Author: Rob Hansen, Head of School

Learning to Understand One Another Why living and learning in community matters during adolescence ABOUT A  3 MINUTE READ –  A teacher offers encouragement, but a student hears disappointment. A friend needs quiet, but someone feels excluded. Two students bring different ideas to a project, each wondering why the other is being difficult. These ordinary moments in adolescence offer consequential opportunities for learning. Psychologists use “theory of mind” to describe our understanding that other people have thoughts, beliefs, and intentions different from our own. Its foundations emerge in childhood, but perspective-taking continues developing through adolescence and adulthood. At Leelanau, this development helps explain why we are small, why relationships matter, and why we learn through shared experience. Adolescence is a time for practice We sometimes expect teenagers to arrive ready to accept feedback, negotiate differences, recognize their impact, and ask for help. But these abilities are still developing. A student may thoughtfully...

Ready to Become Ready How boarding school helps young people build independence—and gives parents permission to let that growth begin. ABOUT A  4  MINUTE READ –  “I don’t think my child is ready for boarding school.” It is an understandable response. Your teenager still needs reminders to get out of bed, start homework, put away the phone, or do the laundry. Sending them away to school can feel like a leap you should postpone until they are more independent. But where will that independence come from? Readiness Takes Practice We sometimes treat readiness as something young people will acquire simply by getting older. Then college arrives, and we expect them to manage their time, share a room, seek help, make friends, eat reasonably well, and get themselves to class. All while navigating a new level of academic demand. That is a lot to learn at once. Boarding school offers an opportunity to practice those skills earlier, with adults close enough to teach, encourage, and help students recover when things go sideways. The ordinary moments...

The Right to Be Unfinished Why respecting adolescence is essential to helping young people become capable adults ABOUT A  4  MINUTE READ –  There is an old story about a patron who commissioned a great artist to draw a canary. Months passed, then years, and still the artist did not deliver. Finally, the patron arrived at the studio in a rage and demanded the promised work. The artist took out a sheet of paper and, in a few quick strokes, produced a magnificent canary. The patron was astonished—and furious. If the drawing was so easily made, why had he been forced to wait so long? The artist opened a nearby cabinet. Thousands of imperfect canaries spilled onto the floor. We want young people to produce the final canary without allowing them the thousand rough drafts. We expect sound judgment before they have been permitted to choose badly. We expect emotional regulation before they have experienced powerful emotions. We expect independence after organizing nearly every hour of their lives. We demand adult capacities while denying children the...

Seeing the Student Beyond the Score Why relationships must remain at the center of education ABOUT A  4  MINUTE READ –  Schools collect a great deal of information about students. Reading levels. Grade-point averages. Test percentiles. Attendance records. Processing speeds. Diagnostic profiles. Each measure can be useful. Assessments can identify areas of need, help families better understand their children, and give educators insight into how a student learns. A thoughtful diagnosis can replace confusion or blame with understanding and open the door to meaningful support. But seeing the whole student requires more than knowing the information collected about them. No score can capture what awakens a young person’s curiosity. No diagnosis can explain every setting in which a student will struggle or thrive. No transcript can reveal the emerging confidence, unexpected talent, or trusted relationship that might change the direction of a student’s experience. The danger comes when information intended to deepen our understanding begins to limit...

A Chance To Do Something Real Building Community, Liberating Learning, and Putting Development First ABOUT A  4  MINUTE READ –  I love the beginning of a school year. There is an energy to it that is difficult to describe. Dorm rooms are claimed. New students cautiously learn names and pathways. Returning students reconnect and discover that everyone has changed a little. Adults adjust schedules, answer questions, carry boxes, and try to make the complicated work of opening a school appear effortless. There is nervousness, certainly. But there is also possibility. A Community That Has Never Existed Before A new school year is one of the few moments when adults and adolescents are invited to build a community together—almost from the ground up. We may return to familiar buildings, traditions, and routines, but this particular collection of people has never occupied this place together. Who we will become is still unwritten. That is especially palpable at The Leelanau School. Our smallness makes every arrival consequential. Each student changes...