 would serve as next year's HAA President!

The event concluded with a slideshow of our senior athletes. We will miss you, Class of 2020, and we thank you for the incredible impact you have had on our athletic program. Click here to view the slideshow.

Holton Athletic Association 2019-2020

Kate Bohigian '21
Francesca Cetta '20
Emery Cilluffo '20
Delia Curran '21
Grace Darcey '20
Lusya Engen '21
Shifra Eskin '20
Gillian Farland '20
Clare Flood '20
Sofia Gerlein '20
Eliza Gichner '20
Carly Goldblatt '20
Kaley Katz '20
April McCall '21
Aisling Mockler '20
Jenna Mohiuddin '20
Bella Motsco '21
Sydney Pham '20
Annie Pingle '20
Ella Raineri '20
Kyley Rymsza '20
Klara Schmidt '20
Pascale Schmidt '20
Erin Thomas '20
Maya Valmon '20
Lucy Walker '20
Sophie Whiteway '20
Isabelle Wilson '20                                   

Some of my favorite stories about the Holton community’s experience during the pandemic have been those featuring girls and families helping others during this difficult time: PUNCH organizing mask-making for hospital workers; a sixth grader making “grab-and-go” bags for essential workers; seniors who have committed to doing something nice for someone every day. This week, I asked students to send me other examples. Many girls have found ways to thank essential workers such as mail carriers, sanitation workers, and grocery store staff; others have baked for neighbors, particularly the elderly. One family has taken unclaimed Meals on Wheels meals and given them to teachers for students who are experiencing food scarcity. Another family has continued their longstanding commitment to feed the homeless by creating bagged meals. A ninth grader is doing grocery shopping for senior citizens and is hoping to organize a team of other teenagers to join her.

There is no doubt that this has been and continues to be a trying time. It’s easy to feel anxious about the state of the world. It’s also easy to feel sorry for ourselves, isolated with our families, unable to go out or to visit friends, and missing the School community, especially all the end-of-year traditions. Helping others–volunteering our time and giving of our resources–offers one of the best antidotes to these negative emotions. It won’t eliminate the many challenges and frustrations we are confronting now, but, by making us look outward rather than inward, it redirects our attention. Indeed, research shows that volunteering has many emotional and physical benefits. People who volunteer are happier, have a stronger sense of self-worth, and are healthier–they even live longer. Service also helps foster empathy; it can nurture a commitment to social justice and a sense of civic responsibility.

Young people who dedicate themselves to longer-term service projects can also gain important life skills. This has been the experience of our students who participated in the Schoolyard Ventures Social Innovators Program offered to interested Upper School students this past winter. This program aims to help students develop an “entrepreneurial mindset—a problem-solving framework fueled by creativity and grit.” They do this by developing a way to address a real-life issue, in the process, as program director Rich Sedmak explains, “creating value for themselves and for others.” While they may create something lasting, the most important outcomes come in the form of increased confidence, resilience, and becoming better problem solvers.

We had 47 students accepted into the program, and their projects, not surprisingly, address a wide range of issues, often with a personal connection. For example, a tenth grader who suffers from juvenile arthritis worked with the Arthritis Association to better publicize their resources to young people, an audience they had largely ignored despite having much to offer this population. This student is actively involved with the organization now, helping them to connect with juvenile arthritis patients–a perfect example of adding value for herself and for others.

A ninth-grade swimmer is concerned about female athletes feeling uncomfortable with male coaches, a problem she found to be particularly prevalent among swimmers. This student started holding training sessions for fellow female swimmers using videos created by Safe Sport, a national organization committed to making sports safe by eliminating all forms of abuse. She contacted people at USA Swimming and is now serving on the Potomac Valley Safe Sport Committee. She published an article about her work on the prestigious swimming website Swim Swam.

Many girls focused on mental health issues, including a junior interested in addressing the prevalence of stress, anxiety, and depression among teens. Her research led her to the positive impact of relationships on our mental health. She has created a national holiday called “Heyday” to take place on International Friendship Day (July 30). She wants to encourage people to reach out to a friend on that day and say “hey.” She has created an Instagram account (@heydayholiday) and looks forward to recruiting student ambassadors to help spread the word about the power of personal relationships.

