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Developing International Understanding with Inventiveness

Authored by: Shine Lee and Tamsin Nottage from Hotchkiss School, Lakeville, Connecticut, USA

Summary

Our generation must understand that in our globalized, interconnected world there is often more than one right answer to any problem, and that different cultures can have valid ways of looking at a situation. In developing international understanding, students learn to recognize the role that others have in guiding their comprehension of new ideas and diverse perspectives. A series of focused interviews and surveys highlight programs, events, and practices where administrators, faculty, and students alike have utilized inventiveness to foster a supportive, diverse community at The Hotchkiss School.

Introduction

The title of our paper was inspired by the relationship between our School’s Motto and Mission Statement, both of which set out the goal of bringing together and supporting a diverse community of students, faculty, and staff. The School’s promotion of International Understanding not only helps members of the community from different backgrounds thrive, but also cultivates globally-minded, “empathetic and responsible” students with an appreciative understanding of different perspectives. This open-mindedness is a fundamental skill for graduates who the School hopes will “discover and fulfil their potential as individuals fully engaged in our world.”

Analysis

One of the most effective ways Hotchkiss seeks to fulfil this goal is through the academic program. Hotchkiss faculty are supported to design internationally-oriented courses to help students further their knowledge of the world and equip them to interact with cultures different from their own. “Beyond Words: An Introduction to Intercultural Communication” and “Design for Social Impact” are two courses that stand out in this regard. Both teach students to apply critical-thinking to global problems, provide skills to interact with people who have grown up in different cultures, and emphasize the value of exploring the wider world.

Gabbie Coffy ’18 found the topics covered in the intercultural communication class to be invaluable preparation:

It is one thing to learn about … different cultures. But it is another thing to be in a simulation where you have to interact and … remember that you are now embodying those characteristics … it really helped me learn about how I need to act when I am in these different places, being aware that cultural differences shape our world.

In the spring of 2018, the Design for Social Impact class explored the root causes of environmental and cultural degradation issues in a developing town in Vietnam, using what course instructor Adam Lang calls a “human-centered design.” Students tried to “solve a problem by developing empathy and understanding for people dealing with the problem” by conducting interviews with residents, government officials, and business owners of the town to develop suggestions that would help the community better navigate the unprecedented and unforeseen economic growth they were experiencing. This projected required learning extensively about Vietnamese culture and development issues and collaborating cross-culturally to co-create solutions to imagine a different future for the town. Throughout the project, the class communicated with town leaders, and the student who introduced the design challenge took class input back to the Vietnamese community for implementation.

Both of these courses are in line with the School’s approach to professional development for faculty: facilitating opportunities that in turn inspire novel ideas for preparing students for a highly globalized world. During the fall of 2018, the Director of Studies and teachers from the math department visited a range of schools in Singapore, including the Yale NUS College. They established connections with colleagues, were exposed to novel methods of teaching mathematics, and also had first-hand experiences with experiential education techniques in a highly academic setting. Tom Drake, director of the Center for Global Understanding and Independent Thinking, outlines his motivation for exposing faculty to different pedagogies to globalize the School curriculum:

We don’t see ourselves as producing a particular description of a global citizen, but rather, we think we need to educate and prepare our students for how to respond to changes globally in a manner that will make the world better. Our job is to educate, not indoctrinate … we trust that we’ll develop our students to come up with their own answers.

The Center for Global Understanding, open since 2008, is a good example of the School’s willingness to create administrative positions to support the goals outlined in our mission statement. The Office of International Programs opened in 1999 and has promoted travel and exchanges, encouraged our membership in Round Square, developed a robust gap year program, and created a range of compelling travel programs that are all linked to our curriculum and co-curriculum. 52% of Hotchkiss graduates have gone on at least one travel program in the last seven years, reflecting the School’s active engagement in promoting international understanding. Alisa Ghura ’19 has been on three different programs, and comments:

…generally Hotchkiss travel, the way it has been shaped is that they really emphasize the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so there is a lot of going off the traditional path of tourism and really focusing more on being a global citizen and engaging with the place you’re in, and the other thing is that the Hotchkiss travel programs that I’ve been on have really emphasized pre-travel research.

