by Tricia Cammerzell, Assistant Head of School for Advancement
Is it worth it? Parents with children in independent schools likely ask themselves this question each year around re-enrollment time. Is the money they are spending on tuition worth the lifestyle choices they may have to make? Two recent articles point to a resounding YES.
In a recent edition of The Atlantic, the article “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books”, describes a Columbia University Literature professor Nicholas Dames who often assigns books that are to be read in a one or two week time period. An overwhelmed student came to him and said “she had never been required to read an entire book. She had been assigned excerpts, poetry, and news articles, but not a single book cover to cover.” The anecdote helped explain the change he was seeing in his students: It’s not that they don’t want to do the reading. It’s that they don’t know how. Middle and high schools have stopped asking them to.”
At Kent School, we can be proud of the novels our students read starting as early as Third Grade and continuing through Middle School. The recent transition to teaching Humanities in Middle School requires our students to think critically to relate historic facts with historic literature. The updated reading list is impressive and inspiring. It includes excerpts, poems, essays and yes, full novels. As an example, Eighth Grade Humanities students are reading a compilation of poetry by Edgar Allen Poe while reading George Orwell’s Animal Farm at the same time. They will also read the following in full: I am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World, Twelve Angry Men, The Diary of Anne Frank and Great Expectations. In addition to the poems, short stories and excerpts, our Seventh Grade students will read A Raisin in the Sun, A Place to Belong, The Westing Game and The Outsiders.
Because they read books, our students will graduate from Kent School more prepared for success than high achieving high school graduates with top grades and SAT scores who are accepted at elite colleges and universities. So, is it worth it? It is!
A second, more local story involves our neighbor, Washington College. The College just announced that they were changing their logo which featured the script signature of George Washington for whom the College is named. The rationale behind the change is “Because cursive writing is no longer taught universally in K-12 education, the script—especially this highly stylized version—was difficult to read and not immediately recognizable for many prospective students.”
Once again, at Kent School we did not follow the ‘universal’ trend to eliminate cursive. We teach cursive beginning in Second Grade and encourage students to continue using it even when keyboarding becomes a primary writing tool. Why? We teach cursive so students can read primary source materials like The United States Constitution and The Declaration of Independence among other historic artifacts. We believe it is important that our students be able to read these documents in their original form because it is part of the historical experience. The script is an artifact in itself.
We are proud of the rigorous academic program we offer in this joyful environment. We are proud that our students are engaged in their learning and enjoy a deeper dive. When students aspire to meet higher expectations, they are becoming scholars.
Is it worth it? Yes, it is worth it.
