Recently the college guidance office at my school passed along an article from The Charlotte Observer with this headline: “Getting in may get harder: Nation's largest senior class in 20 years, one-button online filing drive college application avalanche” (March 7, 2008). As I read with great interest, I realized that everything we in independent schools have been talking about for the past decade (i.e., sustainability and globalization, demographic shifts, goodness and greatness) takes on a whole new meaning for our students, our parents, and ourselves when viewed through the unforgiving lens of the college admissions microscope. While only fifty percent of high school graduates pursued college admission in 1978, more than two-thirds of this year’s class will go through the same exercise. Among these applicants are more international students, more students with competitive ACT and SAT scores, and more students with high grade point averages attained in rigorous, college prep, AP, or IB programs. Just as an illustration, two years ago one highly selective school on the West Coast had 4000 students boasting perfect scores on either the verbal or math sections of the SAT applying for 1500 spots in its freshman class.

It seems obvious, then, that academic preparation alone will no longer satisfy as “college prep.” In fact, it seems that colleges recognize this fact and are seeking to broaden that lens through which they scrutinize their incoming classes. In support of such a shift, Dr. Mel Levine spoke at our school this year and decried the very same “college prep” moniker that so many of us in independent schools have too proudly advertised for too long. “If all you are preparing your students for is college,” Levine chuckled, “you are failing them miserably. You ought to be in the life prep business, plain and simple.”

It was with this realization in mind that one of our Spanish teachers approached me soon after the Charlotte Observer article was circulated and after Dr. Levine’s visit in order to pose the following provocative question: “How will we in independent schools showcase ourselves in our local markets as not just providing classes, but nurturing communities? What do we have to offer that will set us apart and that will portray our graduates as prepared for life beyond college so that their lives in college take on more meaning and significance?” It seems all too fitting that this same Spanish teacher is the mother of one of our 12th graders.

So, how will we separate ourselves? How will we “showcase” ourselves, using my Spanish teacher’s term? How will independent schools provide for students within the structure of current programs and tuitions the sorts of value-based and value-added experiences that they are paying for, according to a recent article from The Boston Globe (March 13, 2008):

”If colleges consider the sorts of summer experiences that only some people can afford to pay for, then they are effectively privileging the already privileged,” said Richard Kahlenberg, senior fellow with the Century Foundation, a nonprofit research institution headquartered in New York City. Kahlenberg authored a 2004 study that found at the 146 most selective colleges, 3 percent of students came from the poorest quarter of the population, while 74 percent came from the richest quarter. He said it’s not that admissions officers are biased against low-income students, but that they are not really giving a leg up to students who work full time over the summer to help their family. College admissions officers say they certainly have to weigh an applicant’s internships or farflung adventures. (Kocian, T1)

Independent schools, which seek more and more diversity everyday—particularly socio-economic diversity—have a singular opportunity to build into our programs the sorts of “farflung adventures” that, according to the Globe’s article, some of our wealthiest parents are paying for already. However, instead of helping students simply build their college resumes, independent schools could and should provide them the sorts of “adventures” that focus on real service and real leadership. Such opportunities will prepare our graduates for just the sorts of life challenges that colleges seem more interested in, that leading educators like Dr. Levine believe point to authentic education, and that my Spanish teacher and other independent school other parents are seeking for their children’s lives.

Setting Ourselves Apart

In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., writes: “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” In independent schools, we ought to be reading King’s challenge as one focused on what it means to be a leader at the dawn of the 21st Century. As poverty all over the world expands and resources reside in the hands of an ever-shrinking minority, the Cold War’s superpower paradigm of “leadership through strength” is passé. Our students especially need to weave themselves more actively into King’s “garment of destiny” by means of initiatives that expose them to and educate them about a new direction for tomorrow’s leaders that can only be described as “leadership through service.”

What does it mean to be a servant leader? While the adults in our society may say all the right things as answers to this essential question, our actions all too often speak louder than our words. Emerson writes, “Things are in the saddle and ride mankind,” and never has that description of materialistic Western society been more apt than today. If adult leaders can’t or won’t live out the answer to the question of what it means to lead through service, then how much more difficult will it be for adolescents growing into adulthood to rise above the flawed answers to provide themselves a vision for service that can lead our nation and our world. Independent schools ought to believe that the school experience is not just about what happens through the 12th grade—it’s about what happens for a lifetime. The training and lessons our students receive—or do not receive—during their years with us will have an impact not only on their character but on the choices they make in college and (dare we say it?) beyond. Independent schools claim that we all care deeply about our students’ character and the choices they make long after they have left our hallways and our classrooms, but what are we doing to turn that care into action?

