A New Way To School: Conversations with Clint

April 2020

Certainty in Uncertain Times

As the leader of a values-based, purposefully small community school, I am struck by the ways in which our entire community has risen to the challenge of transitioning our entire platform to its current online one. Pulling this off as smoothly as we did required an incredible amount of resourcefulness and collaboration on everyone’s part: teaches, kids and parents. It speaks volumes about our community’s resolve and for this I am a proud observer. 

I felt and still feel that it was important for the health of our children to maintain a level of continuity and connection, not because I feel strongly that in times like these students need to focus on the ways one identifies adverbs in a sentence. No, I have been driven by the need for our students to see resolve modeled for them. The need for our children to feel that some things are certain in an uncertain world. 

The weight, or fear, or sorrow many of us feel around our chests is collective and deep. Our children are certainly feeling this same pressure around their hearts and in their heads–teenagers are incredibly intuitive and sensitive to their surroundings, yes even the boys, or perhaps especially our boys! The ways in which we all bear this burden is communal and collective. The ways in which your children’s teachers have so quickly transitioned and adapted is not simply an act of professionalism, but rather a profound and meaningful act of courage An act driven deeply by the duty of caring for our kids. The ways in which our students have embraced the new platform shows daily acts of courage in the face of uncertainty. The ways in which you as parents have championed Discovery Prep in these current times gives me security in the certainty of our future. 

I look forward to those days in the near future, when we are able to gather as a community, face-to-face, smile-to-smile. And for now, while we strive to instill purpose and connection through our school, online classes or otherwise, my hope is that our school provide a sense of certainty in the uncertain times