Last spring we shared a piece entitled “The Arc of Adolescence” in which we explored the trajectory of teenagers through their high school years. It is often a beautiful, messy, and nonlinear journey that yields remarkably independent, competent, kind individuals who have the confidence to step boldly into their world post-Proctor.
Each trimester is a microcosm of this overall growth pattern as students have already transformed over the past ten weeks since arriving back on campus in September. We see them finding their voices, increasingly utilizing their support systems, learning hard lessons, and exploring new passions. For those of us who have chosen to spend our careers in education, the intermittent check-points on growth like the end of the trimester affords us an opportunity to pause, step back, and see the evolution in our students that is rarely visible when we are immersed in the day-to-day of life at Proctor.
Because we have designed an educational model that embraces challenge while capitalizing on the burgeoning confidence and independence of our students, the ups and downs of living life alongside adolescents inevitably tests us (and our students’ parents!). During these last weeks of the trimester, when we are tired and busy with all the goodness of a dynamic community, we have to remind ourselves and our students that experiencing a full spectrum of emotions is actually one of the best things for us as humans.
In a recent episode of Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam interviewed psychologist Jordi Quoidbach. The episode explores the dangers of living in an emotional monoculture compared to experiencing a diversity of emotions each day. Quoidbach notes, “So emotional diversity or emo diversity as we call it, is the richness and relative abundance of the emotions that we experience every day. And this really comes from research in biology and ecology showing that more diverse environments, both in terms of how many different kinds of species there are, but also how evenly distributed these species are in the environment, tend to be more resilient. So I started looking at the way we could capture this diversity and this idea of richness and balance of emotion.”
Quoidbach adds, “By experiencing a broader range of emotion, we have more flexibility in choosing what to do next and we choose wiser. So to give you an example, if I'm feeling extremely proud of myself, I just achieved something at work, pride might motivate me to work even harder, to take on a new project, to achieve even more. If I'm feeling grateful, that might be the opposite, right? When I give credit to other people, my gratitude might motivate me to express my thanks to other people. In both cases, if I only have one emotion, I might work myself too hard and exhaust myself down the line, or I might always sort of put myself in the background, never take a chance to, you know, maybe take the lead on a project and take credit for the work that I do. But if I experience the two, my response might be more adapted and flexible, right? I might take on new challenges while acknowledging the team, if you see what I mean.”
As we think about the Fall Term at Proctor, we have laughed together and cried together, felt both frustration and empathy, hopelessness and hope, exhaustion and anticipation. We have watched each other work hard in our individual pursuits and then join together on the sidelines and in the theater to celebrate the culmination of that hard work. We have mourned the loss of one of our seniors and celebrated the remarkable leadership of his classmates. We have watched as our ninth graders have stumbled and bumbled and begun to find their footing, while our sophomores and juniors have stepped into new roles within the community. We have observed twenty new faculty members bring new energy and talent to their classes, teams, dorms, and advisory, and have witnessed veteran teachers step in to mentor, lead, and steward Proctor’s culture.
It has been an imperfect, and yet remarkable fall at Proctor. While, in the moment, it can be hard to feel the goodness of community when we are experiencing such a wide spectrum of emotions, Quoidbach’s research reminds us that the broader the range of emotions we experience, the healthier we are as a community. Today, we step away for a well earned break. As we reflect on the beautiful chaos of the last three months, may we remember that it is only through experiencing all of our emotions that we truly reap the benefits of living in community with each other.
Check out more highlights from the Fall Term on The Buzz!
- Community and Relationships
- Health and Wellness