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The Wisdom Within - Building the Expert Learner

In the following Wisdom Within post, Visiting TBI Scholar Dr. Ric Campbell explores how three Saint David's teachers engaged in research and evolved their teaching practice in order to build expert learners - those who are strategic, self-regulated, and reflective: It’s not what we learn but how we learn it that matters most. Most of us do not remember the majority of facts we learned during years of schooling; the knowledge we needed to pass exams or demonstrate our skills each year. This is not a flaw in the educational process; there’s too much to remember. What should stay with us are ways of thinking and feeling that put us on an upward path of continuous learning. If schooling has served us well, we have learned how to learn, how to be “expert learners,” who are “strategic, self-regulated, and reflective.”[1]  We certainly value what students remember from their engagement with the many subjects that constitute the comprehensive curriculum at Saint David’s, but we also know ...
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Inspiring Our Faculty Inspires Our Boys

Classrooms alive with teaching and learning grounded in evidence-backed strategies on how boys best learn and how best to teach them. Professional development workshops abuzz as fellow faculty collaborate with peers in reflective inquiry. Effective strategies implemented in classrooms with real-time benefits for our boys, who are more engaged, more tuned in, and more confident.  This is the Teaching Boys Initiative at Saint David’s School: a commitment to employing best practices in all-boys education as aligned with our school's mission and values.  This alignment has proven fruitful: in the five years since we've launched TBI, we have witnessed a significant increase in faculty participation in professional development: more than 75 percent of our faculty have volunteered for or participated in a TBI program. This past year alone, more than 87 faculty research grants were awarded. And, 40 teachers availed themselves of our summer programming last summer.  We've always h...
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Shaping Ethical Leaders

The following article Excel - Shaping Ethical Leaders  by Ali Aoyama, Assistant Headmaster/Head of Upper School, appears in the current issue of Saint David's Magazine. There comes a moment—perhaps you have witnessed it yourself—when a boy, without prompting, holds the door open for someone who is struggling, sits beside a classmate playing alone, or quietly speaks up when something is unfair, even when staying silent would have been easier. These moments don’t happen by accident. They are the product of years of intentional formation. Ethical leadership is not a trait you are born with. It is a practice, built through daily choices, meaningful relationships, and a school culture that consistently asks boys to consider not just what is best for themselves, but what is right for everyone around them.  Learning to Lead by Learning to Follow One of our most distinctive features at Saint David’s is the way we structure relationships across age groups. Throughout our program, conse...
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"Tradition"

It is a beautiful late summer day brimming with the anticipation, excitement, and joy that each "first day" brings. As we begin the second half of our 75th anniversary celebration, and Saint David's 76th school year,  I'd like to share excerpts from my opening letter in which I explore this year's school-wide theme:"tradition."  People often ask, why do Saint David’s boys still read Homer and Shakespeare? Why do boys spend so much time with Michelangelo, Raphael, and Artemisia Gentileschi; with Bach and Mozart; Einstein and Archimedes; with the history of ideas? Why are they required to study Latin? Why do we still teach handwriting? Why do we insist every boy play sports every day, whether or not he becomes a varsity athlete? And that every boy experience vocal, drama, strings, percussion, and bells, regardless of whether he joins a performing ensemble? Why do we ask boys to serve the greater common good, every year of their education? Why, in this secu...
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"To Step Out, To Lead"

As the capstone to their spring semester, our eighth graders take on the Αρχω (ARCO) competition—named for the Greek word meaning “to begin something from something, to step out, to lead.” It’s a fitting title for a challenge that asks each boy to look back at what he’s learned and use it to create something entirely new, entirely his own.   The interdisciplinary experience blends scholarship with history, art, analysis, and rhetoric. First, each boy studies a work of art by a modern artist of his choice, writes a brief biography of the artist and a reflection on the process he used to create his original homage, and shares the meaning or message that his work seeks to portray. Often these reflect where the boys are in their lives at this time, grateful for their years spent with classmates and teachers, excited - perhaps a bit nervous - to be on the brink of something new. In the final stage of the project, boys present their work and rationale to a panel of judges made up of prof...
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Tackling Complex Ethical Questions in Debates

Each spring, our eighth graders eagerly take to the stage in pairs to engage in structured competitive debates about pressing public health issues that raise complex ethical questions. Consider a few from this year: Performance enhancing drugs should be allowed in American professional sports leagues. The U.S.  should invest in new nuclear energy facilities for the sake of public health.  Social media companies should ban the use of their products by children younger than 16 years of age to preserve their mental health.  The actual debate comes at the end of a learning process that begins with the boys framing questions, picking sides, doing research on a timely and relevant public health issue, and practicing various debating strategies. As they research, argue, and reflect on complicated public health issues, they learn to think critically, speak persuasively, and grapple respectfully and thoughtfully with opposing viewpoints. In their opening statements, arguments, reb...
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15 Years of Horizons at Saint David’s

“Volunteering with second graders in the Horizons program has been one of the best experiences of my life.“  — Garrett R., Saint David’s Class of ’23.  “Horizons is a community where you are encouraged to be curious, where everyone can develop their confidence.”  — Mohammad O., Horizons Class of ’21 Garrett, a rising senior at Westminster School, and Mohammad, who is pursuing a Doctor of Pharmacy degree at Arnold and Marie Schwartz College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, recently addressed attendees at the 15th anniversary spring celebration of Horizons at Saint David’s. The celebration honored our Founders Circle of 25 families, individuals, and foundations whose generosity and commitment have been instrumental to the launch and continued success of this program.  Fifteen years ago, during our 60th anniversary, we had asked ourselves what Saint David’s School could do institutionally to serve the greater good beyond our internal community. This was the impetus for ...
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