Another remarkable feature of Hotchkiss is that we do not have to leave campus to engage with a range of cultures and perspectives; this year we have students from 38 states and 34 countries and territories abroad. With that in mind, Dr. Rachel Myers, our first Director of Diversity and Inclusion, has focused on inspiring community members to learn about views that do not mirror their own, in the hope of creating an atmosphere where individuals are comfortable bringing forth their identity and keeping an open mind. This year’s projects include establishing the first All-Gender Dormitory, creating a multi-faith prayer space, and developing a “diversity dashboard.” This “dashboard” is modelled after fellow RS member the Athenian School, and aims to qualitatively measure diversity, equity, and inclusion at Hotchkiss. According to Dr. Myers:

From the outside looking in it’s always about optics. ‘Oh, I see it looks like there’s a pretty good mixture of boys and girls in a classroom – there’s gender balance.’ But how do you know those kids are thriving? So the concept of the diversity dashboard would be how do we know how every student, with different races, ethnicities, religions, and genders, is doing?

Finally, student initiatives at Hotchkiss also embody an attitude of inventiveness. Publications such as The Narrative, featuring original student poetry in different languages, and clubs such as LinkAge, which provides a cross-cultural discussion platform, demonstrate students’ interest in seeing peers share their identity – and learn about others. These student groups organize larger events, such as “Spotlight Talks” (short student presentations in auditorium on cultures), and an annual four-day “Cultural Festival.” Hotchkiss also has a range of affinity groups, such as the Asian-American Association, through which members of the community can express their experiences regarding race and identity and discuss current events. Gregoria Serretta Fiorentino ’19 affirms that these groups give “students a lot of opportunities to pursue their passions and re-define themselves.”

Conclusion

By encouraging creative thinkers to develop programs to support community members from a range of backgrounds, the School has taken concrete steps towards its goal of graduating passionate thinkers interested in promoting International Understanding. The multitude of curricular and extracurricular programs at Hotchkiss reflects our sincere interest in finding ways to guide each other to seek better paths as fully engaged citizens of our world.

Appendix A

Hotchkiss Mission Statement

MONITI MELIORA SEQUAMUR

Guided by each other, let us seek better paths.

THE HOTCHKISS SCHOOL MISSION

The Hotchkiss School seeks to inspire a diverse range of students who are committed to the betterment of self and society, and to cultivate in them at the highest standards of excellence

VALUES OF OUR LEARNING COMMUNITY

The aim of The Hotchkiss School, since its foundation, has been to provide a dynamic environment for teaching and learning, as well as exceptional preparation for future study and fulfilling adult lives. Our residential community—the network of relationships created by the School’s people, place, and opportunities—is our most effective means of providing a transformative educational experience, where students may grow and gain greater understanding of themselves and their responsibilities to others. We believe that a healthy and inclusive learning community nourishes students physically, emotionally, and intellectually; fosters joy in learning and living with others; and ensures that all feel safe, seen, and supported.

All members of the Hotchkiss community have a role in sustaining this environment. Therefore, we expect all to

Appendix B

Transcripts of Interviews with Students and Faculty

  1. Gabbie Coffy ’18
  2. Tom Drake, Director of Center for Global Understanding and Independent Thinking, Instructor in History
  3. Alisa Ghura ’19
  4. Jared Hall, Dean of Academics, Instructor in History
  5. Adam Lang, Instructor in Economics
  6. Wendy Levithan, Head of the Classical and Modern Languages Department, Instructor in French
  7. Rachel Myers, Director of Diversity and Inclusion, Instructor in English
  8. Giordana Serretta Fiorentino ’19
  9. Gregoria Serretta Fiorentino ’19
  10. Isabel Tracey ’20
  11. Emma Wynn, Head of the Humanities and Social Science Department, Instructor in Philosophy and Religion

