Under new headmaster, Marvelwood reaches out

KENT — Arthur Goodearl is now more than halfway through his first year as head of school at the Marvelwood School. He replaced outgoing head Scott Pottbecker, moving onto campus and into his new job last July.Marvelwood is an independent preparatory school for students in grades nine to 12. It is now located at the top of Skiff Mountain, although the school was originally in Cornwall on the former campus of Rumsey Hall. The school was founded in 1956 and moved to Kent in 1995.Current enrollment is 162 students, with 150 boarding and 12 day. Slightly more than 50 percent are boys. About 11.5 percent of the school’s operating budget is designated for student financial aid.Slightly above one third of the student body are international students from mainland China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain, Nigeria, Russia and the U.K.The foreign students often come to Marvelwood to improve their English skills in a New England boarding school setting. Most strongly represented are the Asian nations.“At present, Asia is highly motivated to send its students to the United States,” Goodearl said. In particular, an American education is prized because it teaches creativity better than, for instance, the Korean and Chinese systems (which tend to focus heavily on math and science).There is concern in some Asian families that their children may not develop the creative instincts to complement their technical capabilities. “They are going to be required to produce the next generation of business leadership, which needs to take those economies up another level. They perceive that creativity is done best in the U.S. They are eager for their children to have an experience in an American university and the first step in doing that is to enhance language proficiency at an American boarding school.”Goodearl pointed out another cultural difference. “In Asia, the relationship between a teacher and student is a power relationship. It is fair to say it is not an especially warm relationship. That is very different here in the U.S.”Marvelwood’s strength, he said, “has always been the personal energy and commitment the faculty bring to enriching the lives of the students, on many levels. The faculty make a conspicuous effort to identify who these students are and what their needs for success are, and never give up trying to help them to succeed.“We have a faculty community that is mindful and watching but, hopefully, not hovering over students.”Many Marvelwood students are there because they benefit from a more flexible and supportive teaching style, he noted.“We are a model for 21st century education in a lot of respects. Here’s why. Roughly a third of our students are young men and women who need some tutorial help. Maybe they are mildly dyslexic, maybe they struggle with math, maybe they are on the autistic spectrum, but they are all good kids. The proactive teaching strategies those students require work well for all learners.”And, he said, the tutoring strategies that work well for Marvelwood’s native speakers translate well into English-language enhancement for the international students.A graduate of Harvard and Wesleyan, Goodearl (who is now 65) taught at Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford for 31 years. He and his wife, Mary, taught, coached, were dorm parents and found time to raise their own children. Before coming to Marvelwood, Goodearl spent 11 years at The Hillside School in Massachusetts, where he was assistant headmaster.Marvelwood has a strong community service program. Every Wednesday morning, the school’s white vans take students to volunteer opportunities as diverse as the Warren Child Care Center, the Sharon Historical Society and the Housatonic Valley Association. Many students also work on the care and maintenance of the Sharon Land Trust blueberry bushes on the edge of the campus.Marvelwood also has a unique birdbanding program, run by Science Department Chair Laurie Doss. In addition to studying the many birds that flit through the school’s mountaintop campus, students travel twice a year to do research in Panama. The school’s next challenge, the head of school said, is to, “enhance our programs in the arts and to use the arts as a way to connect with the wider community. We need to upgrade and improve a building to turn it into a vibrant and exciting center for the arts. That means theater, fine arts, dance, digital and music.“When you talk about the arts you are talking about education for life. The arts unlock the mind in wondrous ways.”To learn more about Marvelwood, go online to www.marvelwood.org.