A quality that The Haverford School seeks to develop in each of its graduates is to think critically and communicate effectively. Our school-wide focus on decision skills helps us fulfill this mission goal. We believe that:
- We can learn and teach decision skills
- Decision making is a fundamental element of character education and leadership
- While decision making is always about the future, we benefit from careful reflection on past decisions – especially failures
- Intentional exploration of a common decision language and practice improves critical thinking and communication
- In all academic disciplines, athletic offerings, and activities, teachers and coaches have opportunities to help students understand, practice, and improve decision skills
- All students should achieve competency in basic decision skills before they graduate
Basic Decision Skills include:
- Six Elements of a Quality Decision: frame, values, alternatives, information, reasoning, commitment to follow through
- Decision Process
- Uncertainty in Decision Making – the relationship between decisions and outcomes
- Decision Fitness (including Stop-Think-Decide)
- Declaring a Decision
- Balancing Head and Heart – good decisions make sense and feel right
- Behavioral Traps and Biases
Curriculum Examples
The following curricula are being developed to teach the Decision Education process to students from the earliest ages through graduation.
- Third-grade teacher Kate Thorburn's "decision machine"
- Lower School Dean of Students Jay Brown's fifth-grade character education course
- Middle School science teacher Dan Del Duca's New Jersey bear hunt project
- Middle School Head Jay Greytok's Form II leadership course
- Upper School English teacher Becca Davis's "Paying Attention" senior elective
- Upper School math teacher Steve Patrylak's decision science elective