2023-2024
Volume 27, Issue 2
About U.S.
A Publishing Tradition of the Unquowa School
A Message From the Head of School
A
s I write this article, high school placement season is
content. Strong reading and writing, advanced math, hands-
coming to a close and, with fewer than a hundred days
on science, historical knowledge, modern languages and
until their Unquowa Graduation, our eighth graders are
solid experience in the visual and performing arts - they are
making tough decisions about where they will head off to next
all unquestionable components of an Unquowa graduate’s
year. While some of our students applied to only two or three
education. But along the way, as our children learn facts and
day or boarding schools, others applied to as many as five or six,
skills that will serve them academically, teachers thoughtfully
and - as is typical - we are once again proud to say that every
guide them to pay attention to what they particularly love about
one of our eighth graders who had a first choice for high school
each of these disciplines as well. Encouraging students to pay
has been offered a seat at
attention to their own
that school for the fall.
paths in exploring and
It is no secret that
living their lives is a key
we take high school
component of education.
placement very seriously
Of course, coupled with
and we begin the process
these curricular lessons at
with students and their
every age are the social/
parents in the latter part
emotional partner lessons
of seventh grade. But
that help our young people
that is just the actual
to become the thoughtful
application process.
young adults who go off
The real work of what
to high school and beyond
makes our students the
with a strong sense of self-
candidates that day and
purpose and duty that give
boarding schools are
their lives meaning and
anxious to invite to their campuses begins long before our students start to think about high school. It is the classroom experiences that begin the
direction. Lives they have chosen with awareness, not lives they have been directed to live. A week ago, I was lucky enough to catch part of a session
moment they step foot on our campus, whether that is in PreK,
of the eighth grade Life Worth Living series being taught by
the early grades or middle school.
Matthew Croasmun, director of the Life Worth Living Program
When I meet with families who are considering Unquowa
at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture and Unquowa’s eighth
for their children, their most predictable question is, “How do
grade faculty and advisors, Ariel Warshaw and Eric Snow.
students at such a small school fare as they move on to much
During conversations around a thought experiment about
larger high schools - whether public or independent?” I am
choosing between living a real life with all of its ups and downs
always happy to report that the counter-intuitive answer to
or “plugging in” to a life of guaranteed constant happiness, the
that question is that they do well, and they do well because
majority of our eighth graders voted to choose the real life and
they are at a small school, not despite that fact. They graduate
gave articulate explanations of why that sort of life, with its
from Unquowa knowing who they are as learners, knowing how
earned happiness and crucial contrasts of essential sadness and
to advocate for themselves with adults and equipped with
boredom, was preferable to endless artificial happiness. I was
the moral compass that is so essential in the tricky social and
overwhelmed by the maturity of our eighth graders and certain
academic atmosphere of ninth grade.
beyond measure that they are ready for the wider world. I will
Much of the knowledge and skills our teachers instill in our children from the time they arrive at Unquowa is predictable in
miss them all fiercely but could not be prouder to send them off in June.
Sharon Lauer, Head of School