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

In February 2020, our Student Council President at the time, Finn Hayden '20, his father, Kevin, and I traveled to Tigray, Ethiopia, to officially open the second elementary school that the local community built through the support and fundraising of Saint David's boys in partnership with Save the Children. The elementary school is located in Ala'sa. While in Tigray, we also visited the Saint David's Kalina School, the first school we had opened in Tigray for a Muslim village community, in 2014.   Sadly, our trip occurred on the cusp of both the Covid-19 pandemic and the violent internal conflict that has embroiled Ethiopia. Upon a recent check-in, we have learned that both schools are currently closed to children. Ala'sa has been badly shelled during the conflict and Kalina is being used as a hospital and shelter for some of the villagers displaced by the fighting.   Yesterday, Aaron Fossi, our Save the Children liaison, addressed seventh and eighth graders during ...

This semester, one highly visible way that the scholarly and creative intersect at Saint David's is through our longstanding Lower School partnership with the New-York Historical Society. In Grades One, Two and Three, an art historian from N-YHS visits weekly with the boys for hands-on classes she co-teaches with Saint David's teachers. These sessions dig into historical facts and issues through creative art projects, often utilizing art mediums representative of the time period under study. First graders are learning about how their city has evolved in the thousands of years since the Lenni-Lenape Native Americans inhabited the land. Their understanding will be made visible in their creations of Manhattan maps that track this evolution, and ultimately will include an architectural 3D component to accommodate the addition of current-day skyscrapers. Second graders are exploring the development of New Amsterdam. In a recent class, they were charged with creating watercolor still...

Professionals learn their entire lives. They keep current with the research and development in their field, innovate, implement, reflect, and seek continual improvement. This is the case in medicine, in law, and must also be in education—in particular, teaching, the most noble of professions. At Saint David’s, there’s exciting work going on in professional development under the leadership of Jamie MacNeille, our Director of Teaching and Learning. Faculty members regularly seek out and engage in mission-driven professional development opportunities that include conferences, Teaching For Understanding and innovation workshops, and a new program in exploring action research, which brings academia’s inquiry process into the day-to-day lived experience of our teachers.  For example, several of our faculty recently garnered valuable takeaways to implement with their students after participating in the International Boys School Coalition’s relational teaching conference. We know from rese...

We live in uncertain times, where answers aren’t so easily found, and when they are, they often rapidly change. The questions, however, remain. This is true, in fact, always. Life isn’t about the answers; it is about the questions. Although a baseline of foundational knowledge is important, the true purpose of education is to attain wisdom and understanding, which come to us not through answers, but through questions.    At Saint David’s, questions drive our program. We see this in action this year as we embrace our school-wide theme “scholarly and creative.”   One signature Lower School example is our recently completed collaboration with the Guggenheim Museum for a second-grade fall unit on art. During this unit, our boys engaged in an inquiry process with their art teachers and art educators from the museum. In sessions held both at the museum and at school, the boys examined masterworks by Etel Adnan, Paul Gaugin, Henri Rousseau, and Vincent Van Gogh. Guidin...

Boys don’t learn subjects; they learn teachers. Great schools appreciate that all learning is social and that the best learning is achieved through relational teachers--educators who take the time to know and see exactly who their students are, not only as learners, but also as people. This is what Saint David’s teachers do. They see and appreciate a boy for who he is, and then work with him to draw him out to help him realize and, as our mission states, fulfill his potential. This requires patience. The importance of patience is demonstrated throughout our program. Our eighth grade art history students have just completed their NBS Lectures, one of several experiences in our humanities course. Guided throughout by teachers Ms. Milligan and Mr. Burton, each boy researched a notable work by a renowned artist, then prepared a lecture and visual presentation that included in-depth analysis of such components as impact of the artist, iconography, color, and balance, among others. Their pee...

Back around the turn of the first century, the stoic philosopher Epictetus wrote, "He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has." In the throes of a pandemic, it can be difficult to rejoice and not grieve. I was reminded of this recently, when one of our Loaves and Fishes families delivering meals to Mr. Murphy, our Director of Security currently on leave, called me from the Long Island Expressway with a story they had to share. After the family dropped food on his stoop, Mr. Murphy insisted they come in: "No, no, please," Mr. Murphy said. "I have something important back here." Still recovering from major surgery, he returned from another room with several large bags of cans. "Here, for the Eighth Grade boys and Mr. Ryan ... for the drive. I've been collecting for weeks." In need himself, Mr. Murphy wasn't thinking of what he didn't have; instead, he was thinking of the boy...

Meaningful, relevant, mission-driven experiences incorporated throughout our school program, call upon our young learners to stretch and grow as thinkers, and encourage autonomy and self assurance. When they design and build mini-cars to meet a racing challenge, engage in debate during Socratic seminars, critically examine and discuss works of art at the Guggenheim by masters like Etel Adnan, deconstruct a play in soccer, or reflect upon the meaning they derive from their own family’s faith or spiritual tradition, our boys are cultivating crucial independence of thought from which all other independence springs.  In all disciplines, boys work collaboratively and on their own. Each boy's idea is considered respectfully by his peers. Peer feedback is constructive and kind. In the youngest grades and up, boys gain confidence in the many chances they have to develop and hone presentation and public speaking skills: be it presenting the books they write, illustrate, and publish in Kinde...