Jen Schuckman Welcomes Families to Open House

On Saturday, October 5, MICDS welcomed hundreds of families to our campus for our annual Open House, an opportunity for prospective students and their families to learn more about our School. Head of Middle School Jen Schuckman shared her thoughts about learning and the culture of our fifth through eighth grades. Here are her remarks.

Good morning, and welcome to the MICDS Open House! We are honored that you are spending this beautiful fall day with us as you navigate the exciting and ever-complex process of choosing a middle school. I hope your time with us today will give you a glimpse of who we are and how incredibly special this community is. As a former teacher and current administrator and parent, I am wholeheartedly grateful to spend my days here.

Now that my years here have crossed the quarter of a century mark, I find myself being more deliberate in attempting to understand life as a child in the 20s. As a proud Gen Xer, I now make statements and references that cause my own children to giggle and cringe. They love to test me on slang terms and technology trends.

And so when I am completely clueless, my comeback might sound something like:

“I can’t believe that students can just look up anything on the internet these days. BACK IN MY DAY, I had to use encyclopedias, take notes on index cards, and type my papers on a typewriter. But at least we had Wite-Out.”

Or

“Believe it or not, my family survived without a microwave and only one phone for our entire household. And when the phone rang, the identity of the caller was a total mystery. And when I called my friend’s houses, their parents always answered the phone, so I had to talk to them first.”

And on and on it goes…

But I will say that there was one particular burden in my younger days that was a true labor of love, and that was the creation of a mix tape. This was our 80s version of a digital playlist. And this carefully curated list of songs took hours, even days, to plan and record. Sometimes, it was a fun dance mix, or a favorites mix of a particular artist, or a playlist for a vacation or road trip. We were building the soundtrack of our childhood. And what made the mixtape so special was that it was one-of-a-kind. And it so perfectly captured a feeling or a moment or a friendship.

Now, you may be wondering why I have taken you on my trip down memory lane to the glorious 80s…please indulge my extended metaphor here.

When you begin your journey here at MICDS, I want you to imagine a blank cassette tape…or in today’s world, a blank playlist. From the moment you join our Middle School, you will begin building your soundtrack. You will curate your own one-of-a-kind adventure that reflects your talents and interests and highlights all the amazing ways you contribute to our community.

Think about it…what would your playlist title be? What is your opening tune? Do you start with a soft, chill vibe as you settle in and carefully survey all of your options? Or maybe you start with a bombastic rock anthem as you jump in with both feet and join the field hockey team and the Middle School Meeting Club so you can lead our assemblies. As I move about and engage with our students, I can visualize 414 unique playlists in motion, all at different stages of completion and revision, and certainly all with their own personalized style and sound.

What makes our Middle School community so endearing is that each student can be exactly who they want to be and engage in whichever academic, athletic, or artistic endeavors that reflect their spirit and passion.

There are middle school mix tapes (playlists!) that are very genre-specific collections…for example, we have middle schoolers who live and breathe all the arts, all the time. They dance, they sing, they act. They can’t get enough of the stage, and they are building their playlist, one spectacular performance at a time.

And we have our die-hard book enthusiasts who gobble up books like candy. Our cozy library is their home away from home, and their playlist likely reflects the sounds of all the magical journeys they enjoy in the pages.

And, of course, there are many soundtracks that bridge across a myriad of interests. You might imagine a student whose passions swing from K-Pop to the squash team to classic literature to Board Game Club. Or maybe a mashup of tennis and STEM and Latin and Sewing Club. Along the way you might add a song to celebrate your conquering of coding in Python or a tune to remember how good it felt to sink the winning free throw. These moments will tell your story…these celebrations will imprint that warm and fuzzy feeling you get when you hear a favorite song.

And, as the adults who have the privilege to teach and coach and advise these soundtracks in progress, we strive to provide an exceptionally dynamic and wide-ranging academic and extracurricular program that rivals any Spotify or iTunes library. We aim to ignite those interests and foster deep engagement.

We want you to find that special something that makes you wake up and sing your anthem out loud. You get to be the creator of your MICDS playlist, and I can assure you that your Rams soundtrack will be full of joyful tunes, life-long connections, and a spectacularly bright future.