Fwd: Responding to yesterday's election

Dear Packer Families,

Like many of you, I am writing this message on very little sleep. Last night was like no other in our political memory, defying the predictions of the most erudite pundits and political prognosticators.

Today, we are spending a great deal of time unpacking the election results with our students across the three divisions – during morning meeting and throughout the day in Lower School classrooms, in Middle School advisories, during Upper School Community time, as well as in many individual classroom conversations. I write to assure you that we will do our best to handle these discussions with balance, sensitivity, and fairness.

Given that last week's mock election among Packer's Upper School students showed that over 80% favored Secretary Clinton, I don't think it's a huge leap to assume that there was more disappointment than joy in Packer households as results unfolded last night. At the same time, there are certainly Packer families who support Mr. Trump and are pleased with this outcome. As a school community, we have an obligation to recognize that there will be a broad array of feelings generated by the election results, and it is our responsibility as a school to make space for these feelings to be expressed thoughtfully and compassionately, as well as to model the tolerance and acceptance of difference that are among our core values. No doubt, we have our work cut out for us, but I am confident in the good that we can do as a community.

There are abundant lessons to be learned from this election: that experts can be wrong; that our country is even more deeply divided than many of us had thought; and that abundant numbers of our fellow Americans feel a deep sense of despair and disaffection with the status quo of government. For us here at school, we will use this as an opportunity to talk with your children in age-appropriate ways about demographics, the economy, social policy, our democratic system, and the rule of law. We will also talk about the world's response to yesterday's election results, our individual responsibilities as citizens to continue to give voice to our beliefs, and appropriate channels of political activism. On a more basic level, we will stress the importance of not being a gloating winner or a sore loser, and about the strength of our nation, its history of responding to dramatic political change, and the hopefulness of the future.

As for you, our families, I offer two resources. Last week at a NYSAIS heads-of-school conference that I attended, the University of Pennsylvania educator Ali Michael spoke about advancing our national dialogue about race. This morning Dr. Michael wrote a Huffington Post piece, “What Do We Tell the Children?”, a moving yet direct reminder of how we, as adults, can model our responses for the young people around us. Next Wednesday, November 16, from 6:30 to 8 p.m., Semeka Smith-Williams and the PA Diversity Committee are holding a “Post-Election Healing" evening here at Packer.

Please reach out if you have questions, suggestions, or simply would like to share your thoughts, and take good care.

Best regards.

Bruce L. Dennis
Head of School

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Look what has happened to your borough..

Landon Thomas, Jr.
Financial Reporter
New York Times

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http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/t/landon_jr_thomas/index.html