To this end, independent schools ought to deepen our concentration on enhancing the intellectual quality of our students by actively and intentionally deepening their moral purpose through a vision of and application for servant leadership in the 21st century—essential elements that our young men and women will draw upon for a lifetime. By means of creative programs in local communities in conjunction with dynamic partnerships with larger and more globally-focused organizations nationwide, independent schools ought to take up the task of training the next generation of leaders to understand that some of the greatest achievements of our time have been borne out of courageous service and that some of our most successful leaders subscribe to the adage that true leadership is about action and not position.

The Specifics: Lower School

Children are never too young to learn how to serve. Independent elementary and lower school programs need to begin this most important educational journey first by posing essential questions such as “What is service?” and “How and whom do we serve?” across all areas of an increasingly integrated and thematically organized curriculum. The many answers to these questions will be powerful organizers of student learning and teacher pedagogy as independent school educators will find opportunities across their disciplines to focus on the characteristics and qualities of great service throughout history.

In a paradigm like this one, words like honesty, unselfishness, integrity, generosity, humility, and forgiveness will take on a new authenticity as students explore how these qualities—not mere words—have shaped great service throughout history.

Instead of the ever-popular “value of the month” approach to character education that so many schools are succumbing to, this integrated and authentic focus on service will make sense to students, teachers, and parents alike—especially if schools are complementing what is happening inside the classroom with developmentally appropriate service projects at every grade level. Starting with in-school service for the very young and then expanding into communities surrounding the school as students progress through the elementary grades, independent schools will have powerful opportunities to challenge their students to shape the very communities in which they live. Using a modification of the International Baccalaureate’s Primary Programme, independent schools could have culminating activities for elementary school students, perhaps in grade five, where student-led service projects are designed to meet a specific and pressing need in the school, city, or state communities.

Finally, in a world increasingly divided by ignorance about or close-mindedness toward faith experiences different from our own, such a program focused on service provides a powerful spiritual tie-in as well. Again, essential questions like, “How does faith act,” “Who is my neighbor,” “How do different faith traditions speak about service,” or “How important is service in different faith traditions” will organize independent schools’ efforts at acquainting even our youngest students with the deep manifestations of the spirit that reside outside (and, increasingly, inside) the walls of their own schools. Whether the schools adopting such a program have a formal chapel program or not, weekly gatherings could be centered on student understandings of these manifestations of faith through service; in fact, a great fifth grade project could be to lead such a program and become the teachers of the community.

The Specifics: Middle School

If the lower school model is one focused on an introduction to service, then the middle school could focus on an introduction to leadership. Essential questions like, “What is leadership,” “Who are leaders,” and “How and whom do we lead” will orient a more global approach to an equally integrated and thematically focused program. Instead of a separate faith/spirituality focus as espoused in the lower school model, middle school students will combine their studies of leadership with in-depth cultural investigations of, for example, Judaism (to include the Holocaust), Christianity (to include early Persecution), and Islam (to include the Crusades) as they explore the roots of servant leadership throughout the storied history of these three cultural movements.

Teachers will challenge students in this type of a program to become expert in the great leaders of these cultures, investigating how their leadership through service changed the world or how their refusal to embrace the servant’s ethic set the culture or the world back. Off-campus class trips/retreats will be planned at each grade level to expand on these connections. Leadership projects at each grade level will be tied to the particular culture being studied. Middle school projects on the important figures from these cultures will involve significant research and writing: an eighth grade culminating activity could be a comparison/contrast project (film, PowerPoint, essay, etc.) dealing with the servant leaders in each of the three cultures.

Institutionally, each quarter, trimester, or semester could focus on one of the world’s major faith traditions, and community gatherings will be framed by the sacred writings of each. Guests from these faith communities will be invited to campus to lead chapel programs or class discussions and educate about their approaches to service, leadership, and spirituality, focusing on the characteristics/qualities of great leaders during their discussions: service, humility, action (not position), foresight, generosity, integrity, discipline, and humility.

The Specifics: Upper School

Students in Upper Schools should be challenged to act upon the lessons they have learned in lower and middle school studies of service and leadership. By means of integrated Humanities or Global Studies programs connecting classes in English, world languages, history, and the arts, students will confront big ideas in the areas of government, justice, education, wealth and poverty, nature, ethics, and morality with an eye toward honing a broader and more balanced worldview. Freshmen and sophomores will become sophisticated readers as well as confident thinkers, writers, and speakers as they consider essential questions like, “What is a servant leader,” “How did leadership through strength characterize the 20th Century,” “Was this method of leadership successful—when and when not,” “Should leadership through service characterize the 21st Century—why and why not,” and “What are the relationships between and among scholarship, service, and leadership?”

The culminating experience in the 10th grade will be an “Expert Project” in which students working in pairs or teams will make significant connections between the work they accomplished in the middle school and the perspectives gained in the first two years of Upper School. These projects will involve a significant paper as well as an oral presentation, fulfilling a public speaking requirement as well as laying the groundwork for larger and more comprehensive servant leadership initiatives that will satisfy community service graduation requirements at the end of the 12th grade.

