Dear CDS Families,

As I listened to Bach's Toccata and Fugue, in D Minor at a concert given by Cornell's Wind Ensemble this past Wednesday, a student leaned over and asked me "Do you know what movie that is from?"

The piece is a favorite of mine, but I was struck by how, once given a specific task to perform (figure out what movie 'the piece was from'), I choose to figure out what movie it was from rather than sit and listen to the piece. At that moment, had I ceased listening to the piece? While the student was simply trying to make meaning from sound, I found out quickly I was not aware of the sounds; I had ceased listening.

(By the way, listen to a drum solo during the performance at our concert on YouTube.)

I am always listening, or at least that is my intent. It provides me with so much perspective about our School, our community and our country. And I believe my teachers do it even better, a hundred times a day. They have to think of the filters in the classroom, language, what the child is trying to say, what the context is at the moment, their cultural background, and their learning needs. We believe in listening fully. At CDS, we teach listening as a skill. In debate units and on the floor during morning meetings, through delegations at Model UNs or Wednesday meetings as well as daily classroom exercises, we teach how to listen to understand others, to gain insight and to improve ourselves.

Julian Treasure is a career listener and scientist of sound. In his recent TED talk presentation, "5 Ways to Listen Better", he spoke of listening. The whole piece is worth watching (and listening to), and he argues that we are losing our ability to listen. "A world where we don't listen at all is a very scary place". However, the take-away at the end is advice we will reaffirm as a staff as we begin our second semester. I see it as helpful advice for all of us in our roles- as educators, parents, friends, colleagues, community members:

1. Silence: Taking three minutes a day to embrace silence helps us recalibrate so we can here the quiet.

2. The mixer: As an exercise, he advises to try to distinguish different sounds in an environment, no matter how loud, trying to focus on one sound helps us with the quality of our listening.

3. Savoring: Enjoy mundane sounds, what he calls the hidden choir, throughout our life.

4. Scales of positions: The most important one for him, he advises to work on your listening position (i.e., active/passive, critical/empathetic)

5. RASA: For those in listening roles, use the following acronym RASA when listening to someone :

o Receive: pay attention to the person

o Appreciate: making noises to provide attention

o Summarize: He asks claim 'So' is an important word in listening.

o Ask: always ask questions afterwards.

On a larger scale, Country Day School has begun its self-study through the Middle States Association's Accreditation for Growth process and requires a complete dose of listening to all of our constituencies in the months ahead. Using a planning team of staff, students, parents and community members, our goal is to review who we are, why we do what we do, and, to that end, how are we doing. One way we will listen is to conduct a survey, provided by MSA, to see how we measure to twelve School Standards. On January 31st we plan to send all families the link to the survey in English and Spanish. We would like every parent to complete the survey in order for our school to listen to what we are doing well and those areas we can strengthen. All of the standards are presented to each school the Middle States Association reviews around the world.

I ask that you look for my letter and link at the end of January; we are ready to listen.

Regards,

Greg L. MacGilpin Jr., Director

The Country Day School

An American School Serving the International Community