The following article by our School Psychologist, Dr. Michael Schwartzman, appears in the current issue of Saint David's Magazine:
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As the School Psychologist, I spend a lot of time thinking about the touch points for student and teacher and how school experiences impact the social and emotional development and psychological well-being of our boys. As much as Saint David’s is a rigorous training ground for academic subjects, it remains deeply committed to the task of developing good men. The essential ingredients of being a good man are drawn from the values handed down to us by the Catholic founders of Saint David’s School. Though translated into today’s language and applied to today’s issues, the “code” from which our approach is taken entails how we should treat each other. By learning and being trained in its consistent transparent application, our boys learn how to handle themselves in interpersonal situations where emotions can overwhelm judgment and behavior often falls short of expectations.
The social-emotional lives of the students are sensitively monitored by our teachers, administrators, and staff so that all boys are guided through their individual and group experiences. Our school maintains a demanding but consistent code of behavior, through which each student is guided and taught. These standards are supported by discussions in Sophrosyne (our character and well-being program), advisory, and frequent conversations between teachers and students. It has always impressed me that when you ask a Saint David’s boy to account for himself, he immediately takes responsibility for his actions. Having worked closely with boys for many years, I know that this is not generally the case with boys.
Yet, when applied consistently and reinforced quickly, as it is at Saint David’s, it can become a very operable capacity and an extremely valuable ability. We understand this capacity as one that incorporates self-recognition, self-understanding, self-reflection, empathy, kindness, and many other values that are emphasized at Saint David’s. As expectations change with age and grade, each boy is held accountable and asked to speak up for himself and others when behavior is not in keeping with the standards held by our school.
Saint David’s offers a religious component, but each student takes this aspect of school life in his own personal way. The boys learn from respectful observance or active participation, depending on their particular family’s religious practice and emphases. What is important to the school is that each student takes in the ethical values that Saint David’s promotes and learns to faithfully apply them to relational experiences.
As a young Jewish boy, I attended a faith-based school, the Ethical Culture School, from kindergarten through 12th grade. I took ethics class weekly in which we were taught how to think and talk about values and morals as we reflected on the world around us. Just as Saint David’s relies on Catholic traditions, Ethical Culture was rooted in a similar emphasis on ethical relationships among people and I found these teachings reinforced those of my own faith. Both schools hold to a foundation of faith that each student is encouraged to be guided by. This faithfulness to a core set of moral principles such as kindness, love of truth, honesty, empathy, and humility, among others, becomes a guidepost and a support for decision-making, an internalized behavioral authority on the developmental road to becoming a good man.
Although Saint David’s educational philosophy is guided by a faith tradition, it is not exclusionary or in conflict with the religions of non-Catholic students, or with the life philosophy of students whose families are agnostic or atheist. Our boys adhere to the social-emotional principles of Saint David’s because they are of immense value, providing them with the foundation necessary to lead ethical and successful lives. What is important to the school is for each student to learn from his experiences at Saint David’s those teachings and perspectives that reinforce useable practical habits, giving men the best chance to live well and peacefully with each other.
As a faculty mindful that our community includes our parents, we are very conscious of ensuring that we share our observations of your sons with you so that there can be consistency across school and home boundaries. Teachers are always open to and interested in discussing how a student is living up to expectations. We believe strongly that students learn from their mistakes. Interpretations of behavior can differ, so advocacy and self-advocacy are central tenets in our system.
By consistently relying on reflection and acknowledging one’s own behavior, a faith in our shared values can develop. Encouraging this experience as our boys grow and develop, equips them for the world of Saint David’s and for the world beyond our school doors. It is this experienced progression of social and emotional awareness, grounded in day-to-day faith-based lessons, that brings with it an awareness of self and other. It enables a capacity for putting one’s self behind the other and the individual behind the group when appropriate. This insight and ability strengthens Saint David’s boys and becomes a foundational piece in a boy’s experience of his own psychological well-being.
As a psychologist, I know that boys will develop these life skills and ways of understanding their own interactions with others at different rates and in different forms. My role is to help understand what is occurring with a particular student, cohort or grade during this growth. I participate in the creation and cultivation of exercises from which the boys can learn difficult and, sometimes, subtle lessons.
Struggles are respected; we long ago recognized that often more can be learned from mistakes or missteps than through successes. The aim is to improve. Education is of the whole boy. We also realize that succeeding or winning means knowing what you did to accomplish your achievement, recognizing the impact this had on those around you, and reflecting on the experience so that you can actively contribute to your next effort, whether it be academic or social. We extend much effort to bring each boy through his greatest difficulties to the recognition of how he can be his best and most capable self. The extent to which we, as teachers all, can help him achieve this, is our best guarantee of his social, emotional, and psychological well-being.
During my recent observations, I have been most struck by how our boys come together in support of each other. Whether by calling someone out, self-disclosure, or standing up for someone, our boys join each other and their teachers in a continual process of learning to adjust themselves in the ways they interact with peers and understand themselves.
We have come a great distance, both together as a school and as a familial community. We have weathered many challenges since I first observed those little boys, encouraged by their teacher, talk through their disagreements and shake hands. In keeping with our mission to educate boys to become good men, we use the school experience to instill in each boy a way of staying true to a faith he has developed in the proper ways to conduct himself and in the lessons he has learned of how to treat others. As rigorous and demanding as this part of Saint David’s School can be, it is met with the burgeoning sense of accomplishment and well-being our boys experience as they master the demands of the virtues and values of Saint David’s.
Truly a “joyful balance.”