Letter from the Head of School

Although curriculum review is always an ongoing process at schools like Mercersburg, two exciting opportunities have converged in such a way that an intentional and thorough review of our curriculum is presently in order.  The school’s new strategic plan continues to emerge in draft form, and our curriculum and academic program are central to any number of issues contained in such a plan. The time is also at hand when our accrediting body, the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, will require a self-study to support and validate the school’s “Accreditation for Growth” goals and objectives as we move through a new re-accreditation cycle.

As part of this summer’s planning schedule, the Curriculum Committee (as well as several additional faculty members who were particularly interested in these discussions) met together on August 22-24 to lay a strategic and philosophical foundation to guide and support the curriculum decisions we will make this year; those conversations were especially thoughtful, provocative, and productive. Obviously, any serious curriculum
review includes a fair amount of time in general discussion about the function of our school and not merely the curriculum itself and our graduation requirements. At its simplest, the basic function of any school is to communicate to each new generation the wisdom and experience of the past; there are, of course, other functions which must be acknowledged and performed, but they are derivative from, and secondary to,  this business of passing on the accumulated wisdom of mankind. In other words, schools are the main institutions in our society specifically charged with the intellectual nurturing of its citizens. And while acknowledging the reality that good schools must also cultivate the body and the spirit, the first and most basic task of education is to develop the mind.

If we accept, at least provisionally and for the sake of discussion, the contention that it is the first and chief business of the school to develop the mind, then we can go on to examine the curriculum in light of this purpose. Of course, immediate and difficult questions quickly spring from that premise: If our primary job is to develop the intellectual capacities of the student, what sort of curriculum do we “require” and what portions are “elective”? Are certain areas of study more valuable as intellectual disciplines than others? How do we apportion the amount of time required for the various disciplines, expressed in terms of “diploma requirements”? How do we think about the value and importance of pedagogy in how we teach and deliver that curriculum?

Although there are no quick and easy answers to questions of this kind, we did emerge from our Curriculum Committee meetings with agreement on some strategic assumptions to help guide our thinking as we make these important decisions. Chief among those assumptions is that while our curriculum and our graduation requirements should remain grounded in the liberal arts tradition, they should also be capable of responding
intelligently to the pressing issues of the contemporary world. How could one argue against the assertion, for example, that in the study of history and religion today, students need to understand more fully the non-Western world in general and Islam in particular?  Who would quarrel about the need in biology to include more study of developmental genetics? How can one think about a meaningful mathematics curriculum without
significant technological literacy?

William Butler Yeats once observed that “education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” We have a wonderful opportunity to consider ways that our curriculum and our teaching methods at Mercersburg might ignite the flames of lifelong learning in the minds of the young men and women we serve. I look forward to this exciting process.

Douglas Hale
Head of School