Gabbie Coffy ’18

“I am in a course called Intercultural Communications, and that class is literally just learning how to be more culturally competent and learning how to diversify your understanding of the cultures that envelop our world. In the first few weeks of the semester, we engaged in an activity where half of the class was given one identity, and the other half of the class was given another, and we were then in a simulated party setting. We were supposed to interact, but while keeping true to our identity. My group, the hosts, couldn’t look our attendees in the eye, we couldn’t shake their hands, we couldn’t talk back, and all of these characteristics are characteristics that you will find in places like Japan and China. The other group had characteristics similar to Americans; very loud, very boisterous, willing to engage, willing to be outgoing, because those are values that America upholds. If you think about going to the workforce, they don’t want someone who is shy, they want someone who is vibrant, exuberant, and can do the work that needs to be done. It is one thing to learn about these different cultures, how they act in settings with one another, learn about what types of personalities you will find there, what types of mentalities you will find in certain countries just by the nature and the construct of their government, of their society. But, it is another thing to actually be in a simulation where you have to interact and have to remember that you are now embodying those characteristics and how they are so different from your own, and it really helped me learn about how I need to act when I am in these different places, being aware that cultural differences shape our world and if we misunderstand them, we could be losing a goldmine.”

Tom Drake,

Director of Center for Global Understanding and Independent Thinking,

Instructor in History

“I lead the Center for Global Understanding and Independent Thinking, which has a lot to do with inventive thinking. We try to increase Hotchkiss’s global awareness by sending teachers of various departments to other countries. We recently sent several teachers from the math department to Singapore, which was the pilot of this project. A lot of people think that there is one route to globalizing a school, as if there were some list of boxes to check off (six courses on history, global certificate), which is an ideological view. But for us, the distinction is that we don’t think there is one rule – there are multiple ways in which institutions can respond to globalization. We don’t see ourselves as producing a particular description of a global citizen, but rather, we think we need to educate and prepare our students for how to respond to changes globally in a manner that will make the world better. Some people might say it’s global citizenship, others global nationalism, there are all sorts of different ways. We believe we’re a fundamental school. Our job is to educate, not indoctrinate. We’re okay saying we don’t have the answers to these things, we trust that we’ll develop our students to come up with their own answers.”

“Inventiveness is present more so in the visual departments such as music, where artistic creativity is highly encouraged. But it is also present in classes such as Mr. Lang’s Design for Social Impact course… The curriculum currently does encourage a spirit of inventiveness, though I find it difficult to say with the interdisciplinary courses. I believe that you need to start with disciplinary courses in order to advance to interdisciplinary courses. Lots of people think the answer to education is in interdisciplinary courses, that that’s where creativity and inventiveness occurs. I am very skeptical of that. I don’t think you can be interdisciplinary unless you’ve been disciplined. I believe skepticism should be part of the process of how we respond to globalization. There are more things than just globalization that contribute to ways in which we decide how we educate people. The name of the center when it was created is a deliberate tension between two things. On the one hand, it’s undeniable that we’re in a new world in which the connection between different parts of the world are inevitable (trade, technology, etc.). So that’s a given. But the question is how we respond to that. To my mind, it has to be greeted with a variety of responses, not singular. The other thing that’s important about it is it’s aimed at making sure the adults in the community have an adult life. So the primary focus of the center is not students, it’s faculty.”

“One of the biggest challenges of Hotchkiss is its isolation. Isolation could be good for kids, being protected from distractions kids can get involved. It minimizes the dangers and offers a protected environment for kids. But for adults, this can make them too narrow. Whereas other institutions are closer to universities, where they can get more intellectual stimulation and challenge. So really what the center does is provide that. “That” as in 6-8 outside speakers every year, the most recent one was a speaker from Prague, we had one guy from the Thornton center for the study of China at the Brookings Institute in DC. He created the center at Hotchkiss, too, actually, and gave money for it. Part of the reason I do this is because I believe in Thornton’s vision.”

