Scattergood Friends School

Retreat Notes -- March 2003

Questions on various aspects of "change" were distributed to small groups:

Change is happening at Scattergood, that is both exciting and scary.
It affects us personally, as we are both a part of it, and subject to it.
Use the following questions only as a guide or as suggestions to start discussion:

  • What do we hold most dear about Scattergood? What essence do we want to preserve?
  • What changes do we anticipate coming? 
  • What is our role in this change process?  How do we support others in this process?
  • At this pint in time, what are your feelings about changes that are happening in your life, at Scattergood, and in the wider world?

Notes from the final readout meeting.

  • Team Yin Yang
    1. Hold Dear/Essence
      • Staff/Student Relationships
      • LIberal mindset -- Feeedom in teaching, personal relationships
      • Farm
      • Quaker Stuff
        • Meetings
        • collection
        • Holding hands before meals
        • Respect
        • Non-violence
      • Freedom
      • Weird Random Fun Stuff
        • Faculty Follies
      • Arts emphasis
      • Trips
        • Block 7 trips
        • Trips week
    2. Coming Changes
      • Different students & staff
      • New seniors
      • Farm integration in curriculum
      • High energy
    3. Our Role/Support
      • Be ourselves
      • Communicate respectfully
      • Change with 'em – evolve/go with the flow
      • Educate on the Ways of Scattergood
      • Be patient
      • Mentoring
    4. Our feelings about change
      • Blessing
      • crazy
      • terrible
      • exciting
      • interesting
      • confusing
      • complex
      • surprising/abrupt
      • extremely wonderful
      • things are often different in retrospect than they appear as they are
      • happening.
  • New Group
    1. Hold dear
      • Ken
      • Group showers, water
      • Crew programs working together, staff and students
      • Community - being together
      • free times -- keep tuesday and thursday
      • Humanities classes -- diverse themes
      • Community meeting -- clerked by students
      • Almost everyone boarding -- living together
      • Staff and Students connecting not only in classes but outside of class
      • The Farm -- eat our own food, compost, and recycle
      • Heart of America values -- caring
      • Collection
      • Dean's Advisory Committee
      • Project variety
      • looks -- don't really care
    2. Coming changes
      • Roles
        • Celebrating
        • Recognizing
        • Welcome Transition
  • New Group
    • Unstructured conversation, few notes
    • Limit changes in first year or two
      • -- having a new director is change enough
    • What shall we keep?
      • -- Feeling safe in being different than peers
      • -- contact between staff and students
      • -- dress code
    • Hoping
    • Wondering how leadership would be going next year
      • -- new seniors as well as new directory
      • -- leaning on each other
  • New Group
    • Scattergood not just a job, it's a way of life
    1. Value/Preserve
      • honesty
      • closeness in relationships,
      • the different ways we get to know each other
      • the opportunitiess
      • Flexibiility
        • teaching methods
        • learning settings
      • Being able to give input
        • teachers and students
      • Shared decision making /planning
      • Quaker school, values, acceptance
      • It's a place where people want to be
      • Advisor/Advisee system
        • staff advocate, friend, chaffeur, etc
      • Boarding school aspect
        • students & staff living on campus
        • spouses, kids, pets
        • community -- more than just a job, not just a job
    2. Coming changes
      • The only constant is change
      • New students, again
      • anticipating change but don't know where it will manifest
      • lotsa new idea
      • Anticipate that Sean's enthusiasm will be contagious
      • Sean will be involved on all levels
      • Staff leaving, new staff coming
      • changes in class position/role with this years juniors taking [lead?]
      • Comparisons between old & new -- "Ken vs. Sean"
    3. Our Role/Support
      • Evaluate how our attitude influences others
      • Accept change, move with it
        • make constructive suggestions
      • Take active part in discussion, implementation
      • Support others by believing they are doing their best
        • not be critical
      • We put so much of ourselves into SG
      • explore all sides of someting, "active listening"
    4. Our feelings about change
      • incredibly exciting, anticipation
      • unsure of changes
      • worried about changes in tradition
      • what Traditions will we start
      • isolated & stressed
      • work on changes and fixing things NOW,
        • -- so there's less to worry about next year.
  • New Group
    1. Hold Dear/Essence
      • equality
      • community
      • farm
      • John
      • respect
      • laptops
      • experiential education
      • candy basket
      • advisors/advisees relationship
      • Staff/student relationships & community
        ( dorm staff are nice)
      • Grading system
      • challenging academics
      • variety of age levels within community
