“The problem is that over the past 40 years or so we have gone from a culture that reminds people of their own limitations to a culture that encourages people to think highly of themselves.”

While I usually write about topics related to Charles Wright or education in general, from time to time I come across something that I feel is compelling that is only tangentially related to the school or to education.  A recent column by David Brooks in the New York Times is one of those compelling “finds.” While obviously motivated by the recent shootings in Tucson (and thus there is more than a bit of politics in Brooks’ column), what I found compelling about what Brooks wrote is that in the end, he was writing about the human condition, and what it takes to function effectively for a society made up of citizens whose viewpoints can differ sharply.

Of course, there is relevance to this topic to matters at CWA.  For the most part (in fact, almost always), our mini-society maintains the ability for those with differing points of view to live and work together in a civil manner.  The exceptions are few and far enough between that they are startling–and always discouraging–when they occur.

What is NOT foreign to CWA, unfortunately, is that the shift in American society that is captured in the opening quote from Brooks’ column is a part of a shift in our school culture as well over that same 40 years, though I’d like to think it hasn’t progressed as much here.

Where I see a shift more profoundly is in the number of families who, when asked what they want for their children, respond with some variant of “What we want is for our children to be happy.”  What we have lost sight of is that one of the “inalienable rights” we enjoy is “the pursuit of happiness,” not happiness itself.

The article goes on to speculate that the correlation is really between teens who engage in risky behavior and teens whose social networking life is largely unmonitored by parents.  This supports something we know well:  adolescents whose parents are deeply involved in their lives thrive better in many arenas, and avoiding destructive behavior is just one of them.

Of course, parents can take “deep involvement” too far.  ”Deep involvement” is not helpful when it leads to children not being able to experience the growth that comes from recognizing that one can survive disappointment and hurt.  When well-meaning parents try too hard to prevent their children from suffering disappointment and hurt (which are inevitable parts of the human condition), they inadvertently stand in the way of the growth they and all the other adults around the children want to see.

For “involvement,” as with anything else, moderation is a virtue.  And, keep an eye on the social networking habits of your child!

We seem all the more determined yet befuddled when it comes to the safety of our children. For instance, the five things most likely to cause injury to children up to age 18, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are: car accidents, homicide (usually at the hands of someone they know), child abuse, suicide or drowning. And what are the five things that parents are most worried about (according to surveys by the Mayo Clinic)? Kidnapping, school snipers, terrorists, dangerous strangers and drugs.

We all fall prey to this to some degree. With my head I know full well that I am far safer flying in a commercial airliner than when I drive to work each day. Yet although I never give a moment’s thought to the danger of the daily commute, I do find my heart occasionally a-flutter when there’s turbulence upon takeoff or landing. I know it makes no sense, but there it is.

The consequences of this all-too-human tendency to poorly estimate risk is that we worry too much about the wrong things and not enough about the right ones. Ironically, this leaves us at a greater actual risk while we fool ourselves into thinking we are keeping our loved ones safer.

The Times article continues:

“The least safe thing you can do with your child, statistically, is drive them somewhere,” said Lenore Skenazy, author of “Free-Range Kids,” a manifesto preaching a return to the day when children were allowed to roam on their own. “Yet every time we put them in the car we don’t think, ‘Oh God, maybe I should take public transportation instead, because if something happened to my kid on the way to the orthodontist I could never forgive myself.’ ”

So we put them in that car and we drive — to the orthodontist, to school, to their friend’s house two blocks away — because “if I let them walk and they were abducted I would never forgive myself.” This despite the fact that the British writer Warwick Cairns, author of “How to Live Dangerously,” has calculated that if you wanted to guarantee that your child would be snatched off the street, he or she would have to stand outside alone for 750,000 hours. And while we are busy inflating some risks, we tend not to focus on others — like the obesity and diabetes that result when children are driven someplace when they could walk, or when they play video games inside instead of playing in the park.

Perversely, our worry seems to be increasing at a time when actual risk is decreasing. “Homicide is down, kidnapping is down, traffic deaths are down,” Ms. Barnes said.

