Duke School Under the Oak Magazine, Fall 2020

Michelman Retires from Duke School
“The school learned to speak about itself
and its program more confidently, rather than
apologetically,” he said. Unique features of the
school, such as calling teachers by their first
names and not giving grades, were framed
in terms of promoting partnerships among
students and teachers and assessing student
performance with best practices.
multiple student bands, Lower and Middle
School choruses, and a drama program with
two plays a year.
“I believe that, when we talk about creative and
critical thinkers, one way to allow that to happen
is through a robust arts program,” Dave said. “It
just lends itself to creative and critical thinking.”
“I think we became really
clear that this is who we are.
We’re proud of who we are,
and if it meets the needs of
your family, great! And if it
doesn’t, that’s also great,”
Dave said.
Dave oversaw the capital
campaign to consolidate
the Lower and Middle
Schools on the Old Erwin
Road campus in 2009. He
further encouraged the
development of the Duke School identity with
a rebranding campaign, a new school song,
and the adoption of the school poem, Jack
Prelutsky’s Once They All Believed in Dragons.
The school’s programmatic offerings
transformed as well. During Dave’s tenure,
Duke School expanded its extracurricular
opportunities and arts instruction significantly.
The performing arts program now includes
“The school is
still challenging
students in
engaging
ways—and
hopefully better
than it did when I
arrived—that’s my
point of pride.”
Among the many changes, Dave
said, “the fact that the school
now thinks about diversity and
equity and justice near the top of
the metrics it uses when making
a decision is something that I’m
very excited about.”
In addition to attracting and
retaining more diverse families
and faculty, the school’s
diversity and inclusion initiative
encourages discussions about
bias and equity in all areas of
school life. “Teachers have been very thoughtful
about how to have a curriculum that really
reflects the world we live in and opening up a
world so students can see it in its reality,” Dave
said.
The school also expanded its focus on service
and advocacy, largely inspired by the ideas
in Sara Ahmed and Smokey Daniels’s book
Upstanders. “If students aren’t having the
UNDER THE OAK 19