Modeling Gratitude Beyond the Thanksgiving Table
November 18, 2021
Modeling Gratitude Beyond the Thanksgiving Table
Neil Mufson, Head of School
Neil Mufson, Head of School
As a kid, it was in the back seat of our family’s mint green Buick station wagon where I learned my most memorable lessons having to do with gratitude, not at the Thanksgiving table. My grandparents, whom we visited often, lived in a declining neighborhood in the Bronx. As we would wind our way to their home through even worse neighborhoods, my parents would direct comments to the backseat where my sister and I sat. They would contrast what we were seeing with the idyllic, leafy Boston suburb where we lived. Their narrative was not subtle. “Imagine living here, across from burnt out buildings… Think about having no space, no place to play and run around… We’re lucky that our air always smells good… No woods here to run into to find quiet and a place to build a fort… Grandma barely feels safe going outside anymore.”
Nina and I never responded to these observations, yet our eyes often got big as we saw things so far removed from our own experiences. We knew our parents’ intent because it mirrored a constant refrain: be grateful for our good fortune; we might not have everything but we have the love of each other and lead a life of plenty; always be thankful for your situation in life; focus on the good; we’re lucky.
As children of the Depression, my parents saw the world through lenses of gratitude. My father lied about his age to enlist early in World War II and saw service in rural India, China, and Burma. He regularly showed us photos he had taken of conditions in the villages near where he had been stationed. While my imagination was most captured by the pictures of his unit’s pet monkey Moe, it was another way my parents replayed their chorus of recognizing our good fortune.
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to hear psychologist and writer Brené Brown before she was on the bestseller list. I most remember her saying this: “The difference between privilege and entitlement is gratitude.” While Brown’s research as a psychologist generally involves the potentially transformative power of opening oneself up to vulnerability, her words transported me to the backseat of the Buick with my sister. My parents wanted to ensure that we did not develop an attitude of entitlement. We knew we were privileged, which also meant we possessed significant responsibilities towards others.
The approach of Thanksgiving reminds me of the importance of instilling an “attitude of gratitude” in our children. The world moves ever more quickly and has significantly changed through the pandemic in ways we don’t yet understand. Whether because of the busy-ness of our lives or the dangers of COVID, it is harder and harder to connect in authentic, fulfilling, and nourishing ways. The constant lure and distraction of consumption can cloud what is most important. Yet by regularly considering and savoring the blessings in our lives, and by turning at least some of that gratitude outward, we can help our children find deeper meaning, happiness, and calm. My best to you and your family for a memorable and joyful Thanksgiving.
Being Little Matters
November 10, 2021
Being Little Matters
Neil Mufson, Head of School
Neil Mufson, Head of School
In my last piece, I wrote about the child perspective Taylor Swift takes on in her song “The Best Day” and how her lyrical memories suggest that what matters most to young children are simple activities, togetherness, and parental presence. Just after publishing that piece, I came across an interview with Erika Christakis, former faculty member at the Yale Child Study Center, and author of the bestselling book, The Importance of Being Little: What Young Children Really Need from Grownups. Christakis believes, “the notion that there is something of value in being a little kid – with little kid desires and, above all, needs – seems to have fallen out of favor… Parents express enormous anxiety about their children’s futures, and seem to be curating their children’s life experiences in a way that would look quite unnatural and even rather joyless to previous generations.”
Christakis maintains that our society currently is also undergoing an “adultification” pandemic , or the failure to see the world from a child’s perspective. “It’s eye-opening to reflect on the many ways that adults inflict adult pacing, adult expectations, and adult schedules on young kids. And for what reason? Young children sleep less and have far more transitions in their days than in previous generations – and most would agree that developing brains aren’t really designed to cope with adult schedules and pacing.”
What Christakis sees as some of the most effective counterpoints to adultification are parents mindfully questioning their unconscious practices and schools recognizing that “quality education is about relationships” and intentionality. “Caring teachers who understand child development and who know and are attuned to the children in their care” are amongst the most important markers of educational quality, as are classrooms in which “rich, open-ended conversation is critical” and where “children experience warm, empathic oral language – to converse playfully, to tell a rambling story -- listen to high-quality literature… ask meaningful questions… and take advantage of children’s natural curiosity.”
The ideal educational environment Christakis describes sounds a lot like Primary Day to me. Here our entire enterprise is focused on meeting the needs of young children. We are developmental experts, our teachers are masters at building meaningful relationships with our students, and children are immersed in a language- and math-rich environment that fosters curiosity, nurtures development, and promotes taking on “just right” challenges.