Alisa Ghura ’19

“The trip [to Colombia] that we took was over the summer, so the preparation we did for the trip leading up to it happened in the last few weeks of school, which I think was super helpful of Hotchkiss to include some material beforehand about the history of Colombia that was relevant to what we were going to be studying. The trip was about examining social reconstruction in Colombia through the lens of the peace agreement between FARC and the Colombian government, and because the nature of our trip to Colombia was so based on the Colombian conflict, it was really important to have an understanding of it. I really appreciated all of the ‘mini-lessons’ that [the program leaders] gave about what was going on in the Colombian conflict. [Even though] I already knew a lot about it, I learned a lot more, and I think a lot of the people we talked to were impressed with our knowledge, which allowed us to have a much deeper conversation about the whole thing. For example, a typical day would [include] meeting with someone representing some perspective of the Colombia conflict. One of the days we met with one of the women who was actually a designer of the peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC; she was an university professor. Another day, we met with a different woman who runs one of the Colombian branches of Save the Children, which is a nonprofit, so having the background and knowing exactly what the different groups were that contributed to the Colombian conflict allowed us [to have] a much richer conversation with each of these groups about solving it currently.”

“I’ve been on a number of other Hotchkiss trips, as well. I am a really big fan of taking advantage of every opportunity that Hotchkiss gives me. So, I really want to study International Relations and Affairs in college. As I went through the college process, I looked at different programs that interest me and all of them came back to that. I really try to take advantage of any opportunities to travel and experience different cultures. The trip to Colombia particularly drew me because it wasn’t just a cultural trip in terms of getting to know the Colombian culture, but it was really about policy and how policy impacts society. But, I have done some less policy-based trips. I went to New Zealand my Lower Mid year, and I went with a group of students who were interested in environmental science. We talked about environmental science and environmental policy in New Zealand, which was pretty cool because it was super different from how the U.S. sees the environment. For example, there is a river in New Zealand called the Whanganui River that had legal status in court. So, if you pollute it, it can sue you. It has legal representation in court. Things like that were really new concepts for me, and [they] really broadened the way I think about how innovative the U.S. can be when thinking about environmental policy. I also went to Cuba my Prep year, which was a really cool opportunity; I fully would not have been able to go if it weren’t for Hotchkiss. We were really lucky, and we got to go right when the embargo was lifted, and later the embargo was put back on, so I’m really glad that I could go that year. That [trip] was a really interesting way of looking at how other countries perceive the U.S. foreign policy. Honestly, not a lot of Cubans are as anti-American as people would think they are, but in general, the ‘preached’ culture there is to be anti-American. That was interesting to look at how a country that [thinks about] policy in a completely different light than the U.S.”

“I think Hotchkiss travel is super distinctive from anything that I’ve ever experienced before, and it might be because I have parents that are not the most adventurous people. When I travel with them, even if we go to really cool places, they don’t want me to go around and explore as much. I pick Hotchkiss trips based on the faculty [leading the trip], so I have gone with some very adventurous faculty members who have let us do really niche, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities and experiences. I think that generally Hotchkiss travel, the way it has been shaped, in my opinion, is that one, they really emphasize the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so there is a lot of going off the traditional path of tourism and really focusing more on being a global citizen and engaging with the place you’re in, and the other thing is that the Hotchkiss travel programs that I’ve been on have really emphasized pre-research. Before I went to Cuba, I was reading Cuban literature. Before I went to New Zealand, I was reading a ton about geothermal springs and geothermal energy, because it was an environmental science trip, and then when I went to Colombia, I was reading a ton about and watching documentaries on how the Colombian conflict erupted and the perspectives on the presidential election. Also, Hotchkiss does a really good job of using Hotchkiss connections to give you the richest possible experience and picking good times politically to be in [a] country. When I was in Cuba, at the time, Obama flew in the day we flew out, and we passed John Cary, who was the Secretary of State at the time, in a restaurant on our way out, and it was a really interesting time politically to be there because it was sort of the new idea of America coming back into Cuba’s life and we could get the Cuban’s perspective, which was really interesting. And when I was in Colombia, we were there right when they were having presidential elections, which was super important, because the president that had put the peace agreement into place had one candidate that was sort of an extension of himself, like a puppet, and there was another one that was completely radical. The new person ended up losing, which was unfortunate, in my opinion, but it was super interesting and a really great way to engage with people there. You could go up to anyone and [ask], ‘Duque or Fajardo? Who would you pick?’ and you could have really interesting conversations. So I think Hotchkiss has done a really good job pulling out those once-in-a-lifetime-type [opportunities].”

