We at the John Dewey Academy are pleased to announce our college placement results for the Class of 2011. This year's six graduating seniors will attend Columbia University, Vassar College, Wheaton College, Clark University, Carleton College, and Johns Hopkins University (joint program Peabody Institute).
At JDA, one of our missions is to help our students develop their academic potential; thus, we have a reputation as a school for very bright adolescents. In actuality, we take a wider range of students and help them to maximize potential by developing a strong work ethic as well as smarter ways of dealing with their strengths and weaknesses. All of our graduates (100% over the history of the school) attend excellent and highly ranked four year colleges; they leave JDA very well prepared for those colleges, as well as primed for success both during and after college.
We follow our students informally as they proceed through college, and we judge our success by how well they do in college and beyond. This year, our JDA Class of 2007 is finishing college. The students in that class attended Skidmore College (2), Brown University (2), Vassar College, Columbia University, St John's College (Annapolis), and Colby College. The entire class has completed college in four years, and three of these individuals have elected to pursue advanced degrees next fall. One will attend Fordham University Law School, the second is currently choosing between several law schools to which he has been admitted, and the third will be pursuing a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at Yale University. The Class of 2007 is thus following in the footsteps of a long history of JDA alumni who have truly internalized the values we strive to teach at Dewey.
Of course, academic and professional successes are only part of the picture; these achievements come hand in hand with the development of integrity, self-respect, self-worth, and investment in healthy personal relationships. These alumni have been able to succeed so well at college because of their strong core values.
The past year has been one of transition at JDA. Our founder, Tom Bratter, became Emeritus Head of School, paving the way for Ken Steiner to move into the Head of School position. Ken has been quietly putting his stamp on the school, while staying absolutely true to the core methods, values, and principles on which the school was founded over a quarter century ago. Since returning from medical leave, Tom has focused primarily on writing about the school for professional journals and on college advising.
We continue to eschew the use of psychotropic medications, and the primary modality of therapeutic work is the use of a positive peer culture as scaffolding for compassionate confrontation. Confrontation therapy has been controversial because, we believe, it's been both misunderstood and misused. In the right hands, and employed with respect towards the student, compassionate confrontation is an amazingly powerful tool to help these students move towards successful adult lives. It boils down to helping them learn to face the truth, and to tell the truth, with both honesty and compassion; in a society based increasingly on appearances and image, this ability is tremendously valuable.
Another element of our transition has been a new emphasis on liaison work with the community of psychologists who work in the field of education of gifted children. Dean Andrea Esperat is now collaborating on a project with the Virginia Beach City Public Schools to create a model for providing gifted education programming in an alternative school setting. Dean Esperat's February 2011 article for the National Association for Gifted Children's Special Schools Network Newsletter (
www.nagc.org) highlights some of her thoughts about the mission and direction of JDA as we move forward into a new era.
We are all eagerly anticipating our August 13th Graduation ceremony; for now, as our newest graduating class prepares to leave for their summer experience, we are turning our focus to next year and the challenges which lie ahead. We invite you to visit our website at
www.jda.org. To schedule an in-person visit, please contact our Admissions Coordinator, Lisa Sinsheimer, MD at
lisa@sinsheimer.net.
In The Struggle Together,
Tom Bratter, Emeritus Head of School
Andrea Esperat, Dean of Students
Lisa Sinsheimer, Admissions
Ken Steiner, Head of School