Volume 24, Issue 2
2020-2021
About U.S.
A Publishing Tradition of The Unquowa School
A Message From the Head of School
I
n his work as an organizational psychologist at Wharton,
and brainstorming or arguing a point with those same
Adam Grant focuses on how people find motivation and
classmates, and soccer, basketball, and cross-country, have
meaning in daily life. Many of his books over the years have
been powerful parts of our daily lives that bring collective
spoken significantly to those of us who are independent
joy. Some of these activities were challenged by pandemic
school leaders. Books like Originals and Think Again: The
mitigations, but we kept them going as best we could.
Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know are at the top of
That same feeling of collective effervescence for our
my list. But it was Grant’s recent guest essay in The New
larger group of students and parents and, of course comes
York Times that has been particularly salient to me this
through our decades-long tradition of weekly assemblies, and
summer as I assess
Winter Festival is the
the impact - both
ultimate experience
positive and negative
of joy here at
- of this past year’s
Unquowa, when
pandemic on life
alums, past parents
here at Unquowa.
and faculty come to
Grant’s slender
see the school-wide
essay and its modest
performance and
title - “There’s a
then often jump out
Special Kind of Joy
of their seats to join
We’ve Been Missing”
in the dancing at the
- doesn’t boast of
end of the festival.
a new revelation;
We kept the spark
rather it reminds
of these community
us of a concept
traditions going this
coined in the early
past year by filming
20th century by
weekly assemblies
sociologist Émile
and what became
Durkheim, a concept
Springfest: The
called “collective effervescence,” that very special joy one
Movie and our filmed Spring Musicals as well, but the deep
feels when experiencing something powerful with a group
need to get back to actually physically being together in larger
that has the same purpose. Before the pandemic, about
ways was missed and is still truly palpable.
seventy-five percent of people reported experiencing collective
While I couldn’t have attached Durkheim’s theory to life at
effervescence at least once a week. A smaller but significant
our school before reading Grant’s essay, we here at Unquowa
number reported it as a conscious part of their daily lives -
have always understood the importance of and created
singing in a choir, running in a group, playing basketball or
opportunities for collective effervescence. The embers were
soccer, attending concerts and religious ceremonies.
kept alive in small ways this past year, as we lived a pandemic-
The traditional daily points of collective effervescence here
safe campus life. Keeping in mind that we’re not quite out of
at Unquowa have always been many: singing, dancing, or
the woods, we’ll be working to edge ever closer to that world
playing guitar with a group of classmates, family-style meals
of community joy this fall. Hold on and stay tuned...
Sharon Lauer, Head of School