We can’t change human nature, but perhaps a greater awareness of how that “human nature” works can lead us to do a better job of managing actual risk while letting go some of our less rational worries.

This week is Experiential Ed Week in the Upper School. Sophomores are off on their outdoor education experience, either hiking or kayaking/canoeing. Seniors are off visiting colleges and/or beginning work on their college applications. Juniors are getting a head start on their Junior English Research Project by working on research skills, and Freshmen are engaging in a variety of activities on campus all under the “wellness” umbrella. The week gives all of our high school students the chance to have educational experiences we deem important that do not fit into the traditional course-based classroom curriculum at CWA.

Of course, this week is but a small part of the Experiential Ed curriculum at Charles Wright. From the earliest grades, CWA students leave the classroom to learn in the world around them. Sometimes that keeps students very close to home, as  various science classes at all levels use the natural laboratory found in the green spaces around campus to augment what they learn in class. Other times students range across the globe, such as when the fifth grade goes to Colonial Williamsburg and Washington DC in the spring, or when Upper School students have homestay language experiences in Latin America, France, or Japan. And experiences such as the exchange program in Poland, which takes a group of freshmen and sophomores to Swidnik in eastern Poland to experience a homestay and a cultural exchange program with students from throughout Europe, along with a visit to Auschwitz, are simply not available to students at other schools in the South Sound.

Why do we believe so strongly that students should have experiences that take them outside of the classroom? We have many reasons. There is a profound difference in impact when a student is shown rather than told something. The opportunity to experience something personally is deeper and richer than learning about the same topic in a book or from a teacher. Also, experiences outside the classroom are part of our “hidden curriculum” (“hidden” in that it doesn’t appear in a course catalog anywhere, although we talk about it constantly) of developing students’ self-reliance and resilience. Teachers often report that students return from some of these experiences visibly more confident in their own competence as independent human beings.

While schools such as CWA are typically (and accurately!) described as being “college prep” schools, the outside world often sees the term “college prep” as referring solely to the rigorous academic program students pursue in every grade from Beginning School through 12th. But preparing for college and for life is so much more. It includes being ready to take advantage of the opportunities that college life and life beyond give, as well as being prepared to handle the inevitable setbacks that are part of the human experience.

My reply to the first grade student this morning was a simple “I’m sure you’ll have a great time!”; but the thought that went through my head was “You’ll have a great day today, but you have no idea of all the wonderful and enriching experiences you’ll have over the next 12 years.”

(Unless the WSJ changes the link, the article can be found here)

Given the shortage of the vaccine and the constantly changing guidelines provided by the Health Department, it really was miraculous that we were able to pull off our two vaccination clinics as smoothly as we did. Many at CWA worked very hard to make this possible, and the fact that we were “out of the gate” early in our relationship with the Health Department helped a great deal.

One of the challenges that we had not anticipated, but in retrospect makes a great deal of sense, was working with families as they decided whether or not to vaccinate their children, and if they did, whether to specify one form of the vaccine or another. We live in a time of “too much information,” where it is very easy to obtain far more information than we possibly can sort through rationally. And some of the “information” out there clearly was contradictory.

I think the essence of the challenge for families was this:

• The H1N1 virus causes mild to moderate disease in most, but causes serious illness, and even death, in some people
• All vaccinations carry some small degree of risk; someone, somewhere, will undoubtedly have a serious reaction to a vaccine, even one that is generally regarded as safe

As parents, our first obligation is to try to safeguard our children’s safety. If we decided not to vaccinate, and our children came down with a serious case of the illness and passed away, we would never forgive ourselves. If we vaccinated our children, and they had a serious reaction, we would never forgive ourselves. In either case, we would find having made the wrong choice devastating.

What to do? In the modern era, “what to do” means talking with others, but above all, it means going to the Internet to seek as much information as we can. The problem is that there is absolutely too much information out there. Some of the information is flat out wrong. Other information is spot on. Unless we have some expertise ourselves, it is virtually impossible for us to make an independent judgment about whether what we read on the web is correct or not. That leads to a great deal of uncertainty, anxiety, and often, to paralysis as well.