At least three projects focused on the environment, generally aimed at raising awareness or creating ways for people to take action. A junior addressed her peers’ sense of powerlessness regarding the environment through a texting service. Each morning, she texts a challenge, such as taking just a five-minute shower; at the end of the day, she sends another text explaining the impact, in this case, reducing water usage by 2.1 gallons per minute. She wants people to understand that “we can all have a big impact through small changes.”

You also may have seen the news story about the sophomore who wanted to help senior citizens learn how to use technology, such as Skype, to connect with family, a project that proved especially timely.

While the girls’ projects were inspiring, I was especially interested in what they learned. To accomplish their goals, they had to reach out to people they didn’t know, often adults who lead organizations. This can be intimidating. Sometimes they encountered rejection and had to move beyond it. Often, they found people eager to support their efforts. As one girl who hopes to increase awareness about autism explained, “I learned that people who are very successful still care about helping people who are just starting out and seeking guidance, and sending cold emails is easy and has the potential to provide you with many opportunities.” In the process, students learned how to approach adults, how to cold call, and how to follow up professionally.

As they developed their projects, particularly their target markets, they often had to change course. Part of that involved learning how to listen and apply what they heard. As a junior interested in supporting microgreens farmers observed, “It is more important to interview and listen to your target market than anything else. You may think you have a great idea, but if it is not what the target market wants, the idea won't be successful.” This put a premium on flexibility, but the most important quality it fostered is empathy. Developing greater empathy alone would make the program worth the experience, but students also practiced risk-taking and perseverance, and gained confidence. A ninth grader, whose concern about mass incarceration led her to create a job-placement service for ex-offenders, made the following observation:

A valuable lesson I have learned is that risk taking is a crucial skill and that an immense amount of learning takes place while engaging in activities that are outside of my comfort zone…  I have been able to use [this lesson] in other settings such as in the classroom and in athletics. I have found that I have pushed myself more while trying new activities that I am uncomfortable with at first.

Interestingly, when I asked the director of the program what, if anything, stood out about the Holton girls, he described them as having “social courage”; as he explained, “They are good at pushing through their fear to reach out to potential partners and interviewees.” He also told me, “There…seems to be a positive culture of collaboration and camaraderie.” I am incredibly proud that was the culture they conveyed.

As we continue to help our girls navigate this challenging time, I would encourage them to find ways to address the issues they see around them, whether an immediate problem such as helping senior citizens get groceries or a more overarching social challenge. They will grow in all kinds of ways from the experience, while also helping to make the world a better place. If they are interested in taking it to the level of social innovation, I’m excited to report that Schoolyard Ventures is offering a summer session, again for Holton Upper Schoolers. (US Director Chris Lynch reached out to students in grades 9-11 directly this week with more information.) In the meantime, please check out the extensive resources for community engagement on Holton’s website.

This school year promises to be truly unprecedented in every way. Running school with a modicum of safety in the context of a highly contagious virus involves an extraordinary level of complexity; we are rethinking absolutely everything we do. At the same time, we have become painfully aware that our Black and Brown students have not had the kind of experience at Holton that we would want for them and that they deserve. This has led to soul-searching on both individual and institutional levels as we work to make Holton an anti-racist institution, a place where all our students can feel they belong regardless of their backgrounds. Our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) Roadmap, which we shared with all parents yesterday, lays out our plan for that work over the course of the coming year. We have both an opportunity and an obligation to respond to these dual demands and I am inspired by the faculty’s commitment to offer your daughters an outstanding educational experience regardless of modality, one that all students can feel genuinely a part of. As proof of this commitment—should you need it—I share with you answers to a prompt I posed at our opening faculty/staff meetings: “I look forward to taking advantage of this unprecedented time to…”

While I am focusing on faculty, I want to recognize that Admissions, Development, and College Counseling are all rethinking their work in a pandemic world while also assessing it through a diversity/anti-racist lens. Everyone, staff and faculty alike, is dedicated to being flexible and creative.

