The Bay School Difference
By Dennis Hartzell, Associate Head of School

I was recently asked a compelling question by the parent of a student who has applied to attend the Bay School. (This parent is also an old and good friend.)

"What difference will the Bay School make in my kid's life?"

This question is what every parent wants to ask of a school, of course. And it is a question that any school aspiring to greatness needs to answer promptly and clearly.

At the moment of being asked, I thought of reeling off for my friend the foundational statements of the Bay School's mission and philosophy. After all, those statements are the basis of all we've done and the guide to all we do in this building every single day. But this particular friend of mine is a mechanical engineer, and I suspected that he was looking for something other than a mission statement. He wanted to know how his kid was going to be different upon graduation from the Bay School.

And so I gave to him what I have come to believe are three distinguishing outcomes that result from four years at the Bay School.

Let's look at each.

1. Our world is in urgent need of individuals who are comfortable and capable in the presence of complexity and ambiguity. Many of the problems we confront as citizens and as human beings are challenging, messy, full of difficult choices and uncertain outcomes. Day after day, in class after class at the Bay School, students work to develop the critical thinking skills that are essential to approaching problems of Gordian proportion. Students quickly learn that while it may be acceptable (or even appropriate, at times) not to arrive at a single or simple solution to a problem, they also learn that it is never acceptable to abandon a problem because it is daunting or multi-dimensional. The analytical, objective, inquiring approach that drives the application of the scientific method in our Biology, Physics, and Chemistry courses has its equivalent in courses throughout our curriculum. Freshmen taking Writing Workshop grapple with possible solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; Math students pursue understanding and competence through problem sets and investigations that place a premium on process of thought; Humanities students take responsibility for protecting the interests of an individual nation-state while jostling with opposing interests in the Africa Project; Shakespeare students learn to unlock, often word by word, the puzzle of a sonnet. These tasks all develop a kind of cognitive tool kit and a certain predisposition of mind, a willingness to be accountable in the presence of problems.

2. We are all awash in information. But we may find ourselves short of knowledge, of information that has been processed in the service of greater understanding. The simple act of "googling," a verb that I think Shakespeare would have loved, produces cataracts of information but does nothing to qualify the relevance or accuracy or provenance of that information. We are long past the day when the practitioner of even the narrowest sub-specialty can expect to command all of the relevant information in a field. And since solving problems is best done from an informed posture, and because we really care about developing problem-solvers, what should we do? At the Bay School, we focus on two key responses to this challenge. The first is to develop in all students both the confidence and the capability to find what they need to know when they need to know it. Again, this is a matter of process, of habits of mind, and of sheer perseverance. The second key is to apply the analytical, critical thinking skills of the problem-solver when confronted with an overabundance of information. What is relevant to my question? How do I judge the credibility of the data? How do I make (or find) connections that illuminate new approaches or perspectives? In other words, how do I transform information into knowledge and manage the latter in pursuit of my objectives? If you are a Bay School student, you become a knowledge-manager through repeated exposure to an alert and vigilant process of inquiry.

3. Our problems are unlikely to diminish in either number or complexity. Indeed, we are certain to face challenges whose names and dimensions we cannot know at this moment. And the flow of information in and around our lives will remain torrential. What our students know and do today may or may not be adequate ten years from now, much less thirty years from now. Managing knowledge in pursuit of workable solutions to urgent problems will demand a life-long, self-renewing commitment to learning. An individual student's experience over four years at the Bay School leads inevitably to such a commitment...and not least because our kids work and change and grow in the watchful, mindful presence of faculty members who are themselves deeply, and joyously, committed to a lifetime of learning.

And just so you know, I also sent my friend this link: http://www.bayschoolsf.org/about/mission/

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Time for Learning – Re-Flections on a Re-Discovery
Bill Brown was a founding member of the Bay School faculty and taught Humanities
and Literature at Bay from 2004-2011

Some years ago, at another school, I presented a paper called “Time in Learning, Learning in Time.” The paper addressed the value of time in formal educational settings, such as schools. The project taught me that, specifically, we need time for three activities that I now see as central to successful learning. We need time to observe, time to consider, and time to create.

A few years ago at Bay I was unexpectedly, yet quite powerfully reminded of this idea. Our school community had planned to see the final Star Wars movie together. To accommodate this adventure, all classes had been halved in length. We ended up with 40-minute sessions, rather than the regular 80. I was thoroughly surprised by the effect that this reduction had on our work that day. No sooner had we greeted each other, reviewed yesterday's activities and the new day's agenda, as well as begun our discussion, than it was time to pack up. I experienced a dramatic difference between it and the class length to which I had grown accustomed during years of teaching. This difference, I should add, is clearly qualitative in nature, and the improved quality corresponds elegantly to the school's mission and precepts.

On this particular day in Humanities, we were scheduled to continue work with Chinua Achebe's novel, Things Fall Apart—set in traditional Nigerian villages in the 1880s. Our theme was justice. After greetings, reviews and introductions, each student wrote (in a journal) an answer to one of four questions about a trial scene in the novel. Afterwards, individuals began sharing their responses with the group. Each question was keyed to a different learning style. For example, one asked for a physical description of the trial itself, while another asked how you would have decided the case. Still another asked what beliefs underlie the court's traditions, and so on. Students had the chance to address the question that best fit their inclinations—or, they would have, had the class run its usual length. The plan had been to develop a holistic understanding of the trial by allowing an open and respectful exchange of different views on the subject. This takes time. Shorter classes place a premium on fast answers and confident talkers. Genuinely full discussions, actually productive exchanges—these require time. That's simply the way it is.

