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OUTSTANDING PRIVATE MIDDLE SCHOOL

Bringing the World to Manhattan
International focus helps Grace Church students think beyond borders

Each year, thousands of American students have the opportunity to study abroad. But precious few get to do so in seventh grade.

That lucky group includes a handful of middle schoolers at Grace Church who spend two weeks studying in China, India or Japan, and play host to students from those countries when they come to New York.

“We want our students at a very formative age to get out of their American minds and see themselves in a place where they’re a minority, where they are other, and where they’re not in control,” said George Davison, who began his 20th year at the school—and his 13th as head of school—in fall 2006. “Then they can have a better sense of who they are and how they fit into the whole world.”

The two-week trip for 14 students is broken into two parts— touring the country and experiencing cultural immersion through living with a family and attending school with a host brother or sister.

“They can become students of the world in the truest sense,” said Mark Weinsier, a seventh and eighth grade history teacher and co-director of the exchange. “We want them to not only understand what’s going on here at home, but also to see what’s happening in the wider world.”

The exchange is immensely popular among the students, which makes the selection process competitive. Students first enroll in a year-long elective course that teaches a particular country’s history, culture and language. After completing a research project and giving a presentation on a specific aspect of life in that country, the top 14 performers in the class earn their boarding passes.

Grace’s exchange program began in 1994, when the first batch of students visited a school in Japan. The exchange with India was added last year, and students will travel to China for the first time in the spring of 2007. Planning has also begun to add an exchange with a school in Mexico.

The arrival of the international visitors is a cultural experience for all 160 upper-school students. Visitors stay with a Grace student with whom they attend school each day, and plan an assembly or workshop to showcase their culture. Last year’s visitors from India prepared a history lesson that included teaching the students a traditional song.

“They do a series of assemblies for all of the kids, so when we have 14 kids in, they become teachers for everyone in the school,” Davison said. “The community benefit is better when you receive them than when you go.”

The exchange program at Grace is one of many aspects of the school designed to equip students with a broad world perspective. “Social Institutions” is a social studies-literature sequence devoted to parts of the world normally omitted from the American curriculum, including Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa. The later part of the sequence, “World Writers,” focuses on international writers who are not included in standard English courses.

“We will be successful as a society and a culture only if our kids are skilled at crossing culture barriers,” Davison said.

Students also have the option of a fullyear music and art elective, studying music compositions within their historical context and creating advanced works of art.

“They will do incredible art projects from start to finish at a much higher level because they’re going to class four days a week,” Davison said. “This allows some of the great artists their place in the sun.”

The international focus and freedom in course selection serve a larger purpose at Grace Church—that of helping students learn about themselves.

“Half of what the kids are going to learn in school is about who they are as people,” explained Davison. “At the end of the day, if a kid is great at math, that’s wonderful, but we’re only successful if that kid feels good about themselves as a person. It’s a school with a dual mission; everything we do around here has to start from an ethical basis.”

Although the school shares some of its space with neighboring Grace Church, it is not a “Christian” institution. Bible classes and the non-denominational chapel service that students attend weekly are not designed to teach religious lessons, and the school has been independent from the church since 1947. Although Grace Church is an Episcopalian institution, it is not a parochial school.

“It’s great for families who want a spiritual component, but not a parochial component,” Davison said. “You have to be comfortable with a sense of spirituality without the orthodoxy of a specific faith or sect. We want the kids to come out of chapel saying, ‘This is what they said in chapel today; what do we believe?’ And we have lots of evidence that it works.”

Atop that list of evidence was a parent’s recent complaint to Davison that the school’s chapel visits had sparked a religious interest in his child, and it cost him $1,500 in membership dues at the Brotherhood Synagogue.

- Carolyn Braff