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

In the following article from the current issue of Saint David's Magazine, Art Curriculum Chair Jenna Boccella considers how boys' engagement and understanding are increased through the integration of art and academics. The headmaster’s theme of “Joyful Balance” resonates strongly throughout the art, woodworking, and ceramics studios at Saint David’s daily. At every grade level and in each visual arts class that boys attend at Saint David’s, there are opportunities to look, create, think critically, and express themselves through visual modes.  Our visual arts curriculum aims to balance mastery of skills, media, and techniques specific to each artistic discipline, while developing habits of mind that extend outside of the school’s walls and beyond graduation. Essential to preparing boys for meaningful, productive lives in the 21st century, they include creative problem solving, collaboration, critical thinking, and understanding and honoring multiple points of view.  In our st...

Imagine walking several miles to school each day as a second grader. Now imagine that when you arrive, school is conducted in an open field with dirt floors and perhaps one tree offering shade in the blistering sun. You are taught by a village elder. There are no facilities, no latrines. At the end of the day, you walk the more than 6 miles back home. This was the reality for children in Kalina, Tigray. When we learned of their need, Saint David's eighth graders in 2011 - the occasion of our school's 60th anniversary - made a commitment to helping children in Kalina by raising the funds to construct an elementary school. In celebrating our anniversary milestone, we wanted to do for others what others had done for us, by breathing life into two new programs. The first, Horizons at Saint David's (now in its 12th year) would serve children in need close to home; the other, would serve children far away. Both involve the education of children and serve the greater common good. ...

  If we care about the times we live in, we need to do more to model, embrace, and celebrate civility. Civility is dependent upon respectful disagreement, a celebration of civil discourse and debate, and an openness to entertaining a thought without necessarily accepting it. At Saint David's, one way we foster civility is through the Socratic seminar structure and focus in our Upper School History Program. Below, excerpted from the current issue of Saint David's Magazine is Assistant Upper School Head Dr. Evan Morse's article on the Socratic seminar experience in eighth grade: Grade Eight - Delving into Complex Questions The eighth-grade history program emphasizes the development of analytical thinking and engagement with primary sources. Socratic seminars combine these two skills; as a result, these seminars are a key component of the eighth-grade experience. For each seminar, the students are assigned a complex question to investigate… What were the causes of Savonarola’...