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Dear Keystonians,  

I want to start this week by sending deep appreciation and a hearty “thank you” to the teachers who devoted so much of their time this week to meaningful conversation with families about the learning of their children. While many of our boarding students wheeled their suitcases off campus on Wednesday night for a long weekend at home, our faculty prepared for two packed days of sharing. Some teachers had over 30 conferences a day for the two days! Thank you, teachers, for the investment of your time in building relationships with our students’ families. It is experiences like this that build bridges.  

In addition to our wonderful Education Salon on Thursday, on Tuesday night I participated in a panel discussion at the Asia Society in Hong Kong. I was there to share about the role of K-12 education in mitigating the impacts of what the scholars I wrote about last week call “anxiety culture”. A professor of philosophy who was also on the panel talked about human fragility not as a weakness, but as a protective factor for deep learning and growth. He referenced the fact that, in the context of the animal kingdom, humans spend the most time caring for their young as part of a family unit. He described a system of solidarity and care that protects human children and distinguishes us from other animals. (Although some primary students may be able to tell you that there are other interesting systems of care in the animal kingdom, such as lions and elephants mothers, who stay with their herd for the rest of their lives, or orangutan mothers who build a new nest in the trees for their children every night for years and years, but I digress…)  

When it was my turn to share, I built on this notion of “systems of solidarity” from the perspective of schools. Human children have the benefit of their parents, then (if they are so fortunate) their extended family, and then the next circle of care may be?their school community. Good schools extend the system of solidarity inherent in families and expand the capacity for learning and growth. Great schools do this by having values systems consistent or compatible with the value systems of families (not necessarily exactly the same, but compatible) and creating challenge (learning) that is beyond the scope of the family context.  

As we learned in the Education Salon on Thursday, while the word “anxiety” tends to have a negative connotation, it is a feeling that is closely linked to learning. When we are learning, we are not sure if we can do it and then we try (and maybe fail a few times) and try again—that process can produce feelings of anxiety. When learners (of any age) understand how feelings of anxiety are related to learning, it lowers the negative consequences of anxiety over time (and improves learning outcomes). When learners who are persistent, resilient, and successful feel anxiety, they approach the feeling with gratitude because they know it means they are learning. And, if a learner sees anxiety (uncertainty about the outcome) as something to avoid at all costs, it will be very difficult to learn anything of real meaning.  

Given this, we can understand schools are built to create this type of healthy anxiety. In addition, they must give learners the emotional tools to stay mentally and physically well in the face of anxiety (i.e. lots of learning). Great schools keep students in their zone of proximal development, right where things are hard enough to challenge them, and not too hard that they quit. It is the delicate interplay of anxiety and care (or solidarity) that makes schools effective places to learn and grow.  

As we collectively reflect on the conferences over the last few days, we can think of these intersecting ideas of anxiety, learning and care. Here are some thought questions to explore about yourself, your child(ren) and/or your students:  

• What are the ways in which Keystone is generating sufficient challenge/anxiety (i.e. opportunity to feel the learning happening)?  

• What are the ways that Keystone actively supports the emotional intelligence required to see anxiety as serving learning? How could it improve in this?  

• How do we in the community keep physically and mentally healthy in the face of vigorous learning (high levels of anxiety)?  

• What does it look like for parents and teachers to support students? How do we know when to take active efforts to decrease anxiety for children?  

• What is the role of family education in finding this balance? How might the school and families work together in this space?  

Let’s keep talking!  

Wishing you a peaceful weekend,  

Emily?