In some schools, emphasis on teaching Civics and Citizenship have at times taken a back seat to subjects that can be more easily assessed and “counted” such as math and science. However, uninformed and unengaged citizens can lead to a society that is dominated by a culture of passive compliance. At best, this can lead to a citizenry that simply accepts the status quo. At worst, an unengaged citizenry can lead to the rise of dangerous ideologies or dogmas that eat away at the very democracy that our founding fathers fought so hard to create.

As Sir Ken Robinson wrote in his book Creative Schools, “Democratic societies depend on informed citizens being actively involved in how they are run and led. For that to happen, it’s essential that young people leave school knowing how society works and in particular how the legal, economic, and political systems operate and affect them.” In line with Roycemore’s commitment to teach students how to communicate, collaborate, and think critically, these skills are vital to one’s ability to be an active and informed citizen.

Our view of citizenship in the Portrait of a Griffin at Roycemore embodies a holistic perspective and aligns with our core values of respect, compassion, integrity, and community to embrace both our Roycemore community and the global community. Four aspects of citizenship that we have highlighted in our portrait are:

• Curiosity for Diverse Perspectives: We aim to provide opportunities for students to be exposed to different perspectives and cultural understandings. Students have opportunities to learn from and work collaboratively with individuals representing diverse cultures, religions, and lifestyles in a spirit of mutual respect and open dialogue. We foster curiosity in students by ensuring different perspectives are included in disciplines across all divisions.
• Cultural Humility: Students have opportunities throughout their years at Roycemore to learn about other nations and cultures, including the use of non-English languages. Through diverse curricula, discussions with classmates, outside experts, and on-campus and off-campus experiences, students gain an understanding of other cultures and recognize how stereotypes and biases can impact one’s ability to appreciate others.
• Respect for Multiple Pathways to Understanding: We encourage students to think critically about different ways a problem might be solved through the lens of others’ beliefs and cultures. Students learn that there can be many ways people with diverse perspectives might form their understandings of the world.
• Globally-Focused Problem Solving: As students progress from Early Childhood to Upper School, they acquire knowledge and understanding of the world around them, gaining global competencies related to humanity and the environment. Leveraging their cultural humility and appreciation for diverse perspectives, students learn that in order to solve the most complex challenges of our world, they must begin with respect for themselves, each other, and the environment. They learn about their relationship with the air, land, food, energy, water, and ecosystems. They understand society’s impact on the world including population growth, population development, and resource consumption. With their knowledge and perspective, students then have opportunities to engage in real-world problems. Using a design-thinking approach to solving them, students are able to recognize their own agency to design innovative new approaches that inspire action for real change.

Emotional Intelligence, or EQ, is part three of the trio of key tenets of Roycemore’s Portrait of a Griffin. First popularized by Daniel Goleman, internationally renowned psychologist, and author, emotional intelligence has been identified as an important ability that is critical to reaching the highest levels of success in a variety of occupations. In fact, it has been suggested that it is twice as important as technical skills. EQ involves social perceptiveness and awareness of one’s own and others’ reactions, being cooperative and pleasant to work with, the ability to connect with others and be sensitive to their needs and feelings, and the ability to regulate one’s own emotions.

With Roycemore’s emphasis on teaching leadership skills to students at all levels through the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, we recognize that a critical leadership skill is the ability to manage one’s emotions and recognize the emotions of others. Without the intentional cultivation and training of EQ at a young age, our country runs the risk of a future characterized by a lack of diplomacy that could lead to a zero-sum game in which our entire world is worse off.

Our emphasis on EQ aligns with Roycemore’s core values of respect, compassion, integrity, and community. In our thinking about EQ in the Portrait of a Griffin, we have focused on five aspects:

• Resilience: We create an environment that embraces failure as an important part of the learning process. We create situations for students to learn how to be flexible and adaptable. Students are given opportunities to develop a growth mindset by learning how to give and receive feedback — both positive and negative. Our mindfulness program helps students practice how to calm their minds and refocus, a skill they can draw upon when encountering stressful situations.
• Independence: Students learn self-advocacy. They get to know themselves as learners with their individual strengths and areas of challenge. They also gain experience in learning how to meet deadlines, fulfill obligations and build confidence from others that they can be relied upon as a friend and classmate.
• Perseverance: Roycemore students develop the confidence to tackle difficult problems or questions and to stick with it even if the solution is not readily apparent. Perseverance is critical to addressing challenging problems, whether they are one’s own difficulties, or reaching aspirational goals as a community or country. President John F. Kennedy was referring to perseverance when he spoke about the goal to put a man on the moon. As he said, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
• Interpersonal Skills: Collaboration is encouraged and students learn how to be good team members. They develop critical feedback skills that allow them to disagree with and be critical of one another’s opinions or work and still solve problems together. Students also learn the art of persuasion and negotiation while also being honest and ethical.
• Empathy: Roycemore’s core value of compassion is grounded in empathy — the ability to feel as others feel. Learning to see things from someone else’s perspective and validate their feelings, even if different from their own, is a skill that can be intentionally cultivated. Additionally, with a diverse student body, students have opportunities daily to hear perspectives from classmates that might be quite different from their own and to value the lived experiences that are informed by diverse cultures, religions, races, and economic backgrounds. Recognizing that EQ is one of the most important people skills that separates average from exceptional performance among individuals, our emphasis on EQ will be embedded in our program throughout the student experience rather than as a separate “character program” or a one-off class. With years of training and preparation in the trifecta of Scholarship, Citizenship, and Emotional Intelligence, Roycemore graduates will be well equipped to step proudly forward into a bright future where they are vital leaders of and contributors to a thriving society.