The pulse

Today, John Austin, Head of School at Deerfield Academy, joins Heterodox Out Loud to explore these questions and share insights from the groundbreaking report: Thriving in a World of Pluralistic Contention: A Framework for Schools.

John reflects on his unique journey from aspiring surfer to educational leader, shaping student experiences across continents, including his tenure at King’s Academy in Jordan. Drawing from decades of experience, John delves into the challenges and opportunities presented by diversity in schools, discussing how institutions can promote dialogue, trust, and intellectual growth through structured initiatives like randomized community meals and robust expressive frameworks. John also sheds light on the collaborative process behind the report and its three foundational pillars: disciplined nonpartisanship, expressive freedom, and intellectual diversity.

Harvard Kennedy School professor Tarek E. Masoud has faced hate mail, criticism from administrators, and the occasional cold shoulder from his colleagues for hosting the Middle East Dialogues, a series of conversations about the war in Israel and Gaza featuring people with varied—and often extremely polarizing—viewpoints on the conflict.

But for Masoud, the lowest point wasn’t when protesters disrupted one of his talks or when his own dean called a speaker’s prior comments “abhorrent.” It came when one of his students decided a speaker was so dishonest that their point of view wasn’t even worth hearing out.

Libraries are essential because they provide free access to information. This democratization of knowledge is invaluable, especially in a time when access to online content often requires subscriptions or fees. At the library, people can access newspapers, magazines and research databases without cost. Libraries also offer physical and digital resources to help with career development, such as resume-building workshops, interview practice, and skill-building courses, among other topics. The Greenfield Public Library does this and more; it also offers an inviting space for personal growth and community engagement.

Building upon her commitment to protect and strengthen the health, safety, and well-being of Massachusetts’ youth population, Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell announced today the creation of her Office’s first-ever Youth Council. The council will convene regularly to advise the Attorney General and her team about critical issues facing youth and help the council members build skills as leaders and advocates.

In a bipartisan educational effort, Massachusetts party leaders Amy Carnevale (Republican State Committee chair) and Steve Kerrigan (Democratic State Committee chair) sat down for a conversation on “Political Parties in Polarized Times” at Deerfield Academy on Tuesday.

The conversation was a key event in the private school’s “24 for ’24: Election Education and Expressive Freedom” series. Director of Educational Initiatives David Miller explained Deerfield Academy planned the series of three events per week for the eight weeks leading up to the November election, making for a total of 24 events. They vary in content, but all seek to inform students on different aspects of elections.

A new financial aid initiative announced by Deerfield Academy will see all qualifying families earning less than $150,000 pay $0 in tuition and fees at the private school. The move, announced publicly by the school last week alongside an exclusive Wall Street Journal story, will also see families earning more than $150,000 paying no more than 10% of their verified income for tuition and fees. The initiative is open to U.S. families, and they must have two years of verifiable W-2 income with assets consistent with their income profile.

Elite private schools want to appeal to more students, so some are making school free for families whose incomes reach into the low six figures. The latest to do so is Deerfield Academy, a Massachusetts boarding school that is set to start giving a free ride to any admitted U.S. student whose family earns less than $150,000 a year, almost double the median U.S. household income.

On October 12, 2022, Historic Deerfield unveiled 19 Witness Stones memorials at different HD-owned properties along Old Main Street. Nearly two years later, 16 additional Witness Stones were installed in the village at properties owned by Deerfield Academy and the town of Deerfield.

The Framework reflects my experience as a teacher and a school leader, and as somebody who’s spent a significant amount of time outside of the country. As a teacher, I’ve always had an interest in bringing to the classroom what Richard Light in his book Making the Most of College calls “structured disagreement.” That’s one of the things students he interviewed identified as being a very, very effective way of creating space for conversation and engaging with complicated and potentially controversial questions. This work has really emerged from a lot of reading and from my own experience as a teacher.

In an increasingly polarized country, schools have often become battlegrounds for issues relating to free speech and academic freedoms. As the nation prepares for the presidential election — along with continued fallout from college campus protests this past spring — a nationwide group of secondary school leaders have released an educational framework they believe can help public and private high schools promote intellectual diversity and stimulate productive discourse.

Last month a group of independent secondary school leaders released “Thriving in a World of Pluralistic Contention: A Framework for Schools,” which is intended to help educational institutions address issues of speech, inquiry and academic freedom. Researched and written by John Austin, the head of Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts, its release comes at a time of polarization and conflict on school campuses nationwide.

Helping Austin to discuss and draft the work were eight educators across the country, including Mike Latham, president of Punahou School in Honolulu. A 1986 graduate of the school, he earned a B.A. in history from Pomona College and received his M.A. and Ph.D. in history from the University of California Los Angeles.