Dear Students, Parents, and Guardians, A recent report, released by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, entitled “Opportunity for Design: New High School Models for Student Success”, focused on the characteristics of a high-performing secondary school. Although the report was released to compel schools to reorganize to meet the needs of the common core, the characteristics seem to pull together many concepts that have been discussed over the past two decades. These are no longer radical ideas, but simply ideas that have woven themselves into many school cultures. MacDuffie exhibits these characteristics in varying degrees, but two areas stood out for me…
Dear Students, Parents, and Guardians, We are entering into a period of great activity here at The MacDuffie School! Here are some upcoming dates of interest: April 6 – 8 Boarding Department trip to Washington, DC. Monday, April 8 No school for students—report writing day for faculty. Tuesday, April 9 The fourth and final installment of this year’s MacDuffie Speaker Series will take place in the Student Center at 7 pm. Topic: “Universal and Subjective Distress: Mental Health in a Global Context” presented by Amber Douglas, Associate Professor of Psychology and Education at Mount Holyoke College. Monday, April 15 Patriots’ Day holiday. …
Dear Students, Parents, and Guardians, A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak with faculty about some aspects of brain development which relate directly to their work with students. I presented a recent article in The New York Times (“Why Can Some Kids Handle Pressure While Others Fall Apart”) that classifies people broadly as “Warriors” or “Worriers”. Research shows that there are some simple things that we can do to help both types of people achieve success. The pre-frontal cortex is the area of the brain responsible for reasoning, complex decision-making, and risk-reward behavior analysis, among other things. Judging by…
Hello everyone, Despite all of the snow, we have had a warm and spirited few weeks on the grounds of MacDuffie. This past week, our bulletin boards were covered with small gifts, as our community celebrated Heart Week – a MacDuffie Valentine’s week tradition. Students, staff, and faculty provided each other with both a small gift, and a clue to their identity, culminating in a Friday “reveal”. It was great to see the joy that these small tokens brought to our students. Magneto Fantastico, our student-run talent show, doubles as a fundraiser that helps our Journalism class travel to the Columbia University…
Hello everyone, Last week, with the town of Newtown and the children and staff of Sandy Hook Elementary School returning to school on our minds, we held a moment of silence in assembly to remember the victims of this senseless tragedy. This past Friday, we held a lockdown drill for our students, and we continue to address our lockdown policies and procedures. While we will not live in fear, it is clearly our responsibility to take reasonable precautions to provide a safe environment for our students. One of our significant changes includes the set up of a system whereby any faculty or…
