Dear families,
The start of the calendar year always fills me with a sense of optimism and hope. It is a chance to reset and reground myself, to reaffirm commitments to health and wellness, to reconnect with people and reestablish important relationships in my life. While I’m not someone who creates a formal list of resolutions each year, I am someone who sees it as a new beginning, a chance to reflect on what I have learned in the last year and to set intentions for how I want to show up in the world in the year ahead.
As I have been reflecting this past week, I find myself optimistic about what this year will bring, excited for what lies ahead. Indeed, I think it’s fair to say, I have high expectations for 2023. At Hillbrook, I am excited to continue pushing the work we have been doing around the “just right” challenge across our JK-8, and the efforts we are making to strengthen the home/school partnership, something that we know has eroded over the past few years amidst the pandemic. I am also eager to continue the process of launching the Upper School, knowing that there are many twists and turns in the road ahead, and yet more confident than ever that we are embarking on something that is important and offers an educational opportunity for students at Hillbrook and throughout the South Bay that they deserve and that our society needs.
From the first time that I arrived on the Hillbrook campus, I recognized that we were a school that had high expectations for children, for employees, and for our community. Over the past few years, the pandemic and the need to support children and families in a whole range of ways that we had never experienced before led us, at moments, to take our foot off the accelerator. Those decisions certainly made sense in that context and yet as I look toward 2023, I think the time is right for all of us to recommit to the high expectations that ensure students reach their highest individual potential in school and in life.
What does that look like? For children, it means knowing that they can do more than they – and sometimes we – think possible. Watching JKers carrying bags that are almost as big as they are to the classroom, students revising – and revising – and then revising again a story or essay before it is just right, Middle Schoolers working collaboratively to solve a complex math problem that takes a full period (or even two!), I am reminded that given the opportunity and the right level of support, children can do amazing things. It also means asking students big questions – what matters to you and what can you do about it – and creating space and time for them to find meaningful ways to answer those questions.
As adults, it means modeling for our children the value of hard work and lifelong learning, sharing with them ways that we continue to push ourselves, ways that we continue to grow and evolve as adults. It also means holding ourselves to high expectations in how we interact with each other as adults, knowing that we are modeling for our children how to share ideas, disagree constructively, stand-up for what we believe, and leave space for growth, understanding, and forgiveness.
And, while it is critical that we hold each member of our community to high expectations, it is also essential that we respond to moments in which individuals or groups do not meet those expectations with kindness, with a growth mindset, and with grace. In moments of challenge, I want Hillbrook to be a community that rises up to be the best version of ourselves, a community with the ability to provide clear consequences while also retaining space for all children and adults to maintain their dignity. This is never easy. Indeed, it is almost always easier to devolve into flash judgments and online anger, and yet those moments tear at the fabric of our community and do not serve children or adults well.
2023 offers so much possibility for our students and our school. I’m reminded of an exchange between Alice and the White Queen in “Alice in Wonderland.”
“How old are you?” said the queen.
“I’m seven and a half exactly.”
“You needn’t say ‘exactly’ the queen remarked. “I can believe it without that. Now I’ll give you something to believe. I am just one hundred and one, five months and a day.”
“I can’t believe that!” said Alice.
“Can’t you?” the Queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Here’s to a year of high expectations and endless possibilities, perhaps even six impossible things each day before breakfast.
Warmly,
