What Makes Waring School Special? A Look at Our School Culture

Can you see Waring’s culture?

It’s a tall order, because our culture isn’t one thing we do, but it’s in everything we do. And nothing’s more important––it’s what makes a student want to come to school.

Sometimes, these invisibilities are best noticed by fresh eyes, so this week we sat down with new Waring teacher Kathryn Diaz and asked: what most strikes you about life here?

Kathryn’s observations come after making a deep dive into Waring life. She teaches 6th and 7th grade humanities, 11th and 12th grade humanities, and creative writing, as well as co-leading a tutorial (student advisory). Before Waring, she taught English at the Loomis Chaffee School. She is also a writer herself: she holds a BFA in Creative Writing from the University of Houston and an MFA in Fiction from Cornell. Her work has been published in The Cincinnati Review.

Here’s where she saw Waring’s culture bubbling up:

It’s break and students are sitting on the quad, reading a book out loud to each other and discussing it. Or tossing frisbees. Or somehow both.

Or it’s the start of class and students ask if they can go outside, and then have a serious conversation about where they will be most focused.

Or it’s the middle of class and another faculty member’s dog walks into the room and the discussion doesn’t stop––the dog just joins the “family,” the way it would at home.

Or it’s Tutorial and a new Tutor thanks a student for their honesty, and the student replies, “well of course. You’re my tutor.”

Or it’s between classes and a student asks for help printing out a reading for the weekend because they will never take as good marginalia on a digital copy.

Or it’s an eighth grade writing class taught by juniors and seniors that starts out raucous and gels into focus because it seems the students realize they are as responsible for making the class work as their teachers.

We could go on. Or talk about how it all relates to agency, community, and student self-direction. Probably it does. But that would miss the point. Because school culture might be invisible and even indefinable, but it’s not abstract.

It’s day after day after day of moments like these––making a student think they might want to come to school.