July/August 2013 - Falmouth Academy

A Farewell From the Headmaster
With mixed emotions I write my last
“Letter From the Headmaster.” For eight
years, I have had the privilege of serving this
remarkable and unique school community
where I have been enriched by meaningful
relationships with students, faculty and staff,
parents, alumni, trustees, and friends of the
school.
Four distinguishing features make
Falmouth Academy unique: an intellectually
engaged community, an environment of
trust and respect, community partnerships,
and small size.
The qualities we first look for in prospective
students are motivation and interest in
learning. Students come here because they
want an environment where learning is
valued and where their peers are academically
motivated. The same is true of our
faculty: life-long learners themselves, they
are fully engaged in learning and are
passionate about their craft. Falmouth
Academy is no place for the passive learner,
no place for someone unexcited about ideas.
It’s a pleasure to hear seventh graders tell
me two months into their first year: “I have
never worked so hard at school and I have
never enjoyed it more.” Their work makes
sense to them, and they thrive in classrooms
where faculty and students are leaning into
whatever they are learning.
Falmouth Academy is successful because
of the close, respectful relationships that
develop between students and teachers as
they work together. High expectations and
trust are the crucial ingredients in these
relationships. Teachers with high expectations
as well as the skills and desire to
encourage and support different learning
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styles give their students powerful incentives
to be responsible for their own learning. In
order for students to make a, sometimes,
uncomfortable stretch or risk to learn, they
must feel safe. They must know they will be
supported by both their teachers and their
peers. In a community of trust, students will
reveal themselves and try new things, and
teachers will give students the space they
need to explore creative and imaginative
thinking. The result is a partnership between
student and teacher as they work together
to achieve success in the classroom, on the
stage, or on the playing field.
These respectful partnerships are everywhere
in our school community. I admire,
for instance, the partnerships among
academic departments. In our humanities
curriculum, the art, English and history
departments work collaboratively to give
their students a variety of lenses to see their
material.
Our science department has a longstanding
partnership with the international
Woods Hole science community that predates
by three decades the current talk about
STEM curriculums. We have arranged for
a quarter of our student population to work
with world-class scientists in state-of-the-art
laboratories.
Every one of our academic departments
pitches in to support our annual all-school
science fair that is a national model of academic
cooperation and student success.
Our Student Council and Honor Society
have established important partnerships in
our community and across the globe. Partnerships
with local art, music, and athletic
groups allow many area residents the use of
our facilities. Partnerships give students in
our small school global perspectives.
Another key to Falmouth Academy’s
success is our commitment to being a small
school with no back rows. Students here
can’t remain anonymous; they know they
must be accountable for their actions and
their studies; they know their voice counts
and that their peers will support their contributions
to class conversations.
A small community can occasionally feel
too close, and for some students our size
seems limiting. But experience convinces me
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