Teachers are assessing how they teach. One wants to “use online portfolios to keep track of student work for grading and feedback.” Another will make more short videos that students can re-watch as often as they want. Several arts teachers see creative potential in technology for both creating work and sharing and critiquing it. Focusing on competency-based learning came up while a number of faculty highlighted differentiation as a goal, meaning adjusting teaching and learning to individual students, something that technology can facilitate. They are also reevaluating assessments (quizzes, tests, essays, projects, etc.). For example, a Middle School math teacher explained that she will:

re-think assessment methods and questions; move from skills-based low-level questioning for which answers can easily be found online or from classmates to application-based higher-order thinking questions for which students must present their own thinking.

Teachers are committed to using more group work and to what one called “independent exploration,” a nice way of giving students a chance to lead their own learning. One world language teacher is “approaching this year with the perspective of a coach—offering lots of tools and guidance, and putting the training/ownership in [students’] hands.” Or more simply, as a fifth grade teacher said, “letting the girls lead more.”

At the same time, people are thinking deeply about what they are teaching. Many echoed the goal to “question the purpose and impact of what and how I am teaching and make appropriate changes.” Many also expressed the desire to home in on “essentials” or “basics”; to “take the time to dig into what is the real core of what we teach.” One wants to “pause more often for reflection; distill key ideas/themes/points from our work,” while another hopes to focus “on important connections and skills rather than flying through content.” Here is the opportunity, they see, to focus on depth over breadth.

They also recognize that the virtual world allows for easy expansion of resources, including connecting with people not easily accessible in person. An Upper School art teacher is excited that she has guest speakers—“internationally known photographers,” one from Paris and one from California—coming to “visit” her classes. The Lower School Librarian noted enthusiastically, “What a great opportunity to really connect across geographic boundaries and share our lives with new people and see different perspectives through a shared book.”

In the process, our teachers hope to engage students, make the material more relevant, and deepen learning. An English teacher suggested that she wants to “find literature that is relevant to the dynamic lives of our students. AND find new ways to connect to literature. Living through a historic moment invites these sorts of connections and reflections.” Another person wants to “take time to reflect on each assignment; consider how it relates to today's world and issues.”

Many faculty members focused specifically on anti-racism. They would concur with the colleague who wants to “expand my horizons as an anti-racist educator,” or another who will incorporate lessons learned from reading White Fragility and How to Be an Anti-Racist into their teaching. The History Department Chair wants to “diversify our teaching methods and offerings.” An English teacher aims to “think differently about the content in our curriculum.” The environmental science teacher is planning on “reframing environmental science and the environmental movement around diversity, equity, and inclusion from the start.” Similarly, the government teacher is taking a whole new approach; the students will:

examine how every policy benefits someone or some group at the relative cost to another. A good part of it will rest on [author Ibram] Kendi's premise that every policy is either racist (increases the racial gap) or non-racist (decreases it).

Someone else promises to “listen, observe, and care,” a way to think about both diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging work and social and emotional learning (SEL), another area on which faculty plan to focus. One teacher hopes to “listen even more closely to the students and expand SEL practices to increase connection among the girls while at a distance,” while another plans to utilize check-ins even more effectively so s/he can get to know his/her students better.

One of the great benefits the quarantine offered last spring was the opportunity to slow down, and a number of people hope to find ways to hold onto that moderation. An Upper School science teacher wants to “slow down, try to maintain a reasonable pace—be sure to keep an eye on stress and wellness.” A performing arts teacher also wants to slow down, noting,

So often in my area we are working towards a finished end date and the focus of all of our class time becomes rehearse, rehearse, rehearse...the opportunity that these unprecedented times allows includes broadening appreciation for the rich traditions across cultures in music, but also connecting the art of singing and making music to our Learn Well, Live Well, Lead Well goals.

One teacher pledged “to focus on the journey this year and take time to build community.”

Whether through curriculum, DEIB work, or focusing on SEL, above all, teachers share this desire to build connections with and among their students. Sometimes they were specific about their goals—like the teacher who said they wanted to “focus my practice much more on getting to know my students and support them as whole students, rather than as just students of literature/writing.” Or the third grade teacher who wants to:

connect more purposefully and help students work on particular goals they help co-create. I hope to see a new depth of relationship form between myself and my students with targeted actions.

