Several weeks ago, I was invited to serve on a parent education panel along with another high school principal and two college counseling consultants. The topic was Supporting Your Child through the Challenges of Adolescence, and the audience was a group of several hundred sophomore class parents from affluent suburbs in the East Bay.

What struck me most about the panel experience was the significant difference in messages and perspectives— those coming from the two counselors, and those offered by me and my colleague, a principal of a very large suburban public school where a majority of the students are college-bound. The two consultants described a high school experience focused on university admission: achieving a high GPA, inventing a resume, writing an artful personal essay and identifying meaningful service opportunities—all in the context of facilitating the college application process.

In stark contrast, our messages were about the importance of encouraging and motivating our students to become resilient, responsible and truly literate. My fellow principal and I agreed that admission to college is certainly a highly desired and important outcome, but that the development of the habits of resilience, positive adaptation in the context of adversity, are critical lifelong skills, more essential than developing pathways to undergraduate school.

High school students setting off today on the exciting and complicated journey of adolescence in the twenty-first century encounter abundant opportunities to learn and grow but also many hazards and challenges. Instantaneous, ubiquitous electronic communication offers young people a tsunami of peer-driven messages, transmitted through seductive media, often free from adult filters and apart from meaningful context.

The speed and universality of the electronic adolescent experience can create a platform for extraordinary good ( huge numbers of young people register to vote, thousands of students unite to support earthquake relief, tens of thousands of young people celebrate environmental stewardship, students in the first world provide mosquito netting to their peers in the less developed world).

Simultaneously, the perils of modern adolescent life can be equally viral with the assistance of instantaneous technology. The romance of risk (the distorted glamorization of suicide, the unveiling of privacy, the frequent misinformation about the toxicity of underground pharmaceuticals, etc.) complicates and amplifies the growing-up process. There are many other adolescent hurdles that call for a new set of tolls for safe navigation.

During the past twenty years, the field of youth development has evolved with the same credibility and authority as that which the legendary pediatrician Dr. Spock popularized as child development in the '60's and '70's. The research-based field of youth development informs us that resilience evolves from a particular set of supports and opportunities, many of which are embedded in the culture of the Bay School:

• Young people need to be connected through meaningful relationships; family, friends, outside organizations and appropriate employment or volunteer opportunities that can help manifest resilience.
• Adolescents benefit in communities that foster positive friendships.
• Experiencing meaningful roles inside and outside of school prepares youth for unfamiliar, complex challenges.
• Young people benefit from a balance of responsibility and challenge; responsibility to others helps to create a sense of agency and empathy.
• Offering choices, with appropriate limits, responsibility and consequences provide a practice field for bigger, consequential decisions.

Professional Development at the Bay School - Critical Friends Groups

In recent years, many independent and public schools throughout the country have been considering new and different ways to reorient the professional development work done by their teachers. The reason they have been doing this is that there is an ongoing concern that the traditional professional development model was not resulting in measurably enhanced student learning.

Typically, in the traditional model, a school would identify a topic for faculty training (e.g., using technology in the classroom), set aside time, hire an outside expert to present the latest insights, and then train teachers about how to bring this new information to the classroom and present it to students. Teachers were then expected to apply what they had learned with the hope that it would enhance instruction and student mastery. Sometimes this model works, but never for all members of the faculty. Taking the all-faculty technology workshop as an example for instance, some teachers would be able to get valuable new ideas and then employ them to improve their teaching. However, other teachers who attended the same workshop already knew the information, and perhaps even knew more than the presenters, thus they weren't interested in the workshop. Still other teachers may have been interested, but the large group format didn't allow them to learn at their own pace. Another group able to follow along did not recognize a direct application of the techniques to their specific teaching challenges. The professional learning community approach is very different. It aims to address these shortcomings by allowing each teacher to choose his/her own topic, creating an atmosphere of collaboration and sharing that takes advantage of the teachers' range of knowledge and experience, thus linking the professional development activity to measurable improvement in learning.

• Creating authentic assessments
• Brain-friendly instruction
• Enhancing student problem-solving skills
• Effective grading systems
• Teacher feedback and student learning
• Using social networking sites as learning forums
• Using student debates to promote critical analysis and respectful disagreement

• Exploring teacher-student feedback involving expectations for collaboration. How do we as teachers help our students to navigate the shifting boundaries of acceptable collaboration?
• Can we create a new physics capstone project that models the investigatory nature of the activities that we conduct in Physics 1A and Physics 1B, as well as what really happens in the wider science community?
• How can we use writing as a learning tool in science?
• How do we tap into the intrinsic motivation of students to learn?

