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Thomas Heise, Deerfield Academy Faculty
Even in schools that are over 200 years old, September is about starting anew. Two hundred students in this audience are just beginning their time at Deerfield. Nearly twenty members of the faculty are entering their first years as Deerfield teachers. Students and teachers alike have spent the past week getting to know one another as we have started new classes, fielded new teams, planned new performances and launched new projects. For those of us who have been here for a while, this is a time of year when we remember our first encounters with Deerfield.
I first heard of Deerfield when I was about sixteen years old. My twin brother and I were drifting through high school in Bloomington, Indiana. My mother sensed we were unchallenged, that we had too much free time and way too much fun. One day, she called us together and asked us whether we would have any interest in going away to a boarding school-to Deerfield. She had been talking to a friend on the other side of town whose son was here and sending home glowing reports. We knew almost nothing about boarding schools and had never heard of Deerfield. We were not excited; we were not even intrigued. We were horrified. We weren't angels; we had made some mistakes. We didn't think that our mother knew about them-at least not all of them. And now it seemed she not only knew, but that she had concluded that it was time for bold action. When my mother said "boarding school," we heard "military school." The only boarding school we'd ever heard of was Culver Military Academy in northern Indiana-the destination, we mistakenly believed, of our state's incorrigible children. So we warily declined her offer and vowed to one another to behave. I eventually learned that the boy from my hometown who had come here had loved Deerfield-and that he had been thrown out for multiple infractions by the Thanksgiving of his first year.
Ten years later, on a chilly spring day, Mrs. Heise and I drove into Deerfield to interview for positions here at the academy. We cruised down main street in a gigantic white Cadillac-to our embarrassment, the only rental car left in the lot upon our arrival at the airport. Like so many others who have been baffled by the absence of a sign for Deerfield Academy, we traveled the length of the street and completely missed the school. When I was sixteen, I eagerly avoided Deerfield. At twenty six, I couldn't find it.
Mrs. Heise and I were excited about the possibility of teaching here. We had both taught in prep school before. It was a life we knew and liked. In Madison, Wisconsin with newly-minted master's degrees, we had sent out a round of letters and waited for news. Some schools never responded. Others sent polite "wait and see" deferrals. The most memorable reply came from Phillips Exeter. After briefly thanking us for our letter, the dean of faculty wrote: "You must be able to imagine the odds that we will have two positions open to fit the two of you, and that you will each be our number one choice. You might just as well play the Wisconsin lottery." We never heard from Exeter again. Happily, our chances turned out to be better here at Deerfield.
I have been a teacher for over twenty years-long enough to have a sense of the continuities and changes that mark this profession. On balance, I am most impressed by what we share with those who have preceded us. Fundamentally, our educational goal has remained constant. As educators Ted and Nancy Sizer have written, "Raising up decent and principled children has been the desire of humankind for millennia. The great texts in most traditions have been moral tracts, guidebooks to inform and storybooks to inspire the young with models to emulate." Teaching students to be good people, to equip them with the skills and sensibilities they will need to live good lives, has always been the central purpose of thoughtful educators. But we have often disagreed about what it means to be good, about the specific skills and sensibilities that young people will need, and about the probable shape of the future.
Historical and cultural contexts exert a powerful effect on education. Consider the following extended example from early American history regarding character education, specifically the issue of individual will. Put simply, the Puritans who settled New England were against it. The fate of Adam and Eve testified to the danger of poor self-restraint; their untamed wills, the Bible says, marked us all with original sin. Believing that waywardness led to eternal damnation, Calvinist New Englanders insisted on obedience and mounted an educational campaign against the wills of their children. "Break their wills," implored a like-minded minister, "that you may save their souls."
"Evangelical parents," writes historian Philip Greven, "were engaged in war with their children which could end only with total victory by the parents and unconditional surrender by the child." Calvinist parents in this era attacked the will early, often before their children were a full year old. They controlled how their children slept, ate, and dressed. They taught their children the right way to cry-softly, or not at all. If structure and gentle encouragement failed, parents moved on to sterner measures, sometimes to corporal punishment. As one historian said, they believed that "children had to have the devil beaten out of them before good sense could be beaten in."
A 19th century father, who was also a minister, wrote at length about a pivotal battle with his fifteen-month-old son, Herman. The problem was Herman's unbroken will, a direct challenge to his father. Out of concern for his son's soul, the father resolved to "settle the question of authority between us":
On Friday last before breakfast, on my taking him from his nurse, he began to cry violently. I determined to hold him in my arms until he ceased. As he had a piece of bread in his hand, I took it away, intending to give it to him again after he became quiet. In a few minutes he ceased, but when I offered him the bread he threw it away, although he was very hungry. He had, in fact, taken no nourishment except a cup of milk since 5 o'clock on the preceding afternoon. I considered this a fit opportunity for attempting to subdue his temper, and resolved to embrace it. I thought it necessary to change his disposition, so that he would receive the bread from me, and also be so reconciled to me that he would voluntarily come to me.