Our parent community reacted in about as many ways as one could imagine. Most parents gave the matter a little thought and accepted the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and/or the Pierce County Health Department and signed their children up immediately. Others hesitated, but signed them up eventually. Still others insisted on one form or another (either nasal spray or injection), concluding that there were unacceptable risks in one (or the other) of these methods of immunization. There were also those who just didn’t want their children to be immunized at all, and a few who were concerned that even being present during the administration of the nasal spray vaccine posed unacceptable risks to their children (and kept their children home that day).

A few years back, I came to the conclusion that in a technical area, such as medicine, that requires expertise beyond what I possess, searching the Internet provides little by way of enlightenment and a great deal of anxiety and confusion. I decided that I needed to listen to the advice of my own physician, something I would have done without thinking in the pre-Internet era. I still think that’s the best option today.

Offering vaccination clinics that allowed the overwhelming majority of CWA students to be immunized was a service we were happy to provide. It did not, alas, prevent the school from experiencing a high level of absenteeism over about a two-week period as the disease briefly swept through our halls. While at this writing, the incidence of disease caused by H1N1 seems to have subsided somewhat throughout the country, the flu season is yet young, and I feel very fortunate that so many members of our community have been afforded some level of protection.

We decided that rather than rely on the media for information about the H1N1 virus, we called the Tacoma Pierce County Health Department. As a good luck would have it, the Health Department was about to hold a regional information session on the subject, primarily for area universities and larger school districts, and we were invited to attend; we were the only small school in attendance. That began a close working relationship between the Health Department and CWA. As a result of that relationship, we were able to get reliable information quickly and easily, and that, in turn, permitted us to arrange for a vaccination clinic much earlier than other schools in the area.

One of the more challenging aspects of dealing with the issues surrounding the H1N1 virus is that the information is constantly changing. While that’s understandable, because this particular disease has not appeared before in its present form, it is frustrating for everyone. Last spring, information literally would change from morning to afternoon, or overnight. I remember well one occasion when we worked very hard all day putting an information piece together for parents, expecting it to go out the next morning. By early the next morning, some of the information was already obsolete, and we had to work to change it before sending it on to parents. There was about a two-week period last spring when it felt that quite a few of us were spending virtually all of our time trying to keep up with the information flow and deciding how the school would respond in various different circumstances.

Fortunately, the disease hit late in our flu season, and within a few short weeks, the incidence of disease seemed to decrease markedly. That gave us from late spring through the summer to learn more and to lay plans for various contingencies during the 2009-10 school year. One of the things all of us learned during that time was that the early information about the severity of the disease was incorrect. By the time the fall came around, it was clear that for most people, the severity of the disease was no greater than the seasonal flu. One disturbing aspect remained: whereas the seasonal flu seemed to have the most severe impact on the very young and very old, the H1N1 virus had the tendency to impact more seriously school-age children and pregnant women.

In the late summer it became clear that there would be a nationwide vaccination program and that the program would focus first on the higher-risk parts of the population. The Health Department asked us, along with other schools, to consider offering a vaccination clinic at CWA, so  that we could benefit both our school community and the public at large. By getting “out of the gate” early, we secured a place at the head of the line for the private company we chose, based on information we obtained from the Health Department.

Due to problems with the production schedule, the availability of the H1N1 vaccination was far more restricted than anyone originally thought. That shortage made our decision to inquire early about a clinic that much more important. Other schools as well as many health providers simply were unable to get the vaccine. And, by holding a clinic early, we were able to vaccinate a large portion of our population before the continuing vaccine shortages led the Health Department on November 7 to restrict access to the vaccine to particularly high risk people, which for the first time did not include school-age children.

