From the letter: “… our students’ default understanding of the purpose of their schoolwork becomes to make good grades, gain admissions to a highly selective college, set themselves on a path of lifelong superior achievement. And this default setting – one of narrowly individualistic self-advancement – has been locked into place by a frenetic pace of life and expectations of perfection that devour the energy and time students need to reflect on the meaning of their schoolwork. To deconstruct this default understanding of Trinity as a credentialing factory, we need to actively develop in our students compelling alternative understandings of the socially redeeming purposes their knowledge and skills could and should serve. If we do not, our well-intentioned work to develop their powers of critical thinking and creative self-expression will serve to secure for our students a comfortable perch atop a cognitive elite that is self-serving, callous, and spiritually barren.”
Also: …“we are seeking to build a broadly shared ethos of citizenship and public service throughout our school community. And it is the building of this ethos that is the only valid social justification for the extraordinary resources we are pouring into our students’ education. Without this ethos, I am afraid we are, for a majority of our students, just a very, very, very expensive finishing school.”
This follows with the socio political indoctrination at most elite academic institutions which are overwhelming liberal. No need to worry about marketable skills if you can regurgitate the pablum and gain a job as a career bureaucrat or otherwise vetted corpucrat.
Not since the High Middle Ages have we witnessed the selling of indulgences on so grand a scale as in our edutocracy. The best thing about our modern period is that the liberal, entitled purchasers don’t even have to pay anything!
Amazing that the Head of School at Trinity had the time to pen that missive in between calls from would-be Trinity parents from their offices at 200 West Street. Maybe he was on the beach in East Hampton?
Is it too cynical to suggest that this is letter is didactically performative, a demonstration of how future Jared Kushner-esque Harvard applicants should learn to speak about themselves? “Yes, I was privileged enough to go to a credentialing factory, but there I learned – rhetorical move! – to deconstruct that default understanding of education and am now committed to social justice and public service and whatever." (Now get out of my way and let me into Harvard. I have a consulting job to get to.)
Does the current curriculum at your kids’ boarding school focus on practical, marketable skills? Or does it focus on critical thinking, Humanities, Science, and Math?
Wow, this thread seems to have touched a nerve with some…
Trinity is still going to have a great college matriculation record, don’t worry.
This paragraph stuck out to me:
“The contractual view of school is that families pay fees in exchange for the educational skills and credentials their children seek; the covenantal view of school is that families enter into a partnership with the school to build a learning community in which their children will develop their potential to serve others.”
How can anyone have an issue with this POV? Wait, I don’t want to know.
I don’t have an issue with the article. I’m surprised so many of you do, especially those sending kids to schools that have a motto like Exeter’s and Andover’s:
(Not for Self)
Finis Origine Pendet
(The End Depends Upon the Beginning)
or St. Paul’s School prayer:
“Grant, O Lord, that in all the joys of life, we may never forget to be kind.
Help us to be unselfish in friendship, thoughtful of those less happy than ourselves, and eager to bear the burdens of others.
Through Jesus Christ our Savior, Amen.”
Groton: Motto: Cui Servire Est Regnare (For Whom Service Is Perfect Freedom)
SPS:
SCHOOL MISSION
St. Paul’s School is a fully residential academic community that pursues the highest
ideals of scholarship. We strive to challenge our students intellectually and morally
– to nurture a love for learning and a commitment to engage as servant leaders
in a complex world. Founded in the Episcopal tradition, St. Paul’s School models
and teaches a respect for self and others; for one’s spiritual, physical, and emotional
well-being; for the natural environment; and for service to a greater good.
^ I don’t have any problem with Trinity School whatsoever. In fact, I think it is one of the very few private schools in New York City where there are a good number of very smart kids, perhaps the only one in Manhattan depending upong one’s definitions of a “good number” and “very smart” (I’m using my own here).
It seems that the Head of School has a problem with what the school is. He is the one writing the letter, (ostensibly) criticizing the school, no? Well, I think he actually has no problem whatsoever - he just wants to appear like he does because it gains him points in the circles in which he runs.
These heads of schools positions are incredibly cushy, and provide all sorts of benefits in addition to the almost more than $1.1MM per year in enumerated compensation that the Head of School at Trinity takes in each year. (It’s easy to check the Forms 990 for schools - public record.)
They all talk a good game, and there is always a ready audience for it. But remember what these schools are all about: preservation of privilege. Pretending that they are not is part of the Head’s job.
My kids have attended another NYC private school which also sends over 50% of their seniors to the top 20 colleges. However, all through their schooling, it was never about doing things to go to the best colleges. The school has always challenged the students in academics and ECs. To get the most out of their high school experience. Even though the grades may not always turn out perfect, majority of the colleges know the rigor of the education in these schools, which accounts for the high percentage of acceptance into the elite colleges.
Reflective of our society in so many ways. If you cannot hold up a mirror and see yourself as you truly are, it’s not because the mirror isn’t working. I wouldn’t dip into the details but folks morality and success are not the same thing. Nor is using your particular political point of view (whatever it is) to clarify your morality/or clarify what you think others should do. I think some will be taken in by that letter and some will running away screaming. I’m not sure when educators will begin to write letters about the administration. After all the parents are presumably smart enough to pay that high tuition which means they might not need lessons in how to live. Or do they? Wow, I definitely grew up in a different time. Everytime I read something, I think wait, what?
Only the very rich and the very privileged can afford to pretend its all about doing good and serving others. Its not. Don’t get me wrong I value and appreciate the noble ideas proffered 200 or 300 years ago by wealthy white men who didnt have to work for a living. But lets not pretend the world isnt a different place, that 50% of kids on financial aid wont need good paying jobs one day and they may not be able to teach in an inner city school rather than being a lawyer.
If you want to see a school in NYC that actually walks the walk, check out Regis High School. College placement is almost as good as at Trinity, which is saying a lot as a good percentage of Trinity kids come in as shoo-ins, and there are very few connected kids at Regis. BTW, kids at Regis are on average a bit smarter than at Trinity, so that might be a bonus for some. Tuition is free.
In response to some of the comments upthread, I wonder: what do you think John Allman should be saying/doing? He runs one of the best private schools in the country. It prepares students academically and in many other ways to get into and excel at top-tier universities, and thereafter achieve different kinds of success. It seems to me he’s doing his job pretty well.
Many, maybe most (but definitely far from from all) of the students are children of wealthy/influential residents of one of the wealthiest, most influential cities in the world, and those parents are very results-oriented customers, who pay for performance. Their kids are ambitious, but not necessarily to be rich. Sure, plenty are “excellent sheep”, but a lot of them want to be influential or meaningful in other ways; not everyone who graduates from Trinity becomes an investment banker. Katrina vanden Heuvel, John McEnroe, Eric Schneiderman and Colson Whitehead, for example, are alumni, and I’m sure Trinity helped them get to where they eventually got. You could say similar things about Trinity’s peer schools, as well as the top-tier universities many of their graduates go on to attend.
@SatchelSF do you live in NYC and have first hand knowledge of the independent private schools? Because I do and I take issue with you’re comment about Trinity being perhaps the only school in Manhattan with very smart kids.
@NYCMomof3 I did and do…I agree with @SatchelSF. The largely wealthy kids that populate most of the private schools are not even close to the caliber of students in NYC G&T schools as well as Regis. Whenever ability to pay who you know, and who your parents are is part of the equation it is not a pool of the best/smartest.