Accept no substitutes. When, through trial and error, people are genuinely trying to construct meaning with speech, and when others are authentically listening to these attempts, time passes. Schools need to provide safe arenas for these activities.

When such exchanges occur, several of the Bay School's precepts become evident. Consider just one of them here: “We value patience with ourselves and others; we don't rush to judgment.” A school's social architecture, which includes class length and other scheduling elements, can contribute to rushing. On the other hand, when everyone in the class knows that we have time to let someone speak, our understanding of an issue becomes as rich as the diverse ideas expressed. Keep in mind that the true measurement of our diversity is not how many people speak, but how well we listen. To echo words from the school's mission, what matters most in the long run is the depth of the exchange rather than its breadth. In modern American spirituality and politics, we see significant examples of impatience and rushing to judgment. The same holds true for ancient societies, in the Near East and elsewhere. We have a responsibility to study such examples and learn from them.

Finally, patience and rushed judgment are not issues just in Humanities or Languages. Science and Math, for example, depend on close observation, postponed conclusions, and cooperative endeavor. Art, as another example, goes nowhere unless the artist has taken the time to see—unless that artist is present to his or her experience. The brain learns best when it can link new information to existing knowledge. I am grateful for my re-discovery, my learning, on the day we saw the movie together. While I know that other schools also have long classes, I am beginning to understand how the undeniable benefits of such sessions are woven into the fabric of the Bay School's mission and precepts. It's about time.

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The Meaning of a New "C" Phrase
Shellie Banks was a member of the Bay School's founding faculty and taught Spanish and French
from 2004-2008

I’ve spent the past 21 years of my life teaching in independent schools that consider themselves to be prestigious competitive college prep schools. Each of their mission statements proclaimed their individuality and uniqueness and singled out the differences that distinguished them from their competitors. As distinctive as they were, one similarity that seemingly appeared in each school’s mission statement was the use of one or both of the following words—"competitive and challenging"—and indeed they were!

Arguably the biggest competition amongst and within these independent schools did not take place on the mud-covered fields of their stadiums, nor did it take place behind the closed doors of their well-structured classrooms.
This mighty skirmish occurred in a place that gave each student that well-deserved home court advantage, the bedroom. That’s right, it was the battle of the homework assignments, and it appeared that the championship always went to the school, academic division, or teacher whose students bragged (and moaned) relentlessly about the number of hours that they had spent in their rooms preparing for tests, completing assignments, and reading chapters of literature that would keep them up well into the wee hours of the morning. After all, this is what they signed up for—a good school with a rigorous and challenging curriculum that would give students that competitive edge over their peers, and surely guarantee them entrance into one of those prestigious universities whose mission statement and school philosophy also included the big “C”: challenging and competitive.

I must admit that even I had become a homework cheerleader. Encouraged by my fellow department members, we had a reputation to uphold. I would assign an hour’s worth of homework every night. Why? Because they said so, because the other departments did, because that’s what the parents expected, because that’s what makes you a “good” school, a “good” teacher, right? Well, let’s see. Five hours of homework coupled with about three and one half hours of class work per week, or two hours of homework coupled with roughly five and one half hours of class work. You do the math!

When I arrived to teach at the Bay School, I was not surprised that they had chosen to implement the big “C” into their mission statement. I quickly learned that the Bay School would indeed have a challenging curriculum to deal with the equally challenging issues of today’s society, and, like all schools, hoped that their students would gain that competitive edge that would allow them to be successful in their endeavors.

However, there was an extra twist to the Bay School mission statement and philosophy that I didn’t understand: “Careful Stewardship of Time.” The Bay School wasn’t looking for the home court advantage, nor were they looking for the homework advantage. According to their philosophy, the big showdown should take place during the school day, in the classroom, under the vigilant eyes of teachers who would closely observe, guide, instruct and evaluate the progress of each individual student between the hours of 8:15 am and 3:30 pm, not 8:15 pm and 3:30 am.

Hey, wait a minute—isn’t that when we all do our best learning and our most productive work, when we’re alert and engaged? As an effective teacher, if I spend 80 minutes in class with a student four days a week what need is there to send him/her home with another hour’s worth of work every night? One major assignment per week with short follow-up assignments or reviews has proven to be more productive, more effective, and more valuable in terms of teaching and learning. During our 80 minutes of class we are able to complete and fully discuss a lesson as well as begin our longer assignments which may require research, brainstorming, or just some teacher guidance. It also allows me to personally observe and evaluate how a student works independently and if his/her technique is both effective and time efficient—something that can not be done behind closed doors in his/her bedroom. As for the simple problem above, mathematically they’re both roughly the same but the outcome is different. One produces a massive amount of paperwork for both students and faculty alike with very little enjoyment or fulfillment in the process; the other, an enormous amount of accomplishment and success in terms of learning, teaching, and receiving pleasure from practice. After less than a year of teaching at the Bay School I became an impassioned advocate for the new “C” phrase: Careful Stewardship of Time.