In my short time here I have quickly grown to admire the discerning nature of our parents. Primary Day does not focus on flash or sizzle or cavernous spaces. We focus on substance. We are intimate, personal, academic, and extremely nurturing. The high expectations we hold for our children make sense for our learners. Our teachers and program listen to what our children tell us. If I had to sum it up, I’d say we understand “the importance of being little.”
The Power of Presence
October 28, 2021
The Power of Presence
Neil Mufson, Head of School
I recently found some parenting wisdom in a place I didn’t expect.
First, a confession: During the pandemic lockdown, I became something of a Swiftie. Of course I had always heard of Taylor Swift and was vaguely familiar with some of her oeuvre due to heading a school that included middle grades. But last winter a review led me to the recently released video/concert of her just dropped album Folklore. In a beautiful isolated lakeside cabin during the lockdown, with two of her key collaborators, there was Taylor with little make up and no extravagant costumes. She purely sang more than a dozen acoustic-sounding folk-like numbers. Between songs, she and her companions talked about the music and its sources. Shortly thereafter she released a companion album, Evermore. I was hooked.
It ended up those two albums formed much of the soundtrack of my short-lived retirement during which time I was driving frequently between Portland, Maine, and Maryland. Taylor’s light-filled lovely voice, her poetic lyrics, and my visions of that bucolic cabin eased the way.
It wasn’t long before I became interested in Swift’s efforts to recapture the rights to her own catalog, and soon Fearless (Taylor’s Version) was released. Recently listening to the song The Best Day, I realized that Swift had something important to say to parents of children the age we serve at Primary Day. Here is how that song begins:
I’m five years old, it’s getting cold, I’ve got my big coat on
I hear your laugh and look up smiling at you, I run and run
Past the pumpkin patch and the tractor rides, look now, the sky is gold
I hug your legs and fall asleep on the way home
I don’t know why all the trees change in the fall
But I know you’re not scared of anything at all
Don’t know if Snow White’s house is near or far away
But I know I had the best day with you today.
What gets embedded in Swift’s memory are simple moments with her mother and how they make her feel. (In a later verse she presciently sings of having “an excellent father / Whose strength is making me stronger.”) It is not fancy things or extraordinary activities that stick. It is simple moments. It is the way her parents make her feel that matters and ground her.
When our children are small, we often wonder if we are providing them with the right experiences, the right training, the right activities, the right mixture of guidance and example, all at the right times. What Swift reminds us is that children benefit the most when we parents show up and simply are present. Those ensuing feelings infuse their beings. It is that foundation that no scheduled activities, lessons, or exotic experiences can replace.
The Critical Nature of Early Learning
October 14, 2021
The Critical Nature of Early Learning
Neil Mufson, Head of School
Over the years ahead, you will frequently find me alluding to some of the brain research most salient to the ages we serve at Primary Day. I closely follow many sources that make these studies accessible for educators. One such publication is Edutopia, a project of film maker George Lucas’ educational foundation, whose mission is to help transform education “so that all students can acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to thrive in their studies, careers, and adult lives.”
For obvious reasons a recent article entitled “Why Ages 2-7 Matter So Much for Brain Development” caught my eye. In it the writer Rishi Sriram reviewed what most of us already know: that there are “critical periods” in children’s brain development, that the first typically occurs between the ages of 2 and 7 or so, and that during this period “the number of connections (synapses) between brain cells (neurons) doubles.” The astounding thing is that this increase in “synapses enable the brain to learn faster than at any other time of life” (emphasis mine).
While there have been countless fads that have attempted to harness this explosion of learning potential, it is often difficult to sift out the truly helpful and developmentally appropriate from the fluff and potentially harmful. The Edutopia article cited these critical guidelines:
“Encourage a love of learning” – Rather than focusing on performance and results focus on the process of learning. Help your children become comfortable making mistakes and then regrouping, which are fundamental parts of learning. Cultivating this kind of attitude helps children become resilient in other areas of life as well.
Help children develop what psychologist Carol Dweck calls a “growth mindset” – “the belief that talents and abilities are developed through effort instead of being innately fixed,” that persistence leads to the best results. Sriram notes that adults should “avoid labeling children or making universal statements about their ability, [like] ‘You are so smart!” (As an aside, I will soon be announcing a PDS parent book group that will read and discuss Dweck’s seminal work.)
Focus on the joy that can comes from trying new activities and experiences. These are not the ages to become overly specialized. Breadth rather than depth is best during this developmental period. “Exposing children to a wide variety of activities lays a foundation for developing skills in a range of fields… The people who thrive in our rapidly changing world are those who first learn how to draw from multiple fields and think creatively.”
· Build emotional intelligence by emphasizing kindness, empathy, and cooperation.
