MCDS Portrait of a Graduate and the Search for Exceptional Talent
In August of 2011, the administration agreed to create a “Portrait of a Graduate” as one of its school wide goals. All of the administration and faculty would participate in the process. The final product was important as it would be a benchmark of sorts to guide us in all kinds of decisions regarding Country Day students. Because the heart of our mission at Country Day is the education of the whole child, every aspect of our program -- academics, the arts, athletics, our philosophy of discipline, expectations of community service -- should contribute to this portrait. We would be able to take this document and point to it as if to say, these are the qualities or characteristics that define young men and women at the end of their Country Day experience. Moreover, the process itself shouldered great importance. There are a myriad of worthy qualities that one might choose to describe a Country Day graduate. Indeed, our initial discussions resulted in a list of 45 potential qualities, all of them admirable! Winnowing this list would be a difficult, sometimes soul-searching process. We weren’t looking for a laundry list of qualities that looked good on paper, rather a small core of characteristics that make Country Day graduates stand out.
Fast-forward a year later. It’s August again already! One of my summer rituals is spending time listening to executive summaries of the 30 best business and leadership books published in the past year. Each month a CD arrives with 2-3 book summaries. I rarely get to them during the school year, so they accompany me on summer vacation or trips to the gym. I’m on the treadmill and I start listening to a summary of "The Rare Find: Spotting Exceptional Talent Before Everyone Else." The author, George Anders, is on a mission to discover how an employer can identify exceptional people. Anders observes that despite all of the sophisticated recruitment tools made possible by technology we haven’t made that much progress in identifying great talent. I’m interested. And then the author really gets my attention as he begins telling a story about Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America (TFA). In an effort to improve the process for selecting TFA teachers Kopp, set out to visit schools where the best TFA teachers worked. Among the qualities that Kopp discovered were exhibited by these teachers was a willingness, a determination to continue in the face of great challenges, in a word resilience. Because of Kopp’s experience with these teachers, resilience became one of the defining qualities that TFA looked for in its future candidates.
Put simply, resilience is the ability to respond to adversity. Adversity can take on many forms, i.e., loss, illness, failure. Resilient individuals respond to life’s challenges with persistence, determination. They don’t give up. For many of us resilience doesn’t come naturally. It’s a learned behavior. Educators know that teaching young people how and why they should develop resilience is one of life’s most important lessons. I encourage you to take a look at the Portrait of a Graduate. It is a short, but powerful document. At one point it reads, “Miami Country Day Graduates will demonstrate confidence in their abilities and resilience in the face of challenges and disappointments.”
Anders sought out some of the leading experts on spotting talent to learn how to identify exceptionally talented people. I don’t think the author talked to any of our teachers. If he had, they would have told him about the importance of resilience. Maybe I’ll send him a copy of the
MCDS Portrait of a Graduate?
PORTRAIT OF A GRADUATE
Put simply, resilience is the ability to respond to adversity. Adversity can take on many forms, i.e., loss, illness, failure. Resilient individuals respond to life’s challenges with persistence, determination. They don’t give up. For many of us resilience doesn’t come naturally. It’s a learned behavior. Educators know that teaching young people how and why they should develop resilience is one of life’s most important lessons. I encourage you to take a look at the Portrait of a Graduate. It is a short, but powerful document. At one point it reads, “Miami Country Day Graduates will demonstrate confidence in their abilities and resilience in the face of challenges and disappointments.”
Anders sought out some of the leading experts on spotting talent to learn how to identify exceptionally talented people. I don’t think the author talked to any of our teachers. If he had, they would have told him about the importance of resilience. Maybe I’ll send him a copy of the
MCDS Portrait of a Graduate?
PORTRAIT OF A GRADUATE
A Miami Country Day Graduate will:
- Be intellectually curious and independent thinkers
- Demonstrate confidence in their abilities and resilience in the face of challenges and disappointments
- Evidence a commitment to lifelong learning and reading in their personal and professional lives
- Demonstrate good character and make good choices
- Practice honor, respect, wisdom, compassion and mindfulness
- Possess a strong work ethic in all aspects of their lives
Want to continue the conversation? Contact the Head of School, Dr. John Davies, at daviesj@miamicountryday.org.
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