Jared Hall,

Dean of Academics, Instructor in History

“UWC Schools are intentionally diverse schools that promote intercultural communication and understanding. I think Hotchkiss is certainly on the same level as these schools, as students get an intercultural understanding experience. This is central to the [Hotchkiss] mission statement, and we do well with fostering a sense of diversity with over 30 countries represented and flags in the dining hall that represent actual affinities. Other schools struggle with this. At Hotchkiss, students are having really interesting conversations in the class, and there is great diversity in one space.”

“But we need to do better still. Hotchkiss’s DNA as a white Anglo-Saxon private school remains a central part of our identity. We need to be continue to challenge ourselves to be more open. This campus is still pretty Christian, which is restricting. We hold weekly meetings in Chapel, accentuating a congregational northeastern religion. We can still be more inclusive by being more understanding of our students of other religions and cultural backgrounds. We already have the diversity–we seem to admit students with this in mind–but we need the supports in place to make this product.”

“The curriculum is in motion. We are turning to inquiry-based learning and are striving to make students more inventive. However, this approach to learning is harder to asses that type of learning than what is featured in the standard curriculum. We do want to keep certain classes such as Traditional East Asia that are not super innovative. We need to keep a large space that is unapologetically academic. We shouldn’t be shy about that.”

Adam Lang,

Instructor in Economics and Design for Social Impact

“In the curriculum at Hotchkiss, in which students and teachers are pursuing answers to big, broad questions. Sometimes teachers build courses by asking, ‘what are the three big questions I want to answer, let’s say, this semester.’ So they are very broad. I think when there are broad but targeted questions that are asked in a class, then I think there can be a lot of creativity within that to find novel answers. When there is a curriculum that is very content-based, then I think it leaves less room for creativity.”

“From my perspective, I teach two main classes: AP Economics and Design for Social Impact. In AP Economics, I am required to really cover a lot of content and models throughout the semester, so in some ways it limits my creativity and my student’s creativity to think deeply about some big questions because we have to hit these models. That being said, within this framework, I can come up with creative activities and have creative discussions. In my Design for Social Impact course, essentially for the entire semester, we have one big question, which is ‘why is school enrollment declining in the town of Cornwall, Connecticut?’ So really, that one question is guiding all of that work, and we are using what I think is a creative framework called “human-centered design.” It is a design-thinking approach where you are trying to answer a question or solve a problem by truly understanding the experience of people who are having the problem and developing empathy and understanding for these folks, in this case, in Cornwall. So within that, students can creatively pursue a lot of different avenues.”

“It requires initiative, and a spark, and some inventiveness to represent different cultures in different ways…I think one thing that really spurs inventiveness is limitations, often. When we work on Design [for Social Impact] projects, it is really important for the question being asked to be focused enough so that people have a boundary and that they understand that they can create within that boundary. Often times, I think creativity can get stifled if the boundary is so big that people don’t know where to go and there are no limitations. So I think limitations are really helpful for creativity so that it’s scoped correctly. You really have to scope what you are pursuing in a way that gives people some boundaries but allows them to invent within.”

