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

Kindness and leadership aren't often expressed together. Too often in our culture kindness is conflated with softness, weakness - when, in fact, the opposite is true. To be kind is to be brave - to tell a hard truth if it is the right thing to do, to sacrifice and go beyond oneself in considering others' needs, to respect and honor differences among all people while recognizing our common humanity. I often say that character is the true work of a school, it's why we do school. In this post, I would like to focus on three snapshots of "leading with kindness" at Saint David's. Motivational speaker Ben Hartranft was diagnosed with autism when he was a child. At a young age he was told that he would probably never read or write. But the kindness of others and his openness to life proved them wrong. Ben recently visited Saint David's to share with our second graders and their seventh grade buddies how kindness and inclusion from others shaped his life and ena...

On Friday, parents, faculty, and staff came together some 620 strong for a magical, festive, sold-out PA Benefit --"Raising Sails"-- in celebration of our mission and one another. As benefit chairs Caroline Bouckaert and Maria Welch reminded us, ours is a community that appreciates that raising "good men" goes beyond academics, to "harnessing each boy's will to do good." The Saint David's bond is formed through our shared values; paramount among those is kindness. Inspired by their loving parents and caring teachers, our boys set sail each day at 12 East 89th Street to learn and to live lives of purpose, led always by our gentle guidance in kindness and the call to be good. The good lies at the heart of all that we do in our four pillars, whether the academic, arts, athletics or spirituality. It has been said that a sailor cannot see north, but knows the needle can. The metaphorical sails we raise within our boys capture the winds of time and allow...

To the entire 2024 Carnegie Hall team: This past Sunday afternoon on 57th Street was one for the ages! Carrying through an ambitious program for the Festival of Orchestras--beautifully executed by all--Saint David's Philharmonic Ensemble proved to be in quintessential form! The performance was simply outstanding. In representing our school with such distinction, our aesthetic (blue blazers and red ties) was as crisp and clean as our musical substance (on-point and confident) with the finale, Schifrin's Mission Impossible , providing the exclamation point. This achievement was not by accident or chance; but rather, it was the result of exceptional teaching, detailed planning, great patience, sustained practice, and superb skill. As shared by our maestro, Director Philip Hough, "This event was a great team effort and huge accomplishment for our boys. They played with passion and finesse in true Saint David's style!...Special thanks to our Chair Jeff Moore for organizing ...

Research conducted for the International Boys' Schools Coalition, of which Saint David's is a member, is clear. Strong teacher-student relationships are essential to effectively reach and teach boys. Studies conducted by Dr. Michael Reichert, a renowned researcher on educating boys and our in-house Visiting Scholar for this school year, have found that the relational dimension – where a boy knows and feels that he is valued, cared about, and understood by his teacher – is vital. In fact, "establishing an affective relationship is a precondition to successful teaching and learning." Sharing common interests or experiences, having high expectations for classroom conduct and work quality, and responding to personal interests of each boy are a few of the ways that teachers can forge strong connections with their students. For even the best teachers, however, there come times when connections might be strained, causing frustration for both teacher and boy. When this occurs...

Music's connection with math is apparent: beat, tempo, chord progressions, time signatures, all involve mathematical elements. Furthermore, music and math are both universal languages that break barriers among and between cultures. But what of math and art? If these two spheres are related, can that relationship be leveraged to further comprehension and deepen thinking in students?  Art is about shape and line, contour, and shading. It turns out, that this is exactly what algebraic functions and equations can produce: works of art. Using the Desmos graphing calculator our boys are able to produce artworks that not only act as a check to their mathematical knowledge,  but also result in deeper understanding of underlying mathematical concepts.  In seventh and eighth grade algebra classes at Saint David's, boys learn how to graph straight lines (linear equations) and parabolas (quadratic equations). Boys input their formulas and the program draws the resultant straight or c...

My opening letter noted how “kindness,” found in our mission’s third paragraph, speaks to the core essence of a good man, a man who is gentle and respectful, humble and giving, selfless and thoughtful.  In our world today, we hear so much, so regularly, about violence, aggression, and disrespect. This can lead to a hopeless sense of helplessness, a feeling of a breakdown in fundamental civility. Kindness, though, is a powerful antidote. Kindness begets kindness. It is contagious. The kinder we are to others, the more we experience it ourselves - and the effects of that kindness ripple outward and touch others in ways we can't even imagine.  Last week, an alumnus from the Class of ‘08 visited Saint David’s and gave Chapel to the eighth graders. In his talk, he reflected upon the events of 9/11 and the feeling of absolute chaos, fear, and violence that surrounded him—except when he was within the walls of Saint David’s where he felt safe, cared for, and protected. He was in seco...

At first, the boy was a bit disappointed. The vehicle that he and his partner had designed to meet a challenge had collapsed under the weight it was taxed with carrying. With determination, however, he and his partner went back to the drawing board. They would employ their new-found knowledge of what didn’t work to uncover a solution.  Effective teachers know how to reach boys in ways proven successful by research. Certain elements of instruction engage boys’ attention, sustain their concentration, result in superior performance, and resonate with the unique ways that boys best learn: Boys need to move. They like competition when it’s friendly. They enjoy teamwork. They love to create products that serve a purpose.  The Wheel and Axle project in fifth grade science is a great example of how Saint David's faculty incorporate these elements, called transitive factors, into their lessons. For this challenge, the boys must design and construct a vehicle out of a variety of materia...