Battle lines were drawn. Little Herman had to accept bread from his father's hand and melt into his father's arms or go hungry. Herman would not do it. Confined to his room, he stubbornly refused both the bread and the embrace that his father offered. Minutes passed, then hours, then the rest of the day. Little Herman remained defiant. He went to bed without supper that evening and had no breakfast the following morning. As midday approached, this fifteen-month-old boy had gone nearly forty hours without food. "His eyes," reported the father, "were wan and sunken. His breath was hot and feverish, and his voice feeble and wailing." Not until three o'clock in the afternoon did the little boy finally cave in. He fell into his father's arms and kissed him. He was finally allowed to eat. After this event, the father observed, his son was "mild and obedient." The father in this account, which would today be grounds for criminal charges of child abuse and endangerment, was Francis Wayland, the president of Brown University. He was keen on student discipline too. The Brown website describes Wayland as "stern."
But in Wayland's day, many leading educators would have approved. The war against little Herman's will was for his own good. There was, however, one segment of the population that recoiled at this sort of child-rearing: Native Americans. And they knew first-hand what it was like. In the name of civilization, Protestant missionaries established schools in which Indian children learned Christian theology, English, mathematics, Greek and Latin-and obedience. When students strayed from the sober study of the classics, reports historian James Axtell, "the birch rod covered their skin with welts they had never seen at home." The Onondagas of New York delivered this rebuke to Eleazar Wheelock, the founder of Dartmouth College who was well-known for his harsh punishment of Indian students: "Brother, you must learn...how to treat Indians. [D]on't speak roughly; nor...for every little mistake take up a club & flog them." Indians did not beat their children.
But in the name of education, Indians did subject their children to physical hardship. John McCullough recalled a lesson he received from the Delaware Indians who raised him:
In the beginning of winter, [my uncle] used to raise me up by daylight every morning, and make me sit down in the creek up to my chin in the cold water, in order to make me hardy..., whilst he would sit on the bank, smoking his pipe, until he thought I had been long enough in the water. He would then bid me to dive. After I came out of the water, he would order me not to go near the fire until I would be dry. I was kept at that till the water froze over. He would then break the ice for me, and send me in as before.
This went on all winter. Similar accounts emerge from early New England. Historian Charles Mann writes of Indian "family games of tossing naked children into the snow," of Indian boys who "spent an entire winter alone in the forest, equipped only with a bow, a hatchet, and a knife," of children "running barelegged through brambles." Indian boys were trained to run great distances; the best learned to run one hundred miles in a day. As a curriculum designed to instill physical fortitude and wilderness skills, it was successful. Indians were accomplished persistence hunters, able to run moose and deer to exhaustion. Of these graduates of Indian "schooling," one early English observer remarked: "Beat them, whip them, pinch them, punch them, if they resolve not to flinch for it, they will not."
Still, Indian education seems harsh, perhaps even abusive. On what grounds, therefore, did Indians object to the educational practices of English Calvinists? I imagine it was difficult for Indians to see how learning Greek or Latin would help their children survive in the forests of the northeast. But their objection was more fundamental than that. The disagreement between Indians and their Calvinist neighbors was about the nature and purpose of character education. The Puritan theological project was to save souls and redeem humankind. Calvinists sought to break the will of children so they would obey earthly authority and do God's will. Native American education took on different challenges. How best to assure individual and collective physical survival in a sometimes formidable environment? How best to sustain the sense of individual liberty and independence that characterized American Indian self-government? One thing was clear: dutiful obedience was the last thing they wanted. They wanted their children to be resourceful, independent self-starters. American Indians visited physical hardship upon their children to strengthen the will, not destroy it. American Indians and Calvinist Anglo-Americans agreed that good character was important and both hoped to equip their children for the world they would enter as adults. But these were worlds and cultures in conflict-little surprise, then, that their definitions of good character and their educational ideas differed so markedly. Context has always had a powerful effect on education.
As contexts evolve, so does education. In the 19th century, as American society democratized and industrialized, a compulsory public school system arose as a response; Americans needed to be educated for the polling place and the workplace. In the 20th century, the demands of the Cold War caused many schools to increase math and science requirements and to offer appropriate language instruction. When I arrived at Deerfield in the fall of 1988, our language department taught both German and Russian. We no longer teach either language; instead, in response to new realities, we offer Chinese and Arabic and we see enrollment numbers in Spanish climb every year. When I arrived in 1988, Deerfield was an all-boys school. Today, a quick glance around this auditorium shows how we have responded to a fifty year period in which barriers of race and gender have been lowered in this country and the peoples of the world have become more interconnected. Schools like Deerfield have become more diverse in the composition of their student bodies, their faculties, and their course offerings. This was not only a matter of social justice, it was also necessary in order to prepare students for our present and future reality.
Today we are in the midst of great changes, many of which are traceable to technological developments over the past 150 years. Many of them are ongoing, so it is difficult to be certain about the challenges and opportunities in front of us. But here are some tentative observations and questions all the same.
