Seacrest Country Day School
“The Teachers Here Focus More On You”
Seacrest Country Day School is dedicated to the proposition that joy and high school are not mutually exclusive. For most of its 27-year history, Seacrest was a highly successful pre-K-8 school that taught students the importance of Whole Person Development, including Leadership, Character, Ethics, Creativity, and yes, Joy.
But joy is an unusual word to associate with high school, which, seemingly, is the place where students go when they have outgrown joy and are ready for stress. Seacrest has a different formula: To create a rigorous and challenging high school, but also one that is built around the needs, interests, and passions of its students. “Every one of our kids is happy to be here,” said English Teacher Dr. Mary Zoe Bowden. “They don’t look like Eeyores carrying around 50-pound backpacks. They love learning.”
Lightening student backpacks is part of Seacrest’s guiding philosophy. Along with other ICG schools, Seacrest has learned that what passes for rigor in many high schools is actually compulsiveness, and that student learning is deeper when classes cover less material but in greater depth. “You don’t have to give the students homework every night in every subject to be a rigorous school. That’s not the definition of rigor. That’s the definition of busy,” said Candy Lile, Math Department Chairperson.
“At Seacrest, students expect the teachers to know them as people.”
Seacrest recently replaced its AP Biology with a course on invertebrate zoology that emphasizes the fauna of southwest Florida. “We don’t have the pressure of covering 54 chapters of information. There are lots of topics that we can explore more rigorously because we have more time,” said Science Teacher Gail D’Arco. The course includes field work in nearby swamps and estuaries, and in the Gulf of Mexico.
According to Dr. John Fuller, Physics Teacher, durable learning is possible only when students engage in activities that interest them. “If they just memorize all the equations, they won’t be able to do any of it three weeks later. We can’t teach them much directly, but we can make them curious to learn on their own,” he said. So instead of lecturing about buoyancy and displacement, Fuller asks his students to create boats out of modeling clay, and then to investigate which shapes will float. Fuller’s classroom is a perpetual workshop of student-designed experiments. “On most days, they just come in and find their project,” he said.
“The best thing here is the way teachers challenge you to ask yourself ethical questions.”
A cornerstone of school’s academic program is the Seacrest Seminar, required for all students each year, which explores themes related to ethics, citizenship, and living in today’s global world. “The best thing here is the way teachers challenge you to ask yourself ethical questions,” said one student. Equally important is Seacrest’s mixed age advisory system, which gives students a point of connection with faculty mentors. “The teachers here focus more on you,” said one student, “They take the time to understand each one of us.”
Seacrest prides itself on offering an education that is specially designed for each student’s needs. “Every group of kids is different. How is it possible that different students can be doing exactly the same curriculum?” said Howard Schott, Academic Dean and Chair of English. “At Seacrest, students expect the teachers to know them as people. Kids really respond when I say, ‘I put this in the curriculum because you were interested.’”
Students at Seacrest know that they are part of a special community, one reason that the administration recently asked the eleventh grade class to collaborate on a code for the Seacrest high school community. Among other things, the document, entitled “We Strive,” urges that every student connect in some way with every classmate, and that each be respectful of the feelings of others. “I’m glad that they trusted us to do something like this. It helps us feel like we can make a difference,” said one student. “We want it to be in our own voices,” said another, “We love it here and we want the atmosphere to remain the same.”
Ringing endorsements such as these rarely escape the mouths of high school students. If pressed, they might even admit to joy in learning.