The Power of Perspectives

THE POWER OF PERSPECTIVES

By Jessica More

In a world where public dialogue is growing increasingly polarized, EA classrooms offer a positive vision of what can happen when a variety of perspectives meet, mix, and even challenge each other. When EA students and teachers with wide-ranging worldviews work and learn together, they recognize that there is power in seeing through others’ eyes. Our best learning experiences find ways to encourage students to understand other perspectives, helping them become more discerning and adaptable critical thinkers. They even become more globally-minded citizens with wide-reaching passions, relationships, and greater self-confidence.

Assistant Head of School Paul Sanders explains that exposure to and appreciation of different perspectives is at the heart of learning. “We know that in classrooms and many other contexts, the collective wisdom of thoughtful groups often exceeds the sum of its parts,” he says. “This is why teams of people often find better solutions than talented individuals working alone. And it’s why the richest learning environments are those where differing perspectives have opportunities to learn from one another.”

Fostering a rich learning environment is a priority for EA’s faculty and administrators. Beyond the classroom, our students have exposure to—and the opportunity to delve deeper into—environments that help them grow as individuals and community members. “I always recommend that students take every opportunity to connect with, and learn from, people who are different from them,” Mr. Sanders

continues, “When considering May Term courses, Global Online Academy (GOA) courses, service experiences, extracurricular activities, celebrations of other faiths in Chapel, and much more, I believe that seeking opportunities to connect with people from wide-ranging backgrounds or perspectives creates powerful opportunities for growth.”

Students who graduate from this learning environment can more easily connect abstract concepts to concrete examples that are drawn from a range of life experiences. This functions through the way that multiple vantage points disrupt cognitive functioning, stimulating an increased complexity with which they can approach issues. Studies have demonstrated that exposure to different viewpoints and hearing novel ideas in the classroom stimulates critical thinking, encourages perspective-taking, and increases empathy.

These interpersonal skills are also essential in the workplace. Leading companies routinely attest that their workforces need to be trained in a wide range of educational environments that reflect the world in which they work. These companies want employees who represent all backgrounds, who have experience collaborating with diverse groups of people, and who can provide more creative approaches to problem-solving by integrating different perspectives.

From the arts studio, to the classroom, to the athletic field, EA’s teachers and coaches work to infuse their instruction with varied viewpoints and nurture an environment where students respect and learn from each other.

SETTING A FOUNDATION

For our youngest students, it can be difficult to think from someone else’s point of view. Pre-K Teacher Nancy Reinhard, Hon. sees it as her mission to teach her students, who come from different households and communities, how to be a part of their new classroom community and their larger EA community. That starts with being yourself, she says. “Be who you are, be confident. Once you establish that, then there needs to be an appreciation of others, who are also being themselves.”

Each person is an important part of their classroom community. Mrs. Reinhard explains that part of appreciating others is being kind to them and caring for them. Class starts each day with a morning meeting, where she says, “We say good morning to each person. We make eye contact, and we care whether you are here or not here. We wait and we listen to each person as they talk.”

A frequently-used tool in the classroom is the red heart lamp. When a teacher sees someone doing something kind, they ask the student if they can turn on the heart lamp. If the student is okay with being publicly recognized in this way, they turn on the light and share that kindness with the class. “We use that opportunity to talk about what makes my heart warm and about how it makes you feel good that you care about others. The heart gives them a visual, and the class gets to feel that too,” Mrs. Reinhard says.

The red heart has been around for years, something Scottie Crockett ’19 referenced in her senior Chapel Talk. It was, in fact, one of the few vivid memories she has from her earliest days at EA. As a fidgety four-yearold,

struggling to stay focused in the morning meeting, she says, “Something caught my eye, a red heart above the left corner of the classroom’s door. I asked, ‘Mrs. Reinhard, what’s that?’ She answered my question, saying that it was a heart lamp, and that if the entire class was good to each other, the heart would glow overnight until the next morning. That was the first of many important lessons that this school has taught me.”