Others are simply looking for “new ways to make connections with my students,” to “get to know my students in a new way.”

I hope you can feel the depth of teachers’ care for your daughters, the dedication to “always doing what's best for the girls!”, as one of them said. I am so proud of them and eager to see how they fulfill their hopes for this truly extraordinary time.

Both my grandmothers were born in 1899, one in April and the other in December. The older of the two, whom I called Ahmie, turned 21 in 1920 well ahead of Election Day that November. At the time of her birthday and for several months after, her ability to vote in that year's presidential election hung in the balance. As things turned out, with Tennessee's vote, the 19th Amendment passed in August and she cast her ballot that fall. Ahmie loved politics and actively engaged in them her whole adult life. Interestingly, she was a Democrat, an anomaly both in Upstate New York, where she grew up, and on Long Island, where she lived from her late 20s until she died at 91. Even her husband was a Republican. She was a very active volunteer for the local Democratic Party—so active that President Kennedy rewarded her loyalty and contributions by appointing her Postmaster of the Oyster Bay Post Office. This was a purely patronage appointment as she had never entered a post office for any reason other than to buy stamps or send a package. It's hard to imagine someone like her not being able to vote. 

As we celebrate the centennial of the 19th Amendment, it behooves us to remember how recent that extension of the franchise was—very much in the lifetime of people many of us knew—and how hard-fought the battle to secure it was. If we learned the history of the women's suffrage movement at all, the story focused on Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. My eighth-grade history teacher did introduce us to the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention (which he referred to as Bad Day at Black Rock—I was very fond of him and he was an excellent teacher, but that surely was an expression of misogyny!) and, knowing me, I had already read about Stanton and Anthony, as well as Lucretia Mott, in the biography series I had devoured in my elementary years. Already a budding feminist, they were definitely heroes of mine. While we might have read the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments, I do not remember learning then or in my high school US history course much about the long and arduous fight that didn't conclude until 72 years later. I didn't learn about women chaining themselves to the White House fence, or about the hunger strikes, or about the beatings the protesters endured. I didn't learn about the violence associated with the 8,000-strong 1913 Parade for Women's Suffrage that led to 100 of the marchers being hospitalized. I didn't learn that women had to fight significant opposition to wrest this democratic right from the country's political leadership.

If we learned about Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, we probably also learned that the women's rights movement grew out of the 19th-century abolitionist movement. Women played significant roles in the effort to abolish slavery in the US, and when they encountered barriers to speaking in public and other forms of activism, they realized that they needed to fight for their own rights as well. Until the end of the Civil War, the two movements could and did move forward together. However, once slavery ended, most white activists split between continuing to fight for rights for the Black community or to fight for women's rights. Black women, such as Sojourner Truth, the most famous among them, had played an important part in the fight for women's rights from the outset. They faced a dilemma when this dichotomy emerged, especially since most of them already understood the intersectionality of any rights movement. For them, you couldn't separate the fight for women's rights from the fight for civil rights for Black people. Some, like Mary Church Terrell, worked both through Black organizations such as the National Association of Colored Women and predominantly white organizations such as the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Terrell and colleagues like Ida B. Wells were well-known in their day and contributed in significant ways to the suffragist movement. However, when Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others wrote the lengthy History of Woman Suffrage—which served for decades as the definitive work on the subject for decades—they largely omitted their Black activist colleagues. 

Indeed, as the more recent histories of the women's rights movement are chronicling, racism reared its ugly head here as it does in so much of American history. Alice Paul, leading the next generation of women's suffragists, resisted including Black women in the 1913 parade because she was afraid delegations from the South would refuse to participate. Ultimately, she organized the parade so white women walked first, then men, then Black women. More grievous were the racist tactics some of the suffrage leaders employed. For example, in 1918, the leading suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt wrote to a North Carolina congressman trying to persuade him to support the 19th Amendment, saying:

[The] present condition in the South makes sovereigns of some negro men, while all white women are their subjects. These are sad but solemn truths. If you want white supremacy, why not have it constitutionally, honorably? The Federal Amendment offers the way.

