The Office of Community Development

Although the director serves as the lead facilitator in instituting professional growth and development strategies in these areas, we believe it is everyone’s responsibility to serve as an advocate for underrepresented groups and to contribute to an inclusive climate. New Canaan Country School supports the awareness and active attention to the cultural identifiers identified by the National Association of Independent Schools, commonly referred to as the “Big 8” and later coined The Big 12 and more: NAIS Cultural Identifiers.

 

The Director of Community Development sits on the senior administrative team, and works with the school’s leadership groups to identify, implement and assess evidence of a multicultural curriculum and learning outcomes that enhance academic rigor to make meaningful connections beyond the classroom walls. The director makes frequent presentations and holds periodic training workshops to facilitate teachers’ expert command in their subject matter, to leverage learning outcomes that benefit people, places and a purpose beyond the individual student.  The director also plays a role in the school’s hiring, admission and marketing goals to maximize opportunities to advance its mission.

 

Through service learning, teachers look for curricular opportunities to connect content skills to applicable, real-world, problem-solving outcomes to underscore an innovative teaching and learning approach. Project-based learning (PBL) turns an algebraic expression into a vehicle to understand poverty rates, and graphs and percentages can be used to illustrate drought and farming implications.  Later, students can use data to raise awareness about a variety of societal challenges and brainstorm ways to set attainable goals to solve problems through direct or indirect service, research or advocacy.

 

Woodworking classes are positioned to reach out to local non-profit organizations to identify needs and respond to them using real skills acquired in the classroom.  Art, music, language classes and more, all offer unique opportunities to partner with regional and international communities to understand and respond to community needs.  Technology classes can develop new applications that may serve to benefit environmental causes. In this model, students underscore the learning objectives while simultaneously giving of the gift of time to senior living facilities – the possibilities are endless. 

 

A growing number of schools are beginning to understand the value of a service learning approach to teaching academic lessons and the benefits of sustained community engagement; but New Canaan Country School has been one of the pioneers.  As one of the 50 founding schools of the National Network of Schools in Partnership and as the flagship school of the renowned national Horizons program, Horizons 50 Years Anniversary, mutually beneficial service has been part of our DNA.

 

Similar to our approach to service learning, our diversity and inclusion practice does not assume that we know what the needs are. We take the time to ask and to reflect on the tremendous learning that the whole community benefits from through relationship-building, internally and externally. When partnering with organizations, we are careful to exercise cultural humility – we don’t know it all and we are open to learn from groups of people with whom we may not have daily experiences. While we believe that we are all diverse because students and adults bring a range of experiences to our campus, we also know that we exponentially increase our level of cultural competence and personal growth through intentional efforts employed to increase our human diversity­ – outcomes that are both visible and those that are less visible.

 

The Office of Community Development has an open door relationship with students and adults. If you are a prospective parent, please feel free to contact the office to meet with us and share your perspective or to simply learn more about what makes New Canaan Country School such a special place.