David O'Halloran, Headmaster - Saint David's School, New York City

How do you really know how someone else, with different upbringing and life experiences thinks and feels? How can empathy be cultivated? It is not easy. Respect lies in the heart of a good man, and empathy lies at the heart of respect. In order to cultivate a healthy understanding and appreciation for difference, we must learn to view the world through others' eyes, feel their experience, walk in their shoes. One of many ways that schools can help cultivate empathy is through inventive programming that enables students to see the world through different lenses, to become the "other." Our third graders have been stepping into the shoes of immigrants as they learn about immigration in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. They visit Ellis Island and the Tenement Museum, and work with our art history partners from the New-York Historical Society on a collage and letter writing project that explores immigrants' emotions and experiences. The unit culminat...

William Burke '10 returned to Saint David's this morning to speak to our fifth graders and their moms or special friends about the mother-son relationship. Will, a graduate of Regis and Georgetown who works as an Analyst at BlackRock, reminded our boys of the instrumental role their moms play in myriad aspects of their daily lives. Using the experience of boys who play hockey as an example, he observed, "Mom is always there, she's your gear sponsor, your Uber to the games, rooting you on during the game and waiting afterward with donuts and hot chocolate." Win or lose, a son's biggest fan is his mom. As he referenced our school's mission, Will remarked, " Ut viri boni sint  (that they be good men)  are beautiful words, but how do we learn to be a good man?" He noted that the boys can learn from teachers, coaches, and other students, while adding that they receive vital wisdom, support, and guidance from their mothers. "Behind e...

Dr. Derrick Gay , internationally recognized consultant on issues of global citizenship, diversity and inclusion, ran several workshops for our community this week. Tuesday, he met with our boys in Grades Three through Eight for sessions focused on the cultivation of empathy, which built on previous equity and inclusion work in Sophrosyne classes . Discussions drew from the boys' exploration of intent and impact, and how personal identity can affect the impact of words. The boys applied this framework as they considered: What is the difference between intent vs. impact? Is one more important than the other? How can we recognize and stop harmful and unkind jokes?  Dr. Gay also spoke with our parent community and faculty/staff, presenting the latest research highlighting educator, parent, and caregiver perceptions regarding the degree to which young children are aware of differences - ranging from gender and socioeconomics to family configuration and race - relative to w...

Yesterday, in celebration of Saint David's Founders' Day, I told in chapel the story of the school’s founding--February 5, 1951--by ten audacious families. I then shared with the boys our school’s 60 th  Anniversary Founders' Day initiatives: to do for others what our founders did for us. Nine years into these initiatives,  Horizons at Saint David’s  and the Ethiopia Project have matured and blossomed. The school in Kalina, Ethiopia, opened in 2014. Ranging from pre-primary to Grade 8, it now has approximately 430 elementary age boys and girls, close to the size of Saint David's. This coming Monday, I’ll be flying our Student Council President, Finn H., along with his father, to Ethiopia. Finn will represent the boys of Saint David’s and will officially open our second school, in Ala'sa. While there, we will also visit Saint David’s Kalina School. Both Ala'sa and Kalina are small rural communities in the northern province of Tigray. The following is an ...

Why spend a year reading the entire set of Harvard Classics? Alumnus, acclaimed author and editor of Harper's Magazine   Christopher Beha '94 did just that. Last night, he spoke to our seventh graders and their fathers and special guests about his memoir, The Whole Five Feet,  which chronicles Chris's reading journey through the Harvard Classics--51 titles of great works that are said to fill a five-foot shelf. After learning that his grandmother had read the entire collection, Chris was inspired to follow suit, seeking the insights, revelations and life lessons the works might provide. The books, from great minds like Plato, Aristotle, Cervantes and Thoreau, provide the reader with the foundation of a classical liberal arts education. "Classics force you to meet them on their own terms," he told our boys and their dads. "You need to approach classic works with an open mind by trying to understand them, not based on whether or not you agree wit...

DNA can solve past mysteries and provide groundbreaking solutions for the future. Our fifth graders are diving into this exciting area of science through Saint David's longstanding partnership with the DNA Learning Center at Cold Spring Harbor.  This winter, the boys are learning from DNALC educators and scientists who co-teach the DNA unit over several weeks with our science teachers. In hands-on labs, the boys delve into the structure and function of DNA and learn how random mutation and natural selection lead to species' evolution. Last week, the class spent a day at the DNALC Laboratory in Cold Spring Harbor where they observed slides under a microscope to investigate how pollen found in food samples from Europe's oldest mummified 'iceman' are able to clue us into his movements in the days before he died in the Italian Alps. They also observed Dresophila fly specimens under a dissection scope to see how genetic mutations in DNA result in a variety of phy...