Three cheers for Superintendent David Aderhold. He realizes that it is important to champion the whole child and not just an academic one. When my children were in middle and high school, I was dismayed by the lack of our district’s interest in social-emotional learning and complained. The education of all of our students will be improved for Aderhold’s standing ground to foster children/teens who are less stressed, more empathetic, and attuned to real community service.
In addition to the problems of grade-induced exclusion, stress, and hating school, the “cost” to our children is a diminishment of social-emotional skills including interpersonal skills and empathy. Because empathy, face-to-face time, and the art of conversation are decreasing across the country while narcissism and materialism are on the rise, we need to focus a tad less on grades and more on fostering children who can excel socially and altruistically as well as academically.
Aderhold also believes all his students deserve the “right to squeak” a musical instrument. As a “squeaker of violins,” I have developed a lifelong appreciation of music. Furthermore, my whole child education nurtured my growth to help me become the whole adult I am today. Je suis “Squeaker.”
Lynne Azarchi Steinhauser
West Windsor
The writer is executive director of the Ewing-based Kidsbridge Tolerance Museum, which offers character eduction and bullying prevention programs.