Bay Students Study Prejudice and Patriotism

Students at the Bay School are surrounded by history. It's easy to go through the day here enjoying organic lunches, panoramic views, and the company of friends and colleagues without thinking about the fact that one of the most controversial wartime decisions in United States' history was signed into action in a room on our campus. U.S. History students recently delved deep into the story of Japanese internment during World War II, a policy that was initiated through the signing of Executive Order 9066 (PDF) by Lieut. Gen. John L. DeWitt, commander of the Western Defense Command and Fourth Army, just steps down the hall from our classroom.

U.S. History at Bay is taught thematically. We examine topical themes such as 'Identity and Power' in American society through particular case studies. The second trimester focuses upon the subject of identity and power through an examination of the Reconstruction period following the Civil War, the suffrage movement, Japanese internment and, as the culminating unit, the civil rights movement of the 60's and its legacy.

As is typical of our approach, in order to learn about the Japanese internment we began by reading several primary resources, including Executive Order 9066 itself and subsequent evacuation orders, as well as novel excerpts, newspaper stories, and even poetry about the internment experience. This trimester we were extremely fortunate to be able to supplement our study of written sources with a visit to the Presidio Officers Club nearby campus for a private tour of the exhibit titled Prejudice and Patriotism: The Story of Japanese Americans in the Military Intelligence Service, 1941 - 1952, organized by the National Japanese American Historical Society.


During the course of World War II, the Military Intelligence Service, or MIS, trained more than 6,000 Nisei, American-born citizens of Japanese descent, as translators and intelligence officers. For thousands, this was a ticket out of the internment camps such as Topaz and Manzanar where their families were imprisoned. It was a surprise to all of us to learn that these officers were trained right here in the Presidio where they attended the Military intelligence Service Language School located directly across from Crissy Field in Building 640—now dilapidated and scheduled to be restored as the Military Intelligence Service Learning Center. The Center will serve as the permanent home of the story of Japanese American soldier linguists who played a critical role in the Pacific Theater of World War II and in the occupation of Japan after the War.

Our class met with Tom Graves, whose photographs and oral histories of Japanese American veterans are a central focus of the exhibit. His work in interviewing these vets uncovered stories of notable heroism. Students were particularly struck by the story of a young officer who walked into an enemy-held cave and sat down to a meal with Japanese soldiers, knowing full well he could easily be killed. He then talked them into surrendering quietly. He was successful largely because his foes were so impressed by his boldness. Students commented on the bravery this young man showed in 'sticking his neck out for a country that imprisoned his fellow Japanese-Americans.

Following the exhibit, we returned to school to discuss the legality and morality of the decision to intern Japanese Americans and Japanese American citizens. We studied the landmark case, Korematsu vs. the United States, brought before the US Supreme Court in 1944 challenging the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066—as well as more recent debates about whether to give restitution payments to internees.

As a culminating activity, students chose sides in the debate: Was the decision to intern Japanese Americans just or unjust? Their responses were thoughtful, the range of opinions literally spread across a 'human barometer' which we made by standing along a line between sides of the classroom representing complete agreement and disagreement with the decision.

Our students were deeply affected by this historical episode. They thought hard about it and cited both contemporary and historic 'lenses' in defining their positions. They voiced a number of different opinions that ranged from 'It was war, the U.S. had to protect itself from potential sabotage,' to 'It was just wrong. There's never a good reason to take away people's rights, to put them in prison without a trial.' One student expressed the dilemma she felt in taking sides: 'I understand why the government wanted to intern them, I really do. I just don't know if it would be right today.' It has been said, "Don't bother studying history if you're not prepared to deal with today." Bay's curriculum, draws much of its strength from focusing on points of relevance between the past and present. Thus, it was not a surprise to witness that by their junior year students were making these connections on their own, rooted in the 'here and now'; all the time surrounded by the rich history of the Presidio.