Pre-K students often engage in learning activities with partners, learning that there is a time to express themselves, but also a time to listen. “We talk about respecting opinions,” Mrs. Reinhard says. “The students share how they did something. It may not be how you did it, but maybe you can figure it out in a different way. They start thinking to themselves, ‘Maybe I should try it that way.’”

The class uses a hand signal to help communicate that they are seeing things from each others’ views. Similar to the Hawaiian “hang loose” sign, each student makes a tiny ball with their fist, extends the thumb and pinky, and shakes their hand back and forth. By the end of their Pre-K year, Mrs. Reinhard says, they are using this symbol all the time, showing that they’re aware of others’ needs, aware of others’ desires, aware of others in the world, and how they connect with them. Building that bridge makes them more confident, but also more understanding. “I see many of the students that I’ve taught over the years,” she says, “I see them in the dining hall, and they’re very respectful. They make the initiative to say ‘hello’ and connect, and that’s very heartening to me. They are confident people, understanding that they’re important citizens to the world.”

IN THE ARTS STUDIO

In the arts studios, students are often challenged to paint the same still life using their own unique artistic voices. William Sargent ’22 shares, “Everyone is looking from such a different perspective. There are some ideas that you get from each other in the studio. I might want to incorporate something someone else did because feeling-wise and visually they were able to capture what I was going for.”

In the studio, who you learn with can be as important as who you learn from. Department Chair David Sigel, Hon. encourages his classroom to be a place where students hear their own voices and formulate their own strong perspectives, while still being open to having honest dialogues with others about their work.

“This is collaboration in the purest form,” he says, “It’s the physicality of our work and being in proximity with someone else. Our students are engaging with conversations and understanding that what they bring to the table might not be what someone else brings to the table. It’s not always teacher to student, it’s student to student, which is amazing.”

Those open and honest dialogues where students can be their authentic selves, Mr. Sigel feels, are especially enabled in the arts. “We foster an environment where they’re never uncomfortable or need to apologize for what they’ve done because we’re inviting people to bring the richness of who they are to the table—no matter what their background is,” he shares. “In the studio, we can teach each other to be open-minded and to not be reserved in sharing what we come with and who we are.”

Once students build their underlying skills and artistic theory in order to be able to communicate effectively, Mr. Sigel says, they can stretch them into more openended, conceptual questions. Displaying an array of student still life oil paintings, Mr. Sigel demonstrates how each is not only viewed from a different angle, but each focuses on different parts of the display and is executed through different painting styles. “Not one of them looks alike,” he says, “Each one of them shows the personal connection the student has with their piece, a visual display of their thinking, a communication they’re having with the viewer.”

William feels he is encouraged to put his own spin on everything he works on. “It’s important to learn the basic techniques in the lower grades,” he says. “When you’re starting, everyone’s art looks the same in a way, but it’s important to take what interests you and run with it and see where that takes your art.” As part of the 2-D Design III class, William played a large part in the creative process behind the recent Crawford Campus Center Gallery’s February exhibit, Harlem Stride, which celebrated Black History Month and the Harlem Renaissance.

Each of the 17 students in the class created a panel that is black and white on one side, and color—using a shared palette—on the other side. Walking into the space, the viewer’s overall impression is of the explosion of vibrant art and culture. Each student’s panel is richly unique, but coordinates. “We were trying to capture the energy and sudden growth of that period. When you turn around and see the colored panels, it’s a cacophony of visual sound,” explained William. “While the palettes all fit together, they are still individual and represent the perspective of each individual artist.”

“Having that structure of a limited palette allowed them to be free to do whatever they wanted knowing in the end it would be harmonious because they built off the same prompt,” said Mr. Sigel, who encouraged the students to do research on the period and played jazz in the gallery space while the students were painting.

THROUGH THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE

With a deep interest in politics and international relations, EA lifer Nick Christos ’20 tries his hardest to see the world and current events through others’ eyes, starting with his own classmates.

Because very few classes at EA are structured as a lecture format, Nick feels that each student in his classes brings something different and special to his learning. “Half the things I’m writing down are things my classmates say,” he explains. “That’s the learning. Our teachers give us room to learn from each other.”

