Makings of an Educator: Community is Key

I was born in Portland, Maine, the son of a college professor and an elementary school teacher. Vehement critics of TV, they never allowed one in the house. Many of my favorite childhood memories revolve around the evenings when my parents would read to us - this was our prime time; The Odyssey, Watership Down, The Lord of the Rings - these were our sitcoms. My younger sister (we are the same age for two weeks - Irish twins) and I grew up with literature in our hearts and teaching in our blood.

The summer after fifth grade, my parents informed me that I would not be returning to my public school. If it had been up to me, I never would have left my schoolyard buddies, the friends I had known since kindergarten. However (as is so often the case), my parents chose wisely. I had always been an underachiever in school. I sat in the back row , I followed the rules, I did my work, and I received straights A's. But I wasn't challenged. I didn't belong to any community. And I certainly didn't have to earn anything. Until I attended Waynflete.

At Waynflete - an independent, coed, day school - classes were so small that there was no back row. For the first time in my life, teachers held me accountable not for what I could achieve in relation to my classmates but for what I should accomplish given my individual talents. In the same way that I was challenged in the classroom, I was challenged co-curricularly. Though I had never participated in organized sports, I was expected to play on all three teams the school fielded: soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter, and lacrosse in the spring. I volunteered at a day care for emotionally disturbed children. I even sang with the choir (until, at 14, my voice betrayed me).

But most important to my experience at Waynflete was the intimate sense of community, the depth of relationships rooted in caring. They cared not only because they were teachers but also because my Art teacher was the mother of my best friend, my French teacher coached my basketball team, and my advisor had three little girls for whom I baby sat. I found a school community that served as a surrogate family, a family composed of teachers who were also parents, students who were also siblings, and role models who were also friends.

After university, I myself became an educator in the footsteps of my parents, in the footsteps of my best friend's mom, my hoop coach, and my advisor. As an educator, I am intensely aware of the obligation I have to serve as an integral part of an interdependent community that supports, challenges, and rewards its members. If the essence of interdependence is that 1+1>2, then "+" is my definition of community. I believe that every individual - student, parent, trustee, teacher, graduate, and principal - is capable of achieving more within a communal context than by herself or himself.

Yet individual achievement is as vital to the health of a school community as is interdependence. Therefore, schools must motivate individuals to take risks in order to achieve at the highest levels. This link between individual achievement and communal support is one hallmark of a healthy school. As an educational leader, I am aware of the responsibility schools have to create and sustain an environment fertile enough so that the seeds of community will bear fruit for diverse individuals.

Throughout my professional career, I have served as a teacher, an advisor, a coach, and a dorm master; I have been a department head, committee chair, a teacher of teachers, and an educational consultant. And I have always taken advantage of the chance to return to the classroom as a student. Regardless of the direction in which my career continues to evolve, my fundamental passion for students and for learning will remain constant. I am an educator, and whether I am teaching Walden, talking with parents, coaching a game, meeting with trustees, or debating pedagogy with faculty, I will always be a teacher, a student, and an advocate for nurturing community.

--Steve McKibben
9/25/05