“Last year, we worked with a student for a town in Vietnam that was experiencing a lot of economic growth but environmental and cultural degradation. So students worked on that project for a month using Skype late at night interviewing people in Vietnam and really trying to get a human-centered approach to what the problem is. They talked to business owners, government officials, and just regular fishermen.”

“We may work on a project this February with another student from Bangkok, Thailand. She has started this program for people who are visually-impaired, and we might match students up with kids in Bangkok to better understand their needs and think about some creative solutions for their day-to-day lives.”

Wendy Levithan,

Head of the Classical and Modern Languages, Instructor in French

“For me, the fact that Round Square helps facilitate exchanges where we actually host students, and our students go off to different places, and that we celebrate both aspects of that exchange is really rich. So it’s not just the individual student who gets the benefit of the travel, and the immersion, and discovering a new world, but it’s also the appreciation they bring back and share with us that helps the whole school benefit, and I hope gives international flavor to our New England boarding school.”

“As a language teacher, I have a bias for language immersion, because I believe so much in the marriage between culture and language, and it’s obviously the best way to bring the language you’re studying here alive. Mrs. Wilson and I have taken groups to Morocco, we take small trips to Quebec City every year, and then I was once able to go to [a] Round Square [conference] in India. They were very different experiences. Some were homestay, [some were] language, others were high culture and studying very important cultural topics; they were all very rich. But you do connect to them in different ways, and I think the fact that we have different opportunities here as students and teachers to participate in different kinds of programs is part of the richness of that fabric.”

Rachel Myers,

Director of Diversity and Inclusion, Instructor in English

“I’d say at Hotchkiss right now we’re trying to be inventive in thinking about what we already do and creating better ways to do it. So for example, I think about Chapel. This is my fifth year here, and in the beginning, my first couple years, I think we as a community heard a lot from Mr. Pressman. Now, you’d rarely hear from the school chaplain. In fact, it’s not a published position yet, but that position will be changing in name, and it will be soon be “Director of Spiritual Life.” We’re hearing a lot more from people in the community rather than one specific person, to try to be better reflective of all of the different populations that we have … So that’s a way in which I think we’re being inventive, but it’s not like we’re creating something from scratch, if that makes sense.”

“So this isn’t really public to the school yet, but one of the big initiatives that we’re going to start working on, and we as in a group of adults and the student council on diversity and inclusion, is [creating a] diversity dashboard, which will be kind of a tool. I think at first it will be internal to our school and only certain people will be able to use it and see it, but as a way to sort of measure diversity, equity, and inclusion, and what we count as diversity, what we count as equity, what we count as inclusion on our campus – this is something that’s fairly new. The Athenian School in California created one and there was a piece written in the NYAS (New York Academy of Sciences) magazine about it, Choate’s been working on one too, but that’s just something measurable so you can see how you’re doing. I mean, take the past couple decades. “Diversity,” “inclusion,” and “equity” have been these buzzwords in school. I think from the outside looking in it’s always about optics, visually, like, “Oh, I see there’s a lot of different races represented in the school,” or like, “Oh, I see it looks like there’s a pretty good mixture of boys and girls in a classroom – there’s gender balance.” But how do you know the kids are thriving? So the concept of the diversity dashboard would be how do we measure, or how do we know how every student, with different colors, races, ethnicities, religions, and genders, is doing. How do we know that you as a male Asian-identifying student at Hotchkiss feel like you’re included, other than just being here.”

Giordana Serretta Fiorentino ’19

“[Hotchkiss can be more inclusive by] hosting more dinners for international students, celebrating more (non-Western) holidays, educating the community about unfamiliar cultures by inviting speakers, showing videos, or pointing out specific articles in all-school emails focusing on culture, ethnicity, race, and other forms of diversity, posting reminders or articles about inclusion around the school and being more explicit about social cues and American customs for which foreign students may be unprepared by creating a list.”

