The Hewitt Times

An open glass door leads the way to Dr. Tara Kinsey’s office at Hewitt. The room resembles a living room: a comfy couch, a coffee table with mints, and a desk aligned with several chairs fill the room. A plaque, which sits on Dr. Kinsey’s shelf, reads, “sometimes on the way to the dream you get lost and find a better one.” It’s a statement that inspired Dr. Kinsey’s departure from Princeton University where she was an Associate Dean and informs the work she hopes to do as Hewitt’s 8th Head of School. The Hewitt Times Editors-in-Chief sat down with Dr. Kinsey before school began to discuss girlpower, school spirit, and adjusting to life in New York.

 

Hewitt Times: What has been the most surprising aspect of  Hewitt so far?

Dr. Tara Christie Kinsey:  Since I haven’t met the girls and young women yet, I think at this point I can only speak on what I know so far on week eight. The thing that has been so surprising- a happy surprise- is how passionate and intelligent and extremely hardworking our faculty  and our staff are. I am particularly impressed with the level of our faculty, and I don’t want to say that this is a surprise, but it is certainly reaffirming how incredibly committed they are to our mission – every single one. So on my first day, July 1st, I invited every member of the  faculty and staff to schedule a one hour visit with me. I’ve done about 60 of the 130. I do at least 2 or 3 of them a day. They are deep listening moments for me, as I am a student of the new community I am a part of.

I’m taking notes. I’m asking every member of the faculty and staff, what do you love about Hewitt, what do you think we could do better, and what are you looking for from me as the new Head? And that has been the most surprising, their unbelievable intelligence and their hard work.

“That is my stance  that I am a student of this community.”

 

HT: What do you look forward to most about this upcoming year?

TK: This year for me is a year of listening and learning. Watch, listen, and learn; that is my goal for this year. And to show that even though I’m the leader, I don’t have all the answers. And to empower our girls and young women and our staff if they need to be empowered. I was just sharing with our faculty in a 2014 Gallup poll teachers ranked last in a list of 12 professions who were feeling that their voice mattered in work. I’ve been thinking a lot about that.

And I think if you were to ask faculty and staff the kind of tenor of my conversations with them so far, it is that in order to empower girls and young women – which is our mission – our faculty and our staff need to be empowered too. Everyone asks a new head, “So what’s your vision?” Vision doesn’t come from a person, like “I come and I have a vision.” Vision comes from within. Vision comes from us. Students too. 

HT: What encouraged you to leave a large university to come to a small single sex school?

TK: It’s a big question. I think that my journey to Hewitt has largely to do with my belief, and I’m not alone in this belief, that K-12 education in this country has become a protracted university entrance system.

HT: We feel that as seniors.

TK: I’m sure you do.  So I believe that the problem with K-12 education in this country is that it has become this protracted university entrance system that turns education into grades, scores, and a thousand other rungs in the  ladder to the next thing: college, internships, grad school, first job, second job, first spouse, next spouse. There is a term that is coming up in higher ed that we have been talking about the last few years called “destination addiction“: the feeling that you are never really where you are. You are always climbing to the next thing that will solve everything. And the problem with that mindset, like all addictions, it’s about filling a void. And I think the void in this case, with K-12 education, is the joy of the now, the joy of being what developmental psychologists call being in the state of flow where you are just fully immersed in an activity not because of where it’s going to get you.

And, in addition, in Princeton, I was running a women’s leadership program that started with about 80 students, and when I left had about 700 women in it. Seeing those two in combination: women’s leadership and women’s empowerment in a high-power college setting and also seeing from a college perspective what is going well in K-12 education and what is not. I think way too many schools are putting achievement first and education as a distant second. One of the reasons why I fell in love with Hewitt is, and what it can uniquely grow into ever more, that it is a school that will not sacrifice the joy of learning for the sake of achievement alone because that does not work. It does not work here, doesn’t work at Princeton, at Georgetown, at Michigan State. It does not work in life. You cannot be focused only on the achievement. You can’t. You’ll hear me say this: having a fancy resume is not enough. Being smart is not enough. It’s not. In fact, I have right here this plaque, “sometimes on the way to the dream you get lost and find a better one.”  I want our girls to have the space to get lost and find themselves and find a better way – a way that is not this narrow definition of success – because that is what I saw over and over and over again at places like Princeton. I know a lot of high achieving men and women who know a lot of facts and figures but haven’t really ever been invited to ask why they’re engaged in the things they’re engaged with.  

HT: Thank you. Onto a more light-hearted question, what was your favorite class in high school?

TK: I think all my English classes were my favorite. My relations with my English professors both in high school and college were the reasons why I became an English major. And this highlights one of Hewitt’s strengths, which is the student-faculty relationship. And I just found that I was able to develop those meaningful relationships with my English professors and teachers that just inspired me to be the best version of myself.

HT: How has your family been adjusting to New York City?

TK: It has been an adjustment, and we’re still going. I have a husband, Matthew, a daughter, Charlotte who will be in the Hewitt first grade, and a son, Sam who will be in Browning’s 3rd grade.  So when I got the job, my husband decided that he was going to stay home with our children during the transition. So for the first time in his life he is not working outside the home. So that has been an adjustment. He’s cooking  a lot of dinners, making some pancakes, some bacon, folding laundry, doing grocery shopping, and he’s really embracing it, and I think the kids are really going to thrive. My husband is incredibly playful and nurturing, which is one of the reasons I married him. He’s really, really an amazing person and my best friend. We decided to do this. We didn’t have to do this. We had a really wonderful life in Princeton. So for us it was a family decision to come from Princeton to New York, to give up our beautiful backyard and our trampoline and all this stuff to come here. And we ultimately feel that this is an adventure. Life is an adventure, and that has been the spirit of our move.

New York City for my children is this fascinating landscape. My husband ordered this blow up map of the city, and they have push pinned their way through New York City. They have gone to all these parks and museums, embracing New York City as their classroom.

HT: There always seems to be a lot to catch up on in news when returning to school. How do you think we can address the events that unfolded this summer during school, such as Sandra Bland, Samuel Dubose, Rachel Dolezal, planned parenthood defunding, the migrant crisis in Europe)

TK: Well how do you do it now?

HT:  I think last year was one of the first times we had done it as an entire school with Black Lives Matter. We split up into advisory groups and posed questions that we would like answered about the movement and police brutality. Upperclassmen then lead discussions.

TK: I would never presume to tell you how you should do that. You’re high school students, and you should decide that. It’s very easy for us to say this is how you should talk about things. But I think self-organization is the most effective tool for this case. I don’t mean to eschew the question, but I really do think that this is none of my business in how you respond to the world around you; that is your response.

If you wanted to think it through with me, I would never say no to that. But I think if I would offer my opinions on how to address it, it would bias the conversation.

HT: What is the first rule/tradition/idea you want to implement at Hewitt?

TK: To fix this misimpression that too many prospective families have about Hewitt with our admissions offices over in McKelvey, which were very cramped and small. The new area gives an appropriately warm and gracious impression. And we are a warm and gracious school. Why would we give a misimpression?

I think my listening tour is the other very big and impactful thing that I’m doing this year. Because I’m listening very intentionally, but everyone wants to know what I think, and what I think is that I should be listening right now.

I certainly do have ideas. For example, in terms of school spirit, on the first day of school every girl will receive a shirt that says “I Am a Hewitt Girl” to start to reclaim power around being a Hewitt girl. Because my impression, again I’m listening, is that the school could use need a little more spirit and pride in what the school uniquely is.

I said to the faculty and staff, I did not leave Princeton to come to a losing team. I came to a winning team, and we are a winning team here. Let’s be proud of who we are because it is pretty amazing. So I think the whole notion of let’s reflect on what it means to be a Hewitt girl is a good tradition or at least an exercise.

We’re also not having classes the first day. That’s a wonderful opportunity for us to reflect on who we are and who we want to be as a school, as a grade, as a division, as individuals.

HT: How do you plan to contribute to projects and ideas that are new but were not implemented by you, such as construction of the new building?

TK: Some things that started under Ms. Lonergan, and which I’m now overseeing, might have a few tweaks. These are not because of a change of vision; these are because of other changes. But it’s not philosophical, it’s more logistics.

HT: Last year, Hewitt Times had a summit. We’ve actually had it twice now. We brought other student newspapers to the school —

TK: Oh I heard about this! It was co-ed wasn’t it?

HT: Yes, and it was really fun. One of the things that we mentioned was censorship and especially as one of the publishing platforms at Hewitt, we thought the topic of censorship was really important. We wanted to know whether you think the  administration at Hewitt should have a say in what articles get published and what articles don’t get published.

TK: The way I have, in the past, felt about school papers is that a school newspaper is another classroom. The school newspaper is a part of the school and therefore it is part of an extended classroom. Essentially, this is how I believe you would draw the distinction between a school newspaper and another newspaper. So, I’m not saying we’re addressing censorship. I’m saying we’re addressing that faculty should be involved in helping students articulate and express their views in a way that is authentic to them. I won’t necessarily call that censorship.

Thank You, Dr. Kinsey for speaking with The Hewitt Times.