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

The notion of what it means to be a good man is at the heart of the mission of Saint David's School. This Seventh Grade Father/Son Dinner is an annual special event in which fathers or father figures, and sons explore what it means to be a good man, the relationship between parent and son, and other mission-inspired themes. We were thrilled to have fathers, sons, grandparents, brothers or other paternal influences in the lives of our boys at table together last week for this signature event--the first time we could hold it in person in the last two years. This year's featured guest speaker, Kevin M. Callahan, wrote  Brothers in Arms: Remembering Brothers Buried Side by Side in American World War II Cemeteries . Callahan's book centers on the stories of brothers who died fighting for freedom during the Second World War. After graduating from Yale University, Mr. Callahan had visited the American cemetery at Normandy and was taken by both the beauty of the grounds...

The following article by Alexis Aoyama, Saint David's Assistant Headmaster and Head of Upper School, appears in the latest issue of Saint David's Magazine : At Saint David’s, we strive to educate boys to be scholarly and creative. As defined in the Headmaster’s opening letter, “scholarly connotes a boy of great knowledge and learning, an erudite, educated, lettered, literate, well-read boy.”(1) Through diligent study, reading a variety of genres, evaluation of primary sources from a range of perspectives, and close observation, boys develop their knowledge base and begin to make sense of the world around them. We also aspire for our students to be creative – boys who are “innovative, inventive, and original (as opposed to imitative).”(1) To nurture and develop the creative mind, we provide boys opportunities to apply what they have learned to novel situations, to think outside of the box, and to build and create.  When designing curriculum at Saint David’s, we attend to both th...

The eighth grade's annual Italian Study Tour - 10 days exploring sites in Assisi, Florence, and Rome - is a longstanding capstone experience in Humanities for our graduating class and their teachers, alike. After a two-year, pandemic-imposed hiatus, we were able to resume this signature experience this March, making the 2022 Tour particularly meaningful.  The trip provides the opportunity for our boys to visit in-situ the actual paintings, sculpture, and architecture they have studied in their art history class. As such, it melds the scholarly and creative in an organic way. It is common for a boy to comment on Medici family history when presenting on Brunelleschi's Dome, for instance, and then, in the next moment, to analyze the dome's structure and design.  In preparation for the trip, the boys are assigned an iconic Renaissance building in Florence to explore: they research the building, its patron, architect and significance; and they share the results of their inquirie...

As our esteemed Philharmonic Ensemble Director Philip Hough recently observed, "Every year, we see Saint David's boys begin a process which will, in fact, last for their entire lifetime. We want to encourage that beginning, and for them to feel what it's like to develop with an instrument, to experience beauty, and have something that will take them beyond a concert." Mr. Hough was speaking about the depth of experience Saint David's boys have when participating in the Saint David's Philharmonic Ensemble. This opportunity is open to all boys in Grades Four through Eight who are able to read music, desire to participate, and are willing to commit practice time. While the concerts (including performing at Carnegie Hall every three years), are indisputable high points for our young musicians, a Saint David’s boy’s relationship with his instrument has a transformative element that goes beyond preparation for a performance and incorporates all aspects of curriculum...

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...