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SPRING
2001 Drew Smith
Head of School
I believe one of the central questions facing all Friends Schools is this: What is the “right” relationship between and among Friends Schools and Friends? Although this may not be the precise query that appears on Yearly or Monthly meeting agendas, or the precise question featured in a recent Friends Journal devoted to the issue of Friends and education, I believe that this “relationship” question is an important place to begin to define the mission of all Friends Schools.
I am guessing that the issue of how Friends related to the schools under their care used to be a far less complicated matter than it is today. Most Friends’ schools existed to teach Quaker children. Most Friends’ schools were operated directly by members of associated monthly meetings. Most teachers in Friends’ schools were Friends. The schools, in many ways, therefore, served as extensions of the ongoing worship and work of the meetings. The relationship question didn’t arise because the two institutions in question, the meetings and the schools, were not in practice or perception separate institutions. They were one.
The time is far different now. I am certainly not speaking for all Friends, but it seems to me that schools and meetings are separate and distinct institutions by design, and sometimes by default. In my mind, one of the most important distinctions between the two institutions is, quite simply, that one is full of Quakers and the other is not. Friends’ schools opened their doors to the world long ago and Quakerism had to become a far more deliberate part of the school day. Mission and policy statements had to be written in order that the world would know what a Friends’ school was supposed to be. Teachers who were not Quakers had to be taught about how it is that a Quaker might teach a student, and how that might be different from what those new teachers learned at university. Students and families also had to be oriented and shown the way.
These procedures continue at all Friends Schools today. No matter how each of us might personally believe our schools have succeeded or failed at being “true” Friends’ schools, chances are that Friends’ schools will remain open to their world, and Friends will not be the majority of those who teach the classes or sit at the student desks.
I am in the minority here at Friends School, Mullica Hill. I spend some time every day wondering about these things — wondering if Friends and their schools will be able to find the way that they will relate to one another. I hope for the day when Friends School, Mullica Hill, feels almost like an ad-hoc member of the Salem Quarterly Meeting, and that our ad-hoc relationship has a permanent and seamless feel to it. I know that I will not be the one, alone, to make this happen.
The Board has formed a Quaker Outreach subcommittee. Phil Anthony, Toy Tyson, Kay Pierson and I have meet twice so far; Judy Suplee will be joining us. And we will meet again, regularly, to sort through some of these relationship questions. I am grateful for their help, and grateful that the Board has seen fit to place this question prominently on its agenda. It is only a beginning, but I am hopeful that maybe Salem Quarter, and the Friends’ school in its midst, can be the ones who help Friends rediscover their role in Friends’ education.
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Last modified:
Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:19 AM