The industrial revolution has greatly heightened our standard of living. We live longer, we travel more easily, and we are surrounded by comforts and enriched by experiences that would have astounded our pre-industrial ancestors. Carbon-based fossil fuels provide the power on which we all depend. However, the pollution arising from our consumption of coal and oil causes global warming and places all of us at great risk. How should Deerfield respond educationally and institutionally to the environmental challenges that await us?
The more recent revolution in technology also raises questions. Modern technology has created an exponential increase in the amount of information available to teachers and students-and it continues to grow. Wonderful resources for teachers and students have been created as newspapers, artwork, photographs, letters, diaries, and documentaries have been digitized and put online. The challenge that you face now is not the problem of finding sufficient information; an ever-growing tidal wave of facts, figures, sounds, and images pours over you every day. Mastery? Well-roundedness? What do those words mean in an environment like this? Perhaps the educator Howard Gardner is correct in suggesting that words like discipline, synthesis, and creativity need to be a more prominent part of our educational conversations.
Today's high-velocity, multimedia world seems to insist that we do many things at once. But how well can people really multitask? A neuroscientist at Vanderbilt asserts that, while computers help us handle heavier workloads, we are physiologically unable "to concentrate on two things at once." The novelist Mark Helprin believes that we must learn to accept our limits: "No one will ever run the mile in two minutes, crawl through a Cheerio, or memorize the Encyclopaedia Britannica." We will live better if we accept our limits gracefully. Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate, observed recently that we have kneeled to the "gods of acceleration" and that we will "preserve a sense of mindfulness" only by deliberately slowing down. But how do we slow down in a world that seems to race faster by the day?
Modern technology is changing the nature of school communities. With cell phones, e-mail, instant-messaging, networked video games, and social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, young people are creating distant, virtual communities-perhaps at the expense of traditional, physical, placed communities. Facebook boasts over 30 million users and is adding 100,000 new participants a day. MySpace claims over 100 million users. The University of Phoenix, an online university, has 300,000 students. (The largest physical campus in the United States, Ohio State, has just over 50,000 students.) Do we spend so much time and energy in virtual settings that we no longer give enough time to personal, face-to-face interaction? What is the fate of character education in a world of virtual relationships? New York University now offers a seminar for incoming freshmen to help them with "in-person social networking": training for how to meet people, have conversations, and make friends face-to-face.
Modern technology is increasing the competitive pressures that students face. Gaining entrance to our nation's elite universities and schools has never been more difficult. Last year, Harvard received nearly 23,000 applications and admitted just over 2000 students. Yale received over 19,000 applications for 1300 places. Deerfield is just as selective. Part of the explanation is demographic; baby boomers' children have entered the applicant pool. But part of the reason is technological. Modern technology has helped make applicant pools global and there just aren't enough Harvards, Yales, and Deerfields to go around. And the world won't become less competitive after college. For many, job security is a relic of a bygone age. Computer-driven automation is eliminating whole occupations-even as it is creating new kinds of work both within this country and around the world. It stands to reason that you must be prepared to change your career and your home often; the U.S. Secretary of Labor said recently that you will have had nine different jobs by the time you are 35. You will be told again and again that you need to embrace life-long education in order to stay afloat in these stormy seas. What steps can a school take to prepare you for unknown jobs in unknown countries?
There is relatively little in this networked world that leads students to solitary, independent study. So perhaps even as competition increases, there will be a parallel increase in cooperation. Within schools like Deerfield, will the premium on collaborative learning grow? And if it does, what of ethics? A recent BusinessWeek article on the cheating scandal at Duke's business school wonders whether "the notion of what constitutes cheating has to be reevaluated" in light of the current emphasis on "creative collaboration."
As we begin a new year, we are entering a new age with exciting possibilities and unsettling questions. As the world changes, so must we. At Deerfield, we will try to make these changes wisely and well. Yet even as we respond to new challenges, old truths will hold. Education is about more than the transmission of information. At the heart of a good education, there are teachers and students who know and respect each other and who, in a spirit of common enterprise, commit to excellence and to an ethic of mutual care and support. We know that the best learning is active, not passive. The lasting joy that comes from individual achievement and mastery cannot be given or forced; it comes instead through the extension of opportunity and voluntary, individual engagement. At Deerfield, we believe that a broadly-diversified liberal arts education, an idea that is thousands of years old, is still the best way to offer students a full range of opportunities to find out who they are, who they can be, who they ought to be-intellectually, physically, morally, and ethically. The world calls to people who are flexible, broadly knowledgeable, interested and skilled, able to learn and grow, and generous of heart. That call brought you to Deerfield. "Children," a scholar once wrote, "are the living messages we send to the future." As teachers and students, brothers and sisters, parents and sons and daughters, friends and neighbors, we all know there is nothing more important than raising good people dedicated to making the world better. That is a truth that has lived through the ages. For the moment, we are all the guardians of that truth until we too pass it along to future generations.
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