By giving women the vote, the number of white voters will increase, and counterbalance the influence of Black men who gained the right to vote with the 15th Amendment after the Civil War—never mind that by 1918 Jim Crow laws denied most Blacks the right to vote anyway. In fact, while white women throughout the U.S. did secure the right to vote with the 19th Amendment, many other women, Blacks in the South, Native Americans, and Asian American women, to name some, would continue to struggle for that right, many not winning it until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Understanding the contributions of Black activists such as Ida B. Wells and Mary Church Terrell, as well as many other Black women, to the movement for women's suffrage along with the recognition that not all women actually could vote after August 1920, and the role that racism played in the fight for women's suffrage all create a more complete story than the one I learned. Every time we expand the franchise, and the 19th Amendment represents the largest expansion in the nation's history, we advance democracy. Without a doubt, the 19th Amendment stands out as a hugely important step—just not a simple, untarnished one. When we talk about telling a more complete story in our curriculum as part of our anti-racism work, this is exactly what we mean.

There has been more talk about voting in this presidential election than I can ever remember. It is important for all of us to treat our right to vote with the seriousness it deserves, and not to take it for granted. The centennial of the 19th Amendment gives us a reason to stop to consider how recent that extension of the franchise was; even more recent, of course, was the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, overturning the Jim Crow laws that had prevented so many of our Black citizens from voting. As Civil Rights leader and Congressman John Lewis said in his posthumously published New York Times op-ed, "The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it." Wise words from someone who, like the suffragists, had to fight to exercise his rights as a citizen. Let's every one of us remember how hard people have fought for that right, teach young people this history in all its complexity, and honor the sacrifices of voting rights activists by making our vote count. 

Thanksgiving prompts us to pause and consider all that we have to be grateful for. As many of you know, I try to practice gratitude throughout the year by keeping a gratitude journal. The pandemic has heightened the need to find positives in our lives. Expressing gratitude helps us do that.

In difficult situations, which a pandemic certainly qualifies as, you need to be able to depend on your team. I—and Holton—are so fortunate in the strength of our administrative team, for whom I have been grateful repeatedly, both as a group and individually. We have spent untold hours trying to make decisions where frequently there are no clear answers. They always put the students and the School first, acting with principle and integrity. Not surprisingly, I've also been grateful for our School Nurse. And our schedulers received my gratitude as they performed miracles scheduling our students into cohorts and multiple classrooms. I've also been grateful for our Trustees, again collectively and individually—particularly the Board leadership—for all their wisdom and support.

Last April, as we moved into distance learning, I was grateful when the first day went smoothly. I highlighted the opening assembly and particularly the recording of the Alma Mater the senior singers created—it moved me to tears more than once. I have continued to be grateful for our faculty and staff, who have had to change so many aspects of how they work. Our teachers have continued to adjust, adapt, and learn, devoting themselves to professional development over the summer and then rising to the challenge of hybrid learning. I am so grateful for their tireless dedication to their students and their teaching in the most challenging circumstances most of them have ever encountered. 

The pandemic has also demanded that we reimagine multiple events and even create some new ones—Reunion, Class Day, Graduation, Convocation, Back-to-School Nights, Admissions Open House, Parent-Teacher Conferences, and even the Thanksgiving Assembly to take place this Friday, not to mention last June's Senior Parade, a new event. Every one of those events has turned out remarkably well, a credit to numerous people's imagination, flexibility, and dedication, all of whom received my gratitude. The Senior Parade proved to be hugely fun and something worth repeating, even without a pandemic. Please know, too, how much not just I, but all of us, appreciate the supportive emails we receive from participants in these events. 

While the adults have been figuring out how to manage the pandemic, students have experienced significant disruptions in their schooling. From my perspective, however, positives came even from those changes. For example, last spring, in order to support students emotionally, we required that all Upper School Advisors connect weekly one-on-one with their advisees. As a result of changes to Upper School Advisory, I had a group of seniors whom I didn't know well (and who, frankly, weren't thrilled with the change). However, through our weekly meetings I had the pleasure of getting to know them in a way that wouldn't have happened otherwise. We have continued this practice this year, and I thoroughly enjoy meeting with this year's group of generous, warm, thoughtful seniors. Moreover, they have commented on how much they appreciate these meetings and one recommended that we continue one-on-one Advisor meetings even when we return to normal. That is certainly cause for gratitude. 

