argues that fear, anger, disgust, envy and jealousy are emotions and mindsets that tear apart the fabric of a community. She notes that the typical large American high school is a “veritable cauldron of envy,”[4] and is therefore a good example of a dysfunctional community. Nussbaum asserts that the antidote to fear, anger, disgust, envy, and jealousy is hope. She wishes that the typical American high school would be founded on hope. Nussbaum makes a useful distinction between idle and practical hope. Idle hope involves mere wishing, while practical hope involves establishing a goal, formulating a plan, and taking action.[5] Schools centered on hope are not idle but implement by design, and they are characterized by these attributes: 1. Students are regarded and treated by all stakeholders as sources of solutions. 2. Students identify problems/structures/ attitudes/rules/habits that are meaningful and consequential, and whose improvement would be important to their peers and their communities. 3. Adults provide support, scaffolding, and structure as allies and partners, not authoritarian figures. 4. Adults and students share power. 5. Students are accountable as they pursue meaningful, measurable goals. 6. When appropriate to the challenge, the greater community outside of the school is engaged and supportive of youth activation through frequent communications and celebrations. 7. The administrative apparatus of the school (schedule, resources, budget categories, evaluations, discipline processes) supports and helps facilitate all aspects of the process of youth activation. Simply put, at schools of hope, students are problem solvers, not problems to be solved. I can think of no better way to describe the Park difference. Best, Keith W. Frome, Ed.D. President Notes [1] Waite, Chelsea (2021). Peer Connections Reimagined: Innovations Nurturing Student Networks to Unlock Opportunity. Christensen Institute, p. 3. [2] Ibid [3] Ibid, p. 4. [4] Nussbaum, Martha C. (2018). The Monarchy of Fear: A Philosopher Looks at the Political Crisis. New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, p. 147. [5] Ibid, p. 206. Dear Members of the Park Community, The edition of the Park Pioneer you hold now in your hands features the importance and power of community as an integral component of Park's educational program. Every school, of course, is a community, but every school community is qualitatively different because of what it values and how it structures itself to live out - or not - what it says it values. School communities are composed of three basic components: adults (teachers, staff, and alumni), peers (same grade classmates) and near peers (students in adjacent grades). These components are not inert but are activated by and interact through networks of relationships. Though every school contains these elements of community, few schools deliberately develop and engineer how these fundamental components work together to maximize student outcomes and experience. Park does, though, and this is what makes Park different. Park deliberately harnesses and unleashes the power of positive peer influence. There is a rich research and theoretical literature explaining how to create structures to develop and utilize positive peer influence as an educational tool. These practices, though, are rarely deployed in U.S. schools. The technique is sometimes called “youth activation,” defined as a form of youth-adult partnership that implements the ideas and energy of young people to improve their school. Youth activation builds on young people’s keen interest in making their school experiences more rewarding and growth-oriented for themselves and their peers. Alongside adults who embrace young people’s authentic leadership potential, students in positive peer-driven schools mobilize their fellow classmates, increasing their motivation, engagement, and sense of belonging. Each of these factors is deeply related to school success. When I first came to Park, Chelsea Waite of the Christensen Institute interviewed me about Park’s culture of positive peer influence for her study of the emerging field of student-run support services. In “Peer Connections Reimagined: Innovations Nurturing Student Networks to Unlock Opportunity,” Waite argues: “As schools develop strategies for supporting students to both survive and thrive, the power of peer social capital is a lesson worth remembering. Across the entire high school to career pipeline, peer networks are an immense, but still latent, resource in the student success equation.”[1] Waite recommends four ways that peer power could be leveraged by all schools to measurably improve outcomes: 1. Social support to foster belonging, identity formation, and social and emotional skills; 2. Academic support to drive learning outcomes and keep classmates on track; 3. Guidance support to expand postgraduate options and ease transitions; 4. Mental health support to promote wellbeing and reduce loneliness.[2] Notice that Park is and has always been far ahead of the field in these four ways of harnessing and unleashing peer social capital, which Waite defines as “access to, and ability to mobilize, relationships that help further an individual’s potential and goals. Just like skills and knowledge, relationships offer resources that drive access to opportunity.”[3] Park’s particular approach to youth activation begins with the admissions process, where applicants are vetted by teachers, administrators, and student ambassadors to assess their academic skills as well as their ability to positively influence the community through peer support. The exact ways that Park implements youth activation aligns with the research literature. Too complex to summarize in this letter, Park’s approach involves a combination of psychological and philosophical training and on-going coaching for students and faculty, specific ways of scheduling the school day, and performance management systems to drive and measure implementation and success outcomes. Though varied in their approaches, youth activation schools like Park share one simple, fundamental core value: hope. In The Monarchy of Fear, the philosopher Martha Nussbaum 4
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTcyNDA=