Human Flourishing

March 2022 - Carolyn Sharette - Executive Director 

Builders Assemblies are a HIGHLIGHT of our YEAR!

Each year at each campus, we honor one student from each grade, and one teacher, support staff member and volunteer with the most prestigious award at APA - the Annual Builders Award!  It is such an exciting day when students and families of winners surprise their loved one and gather to honor these amazing APA Builders!!  We are only sorry that all our families can’t witness the beauty and excitement of a Builders Assembly!  So we want to share the Builders philosophy a little bit this month.  At APA, we believe that recognizing exceptional people builds our community.  There is an over-abundance of negativity and criticism in our world - in our media, even in our entertainment.  We strive to balance this by noticing exemplary behavior and identifying those who make APA a great place to be by their character, enthusiasm, kindness, diligence, and many other traits we honor at this assembly.  Maybe most importantly,  students demonstrate that they are genuinely  THRILLED for their classmates and teachers who win this award.  We all leave these assemblies hoping we can each be a little better - a little kinder, a little more friendly, more diligent, more grateful.

Although our annual Builders Assembly is highly impactful on helping our students and staff develop positive character traits, for the most part the process of mentoring students along the path to virtuous character is largely an individual one, not often accomplished in groups or at assemblies. Although a positive school culture is vital, course corrections with students are only effective when they are approached with kindness and compassion -and individually. A child who has exhibited anti-social or "wrecking" thinking or behaviors toward another can best be helped along their developmental path to virtue as we work with them, one by one, individually. Group corrections are of almost zero value and often are harmful - they often create more division than they solve.

We believe that racism does exist in the hearts and minds of some individuals in our world. In fact, we believe that for many different reasons - including racism - people respond at times in ways that hurt others. At APA, we believe that healing our world, our community, and our school from these things can only be accomplished as we focus on the things that unite us (such as our American Ideals) and as we focus one by one, situation by situation, lesson by lesson, and individual by individual in addressing the behaviors that divide and harm us.

We believe that group or class training on racism or other social ills is unavoidably fraught with misunderstandings and misinterpretations. A group approach serves to grow division and discord and does nothing to heal the hearts that need mending or the minds that need changing. Holding school-wide assemblies on highly politicized topics that are interpreted differently by each person in the audience and which use generalizations about historical and present-day complex issues can only divide and harm our community.

At APA, we "feed what we wish to grow." This means that we focus on and talk about things that unify us - the positive aspects of our great country, our American Ideals (Liberty, Equality, Justice, Respect for the Rule of Law, and Patriotism), and the goodness we see in each other. We "starve" the negative and those things that harm our community. We don't ignore that there are challenges and harmful aspects to our society. We address each act that demonstrates poor character individually. We believe that properly expressing the justice that our founders envisioned is the only way each individual can be treated fairly and is the best way for each individual to make progress - which is our goal. 

OUR VISION

Reinforcing our vision at APA

1. Each individual at APA is encouraged to realize that they are unique - truly, there is no other person who can bring the world what they can bring - and they are thus of immeasurable value to all of the rest of us.  
2. Each individual at APA is invited to recognize their inestimable potential and the great fortune they possess to be in America, where they can pursue that potential and truly flourish.

When any of us fall short of seeing these things and act in destructive ways as a result, our generosity and kindness direct us to individually remind each other of a different path and thus help each other grow in virtue, in character, and in strength as individuals and as a community. 

February 2022 - Carolyn Sharette - Executive Director

Human Flourishing - Seeing others as individuals of immeasurable worth

As we all know, all humans struggle from time to time with demonstrating virtuous character, including accepting others and extending to them, kindness and generosity. One of the primary goals of parents and schools is to help students love themselves and love others and extend to one another kindness and positivity, and encouragement. At APA, we aim for not just acceptance or tolerance, though that is vital. We aim for students to treat all others with kindness and encouragement and "see" them as unique individuals of immeasurable worth.  

At times each one of us struggles to accept someone, tolerate someone, or treat them with kindness and encouragement. We believe this struggle is an opportunity to learn how to change our thinking, to learn how to find empathy, and to begin to change our hearts and our actions. Virtuous character is something that is developed through failures and successes and is a beautiful process when we have mentors who assist us in seeing our lack and then help us to change in kind and generous ways as we are learning. This mentorship is our vision of the role of teachers and staff members at APA.

We encourage our families to talk with their children about human flourishing and immeasurable worth. Here are some questions to help get the conversation started. 

• How does your family reinforce the belief that others are unique individuals of immeasurable worth? 
• Who are your students' mentors? 
• We encourage you to ask your student if they have a teacher or staff member at APA that they see as a mentor.
  

January 2022 - Carolyn Sharette - Executive Director

HUMAN FLOURISHING through Character Development - OUR SECOND PILLAR AT APA

Our school’s 2nd pillar to accomplish student flourishing is character development. The pillars are both equally important and must both be present for students to flourish. Thus, character education is connected with all our academic pursuits at school. 

We teach virtuous character through examples and non-examples in literature, history, Latin, even in science. And we teach it in daily interactions with one another via social interactions, classroom discussions, clubs, sports, music and drama, service experiences, etc. Character development is truly “embedded” into our studies at APA.

A key component of character development is nurturing our student’s love and respect for themselves and others. Two vital truths we try to teach in word and deed each day at our schools:

1. We believe that each human being is unique and has immeasurable worth and value - to their family, to their community, and to the world. 

2. We believe it is of vital importance, and a primary mission of what we do every day at APA, that our students comprehend the truth that they live in an exceptional country that provides them unparalleled opportunities due to founding documents that were created for that very purpose - providing maximum liberty for humans to pursue happiness. 

We encourage our families to have conversations with their children about virtuous character and human flourishing in your home. Here are some questions to help get the conversation started. 

How does your family reinforce these Character Development components?

Who is a great example of virtuous character in your family or community? 

How does your student reflect virtuous character in your home?

December 2021 - Carolyn Sharette - Executive Director

Earlier this month, I sent a letter to all APA staff and families regarding how APA approaches challenging and divisive topics on a day-to-day basis. This letter detailed how the theme of human flourishing is woven throughout academic achievement, character development, how we view and treat others, how we mentor students, and how we inspire them to see their immeasurable value. 

Over the next few months, we will dive deeper into these topics in our newsletters to share how truly important human flourishing is to our APA students, communities, and culture. We hope that you will discuss these topics with your families and encourage them to identify how they are engaged in the philosophy of human flourishing. This month, we will dive into human flourishing and academic achievement. 

Human Flourishing through Academic Achievement: Our First Pillar at APA

Human flourishing, now and in the future, is the goal of an APA education. I believe human flourishing is the goal of parents and families. It was the goal of our founders. Our founding documents state, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." (Declaration of Independence)

At APA, the goal of our teachers and all our staff members is to enhance and support student flourishing, now and in the future. We partner with parents to create a powerful school experience that, when successful, sets our students up for happy, prosperous, meaningful lives. The school experience includes teaching children how to think through things in logical ways. This is foundational to their flourishing. As a classical school, we also believe it is vital to teach students deep, rich informational content - history, science, Latin, literature/poetry, mathematics, and other subjects. When students are proficient in skills and have deep knowledge, they can process in logical ways, they flourish academically, which is our first "pillar" at APA.

Next month, we will dive deeper into Human Flourishing through Character Development - Our Second Pillar at APA