An educational environment, such as Trinity-Pawling, that values a holistic approach to education, has multiple opportunities each day to embrace meaningful moments of teaching and learning. As a boarding school, moreover, Trinity-Pawling can lean into these opportunities more comprehensively than an independent day or public school. Yet, the fact that the Trinity-Pawling learning environment has more of these opportunities than other schools, makes it all the more incumbent upon the School to ensure that it is using time in the wisest ways possible to maximize the effectiveness of these opportunities for teaching and learning.
In a fast-paced boarding school like Trinity-Pawling, time is a treasured commodity. Accumulated, wasted, or misused time compromises the effectiveness of a School to meet its objectives for student learning and growth. It is the goal of Trinity-Pawling to create a learning environment that will make a transformational difference in the learning and growth of its students. As such, we must be deliberate about how we are utilizing the time that we have to make this type of difference in the Trinity-Pawling experience.
Here are just a few examples of how Trinity-Pawling prioritizes time in creating a distinctive learning experience that is guided by the research on how boys learn best:
- The core academic schedule at TPS is facilitated during the academic days, Monday through Friday.
- Most Saturday mornings are devoted to our Institutes for Active Learning, a dynamic program that allows boys to get a hands-on introduction to learning that addresses topics in leadership, citizenship, entrepreneurship, and the environmental stewardship.
- Our Wintersession devotes dedicated time between the Thanksgiving and Winter vacations to The Practicum, a signature program that allows students to pursue a creative and active exploration into critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and self-awareness.
- The distinctive fabric of the TPS community is reinforced through regular gatherings of the School community during Chapel, Family-Style Meals, and a weekly Morning Meeting.
- This year, the academic schedule was adjusted to allow for 30 extra minutes of unscheduled time in the morning, designed to give students the option for more rest, reflecting the important research on the role that sleep plays in the learning process.
- Our unique Effort Challenge incorporates a focus on personal initiative and effort into the application of time toward a wide array of student responsibilities at TPS: academics, athletics, residential life, co-curriculars, citizenship, and attendance.
Dwight D. Eisenhower famously said that: “Plans are nothing. Planning is everything.” How schools approach planning for the precious time that they have for teaching not only reveals their priorities, but also their aspirations. How we value and creatively use time is one measure as to why Trinity-Pawling is the next-generation school for boys.