“Inventiveness is passionately embracing creativity, the improvement of the current state of things, and the thrill of new possibilities. I don’t think it changes in the context of a school–inventiveness has a life of its own, independent of its surroundings. Yes, inventiveness is everywhere at Hotchkiss from the self-portraits near the post office to my Honors English in-class discussions to my Physics 1 test-it-yourself learning method. I also see inventiveness in the part of the student body in conjunction with the administration as we try to constantly improve the rules here–notable changes we have helped to make in the past years include a more relaxed dress code and a mixed-gender dorm.”

“[Some forms of student inventiveness at Hotchkiss are] Humanities Art Salons, the freedom to choose courses as an Upper Mid and Senior, Harkness discussion method, Lower Mid Daily Themes, Senior TEAGLE, independent research opportunities, wide range of electives, and my AP Biology midterm last year (we could do anything creative as long as it incorporated certain Biology chapters).”

“[Other Hotchkiss diversity and inclusion initiatives include] Mr. Thompson’s dinners for international students, international mentors to new students, The Narrative publication, the establishment of the [Language and Culture Center] LCC, Spectrum publication, Auditorium focused on international topics, and culture clubs.”

Isabel Tracey ’20

“I am super excited because this summer I am going to be traveling to Sri Lanka and India for most of June with some Hotchkiss teachers, and considering that Philosophy and Religion is my favorite subject at Hotchkiss and is really important to me and my everyday life, I am really excited to be able to take this opportunity to see how Philosophy and Religion shapes other cultures. While we do think that religion is fairly prominent in the United States, areas in South Asia really depend on religion and their philosophical views. Most of the decisions they make in life, including profession, marriage, family, clothing choice, etc., really depend on their religious views. We will be throwing ourselves into the experience. In fact, we are staying with host families there, and we are going to be focusing predominantly on Christianity and Buddhism there, as these are the two most prominent religions there, but also there are a lot of other religions in South Asia, so I am really excited to be able to visit mosques and get a first-hand experience with families and what tradition means to them and how religion shapes their everyday lives.”

“I am hoping to take the travel programs at Hotchkiss more seriously once I get older, and hopefully I will be able to travel during the winter and the spring next year, because I really do believe that traveling can be life-changing. I know that it has been for myself and the more you are aware of other cultures other than that of the United States, the better person you become. On that note, I really hope that in the future, I can be able to share that experience with students at Hotchkiss, and in addition to that, sort of just be able to share my love for traveling with other Hotchkiss students and to be able to take advantage of how diverse Hotchkiss is and the ability to travel with students from other areas in the world to other areas in the world makes the experience all the more great.”

Emma Wynn,

Head of the Humanities and Social Science Department, Instructor in Philosophy and Religion

“One thing that faculty love to do is create new courses, but also constantly be revitalizing courses that have existed forever. So many members of the department completely redo their electives over the summer, or at least, partially redo them, trying to keep them current and up-to-date both in terms of scholarship and their field but also current events. Even if it’s something that they’ve taught before, they’re constantly trying to think about how can I teach it better. Could I have better, more engaging assignments? Could I get rid of that unit I didn’t feel worked and add a new one? I think a lot of us spend a lot of time over the summers on that. This past summer, I knew that two of my electives were coming up that I just didn’t feel that I’d gotten perfect last time around, LGBTQ US and Social Psychology, so I spent probably two to three hours every morning all summer long going back over those courses, redoing lessons, getting rid of lessons I didn’t think were exciting for students, adding new things. Also, are we teaching them in a way that’s modern and attentive to things like diversity. So when I’m teaching LGBTQ US History, for example, you might think, “Oh, naturally think diverse,” and it is. But I have to think about am I making sure that I’m not just teaching white LGBTQ US history, am I incorporating what’s going on with movements in terms of race, in terms of class, all those things, and how do I get that in. Another thing that our [Philosophy] department really likes and shows a lot of enthusiasm for across the school and I hope will be able to gain more support in the future is interdisciplinary classes. Faculty here like working with each other, I think, and are pretty excited and intrigued about the idea of working across disciplinarily with classes. One thing I’ve noticed is that they’ve started adding interdisciplinary classes to the [Summer] Portal’s program, some that Hotchkiss students can get credit for. That’s something that they’re wanting to do more and more, and I think it would be fun to bring more interdisciplinary classes into the regular curriculum, as well.

