Message from Kate Morin, Head of School

One of my very favorite Cornelia Connelly quotes is both simple and profound. Our beloved founder encouraged each member of her Holy Child community, both adults and children, to “Be yourself, only make that self all that God wants it to be.”

I love this sentiment so much because in many ways it encapsulates all that we try to do at Mayfield Senior School. We want our students to be able to bring their whole unique and authentic selves to school each day and to feel cherished and loved for who they are.

Cornelia didn’t want her students to conform to any rigid way of being. She wanted them to find their talents and their voices and for each one to grow into the beautiful person that only they could be.

In recent years we have made a conscious effort to bring girls with all kinds of differences into our Mayfield community.

These differences enrich everything we do. They allow for enlightening classroom discussions because our students come with different viewpoints and life experiences. They allow for more sophisticated problem solving because our girls bring different strengths and skills to group projects. There is a wonderful exchange of perspectives and understanding on campus through activities and clubs.

Our teachers intuitively recognize how important diversity is to our learning environment, and new data actually supports this observation. In his recent book, The Diversity Bonus, Scott Page is able to quantify the advantages enjoyed by teams whose members bring diverse skills and modes of thinking to their work. “Excellence demands diversity,” Page says.

He finds strong benefits in both cognitive diversity and identity diversity. Page writes that in an expanding economy that favors complex multi-dimensional challenges, the most successful teams are ones that harness the diverse talents and perspectives of their members. At Mayfield, we want our students to have the opportunity to practice this now. We want them to learn how to appreciate the advantages of learning and working with those who might look or think differently. We also know that it takes intentional energy and care to make sure that every single member of our community feels welcomed, included, and valued— this is the only way to unlock each individual’s unique and God-given gifts.

Our cherished Holy Child Goal Five guides us as we honor and educate each Mayfield girl and strive to “create a learning climate based on trust and reverence for the dignity and uniqueness of each person.”

With Love and Gratitude,

Kate Morin