· “Don’t treat young children’s education as merely a precursor to ‘real’ learning.”
Everything we do at Primary Day is directed towards these goals. Your child benefits every day from our unique and deep focus on the needs of early childhood learners. While Primary Day has been in existence since 1944, our mission is as relevant today as it was then: The finest education for the most important years.
Back to School Night Remarks - 9.23.21
September 30, 2021
Parent Night Remarks – 9.23.21
Neil Mufson, Head of School
Thanks so much for Zooming in tonight to gain a deeper sense of where and with whom your children spend such a significant piece of their day and to hear about the program, key goals, and procedures you’ll want to know so they will be ensured a great year.
I feel confident that you’ll come away from the evening feeling that your children are in exceptional hands, and that you’ve made the right investment to ensure that they have the benefit of the best possible education and foundation for these most important years.
I also hope, as a result of tonight, that you’ll be more likely to reach out to your child’s teacher when you have a concern or question, because that open communication, that engagement as parents in the educational process has consistently been found in the research to boost a child’s performance in school.
Tonight I wanted to share some thoughts with you on two topics. First, some of what I have noticed in my first weeks at PDS; and second, some small things I have found over the years that can have an outsized impact on the kind of student and person your child becomes.
But before I launch into that, I wanted to express my gratitude to you, most importantly for entrusting your children to us here at Primary Day. I take that trust as a sacred commitment we have to your child and to your family.
I also so appreciate all of your cooperation, understanding, and patience during these
extraordinarily challenging times. We are absolutely devoted to doing our best to ensure your child’s safety and that of our faculty and staff. Even when a vaccine is available for our children, we will remain vigilant, cautious, nimble, and prepared for the next twists and turns that the pandemic will bring. So thank you for all you are doing to comply with our protocols and for realizing that our children’s and our staff’s safety depends on all those little mindful decisions and observations you make along the way.
Thank you, too, for your patience as we work out our drop off and pick up procedures which are also based first on safety. Our fine-tuning of the afternoon pick up line has led to some real improvements, and we will soon be rolling out an app that will help further smooth things out in the morning.
As the faculty, staff, and I have welcomed your children Back to School, I have been struck by several things. First has been the absolute dedication and expertise of our faculty and staff. I see their deep developmental commitment at work every day. They lend amazing warmth and “kid knowledge” to their classrooms and routines, and their way with our students is so masterful that joy and purposefulness radiate from every learning space. Our teachers are real experts at the ages they teach, so be sure to make use of that expertise when you have questions or concerns about something your child is or is not doing. They know what’s normal, what works, what doesn’t work, what’s age appropriate, and they can offer a wealth of information, guidance, and reassurance.
I have also noticed that PDS children are exceptionally engaged, attuned, and eager. Their curiosity and energy seem boundless, and that kind of attitude toward school and learning is both infectious and palpable throughout the school. There’s an ebullient and happy hum that permeates this place, an underlying eagerness and motivation on the part of the children that prompts all to exercise their curiosity and to stretch themselves.
Community and kindness are also evident here. I have been so impressed by the care and respect your children show for one another.
Part of what makes Primary Day unique is that your child is part of a peer group that is uniformly attuned to the value of education, to doing their best, and to giving their all. I see and sense that every day. Of course as children get older, their peer group exerts an even stronger influence on them. But I very clearly see that PDS creates and capture this enormously positive side of peer influence that helps establish the right attitudes towards school.
When your children are surrounded by other children who have active and eager minds, when they’re happily engaged in a classroom where their teacher is a developmental, instructional, and child relationship expert who knows them so well, and when they come from homes which clearly prioritize education, they are bound to soar. That is what I see happening each day, even this early in the year.
I also would like to mention some seemingly small and perhaps obvious practices that you can put in place at home to enhance your child’s growing independence, sense of responsibility, and positive approach to learning and to life. I’d like to focus tonight on 3 simple things that eventually pay very powerful returns.
First, make sure you increasingly allow your children to do things on their own. Whether it’s cleaning up their toys after playing (like they do here), putting toothpaste on their toothbrush, or gathering their things to be ready to hop out of the car at morning drop off, consider giving them regular responsibilities or simple chores around the house. For instance, have them take on straightening their bed in the morning, helping with choosing or packing their lunch, making sure that their backpack is properly loaded and in the right place so it can just be grabbed in the morning, or sharing or reading stories with younger siblings. Take a look at how your household works, and find some authentic tasks they can regularly undertake that are truly helpful and that they can do consistently. Gradually add steps or complexity to these tasks as time goes on.
