At this month’s Parent Association meeting, Waterford parents gathered together to hear from students and faculty about the power of excellent teaching at Waterford. Below you will find transcriptions of the speeches given at the meeting.

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Speech given by Andrew Menke, Head of School: 

Waterford’s vision to inspire students to pursue a life of meaning and purpose is aligned with the foundational purpose of a liberal arts education to prepare a democratic citizenry. In each division, our faculty teach your children exceptional written and oral communication skills, literacy and numeracy, to reason and analyze, to think critically and foster intrinsic curiosity. We teach your children how to think — not what you think — all in an effort to nurture a deep love of life-long learning. Last month’s alumni panel powerfully affirmed the impact of a Waterford education. If you were not in attendance, watch the recording of the panel here. 

Most important to your child’s experience are teachers and Waterford teachers are strong. 70% have advanced degrees with an average tenure of 16 years. They have deep content knowledge, passion for their discipline, and are skilled at building the kind of relationships that engender stretching and commitment that results in exceptional growth and excellent preparation for college and career.

So what characterizes liberal arts learning and teaching? The liberal arts tradition is grounded in the idea of holistic education, offering a depth and breadth of experience. From literature and history to science and the arts, a liberal arts education connects disciplines, encouraging students to make interdisciplinary connections and understand their education in the context of the wider world. Excellent liberal arts pedagogy emphasizes inquiry-based learning and thoughtful discussion. In each division, students ask questions, debate ideas, and engage in meaningful dialogue with peers and teachers.

For Lower School students, this might look like asking why the seasons change or exploring character development in their favorite story. For Middle or Upper School students, it could be debating ethical dilemmas, analyzing historical events, or solving complex scientific problems. This emphasis on dialogue helps students become confident communicators and attentive, analytical listeners.

In today’s fast-changing world, it’s not enough to memorize information; students need to know how to analyze, interpret, and apply knowledge. Again, excellent liberal arts pedagogy trains students to think critically. In history, students learn dates and events and they examine primary sources, consider multiple perspectives, and connect historical events to current issues. In math and science, they solve equations and explore why formulas work and how they can be applied in real-world situations. Alongside intellectual skill building in the classroom, a liberal arts education helps to instill and reinforce our core values — integrity, excellence, curiosity, responsibility and caring. 

Through literature, students might learn to see the world through others’ eyes. In community service projects, they experience the importance of giving back. In class discussions, they wrestle with ethical questions, learning to form opinions grounded in reason and analysis and, we hope, empathy and compassion. We want our students not only to excel academically but to grow into kind, principled leaders who will forge their own paths and make a positive impact on the world.

What makes liberal arts pedagogy truly distinctive is its dual focus on timeless content that is timelessly relevant.  While students engage with enduring works of literature, art, and philosophy, they explore the application of our classic curriculum to modern, real-life challenges. This balance ensures that they’re not just ready for college and careers, but that they are prepared to lead fulfilling lives as adaptable, thoughtful, and engaged citizens.

I hope this is the environment your child experiences here each day at Waterford. A place of wonder, curiosity, and passion. A place full of rewarding success and ample challenge. We know Waterford can be hard, and that is purposeful. All in an effort to help your child develop, as I have said, the competence and confidence to do anything — to be anything — they want to be in the world, that life of meaning and purpose.

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Speech given by Finn C., Class V student: 

Hi, I’m Finn Caldwell; I am in Mr. Johnson’s 5th grade class and this is my eighth year here at Waterford. I love computers, art, and math, and outside of school, I love to paint, solder, draw, make crafts, and play video games. No, I can’t play video games at school, but I get to explore my other interests, and I am very lucky to be at this awesome school.

I would like to mention two of my favorite teachers this year. I’d talk about more, since there are many amazing teachers here, but I only have a few minutes.

Mr. Johnson is my homeroom teacher this year. Whenever I am having a hard day, Mr Johnson understands and tries to help me feel better or help me solve the problem. Another thing he does to help us is whenever someone isn’t understanding a history concept, for example, he tries to explain it in other words or more simply so that everyone can understand. Sometimes, this is for others, and sometimes it’s for me! Mr Johnson makes sure we use every minute of class time, either for learning or for fun. If we all stay focused and use less time than he planned to learn something, he gives us free time or rewards us with a game. Sometimes we even win prizes. When we all do well on a test, he will give us a surprise too! For those of us who like math, Mr. Johnson has an after-school math club. We have fun exploring math concepts by finding solutions to different problems, and he always makes sure the word problems are silly enough that we all have a good laugh. Mr. Johnson is an amazing homeroom teacher and makes sure everybody in his class not only understands our work, but has a fun time doing it! He really cares about each of us and does a great job motivating us to be our best.