Experiencing Diversity at the People of Color Conference and Student Diversity Leadership Conference

"Each person comes into this world with a specific destiny—he has something to fulfill, some message has to be delivered, some work has to be completed. You are not here accidentally—you are here meaningfully. There is a purpose behind you. The whole intends to do something through you."
—Osho

As the founders of the Bay School envisioned the school they wanted to create, diversity played a central role. They began by recruiting a faculty, staff, and student body that reflected the cultural, racial, and economic spectrum of the Bay Area community. At Bay, diversity is broadly defined and experienced. Our curriculum pays special attention to considering a range of cultural perspectives across all disciplines and is structured to embrace a variety of different learning styles and means of expression. The school community gives voice to differing points of view on many levels from student and faculty talks at daily morning meetings, all-school gatherings, and student-led clubs discussing issues of equity and inclusion. The Bay School strives to build and foster a closely-knit, accepting and respectful community to which we are encouraged to bring the entirety of ourselves each day.

Winter Basketball Highlights

It's hard to believe that the regular basketball season has already come to a close and spring sports practices started on February 8th. At press time the girls' varsity basketball team, coached by veteran coach Larry Minnich, is enjoying their best season in Bay School history. The girls are currently 11-1 in the Bay Counties League Central Division (BCL-Central). This year's team is led by senior co-captains Allison Szeto, and speedy senior defender, Lauren Ritzer. Junior point guard, Mary MacLeod led the Breakers in scoring, supported by juniors, Clara Cardillo and Angie Matarozzi. The girls will head into the BCL-Central playoffs beginning on February 12th in a drive to earn the league championship title.

Bay Physics Students Attend LaserFest at UC Berkeley
Miles Chen, Physics Teacher

On January 25th, 2010, Physics students from the Bay School attended LaserFest at the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the invention of the laser. Students were treated to a talk given by Charles Townes, UC Berkeley professor emeritus of physics and 1964 Nobel laureate in physics for his work contributing to the construction of the first laser. The laser is considered by many in the scientific community as one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century with a reach that extends to all corners of everyday modern life. Lasers are everywhere whether you know it or not.

Bay School Students Participate in the Harvard Model Congress

A group of seven members of the Bay School Model United Nations Club, accompanied by teachers Robin Workman and Craig Miller, participated in a four-day government simulation held in San Francisco on January 21st -24th, facilitated by students from Harvard College. Five Bay students played the roles of members of congress and crafted legislation in areas ranging from health care to domestic security, while two students were assigned roles in the presidential cabinet and the G20. The conference helped to bring the complex reality of the legislative process to life and the students emerged with a much greater understanding and appreciation of the complexities of the political process.

Thea Walsh, Class of 2011
I played the role of Allyson Schwartz serving in the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania District 13. I wrote a new stimulus bill that took some money left over from the original 2008 stimulus bill and divided it amongst the states by population to create jobs and renovate facilities such as hospitals and public schools as well as fund major public works projects. This bill passed into law while we were there. I was honored to receive an award of excellence from the Appropriations Committee on which I served.

Martin Mancini, Class of 2013
As a representative of the senator from Michigan at the conference, my main responsibility was to be in attendance at the meetings of the Senate Finance Committee. The issues that our committee dealt with were trade agreements, the regulation of consumption, and children's health care. As a staunch liberal, I advocated for the protection of American industry through the imposition of tariffs, granting greater regulatory purview to the FDA and CPSC, and offering subsidized health care to children who are not currently insured. Though I adamantly pushed for legislation including these provisions, not all proved politically palatable and so I worked to craft bi-partisan legislation. This was a positive experience and I look forward to doing it again.

Katie McLaughlin, Class of 2011
During the Harvard Model Conference I acted as a member of the House of Representatives.
I served on the Energy and Commerce Committee where we focused on three main subjects: international climate change, FEMA reform, and the regulation of organ donations. We were able to pass three bills, and ultimately two became laws. It was such a valuable experience, because we were able to witness exactly how our bodies of government operate. It gave me a much clearer perspective about how our Congress works, and it helped me to better understand why change involves such a long and complicated process in American government.

Kelsey MacLeod, Class of 2011
I had a fantastic experience participating in the Harvard Model Congress for the first time. Representing Indonesia in the G20, I served on a committee that discussed issues related to foreign aid allocation, international climate and international tariff policies. I learned through my research and preparation that Indonesia is remarkably open for a developing country. Our committee also dealt with several hypothetical crises which included the global spread of a dangerous chemical found in textiles produced primarily in third world countries. Our G20 group thought of a process to document all chemicals used in the production of goods that could be harmful to consumers. We then established a global database we dubbed the IDCK (International Database for Chemical Knowledge) to raise the awareness of governments, producers and consumers around the world.

Learn more about the Harvard Model Conference

February & March 2010 Events Calendar