Trying to See the Whole Field “Get your head up! Try to see the whole field” That phrase has a great chance of being the most frequently shouted phrase by coaches to their players. Why? Because it’s really hard for a player to see the whole field, especially when they’re near the ball. There is so much going on around them, happening so quickly, so many pressing responsibilities. And NOT seeing the whole field dramatically shrinks the available options. Not surprisingly, however, yelling at players to “See the whole field!” has limited value. Good coaching happens BEFORE that moment—coaching that prepares them, teaches them, to see the whole field and to act effectively and decisively at game speed. That is what makes a positive difference. But just as players can get their heads down on the field and coaches can get caught up yelling during game situations instead of better preparing their players for game speed, schools can get bogged down by what’s happening right in front of them. Schools can fail to see how the game is changing, how the needs of students are changing, and how the future is looking less and less like the present, and very little like the past. Schools can easily become myopic: focused on the day-to-day of students and homework and programs and parent meetings and grades and all that comes with being a school, to the exclusion of what’s happening in the community, in the country, and in the world outside of the school’s walls. At Seattle Academy, we spend a lot of time thinking about and working on how we can help our students develop an ability to “see the whole field” and then to act in ways that will be effective in combining their knowledge and their skills in moments of action. That’s why we’re constantly considering what kind of curriculum we should have, what courses should populate that curriculum, and how we can create a schedule that allows students to develop the key skills and content they need in core areas to pursue the talents they were born with, while also offering avenues for them to discover and build on potential talents and interests they might never have dreamed they’d have.
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By Rob Phillips, Associate Head of School, and Joe Puggelli, Head of School
That’s why we hire teachers who are not only accomplished in their academic disciplines, but who also have a breadth and depth of experience in the Real World—not just in academia—because they know what Game Speed looks like in the world that our students will graduate into. That’s why we ask experts, from educational fields as well as from cutting-edge innovative and entrepreneurial endeavors, to come into our schools, walk the halls, help us interrogate our day-to-day reality, and give us feedback on what we can do better, and what we should be trying to do that we aren’t currently doing. And our commitment to our students is also why we don’t flinch from addressing tough, complex issues that come up in the lives of our students and in our community. Seattle Academy literally sits at a major intersection in one of Seattle’s most vibrant neighborhoods, in a diverse and dynamic city. So we are well placed in our mission “to prepare students for college and for life.” Living up to that mission requires us, as an institution, to “see the whole field,” to avoid lapsing into the myopia of daily details and adopting the limiting view of “independent school as walled compound” that is unfortunately a common perception and perhaps reality of many schools. Living up to our mission also means teaching our students how to think, not what to think. That’s not just a practice that is confined to academic discussions in the classroom setting; it’s a practice that is even more critical (along with having relevant skills) when students are confronted by challenging situations that intersect and even transcend the traditional boundaries of “school.” In fact, “preparing students for college and life” for us means preparing them to navigate as individuals and to come together as a community when tragedies occur. It means being willing to confront tough issues of racial and socio-economic inequality, to develop a sense of empathy and courage in recognizing and addressing historic and deeply rooted injustices, and to listen to each other openly and earnestly as we engage