As a self-proclaimed political junkie and leader of the Young Democrats Club, Nick values the fact that he has been exposed to classmates who come from varied backgrounds and who think differently. “There’s a respect for each other, you feel that very much. We all appreciate and value each other.”

Currently, the Young Democrats meet with the Young Republicans club every other week and try to see things from their point of view. “You’d be very surprised,” he shares. “When we meet with the Young Republicans, we usually find some kind of common ground. We start from a place where we believe everyone should be treated with dignity, everyone deserves respect and equal opportunities, and we end up discussing how those opportunities should be appropriated.”

Much of the shared appreciation for humanity comes from EA’s Chapel program, which exposes EA students to different religious beliefs and practices through speakers who share their experiences. For Nick, Chapel helped him develop the critical skill of empathy. “Chapel is like a think tank for empathy,” he says. “You see people in front of you, and they are not “the other.” Hearing their stories first-hand has taught me to respect and value others’ insights, exposed me to different career paths, and made me more aware overall of life outside of EA.”

Nick decided to take Arabic through the Global Online Academy (GOA) in his junior year. At EA, juniors and seniors can choose from nearly 60 courses offered through GOA, a not-for-profit consortium of independent schools from around the world that offers fascinating online courses ranging from Number Theory to Neuropsychology. After taking Arabic, Nick went on to take an international relations course. In both classes, he says, “It has been fascinating to see how where other people live has influenced their viewpoints. Taking the class with students who live in different environments has exposed me to new ways of looking at subjects.”

Nick has chosen to continue his studies at Tufts University, in part because of how diverse, worldly, and civically engaged the student body appeared to him. After learning how to seek different viewpoints and be investigative and thoughtful, he wants to continue to be exposed to classmates from all over the world.

IN MATH CLASS

One of the most fundamental ways that students bring different perspectives into the classroom is in how they learn. “We all think and learn a little bit differently,” shares Dr. Sara Tilles, who helps coach teachers on instructional best practices and coordinates on-campus professional development workshops. “When we have the opportunity to hear about how another learner approached a challenge, our own understanding is enhanced. When we hear someone else’s thinking process, it widens our own lens and perspective for how we can approach things in the future.”

In the past, Dr. Tilles explains, teaching was thought of as happening from the top-down. When EA was first founded in 1785, students of all different ages in a single classroom learned by rote memorization, recitation, and copying what was on the board. Today, teachers need to teach to every individual student, constantly reassessing how they are presenting information and how all different types of learners can thrive.

Dr. Tilles explains that at EA, teachers are encouraged not just to teach students about the right or wrong answers, but show how they arrived at their answers.

Many of us learned the “right” and “wrong” ways to do a math problem. In today’s best practice, there are no right ways, or even best ways, as teachers honor all math strategies in the classroom, and believe that seeing multiple strategies is helpful for all students.

In the Lower School, math teachers use “Number Talks,” which are short exercises where students can play with numbers, visualize problem-solving, and perform calculations quickly. Each student draws or writes how they arrived at the answer and shares it with the class. “By learning the different ways you could solve a simple math problem, we are preparing students for more complex problems in the future,” Dr. Tilles explains. “Fast forward to when these kids will be taking the SAT. We want them to have a bank of strategies in their wheelhouse to choose from.”

ON THE ICE

Studies on co-ed sports have shown that both boys and girls experience a reduction in stereotyping others, while improving girls’ levels of self-confidence and pride. Having a strong female presence on the varsity team has led to an incredible season and taught all players important lessons about working together, says EA Ice Hockey Coach Steven Schuh. Recently, the team has benefitted from a number of female players who play club ice hockey, including two current seniors who have been recruited to play in college.

During the 2019-2020 season, almost a quarter of the players on EA’s varsity ice hockey team were female, including one of the three captains elected by the team.

While checking is not allowed in all-girls ice hockey, the rule does not apply in a co-ed environment. “Playing on a co-ed team gives the sport a little more of an edge. I’ve learned to be tougher and take a hit,” says Ainsley Shin ’20. “It’s not like the boys have to reduce their game so the girls can play. The girls have blown into this environment and said ‘we’re here, we’re playing, try and stop us.’”