“One of the things that I think is important is being able to, in classes, have mirrors for all sorts of different students so that if you’ve gone through a Hotchkiss education you didn’t read only books by white men in your English classes. But I also think that, and I’m particularly sensitive to this because I’m trained particularly in philosophy, if you’re talking about a field where most of the significant work has been done by white men, and you’re thinking what do we do? because that’s true of something like the History of Physics or Existentialism, I can’t go back in time and make it possible for women to be physicists when we were not granted the opportunity. But you have to talk about that, so when you talk about philosophy or physics or anything like that, not to pretend that it’s not a discipline largely made up of dead white men and instead have a conversation of what that might have meant, as in what were women doing at that time, why weren’t they doing philosophy, like what was going on. So I think it’s both the question of making sure that the curriculum is diverse, but also having frank conversations about why it is the way it is, and why certain people have been able to make contributions to fields and other people have not. I don’t really like the approach that’s just sort of, “If I throw one female philosopher in, then we’re good,” because we’re not really good, and there’s a reason we’re not good, and that’s because women have not had the opportunity to be philosophers for all sorts of reasons. So I think it’s both about making sure that the few that there have been are there and their voices are represented, but also having a conversation about representation and who gets to be represented and things like that, so that it’s not just a tokenism like “look, we read a woman so all is well.”

“In a way, I think the most successful students are put in a situation and culture where it makes them the least able to be inventive, which is a very strange thing, isn’t it. When you think about really inventive people, they dropped out of Harvard because they needed to meddle about with whatever. I think the way our system is set up works against creativity. It helps with lots of things, but it does, I think, work against creativity, because creativity needs lot of muddle time and space, so that your brain can just wander about, make unexpected connections. It needs you to make lots of mistakes and to feel totally free to do that, and we’re not really set up that way. It would be interesting to look at some schools that have made some of these changes. Are there schools that have gotten rid of grades or have moved to some other system? Did that help? At schools where students aren’t necessarily competing to get into Harvard and Yale but the state school, are they able to get at this in a better way because students are not stressing between the difference betwen an A or an A plus or an A minus and an A? I don’t know.”

“I think certainly technology, the internet, and social media plays a role in this stress. I feel lucky enough to be part of the last generation of folks to go to high school without the internet, basically. When you turned the TV off in the common room and went to your room, there was nothing to do except your homework. Pretty easy, you could get it done. You could either do your homework, or look out the window. Or do your homework, or read a book. Or do your homework, or sleep. So it wasn’t like you had the distractions constantly with the ability to watch a movie or surf about. I mean, those things are hard for me to resist, too, I’m a grown lady with a lifetime of focusing, and I’m pretty good at focusing. So I think that’s a huge challenge. Because when we were doing our homework in our rooms, you’d spend a lot of time, if you weren’t working, daydreaming and drifting about in your mind or thinking. All those things that I think spark creativity and all the connections between thoughts, I think it’s very easy to take up all that time now with a device. I don’t say that in a way to shame anyone; I think they’re incredibly addictive, and it’s almost impossible not to. It would be wondrous if someone were to not be taking up they’re time with all of that. But all that time used to just be muddling time, when you’d just think things and stare about and talk to each other. You couldn’t entertain yourself constantly, so you did a lot more of “nothing,” but the kind of “nothing” that leads to creativity.”