Being strong and being kind

At today's Admissions Open House, a panel of recent graduates talked with visitors about their memories of the Gordon experience and how it had prepared them to thrive at their next schools. 

 

They talked about learning leadership while serving as a second grade buddy. 

 

They talked about first grade science lessons that they are drawing on in AP Bio. 

 

They talked about baby chickens, robots, math puzzles, and what it was like being the new kid, at Gordon and at a high school.

 

Along the way, they repeatedly returned to the experience of noticing that not everyone at high school was as prepared as they were to have difficult conversations about complicated topics. 

 

When asked about Gordon's annual eighth grade Civil Rights Trip to Georgia and Alabama, one high school sophomore grabbed the microphone:

I have a recent story. Just yesterday, actually. 

I was in my American Studies class at Barrington High School. 

We were talking about the causes of the Civil War. Everyone was talking about the differences between the North and the South, and a kid asked: "What is it like in the South today? What do they learn about the history of slavery, and is it the same, or different from what we are learning today in the Barrington classroom?"

My teacher had never been to the South. Three kids in my class had been; it is a class of fifty. Two of them had only been for vacation to Orlando, Florida. So I raised my hand - I sit ten rows back, I never speak because it is terrifying, I am literally in the back row. 

So I told the story that's one of my favorites from the Gordon Civil Rights Trip. We went to the Alabama State House, and we got a tour from one of their docents. There was an elementary school class who was touring right behind us, maybe six or seven years old. 

We were going around looking at murals painted on the walls. There were Confederate generals in fights with Native Americans, there were Confederate generals waving their flag. The little kids were drawing the murals and taking notes from their teachers.

People in my grade began to ask questions of the docents. They asked her "Why is this the narrative that's shown here?"

The docent didn't know quite what to say, but all of my classmates were so well-prepared, with evidenced-based arguments from what we had learned in class.

They were able to find this really strong, kind way to talk about the things that were being presented: to question what was being taught to us, and to these six-year-olds who didn't have the skills in argumentation that we had been practicing since we were their age at Gordon.

 

The story of speaking up at the state capitol, in a "strong, kind way", echoed what Assistant Head Alethea Dunham-Carson had said earlier in the morning as she welcomed visitors:

We are an intentionally racially diverse community that leverages our community's diversity, in all of its forms, as a strength. 

The ability to develop healthy and productive cross-racial relationships, both social and professional, is a skill that many students leave high school without being asked to practice. 

We are so proud that our middle schoolers will enter these schools equipped to lead in these areas. 

At Gordon, we understand that when we encounter, validate and grapple with differing perspectives, perspectives that are often shaped by race and other social identities, we become better thinkers and leaders and, ultimately, more whole.

 

And the fact that the student shared the story—yesterday, from ten rows back, then again this morning—illustrates how these lessons continue to inspire students to share what they know, kindly and compassionately, and advocate for what they know is true.

 

The story of the state capitol visit as documented on Gordon's blog