The logistics necessary for the school to pull off its first-ever vaccination clinic were considerable. None of us have medical training. Not surprisingly, parents had many questions, and being out of our area of expertise it was difficult to figure out how to walk the fine line between trying to be responsive and not going beyond our knowledge, potentially leading to our providing inaccurate or misleading medical information. We also were not entirely in control of the process and the requirements. The consent form was not our design, nor were we in a position to decide for ourselves that ending completely filled out form was really okay and should not stand in the way of a child being vaccinated.

Despite the various challenges, the vaccination clinic went quite smoothly, and I am both gratified by the overwhelming positive response of parents and students as well as proud of the staff involved for working the planning an execution of the clinic into their busy schedules.

The weeks leading up to the vaccination clinic were both interesting and challenging for another reason as well, which I will address in the next installment of this two-part post.

It surprises many tuition-paying parents to learn that private educational institutions consistently charge less than the full cost of educating a student. On the face of it, this doesn’t seem to be very smart. This leaves the actual cost of each student’s education to be made up partly by income from endowments (although relatively young schools like CWA have only modest endowment funds) and partly by contributions to healthy voluntary giving programs — usually called the “Annual Fund.”

Why do schools operate this way? Why don’t we just charge what the education costs? There are several reasons, led by the reality that the financial resources of the families whose children attend a given school varies widely. To charge even higher tuition amounts that would cover the full educational cost would negatively affect a school’s diversity and vitality. In addition, by making up the difference between tuition and actual costs with a voluntary donation, there is the financial benefit of the donation — and thus a part of your children’s true educational costs — being tax deductible.

So the Annual Fund has always been essential, even in the best of economic times — which these are not. A strong annual fund has never been more critical at our school. A robust level of Annual Fund giving will lessen the negative impact of the current economic situation on the life of the school and everyone in it; a weak Annual Fund will exacerbate the pressures on school programs.

The economic crisis in which our country is embroiled has certainly affected CWA families, just as it has affected our school. Enrollment fell from last year to this, decreasing by 35 students. And the school is in our second year of belt-tightening in order to make ends meet. As their contribution to this effort, employees received no salary increases whatsoever between last year and this year. Program expenses have been cut in most areas of the school, although we have strived mightily to do this in a way that minimizes the direct impact on the quality of education your children experience. At some point, further cutbacks cannot help but impact what we are able to do with and for our students.

This is my 14th year at Charles Wright, but it is the first year that I have assumed so direct a role in the Annual Fund. CWA has, in the past, followed the typical pattern among independent private schools and left the Headmaster out of this part of fundraising, primarily so that parents never need to wonder whether their children’s education is influenced by the Headmaster’s knowledge of the extent of their financial contributions.

But in this extraordinary year, I am asking families to strongly consider supporting our CWA Annual Fund. Naturally, the record of each family’s contribution level is kept confidentially by the school’s Development Office; I will at no time be accessing this information. But I feel it’s important to add my voice to those calling for your support.

Several years ago the CWA Parent Association adopted the motto Together We Make Such a Difference. That phrase speaks clearly to the partnership that families together with Charles Wright create to build a “team” around each student, helping them grow in mind, body and spirit — to reach their full potential during their time here. When the formal solicitation comes — even though your first reaction may be the same as mine was! — please consider supporting the 2009-10 Annual Fund as generously as you can.

And yes, the end of the story with which I opened this post is that I got out our still-warm checkbook once again and wrote a check in support of the annual fund at my daughter’s college. It’s now been five years since her graduation, and I consider both the tuition and Annual Fund checks among the most important investments I’ve ever made.

It’s obvious from the expressions on the faces of the students of all ages that they are happy to be back on campus, to catch up with friends they haven’t seen in a while and to continue their education in their new grade.  For those transitioning from one division to another, there is inevitably a bit of apprehension as students wonder what it will be like in their new CWA home.  It rarely takes more than a few weeks before everyone settles in to their new routine.

This year we were proud and honored to open the new Language and Performing Arts Center, providing a real “home” for the Performing Arts and adding eight much-needed classrooms to the Upper School.  It will be wonderful to see the positive impact of this new facility on the life of the Upper School!

We’re off and running again!  It’s great to see everyone back.