From the Upper School Director

January/February 2012
Close to a decade ago, when I was living and teaching at a boarding school in California, our maintenance crew discovered during a routine inspection that a group of students had constructed an entire living room—complete with sofa, coffee table, area rug and working lights—on the roof of our gym. Admittedly, I am something of a sucker for stories of witty and essentially harmless independent school hijinks; on its face, the story of these students sneaking out of their dorms to construct a paean to domestic tranquility falls squarely into that category.

October/November 2011

...if we can help students recognize and evaluate the master narrative of high school— that framework of sociocultural expectations that define what high school “should” look like—then we equip them with the critical tools and habits of mind to interact with our community and the world beyond on their terms, not someone else’s.

At 2:59 pm on Friday, May 13, the senior class gathered in the Northrop Lounge to begin a raucous countdown of the final seconds of their final day of classes at Blake. By turns joyous and tearful, celebratory and stunned, they linked arms with their friends and danced, sang, and cheered their way to a thunderous three o’clock.

February/March2011

As I observe and admire our students making their way through the academic steeplechase with which we by turns challenge and confound them, I turn often to my own high school experience as a barometer for understanding theirs. Although I remember any number of dark and daunting moments (most of them involving Calculus) I recall in particular one assignment. . . .