Juniors will work in small groups (3-4 students) over the course of the first semester of the Junior year in significant and meaningful service projects in the communities closest to their schools in order to provide practical experience and to develop (during the second semester) service internship proposals that they will take on during their senior years. A faculty adviser will provide insight and coaching to each group through these two processes. During the second semester of the junior year and the first semester of the senior year, the groups will contact local or national agencies to propose these active internships in the context of their service initiatives.

The senior year will see motivated students placed in meaningful and active internships in a variety of communities. Ideally, second semester seniors will be in class during the morning hours and in their community positions in the afternoons. In addition to final exams in core area subjects, each senior will produce a Senior Thesis documenting and detailing his/her Service Internship. The Senior Thesis will be a requirement for graduation and should introduce the students to the best sort of work expected in college and beyond.

In addition, Upper Schools should be complementing these sorts of curricular initiatives with quarterly speaker series featuring scholars from local, national, or international colleges, universities, or think tanks as well as the schools’ own teachers—anyone who can speak eloquently about the impact of servant leaders. In addition, to counter the for-pay summer programs described above in the Globe article, boarding schools especially could use their campuses in the summer for Servant Leader Academies that could become the center for study and development of high school service-oriented leadership throughout their regions. Over time, adolescents will apply to spend summers at these Academies to learn from leaders in the field as well as former interns who have gone on to become leaders in their own rights. During the school year, faculty and students at these Academies’ schools will use the resources collected there to develop their own leadership projects and to further their own school’s mission of servant leadership. It seems probable that as the reputations of these Academies grow, interest them and in the schools that house them will grow as well, becoming a recruiting tool for both day and boarding students.

Conclusion

The following is a reasonably famous quote attributed to Aristotle: “Happiness: the exercise of vital powers along lines of excellence, in a life affording them scope.” Most parents today will say one of two things when asked what they want most for their children: happiness or success. However, too often our definitions of these two answers when related to our adolescent sons and daughters does not have the same connotation of excellence, service, or meaning that Aristotle’s above does. In reality, it’s hard to encourage young people in our incredibly fast-paced and materialistic society to choose excellence over convenience or service beyond self. It’s hard to discern right from wrong, to act with courage and conviction, to practice ethical leadership, and to exhibit honorable character, as so many independent school mission statements (including my own) instruct us to do. In short (and borrowing from Dr. Peter Gomes), it’s hard to challenge today’s adolescents to choose living a good life over merely making a good living.

To be sure, the program outlined in this article is ambitious and far-reaching. It will require a re-assessment and perhaps even a sacrifice of many of the things that we now think we value in independent schools: e.g., the academic calendar itself, coverage versus uncoverage in the classroom, teaching for knowledge and skill rather than teaching for understanding, and even the AP program as it now exists. However, shouldn’t independent schools be progressive in just these sorts of ways? Shouldn’t we strive to be counter-cultural by using every means at our disposal to issue just these sorts of mission-specific challenges to the leaders of tomorrow? If words like those that appear in our well-crafted mission statements are to rise above mere rhetoric in our students’ eyes, the important virtues that these missions espouse have to take root in the lives we all live and the values we all embrace.

Perhaps the competition we are seeing in college admissions is just the catalyst we in independent schools need to rethink and reshape our programs of study. Perhaps the call from colleges, universities, and leading educators to make students’ PK-12 experiences more “authentic” is a call that independent schools are uniquely positioned to answer. Perhaps the answer to this call is a curriculum that constantly reminds students that people who are “happy” and “successful” (in college and beyond) aren’t always “good,” but people who are good—morally, ethically, and spiritually grounded—measure happiness and success in very different ways. The “good” person’s metrics—focused on leadership through service—are the ones that independent schools ought to be sharing with the young men and women who will soon be our young leaders and policy-makers.

References

Gomes, P. J. The good life: Truths that last in times of need. New York: Harper Collins: 2002.

Kocian, L. (2008, March 13). Pricey summer programs raise fairness questions: College officials say no, but critics wonder whether specialized experiences give some wealthy students a leg up. The Boston Globe, p. T1.

Perlmutt, D. (2008, March 7). Getting in may get harder: nation's largest senior class in 20 years, one-button online filing drive college application avalanche. The Charlotte Observer, p. 1B.

Mark Carleton is the Assistant Headmaster, Academic Dean, and Upper School Director at Darlington School in Rome, GA, a coeducational day and boarding school established in 1905.  Along with a talented and visionary group of students, teachers, administrators, and community leaders, Mark is actively seeking partnerships for Darlington with local, regional, and national schools and community organizations in order to build the sort of leadership-through-service experience for students he has articulated above.

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