Of course it often is easier and more efficient to just do these things yourself, but look for what your children might be able to do more independently or how they can help. Model what you expect
and then let them do it consistently. Then build from these smaller pieces to more complete tasks. Young children like having responsibility, they are proud of showing you what they are capable of,
and it builds their independence, feelings of mastery, and sense of agency, which is their sense that they can influence their environment.
Obviously, developmental appropriateness is the key. You wouldn’t ask a PK child to load the dishwasher after dinner every evening. But you might ask him or her to do the basic setting of the table (at least of non-breakable or non-sharp things), or you might ask them to put their dirty clothes in the hamper, or to place their shoes in the right place so they can be found easily the next day.
A book written over a decade ago by Los Angeles psychologist Wendy Mogel called The Blessing of a Skinned Knee has emerged as a classic on making sure we are leading our children to become responsible, resilient, and independent. Mogel points out that if we don’t require our children to do things for themselves, if we don’t hold them accountable, if we don’t ask them to help out with reasonable, age-appropriate chores at home, we inadvertently risk disabling them for the future.
Similarly she points out if we consistently make things too easy for our children, if we regularly pamper, indulge, or overprotect them, if we too quickly jump in to “rescue” them, or assign blame elsewhere, their development into healthy, independent young people will become compromised. As she wrote, too many parents of our demographic, “in their eagerness to do right by their children, overindulge them materially, spoil them emotionally, [and] inadvertently inhibit their development of responsibility.” So we have to find those small steps when they are young, when they are at the ages of Primary Day students.
Another small but a very powerful routine – one that admittedly may be difficult to ensure is in place -- is to have dinner together as a family as many times a week as you possibly can. Not too long ago, I heard a podcast from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education that interviewed a family therapist named Anne Fishel, who directs an entity called The Family Dinner Project. We all know that there are tons of reasons families don’t or can’t have dinner together. But the salubrious impacts of regularly having family dinners are nothing less than astounding. Fishel reported, “There have been more than 20 years of dozens of studies that document that family dinners are great for the body, physical health, the brain, academic performance, and mental health.” In addition to the nutritional benefits, “Kids who grow up having family dinners, later, when they're on their own, tend to eat more healthily and to have lower rates of obesity.” And then she goes on to say this: “The mental health benefits are just incredible. Regular family dinners are associated with lower rates of [childhood and adolescent] depression, anxiety, substance abuse, eating disorders, tobacco use, early teenage pregnancy, and higher rates of resilience” and feelings of self worth. All this just by making sure your family eats together regularly.
There are other simple, regular practices that also have huge pays off that I recommend and that I’ll talk about in the months and years ahead, things like developing a habit of regularly expressing gratitude; establishing an organized and consistent approach to doing homework; being on time; building intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivation whenever possible; having a discipline system at home that is based on natural consequences, much like the one we have in place here at school; modeling and expecting empathy; and being certain to provide your child with predictable, consistent, age-appropriate routines.
One last seemingly small thing that leads to outsized benefits that I want to mention tonight is something you are probably already doing but that you should aim to continue for many years into the future: having a regular reading or story time with your child or whole family. This is relatively easy to put in place as part of a regular bed time routine, but it is something you should hold onto even when your child is an independent and sophisticated reader, maybe in the form of a family reading time.
The national statistics are damning. Studies find that 33% of American high school graduates never read another whole book the rest of their lives; 42% of American college graduates never read another book; and 80% of American families do not read, borrow, or purchase a book in a typical year.
When I was a kid, just about every night my father would tell me a bedtime story. For me, he created a fictional universe around Cubby Bear, a character I think he remembered from childhood bedtime stories and books. For my sister he created another character named Longnose Hufflefinger (which are evidently a type of tropical fish) but in this version was a person. For his granddaughters he created stories about a character named Pocket. Every night my father wasn’t traveling for work, I was told the latest adventure of Cubby Bear and his best friend Montmorency Percival Clarence Gopher, who when introduced was always met with the line, “My word, your name is longer than you are.”
The stories were simple and I believe were improvised. I am sure my father had no idea of the numerous and powerful benefits of these stories.Yes, they bonded us.Yes, they made me and my sister feel special, valued, and loved. And yes, it was a considerable investment of my father’s time. But now research shows that listening to stories or regular reading improves brain connectivity; increases vocabulary, comprehension, and memory; empowers the ability to empathize with other people; aids in sleep readiness; reduces stress; lowers blood pressure and heart rate; fights depression symptoms throughout life; and eventually prevents cognitive decline. All that from the reading habit!
