Dear Lower School Parents,
The mission of Holton Arms, as envisioned by its founder Jessie Moon Holton over a century ago, is to provide girls with “education not only of the mind, but of the soul and spirit.” This mission compels Holton teachers to consider children holistically, as they cultivate both the intellectual and emotional growth of their students. The use of the word “spirit” in the mission sounds somewhat redundant to modern ears, but as I understand it, this use of “spirit” refers to will, energy, resilience, resourcefulness, and hope. For this reason, “spirit” is the foundation upon which the Holton motto to “find a way or make one” rests. Returning to the intentions of Jessie Moon Holton, the mission reminds us that we must cultivate the minds of these young women (a radical aspiration in 1901), and we must cultivate their souls (a less radical but, nonetheless, important aspiration), but that we must also cultivate their self-belief-- their “spirit,” so that their minds and souls may be used for purposeful and practical actions.
I was reminded recently of the distinct advantage all-girls schools have to cultivate this “spirit” in their students. I asked the eight girls in my sixth grade advisory to come up with three positive adjectives to describe themselves. At first the girls struggled, reporting that they were reluctant to sound boastful or conceited. Then I asked them to imagine what boys might say if we asked them the same question, at which point they had no problem listing the kinds of superlative adjectives they are very used to hearing from boys: “best,” “fastest,” “strongest,” “smartest,” to name a few. Afterwards, I was struck deeply by the differences between their own responses and the responses they imagined boys might give, and in their own hesitation to speak well of themselves, I saw the internalized tendency of women to underestimate their abilities, a form of self-bias that puts women at a distinct disadvantage in a world filled with men who over-estimate their own abilities so consistently.
I was given an opportunity to share my observations with the entire sixth grade, and we had a profoundly thoughtful conversation, led by the girls, about the myriad ways in which society teaches girls that they “can’t” do something, and how they can replace this “can’t” with “can.” Even at their tender age of around eleven, these girls already feel acutely the ways in which they are underestimated in society. Stories abounded of teachers from previous schools passing girls over to favor boys, of boys consistently refusing to see girls as equally able, and of feelings of unkind judgment from girls who feel threatened when one of their own chooses to follow her own path.
Ultimately, however, these anecdotes were not the most important truth in the room during this conversation among the entire grade. As they talked, a deeper, more profound truth emerged, a truth that spoke to their power as a community of like-minded girls who are given an opportunity to confound and prove absurd the biases of society. This truth emerged in the righteous indignation with which they recounted their personal stories, and in their shared conviction to transcend these obstacles. In short, this deeper truth emerged in the “spirit” with which they committed themselves to a better, more equitable, and more honest world. Mrs. Holton would be very proud.
Patrick Bane Lower School Director