Tomorrow, Tomorrow

Dear Brandeis community,

 

There are moments, as a parent, when I feel as though I’m watching my kids age in real time, when the daisy chain of an interaction goes all stop-motion on me, the clouds of time whisked through an impossibly fast sky. Such moments prompt a preemptive nostalgia in me, and I often find myself sifting through memories of my children in their younger iterations in their wake.

 

Last night, however, my thoughts drifted forward, rather than back. I was sitting in the second row of the hilarious and wonderful middle school musical, Annie Jr. At one point Alma leaned over to me and asked whether her middle school buddy would be on stage (she wasn’t); later in the evening, walking out, a gaggle of third grade girls discussed their plans to join the drama program. There is a notion in the camping world of an aspirational arc—the idea that younger campers should be able to look up to older campers and look forward to new experiences. Watching the shining eyes of the little ones around me as they saw these very big kids standing tall, bravely belting familiar show tunes to a packed house, you could see their minds and hearts filling with aspiration and anticipation.

 

Thinking about how our children grow, and how they imagine that growth for themselves, got me thinking about how a school grows. This week has been one where I’ve seen so many examples of growth in classrooms, whether in 8th grade scientists exploring the physics of roller coasters using materials their teacher picked up as part of the Ethical Creativity Institute 2017 cohort, or 4th grade programmers working with robots acquired through the Brandeis Innovation Grants program—which offers small grants to individuals or teams of teachers for new materials or experiences for students, a program funded by a family in the community that is now in its fourth year. These two avenues for growth—professional development and funding to explore new approaches to teaching and learning—are hugely important, and they are just two among many. Both open aspirational arcs for our teachers—toward new ideas, new modes of engagement, and new opportunities to collaborate and grow their practice.

 

This was just the second year we’ve run a full-blown musical at Brandeis, and it was exciting to see the growth of that program year over year, and what an amazing job Crystal Brown and Kim Lostetter have done with it. For one thing, it was the hottest ticket in town! The two-night run was sold out, and there were families filling the JCHS cafeteria hoping to nab a spot. Next year, we may have to go to a three-night run just to meet demand. But mostly what I was excited to see was the growth of the students involved—last year’s chorus member who had a solo, or last year’s featured player now in the leading role. There are so many things to appreciate about drama for our students—we have been discussing the role of the theater arts in our thinking about radical empathy and democracy, for example—but last night, what I found myself most grateful for was the growth: in the program, in the players, and in the aspirations of the little ones in the audience.

 

Wishing you all weekends full of hopeful tomorrows, my friends.

 

Warmly,

 

Dan