Lee Carey
Director of Admissions & Secondary School Placement
Last week, a review of Susan Engel's Red Flags or Red Herrings? Predicting Who Your Child Will Become landed on my kitchen table. Working in independent school elementary admissions, I encounter lots of anxiety from parents about whether they have been doing the "right things," certainly to get their children ready for school, but also for life. I work with parents of adolescents, too, as they journey into secondary school placement. They muse often about what else they should push their child into to look better prepared in the eyes of prep school admissions officers. What to do with all this angst?
Clearly the answer is to read this book. Dr. Engel (and her considerable research) champion the view that every child is born with immutable traits that remain constant over a lifetime. Regardless of home or school environments, the dreamy stay dreamy, the analytic devour the facts, the optimistic ones bring us sunshine, and the hot-tempered keep us on our toes. Shore's legendary elementary teacher, Debbie Parkhurst has always said, "you know, they all start school with their bags packed. I can tell you by the end of Kindergarten what they will be like as students, teenagers or even adults."
We have many things to offer them, of course. We stretch their talents and nurture their citizenry in school. Chores and the occasional disappointments of life build their coping skills. Team play and solo projects prepare them for greater-world encounters. But still, the artists gravitate to the studio, the leaders have a hard time softening their elbows, and the shy are happiest when they can reflect on paper (or online!). In the words of our Anita Barbato, beloved former Lower School Head at Shore, "Such as I am, I am a Precious Gift."
