Contemplations from Kim | Purpose: The Why of Lab

8/31/2023 By Kim Wargo, Head of School

Click here to listen to an audio recording of this month's column. 

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“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

When we gathered as an all school faculty/staff community last week, I shared this quote and asked our team to center ourselves for the year on the theme of “purpose.”

There is ample research to support that having a sense of purpose is positively correlated with physical and mental health. There are many ways to think about purpose, but I like this definition by Nilufar Ahmed, Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences at the University of Bristol:

“Purpose can be defined as an intention to accomplish something that is at once personally meaningful and, at the same time, leads to productive engagement with some aspect of the world beyond the self.”

At Lab, we are singularly focused on our purpose: “to foster scholarship and creativity in students with language-based learning differences in an environment of inquiry and hands-on exploration so that they learn to advocate for themselves and become engaged and compassionate members of a global society.”

This is our institutional why. It’s the reason we exist. It’s what drives our decision-making, our programming, our hiring, our budgeting, and – indeed – everything we do.

When I spoke to our faculty last week, I shared a graphic that I pulled off of Linked In earlier this month. The graphic portrays a note that might have been written by a dyslexic student as they think about starting a new school year:
 

When I read this, I thought about students who have started school in the last few weeks with the trepidation, fear, and anxiety that comes with having to justify yourself – who you are and how you learn.

I reminded our teachers that, for the most part (and my goal is for this to be true for all of our students), our returning students aren’t feeling that kind of nervousness. They aren’t worried that they will walk into classrooms where teachers are unaware or disconnected from their needs as learners. They aren’t thinking about how to carve out a space to be themselves. They aren’t worried about peers making fun of them when they hesitate to read aloud or stumble over a word. They aren’t sitting back and hoping that no one notices that they’re not participating or that they’re not confident.

I believe that, for the most part, our students are feeling energized – or at least at peace with - walking into classrooms with teachers who have chosen to be there because they see their students’ strengths and want to help them use those strengths to overcome their challenges.

That is our institutional purpose, which we all agree to share when we choose to be a part of this place.

I also believe it is important to find our personal purpose. I asked our teachers and staff members to reflect on their individual whys – why did they choose to join this community? And why do they choose to spend the precious hours, months, and years of their professional lives contributing to and being a part of Lab?
 
“Everybody has a calling. And your real job in life is to figure out as soon as possible what that is, who you were meant to be, and to begin to honor that in the best way possible for yourself.” – Oprah Winfrey

These words certainly remind us that we each made a choice to invest in the work of Lab.

But they also call us to another way of understanding our mission – how do we guide our students in finding their own sense of purpose? What were they put here on Earth to do? What is the legacy they want to leave? How do they want to contribute and make a difference in this world?

As the Head of Lab, I am on the receiving end of many e-mails from parents (and students and alumni) reflecting on the power of the Lab experience.

Each one inspires me, and last week was no different. I received this e-mail from the parent of a senior, and I share it with permission:

“Wow, ‘class of 2024’; that always sounded so far away.
 
I may sound like a broken record, but I’ll always be so grateful that Lab has taken my son from a barely passing student to a successful one. He’s become a good student, a good friend and a kind young man.
 
It’s true that we gave him a stable home, but it was his teachers, staff and counselors that did most of the guiding. He was the kind of kid who resisted his parents’ lead on many things. Instead of pushing him further, I decided to back off and give him space to find his own way, and prayed that you all would fill whatever part of the puzzle you could, and then simply hope that it would turn out ok.
 
You could say, I went all in on faith that Lab would guide him to a better place, and sure enough, it happened. This may sound overdramatic, but a 180 degree turn actually happened for him about a year ago.
 
Part of this was probably just from maturing, but he’s been surrounded by staff that not only treat him with respect and kindness, but also model that behavior, and we both know that makes all the difference for all of us, not just students.”

This e-mail encapsulates – at least for me – my purpose at Lab.

To provide an environment where students can be seen and respected and valued for their strengths – for what they bring to the table. To help students grow into an understanding that while they might learn differently from some people, there is nothing wrong with their brains. They do not need to be “fixed.” They are perfectly whole. Yes, there are some things that may be more challenging. Those challenges take hard work, diligence, perseverance, courage and bravery to overcome. And with those challenges there are also delightful differences in thinking creatively, in solving problems, in seeing the world through another lens. Those are differences that our world desperately needs. At Lab, we help students work through challenges, while capitalizing on their gifts in the service of contributing to a bigger world.

This is the purpose that drives my commitment to this community. And I look forward to hearing yours.