Because the opportunity to play co-ed ice hockey is relatively new, Senior Co-Captain Jackie Miller feels that the added weight of paving a way forward for future female players pushes her to work harder and bounce back faster after a tough hit on the ice. “Being on an all-girl team, I am just another player, no different from anyone else,” she shares. “But, on the co-ed team, getting hurt is not an option. Staying down for more than a few seconds after I’ve been hit, not an option.”

Jackie was voted to be one of the three co-captains of the team by her teammates, and while being a leader of a co-ed team was a challenge, it gave her much more confidence. It meant a lot to her that her teammates chose her, rather than if she had been picked by the coaches. “The

challenges I face being the captain of a co-ed team have strengthened my leadership in other situations. Being one of the ice hockey captains of two genders made being a softball captain in the spring much easier.”

And it’s not just the female players who benefit from the co-ed team. Senior Co-Captain Dhruv Raman shares, “I’ve come to value and respect the different perspectives that our girls have brought onto the ice. To me and the rest of our team, gender does not influence a player’s ability: it is rather their dedication, work ethic, and tenacity which shine the brightest. It is these qualities which I see and look up to in my co-captain, Jackie. Her skills and experience were instrumental in the success of the team, from film sessions to on-ice systems practice, her comments and suggestions have elevated our game to the next level.”

Leading a co-ed team is not without its challenges. For Jackie, holding male players accountable was a new learning experience. “In the beginning of the season, I struggled with holding people accountable to keep the team flow. Being a girl, I felt extremely awkward having to call out a guy for his actions. After some time, I learned that if you can put in the work and compete with the guys, you will earn their respect. By working hard on the ice, I felt more comfortable holding people accountable. The guys (and girls) on the team started to listen, and the barrier between the two genders started to break down.”

Learning to lead diverse groups in a variety of settings is an extremely valuable lesson for EA students; one they will take with them to college, and later, to the workplace. Jackie and Ainsley look forward to continuing their ice hockey careers when they head to college this fall.

In AP European History, Kris Aldridge, Hon. works to ensure her students study thousands of years of history through five different lenses: political, economic, social, intellectual, and cultural. She also strives to impart how all aspects of history need to be assessed and understood through not only the filter of the author, artist, or speaker they study, but through both the modern-day historians who write their textbooks, and even the views of their own teachers and classmates.

“Certainly they need to know that events occurred at specific places and times, but they also need to know how those events are perceived and interpreted, what events have been omitted, and how they continue to be viewed over time,” she says. “We have to always strive to be better and better about viewing perspectives from the people whose stories have not traditionally dominated history.”

To help the students learn to question the perspectives and biases of their sources, Mrs. Aldridge showed her students two timelines of the French Revolution: one from her textbook from the 1980s and one from their current textbook. “Seeing how different the timelines could be blew my mind. I’ll never look at history the same again,” says Casey Kinniry ’20.

Sometimes, getting students to evaluate other perspectives means Mrs. Aldridge will play the devil’s advocate. “Sometimes I will be the opposing voice,” she says, “That often puts me in a position to defend something unseemly or unpopular, or even a belief that a student might hold but is afraid to share.”

Being able to analyze the perspective of a primary source, or their teacher or textbook author, helps students take ownership over their own interpretation of history and use their analytical powers to apply to events in the modern-day. “It’s important to me that my students appreciate that not only historians, but people living in this very moment, are experiencing events differently; your own classmates are experiencing things differently,” she says.

EA students are constantly challenged to think about what they know, how they know it, and where the knowledge comes from, Mrs. Aldridge explains. “Just knowing the timeline of events, or memorizing the plot points of a novel, or memorizing a math problem, is not going to cut it.”

As a class, each student brings their own unique perspectives to the material, which in turn allows students to learn even more. “I love the way they appreciate the power of our ability as a group to think, challenge each other, and build on our understanding together. It gives me goosebumps, really, to think about how much further down the path we can get when we work together,” she says.