“Our job is to prepare them so they
continue to thrive when they leave.”
~ Lisa Damour
SHAKER LIFE | SPRING 2014 61
“It’s not enough for us to just equip
them academically,” says Damour. “So
much of what our girls will become, they’ll
only become after they graduate. Our job
is to prepare them so they continue to
thrive when they leave.”
That’s certainly the case for Samantha
Basch, who’s now a sophomore at Vassar
College. “I have a YET button on my
backpack that I carry it around with me at
school,” she says. “It’s a constant reminder
to think in a growth mindset when I’m
doing something challenging. It helps take a
lot of the pressure off.”
Among the main goals of CRG’s
curriculum is to help Laurel’s students build
resilience. The research on resilience, or the
ability to recover from a setback and handle
stress, shows that, in many ways, resilience
is the most important factor when it comes
to success, even more than academics. This
is true both for boys and girls. You can be
the most talented student in the classroom
or athlete on the field, but if you give up
when you get a poor grade or fail to achieve
a goal, you won’t be successful.
After meticulously reviewing the available research, CRG picked five areas of focus
that help develop resilience in girls specifically. These are mindset, purpose, creativity, self
care, and relationships. They’re now all key parts of Laurel’s overall K-12 curriculum.
For example, there may be a workshop, led by Damour, on a subject like sleep (self
care). Or it could be the weekly lunch meetings between Laurel’s high school students
and their advisors (relationships). Perhaps it’s the way a teacher talks to a student
(mindset). Or a classroom activity that encourages students to solve problems in
multiple ways (creativity).
“A lot of it is in the way the teachers teach,” says Mara Cohen. “Their attitude is always,
‘You’re working on it.’ No one is giving up on you or assuming you can’t do it.”
That doesn’t surprise Klotz. “What has contributed to the pervasiveness of CRG
throughout Laurel is the faculty’s sense that the research is so credible. It’s really helped
them feel comfortable and excited to bring it into their classrooms.”
Asking New Questions Of course, there’s not necessarily an answer for every question CRG asks about girls.
Take the experience of African-American girls in independent schools, where there’s scant
research. “When we feel that there’s a gap in the research literature, we conduct original
research to fill in,” explains Damour. CRG is now working with four other independent
schools around the country on this question.
The impact of stress on girls is another area of concern for CRG, but there’s not a
lot of research here either. “There is not much funding to look at girls who are generally
functioning very well and who may be experiencing high levels of stress,” Damour says.
That led CRG to sponsor a major study on girls and stress with Dana Hall, an independent
school in the Boston area, and researchers at Boston University. The 21st Century Athena
Study followed girls in the sixth, eighth, and tenth grades, at both Laurel and Dana Hall,
for a year. Its findings are now being published and CRG is contemplating how to put the
findings to practical use for girls. SL