I have spent a great deal of my time in leadership at Darlington studying our Mission and how we live it day to day. Here, our Mission is to empower students to learn with passion, act with integrity and serve with respect. Great organizations are said to be those who can build clarity around their Mission and how it relates to the most simple of decisions and actions.
Our Mission is one of empowerment; we empower our students to be more today than they were yesterday through intentional conflict. Not the type of conflict that most people think of, violence, but the type that pushes a child from the safety of what they “know” to be true into a realm of anxious inquisition – to a place where the hidden is shown, where the light of truth shines on what was once unknowable or unthinkable. It is the place where growth happens and character is forged.
We do this by focusing on three areas of development that have been threads weaving through the years of Darlington School since Dr. James Ross McCain opened our doors over 100 years ago. These are the tenets of learning with passion, acting with integrity and serving with respect.
Daily we struggle, through vigorous debate and discovery, with how we can best live this Mission and use it as a catalyst to ensure your child’s life is an extraordinary one. How do we prepare our students for the ultimate moments? How do we effectively measure their progress? How can we use our tools to look to what is on the inside and on the outside? How can we ensure that Honor is, in fact, Above Everything? How do we partner with you, our community, to keep our students safe? How do we prepare for the moments when students realize that they are part of something bigger than themselves and their personal honor and actions have an effect that is ultimately immeasurable? How do we build lifetime partnerships with parents and students, ensuring active participation of all parties? Because when we do, the child always wins.
We have prepared a short video that addresses how we live our Mission here at Darlington School. Our parents and students led the development of these topics. Please enjoy.
