“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”

Helen Keller

“Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“A ship is always safe at the shore - but that is NOT what it is built for.”

Albert Einstein

The empowerment of taking a risk in front of an audience
-at the recent 2nd through 4th grade Spring Concert

Why is Learning to Take Risks So Important for Success?

Before the spring break, Dr. De Jarnett wrote to parents about the eight traits that are important for our children’s success (engagement, risk-taking, perseverance, critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, daily preparation and organization.) In our communications with parents during the remainder of the year, the three principals are exploring in depth each of these individual traits by writing about how they are fostered and developed in our students and give examples of what they look like in each division. Risk-taking is the second on the list.

Over the last two years, the department chairs and principals together have spent many hours exploring risk-taking, as well as the other seven traits that follow. This year all of our preschool through Upper School teachers have had the opportunity to discuss the trait of risk-taking in depth both in divisional and cross-divisional settings. At the most basic level we agree that student risk-taking at any level is best determined by asking -

How well is a student able to:

• try something new and different while facing the fear of making mistakes and failure, 
• try something unfamiliar and challenging which is outside their comfort zone? 

Here is what we at D-E feel are important elements for encouraging students to take risks. As teachers, we need to:

• know students well enough to determine what is a risk for them. (For most, doing something they have never done before or they are not sure they can pull off is a risk. For many it is a risk to offer an opinion that they know others might not agree with. And for some even speaking up in class is a risk.). 
• understand that risks can physical, social, or emotional as well as intellectual. 
• develop our students’ empathy and create a physically and emotionally safe environment for them. 
• help students get away from the notion that there is one right answer that is in the head of their teacher or parent. 
• actively encourage risk-taking and make it clear that mistakes provide wonderful opportunities for learning. 
• help students to see challenges as opportunities to grow as opposed to experiences to be avoided.

Many of the eight traits are related. Certainly risk-taking is essential for developing creativity and engagement. And risk-taking relates to the development of one of our six core values - courage.

Developing a comfort with taking risks and seeing making mistakes as essential to the learning process builds resilience and self-confidence that our students need to be successful and happy in their lives.


Now for a view from the Lower School perspective:Many parents believe that a child’s success is primarily determined by the "correct" college placement based on a carefully planned and choreographed set of experiences, supported by just the right resume of extracurricular activities. I assert that allowing kids to get messy, find and follow their interests, take risks and learn from their mistakes, is a better way to prepare them for a full and successful life.

Encouraging students to make mistakes in fifth-grade math class!

It is a natural instinct for parents to want to protect and direct our children. We want to make sure that they, whether they are infants, preschoolers or college-aged are kept out of harms way. In today's world where there are even more issues of safety than when we grew up, the college process is far more competitive and popular culture offers so many more attractive and dangerous options, this instinct to protect and direct is even stronger. However, just as science has recently shown that an environment that is too controlled and too clean can be responsible for an underdeveloped immune system, I venture that children who have insufficient opportunities to get messy, take risks and learn from mistakes can grow up to be either fearful or, conversely, inappropriately fearless. 

If each of us examines our proudest moments growing up, I bet that they would be associated with taking the risk of trying hard and interesting challenges that we eventually accomplished on our own, learning from our failures along the way.

As parents and teachers, regardless of the age of our children/students, we are in the process of turning their lives over to them. Play dates and time away from parents in new situations represent, initially at least, uncomfortable risk-taking for many children. However, what they can potentially learn in such situations about themselves and their relationships with others is invaluable. Becoming accustomed to risk-taking and growing comfortable in entering situations in which the outcome is unknown has to begin early on for it to become a natural part of a child’s personal toolbox.

Parents help 1st graders take the risk to build
something they hadn't done before
 as part of the "Houses and Homes" project.

There are no fixed formulas for proper parenting, or schooling, for that matter, but I venture that taking the risk to allow our children/students to discover their own interests, take their own risks and learn from their own mistakes and failures is the way to go.

Here is a link to a wonderful related opinion piece by Madeline Levine in the NYT Sunday Review from August 2012: Raising Successful Children 

More Pictures from the Spring Concert

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Three-year olds built a fire truck to play in. It now hangs for all to see in our front atrium.

Preschoolers spend time with their fifth-grade buddies

Spring is the time for students to learn about tapping maple trees to make maple syrup.

Preschool 3 students learn about the "Houses and Home" project from first-graders.

More "House and Homes" pictures

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Director of Multicultural Affairs, Clinton Carbon, and Lower School psychologist,
Dr. Ann Niles, talk with fifth-grade students about the school's new School
Diversity Values Statement below.

Please read the Diversity Values Statement below and continue these conversations with your children at home.   Feel free to contact Clinton Carbon or Ann Niles with questions or comments.

"We need to give each other the space to grow, to be ourselves, to exercise our diversity. We need to give each other space so that we may both give and receive such beautiful things as ideas, openness, dignity, joy, healing, and inclusion."

Max de Pree

Dwight-Englewood School Diversity Values Statement

The worth and dignity of every person at all levels of work, study and play are paramount at Dwight-Englewood across any artificial lines of exclusion. We aspire to be people who make the following statements:

• We are people of eclectic ethnic, national and religious backgrounds
• We are people from varied family and economic structures
• We are people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities
• We have different abilities, learning styles, and types of intelligence
• We are committed to embracing all of our diversity even as it evolves

Our commitment to the diversity of our student body requires a mirror image of that diversity in the composition of faculty, staff, administration, and trustees, and will likewise be reflected in our curriculum.

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From fifth-grade students Haley, Colin and Ethan

The fifth grade invites all Lower School children and families to watch the fifth-grade basketball game on Wednesday, April 16th. The fifth-grade students play their parents and teachers, and we raise money to help people in need. We ask for a $10 donation at the door, but you can give more or less depending on what feels right for your family! The game is held in Modell Sports Complex (the big gym!). Doors open at 6:30 and the game starts at 7:00. There will be a bake sale and a small gift sale, too. We hope to see you there!

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Opera Update

Hi, I am Danny, a public relations officer. I am here to tell you about Lauryn , the assistant stage manager. Lauren said that she is working with the performers to help them to learn their lines. She said it has been fun. Lauren also really likes working with the props. Her job is to gather the props that will be necessary to use in the opera. Sometimes she has to be very creative to figure out what they will be. Lauren said that she has been learning new things. For example, she has been learning how to work with different people (the performers). She is really looking forward to working more with  the props, which is completely her responsibility. It seems like she really likes her job. Also, I think that it sounds like it is a very cool job. Tune in next week when Ellie talks about the stage manager.

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There is a new post on Mrs. Milbauer's Music Moments Blog.

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On March 30, fifth-grader, Royce, won the Third Prize of the 2014 NJAA State Indoor Archery Championship. Royce was taught by a former USA National Archery Team coach. Also, Royce won the First Prize of the Crescendo Little Mozarts Competition, and he was invited to perform violin at Carnegie Hall on April 13.