Think about the impact of pairing that with the power of family dinners and giving your children meaningful responsibilities around home. In these times when there is so much uncertainty, it is reassuring as parents to know that inserting some simple practices into our routines can allow us to seize some control over some very important outcomes. Confidence and competence are indeed built through small steps, steps that have been modeled and practiced.
I am very much looking forward to meeting you in person at one of our upcoming parent coffees, but I would also welcome having an outdoor visit or a Zoom chat. Be sure to contact me if there ever is anything with which I can help you. In the meantime, know that I am looking forward to meeting you somewhere other than in the drop off or pick up line.Thank you again for joining us this evening.
The Role of Responsive Classroom at Primary Day
September 23, 2021
The Role of Responsive Classroom at Primary Day
Neil Mufson, Head of School
You probably know that Primary Day uses the research-based Responsive Classroom approach as the backbone of all we do at school. You may wonder, though, what Responsive Classroom is and why we use it as the foundation undergirding all the learning that goes on at PDS.
In a nutshell, Responsive Classroom pulls together from numerous research studies those practices that create the most successful, positive classroom and school culture. These practices build structure and predictability for our young learners, and this leads to positive learning attitudes and habits as well as the strongest student experience and achievement.
Responsive Classroom asks teachers to very mindfully construct a supportive, nurturing, and developmentally appropriate classroom environment in which all routines and activities are carefully modeled, implemented, and reinforced. Everything from morning meeting to recess, from group work to closing circle is intentionally facilitated in order to build a collaborative classroom in which our young learners develop confidence, competence, kindness, and voice. Students become reflective learners who gravitate to “just right” learning -- that which builds on skills and knowledge they have developed and challenges them to reach for the next level.
Responsive Classroom theory guides teachers in the creation of inviting, engaging, but not overly cluttered classrooms. Teachers use language that is also mindful, positive, calm, and warm. They break the day up into developmentally appropriate periods of time and activity that alternate between energizing and calming. A positive social and emotional climate is also modeled, reinforced, and fostered. There is a great emphasis on effort, practice, stretching, and growth. A positive, natural, and consistent discipline environment relies on modeling and age-appropriate natural consequences.
In the past few months, as I have visited the schools to which Primary Day sends its students, I have uniformly heard about how well prepared our children are for their next school experiences. Other schools frequently remark that they can “tell a PDS student” from their attitude towards learning and others, as well as their level of achievement and community-mindedness. This notable success is attributable to many factors, but chief amongst them are the exceptional talent and dedication of our faculty, the consistency with which they implement developmentally attuned practices such as those of Responsive Classroom, and the extraordinary partnership between home and school that is a hallmark of the Primary Day experience.
New Beginnings
September 9, 2021
Primary Thoughts
New Beginnings
Neil Mufson, Head of School
I often wonder if I were destined to be in schools for so much of my life because I carry such strong memories of my own early schooling. I can still picture walking into the classroom on my own first day of Kindergarten. Mrs. Beaulieu was at the door to greet us and seamlessly separate us from our parents. She then directed us to play on the huge locomotive and train cars that occupied half of our very large room and that she had fashioned out of very large boxes and construction paper. Soon we were playing, forming nascent friendships, and taking the first steps towards independence from our parents. It was an exhilarating new beginning, at least for most of us.
In schools we are so fortunate to have abundant new beginnings. There is the start of the new school year, the start of the new calendar year, and the start of Spring with its resplendent signs of new life. Summer also brings its own start of consolidating gains, adjusting to a less structured routine, and making the most of plentiful opportunities for fun, fresh air, and new activities, places, and people.
With young learners especially, actually every day brings the promise of a new journey. This is part of what I love about working with these ages. There are constantly new connections, new learning, new questions, new discoveries, and new skills introduced and mastered. One factor that drew me to PDS for my own new beginning is the way the school embraces all the possibility and joy of this stage of life while remaining grounded by the deepest expertise in what our young learners most need.
Your children’s days at Primary Day this school year, like the 76 prior years at PDS, will nourish their bounding intellects, their expanding sense of what it means to be a community member, and their growing practice of what it means to be a lifelong, fully engaged learner. Their days will be full, their minds engaged, their joyful spirits nurtured. Of course academics will be important, but where we will also excel will be in partnering with you to help develop good people.
I often think of that seemingly larger-than-life cardboard train of my own first day of “real” school and the journey that was ahead. At PDS we are beginning, supporting, and boosting your children’s lifetime voyage of schooling, with all its promise, all its excitement, and all its beginnings. The faculty, staff, and I are here to guide your children and you with all the twists and turns ahead. Please be sure to call on us when you have a question, concern, or idea. We will do the same. In the meantime, know that I am so grateful that you and your family are “all aboard.”