      • crew program
      • status/slip system
      • Quaker ideals/collections
      • s'good virtues / community intuition
      • Traditions
        • faculty follies
      • talk about issues w/ ENTIRE community
      • evolution while keeping shape the same
      • Wide range of class types/subject matter
      • diversity
      • professional level athletics
    2. Changes coming
      • Feeling anxious -- know they are coming but can't anticipate exactly
      • keeping academics, high standards of
      • new students, new staff
      • leadership stlye / problem solving
      • goal: to keep new people informed of tradition / keep patient
      • First non-Quaker Director -- learning Quaker ways
      • Apprehension of current students & staff creating mood for the year
        • -- makes Sean's current visits more important.
      • Blind siding
    3. Role in Change
      • Patience / understanding of learning curve
      • Maintain positive expression/attitude in face of anxiety & uncertainty
      • Active listenings kills / being open-minded
        • -- open to change, have give & take
      • Communicate! not just COMPLAIN
      • Make it work -- being a part of making S'good a YES! Community
      • Supportive Atmosphere
      • Enthusiasm
    4. Feelings about change
      • anticipation
      • anxiety/nervous
      • insomnia
      • excitement
      • helpless/wanting to take control, but knowing we shouldn't
      • Need to feel motivated == look at change as opportunity
      • Need to have focus on positives or things will turn out BAD!
      • Boys should be allowed in the dorm for certain times of day
      • May be able to make changes with new director that were not possible before
      • keep an eye on the long range plan
  • New Group
    1. Most Precious
      • Fairness -- staff / student relationships
      • Educations Philosoply
        • individual attention
        • individual success
        • no grades
        • graduates getting into college
      • International
      • Scattergood athletics
      • Laptops
      • Dean's Advisory Committee
      • Sharing of information w/entire school
      • cooperative decision making
      • students involved in daily life -> equality
      • Staff as role models
      • Good sense of humor as school
      • block schedule
      • independent study
    2. Expected Changes
      • Director
      • New students/staff
      • Disorganized/uncertain
      • community meeting more important
        • - more patience
        • - more listening
      • Quakerism Discussions
      • New World Order/Status Quo
      • Candy?
      • Curriculum/Greater focus
    3. Desired changes
      • Acedemic link to Status
      • Basic Maintenance
      • Lunch Seating -- Topics?
      • Girls Dorm Lounge
      • More Money
    4. Living w/Change
      • Remember the past - Dan
      • Patience -- Listening & Explaining
      • Evaluating the past
    5. Feelings about changes
      • Active
      • Excited
      • Go with it
      • uncertain
      • Angry
      • Weird
      • Fearful
  • New Group
    1. Hold Dear
      • That we are a big family
      • intermixing of roles between adults and teenagers
      • informality
      • uniqueness -- freedom, culture, independence academics
      • preparation for safe independence
    2. Preserve
      • uniqueness, variety, informality, trust good relationships
      • the scenery -- surroundings
      • sense of humor
    3. Coming changes
      • new staff, students, director
      • less freedom in academics
      • holding judgement
    4. What is our role in the process of change
      • listening to the students -- Students speaking out
      • Support form community & commitee for the new director
    5. How do we support others
      • patience
      • tolerance
      • understanding
      • preserving s'good values
    6. Feelings
      • Bring 'em On!
      • nostalgia, adjustments
    7. [Cartoon]
  • New Group
    1. Hold Dear
      • Outdoor feeling
      • informality (dress codes & no Mr. Mrs.)
      • dedicated staff (& cool)
      • Dean's Advisory committee (the idea of it)
      • Care == let people be what they are
      • Graduates are creative
      • Dorm == feels good to just hang out there
    2. Coming changes
      • More activities
      • More interactions
      • Budget might get tighter
      • More Friendliness
        • 2 years ago it was like a big group of friends
      • More knowledge fo the war
      • Unification of Korea -- Get North Korean students
      • Stronger art education
      • Tighter connection between the farm & education
      • More MEAT! (by: Jessica) & Yang's cooking
    3. What is our role/ How do we support others
      • Help Sean know more about the tradition of Scattergood
      • Let him know how we feel -- Communication
      • The 2 above for other new staff members.
    4. Feelings
      • Feeling lost -- going to college
      • World War in Iraq
        • President moving alone, not with the UN
        • US breaking international law
        • Might mean the other nations open fire
      • About to be a senior in a new school => Scattergood
      • We have to get used to new technologies
        & new technology being used against us (e.g. police)