Ms. Johnston is one of the specialists in Lower School and teaches computers. But she doesn’t just help us use computers, she lets us experiment with new software such as GarageBand and Pages and Britannica. Currently, in computers, we are researching states such as Massachusetts and Georgia to make a teaching and interesting video. We are using this research to make a project with three teammates. Each team has a Project Manager, Artist Director, and Video Director. I am the project manager of my team, but that does not mean I am the boss. Everybody gets a say in what we do, such as our team name, that we all voted on. Through projects like this, she is teaching us about more than just computers and helping us learn other skills too that can help us later, even in a job. Last year, Ms. Johnston helped the lower school learn to code with codeblocks. The students that finished (including me) got to start learning JavaScript, with a combination of codeblocks and text. I love that she always has more for us to learn if we finish the main thing she is trying to teach us. Ms Johnston isn’t just teaching classes. She has a coding club that was new this fall where we learned about Micro Bits, which are small computers. Ms. Johnston is an amazing teacher who cares about her students and shares her love of technology with us. In her class I’ve learned to love exploring technology, how it works, and its uses too!

I am very glad to be at this amazing school with excellent teachers and classes we would not normally have at most other schools, and I am excited to explore everything Waterford has to offer.

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Speech given by Joclyn N., Class XII student: 

My trembling hands grasped the paper. Wicked red pen circled my grade—I was horrified. The worst math score I’d ever received in high school.

Mr. Sayes passed everyone’s tests out to them, sighs and groans indicating the general discontent. Then:

“Preston, what did you get on your test?”

My stomach dropped. Horror. Adrenaline.

“What?” Preston said, unsure if what he had just beheld was the truth of reality or a figment of his imagination, a hallucination ripped from a nightmare come to torment him in the waking world. “You heard me,” our grinning teacher replied. “Tell me your score.”

The whole classroom squirmed with Preston’s anguish as he was forced to share his grade. And we all winced at the score just as he must have. One by one, Mr. Sayes plucked us off, like a wolf killing a sheep herd, making us lay out our failures to the entire class. Of course, there were the students who got fantastic scores—math geniuses that can be disregarded. But you know what’s funny? When I told everyone my score, that embarrassing score, the worst math

grade I’ve ever gotten—my shame and worry just melted away. Just like that. Suddenly I didn’t care that the test score was so horrible. I saw that that’s not the thing that really mattered.

And that’s how Mr. Sayes undermined the misconception that education is for a grade. We worked through the problems that gave students the most trouble. There was no punishment for, or disappointment about, our scores (well, aside from the teasing—of course he was going to tease us about it). But by the end of the whole thing, I understood the topics that had been my demise on the test, and I never thought about the score again. I felt a sense of ease and comfort in the class from then on, not caring about the number representation of my performance, but rather the act of learning itself. The knowledge and the soaking in of it. And even though it wasn’t a priority to me anymore—my letter grade did increase from then on.

It’s teachers like this that make Waterford great. Mr. Sayes, Dr. O, Mrs. Watabe, Mr. Rosett, Dr. Bennett, to name a few. The kind of teachers who know you aren’t perfect and are eager to push and stretch you, even despite your horror and the scary red pen. The kind of teachers that love learning for the sake of learning and show you how to love it too. The kind that make you forget about all the data and formalities and instead boil education down to the essential—the very purpose of it itself—the fact that you want to learn and there is so much to learn in this world and you are capable of learning it all. Even through the rough spots, and the imperfections, and the frustrations. All that matters is the hunger for knowledge and the real, honest work that you put into soaking it up.

Let me tell you about a teacher that really changed my life.

I’ve spent eight years in the theater program. Fifth grade to senior year. 20 plays directed by Javen Tanner. All available high school classes (some twice) and two independent studies.

I wouldn’t be who I am without all of that. Mr. Tanner taught me about acting, and the history of Western theater, and dialects and movement and writing poetry and all of that, but he taught me about a lot more.

Mr. Tanner is one to be morbid. To lecture us about how even the names carved into our gravestones will eventually be eroded away. Gravestones sunk into the ground. The same fate for everyone who remembered us. Everything lost. But from there, you find something entirely new: real beauty.

As Wallace Stevens said, “Death is the mother of beauty.” That’s one Mr. Tanner loves quoting. In his classes, in his plays, we wrestle with the human condition. What it is to be alive. What it is to realize you’re alive. Without him, I don’t think I would be as conscious as I am in my life. There’s this moment, every so often, where you realize—I am. I exist. And one day I won’t. And isn’t it so precious, so beautiful, that I am alive right now, in this very moment, standing here?

There are many incredible teachers here. And for me, I’m lucky to have had a teacher that not only taught me about the things I love, like theater and poetry, but helped me realize what it means to be alive. To be a human. For the rest of my life, I will carry that with me. There will never be a day that I am not infinitely grateful and indebted to Mr. Tanner.

Education is about so much more than the score and the performance. It’s about the real hunger for learning, because you’re only alive for so long, and it’s about the ability to soak up as much out of this life as you can while you’re still here. It’s about being human. I’m grateful to have found that spirit here at Waterford.