Another opportunity pandemic-school has offered is the opportunity to serve as a "caring adult" in a fifth-grade social studies class. Every Wednesday, I get to spend 45 minutes with an enthusiastic, impassioned, very bright group of 10- and 11-year-olds under the (virtual) tutelage of their outstanding teacher as they learn U.S. history. It is a highlight of my week and worthy of much gratitude. 

Some of the hardest part of the last nine months occurred this summer as the country responded to the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. As we all know, the demands for racial justice extended—rightly—to independent schools as our alumnae and students shared heartrending experiences of racism at the hands of schoolmates, teachers, and administrators. While the posts on Black@HAS were very hard to read—and made all of us feel terrible that our students had to endure such racism—I was grateful for the sharing. We must hear these stories, and we had not before, or not in a way that had the same impact. By telling these stories, these alumnae and students are making Holton a place that more fully lives up to its mission, and for that I am grateful. I've been thankful for the faculty's response to the Black@HAS instagram and their willingness to dig into anti-racism work. I've been grateful for the Black Alumnae Union, the Black alumnae group founded two years ago, who have provided wisdom, advice, and support for both their fellow alumnae and for their alma mater. I was also grateful to Representative Assembly (RA) and to the student Diversity Steering Committee for proposing the change in the Honor Code so that it now includes engaging in racist and oppressive language and behavior as an Honor Code violation, recognizing such actions as challenges to the integrity of the Holton community. I was also grateful to the BSU girls who met with Melissa Brown, Director of Diversity, Wellbeing, and Global Education, and me to share their thoughts and to discuss the School's response to calls for greater inclusivity and racial awareness. We have much work to do and we will be a stronger, better place for it.

Keeping a gratitude journal helps one appreciate things one might otherwise take for granted. My gratitude journal regularly reflects this sort of recognition: gratitude for our dogs, for the walks we took almost every evening (and that I miss greatly now that it gets dark so early); for the weather—when it's beautiful and also when it's not (I relished the tropical storm that tore through while we were in Easton in August); the stream that runs through campus, whether it's gurgling quietly or gushing over its banks during a rainstorm. We spent a couple of weeks in Easton in August and a weekend this fall in St. Michael's and, even if I was working most of the time, I appreciated the opportunity to be somewhere besides the Holton-Arms campus. I loved sitting on the dock and watching the great blue herons or paddleboarding around the quiet waterway. Going out in our boat afforded opportunities to actually relax, something for which I was incredibly grateful. The weekend in St. Michael's, we went gunkholing around the Wye River and saw a bald eagle, a singular sighting in my lifetime.

I was often grateful for food—for going to the farmers market or my husband's garden, for delicious dinners cooked at home, or the ease of take-out or leftovers. You can track the season's progression through my gratitude for fresh peas, strawberries and rhubarb, blueberries, peaches, local corn, tomatoes, and, more recently, lima beans and apples. I love to bake and made a birthday cake for myself that successfully replicated the ones my grandmother made me as a child (orange butter frosting is the key) and pies: lemon meringue, strawberry-rhubarb, blueberry, and apple. I made quite a lot of bread (yes, I was grateful to get yeast at the end of April) and found terrific recipes for corn muffins, blueberry muffins, and a fabulous blueberry cake. I was grateful to find, with some effort, lobsters for my husband's birthday in August and in October, we savored fresh swordfish caught by a colleague.

Just as people have been critically important at school, friends and family have sustained me. Zoom gatherings allowed for connection during quarantine, and then selective social interactions as we carefully emerged from our houses were definitely sources of gratitude. Our son lived with us until July, and I was so grateful to have his company at home and continue to treasure his visits. And of course my husband, who is an endless source of support whether making dinner, blowing up the tires on my bicycle (bicycle rides were another frequent source of gratitude), making sure we do fun things such as go out in the boat or get together with friends, or simply "cheering me up," as I recorded on October 7. 

We all need cheering up right now and I'm glad that I pause each night to take stock of the good in my life. It's a critical antidote to frustration and despair.