— Tim Breen, Ph.D., Head of School
As I welcomed students and educators back to campus after their orientation trips, I was reminded, yet again, of why I so deeply believe in the power of small schools. Each August, the students and educators of Watershed School head out into the backcountry and front country of our beautiful Colorado mountains on extended travel for 4 to 8 days. Nine groups. More than 130 people. All with shared goals of learning about Watershed School, building community, discovering their individual strengths and weaknesses, and seeing how they contribute to the group. Our school’s size contributes to our ability to put the whole school into the field each August and again at the end of the year during May Term.
Truly, there are numerous benefits for students in small communities – benefits that relate to character growth, leadership development, academic achievement, and to development as changemakers in our world.
CHARACTER
At a small school, you are known, not just by name, but by name, trait, and contribution. We know each other’s interests, and how we each contribute to our community. And as you walk the halls and the paths, you carry yourself differently when you know and are known by the people you pass. You know that you matter, and you rise to the occasion.
You also learn to work with people who are different from you. At larger schools you can surround yourself with people who look like you and think like you. At a smaller school you will have peers who look and think like you, but you’ll also be in more situations where you work closely with peers who don’t think like you; who don’t look like you. I love seeing some of the friendships that develop here – we have students who become friends at Watershed who would likely never be friends at a larger school.
LEADERSHIP
At a small school, there are simply more leadership opportunities per student. And at Watershed, this is multiplied because we believe in the power of students to shape our school. We have students on our Academic Program Committee, working with educators to help shape program offerings. We have Citizenship Committees for both middle school and upper school. We have a Community Life Committee spanning the grades. We have students serving as members of academic departments. And we have students who serve as members of the Head’s Council – thinking with me about the future of the school. We also have many student club leaders as well as student leadership roles on our trips and in our courses.
ACADEMICS
At Watershed, our Expedition courses rely on students to work as individuals and in small groups as they dig deep into an essential question rooted in one of the 25 great challenges facing our world today. They collaborate with experts and community partners whose work is similarly focused on exploring and finding solutions to these challenges. Watershed educators need to know their students well. They need to establish the high level of trust that’s required to bring students out into the field to work with community partners on common good projects. Watershed’s small size, unique academic program, and an academic schedule designed to foster deep work, provide the opportunity for students to be seen, heard, and known, both within Watershed and, importantly, in the broader community.
CHANGEMAKERS
In a world marred by division, loneliness, hopelessness and violence, Watershed and our peer schools offer some respite and an opportunity for young people to lean into a different way of living and being the world. A way focused on changemaking from a place of working with others through differences; of knowing and being known; of belonging. Our students will write our future and I, for one, am glad that at least some of our future leaders will come from a Watershed foundation.
Are you interested in reading research about small schools? See the links below.
