The Putney School is a coeducational boarding and day school for grades 9-12 founded in 1935 by educational pioneer Carmelita Hinton, who wanted "to make school life a more real, less sheltered, less self-centered venture." We are a progressive school, which means we believe people learn best by doing, not by being told. Other schools are beginning to discover project-based learning, integrated curricula, and hands-on education, but we have been doing it for more than 75 years.
Progressive educational thought stems from the work of American philosopher John Dewey. He thought that to create an engaged citizenry, students had to take an active role in their schooling. Education is a hard-won prize. As a progressive school, we foster intellectual freedom and student agency. We believe teenagers are capable and trustworthy. Our guided independent studies and opportunities for student leadership promote personal initiative and adaptability, engaging all parts of a student's development, not just the academic part. Our culture embodies respect for the individual and the rewards of participation in a community.
We regard the curriculum as everything we do here and therefore eschew the word 'extra-curricular.' The four pillars of the school, strong academics, the work program, the arts, and physical activity, all combine and intertwine to create students who understand what it takes to get things done. One of Putney's hallmarks is transparency with our students and our willingness to engage them in the running of the school. We allow and often require our students to struggle with the real dilemmas of crafting a community in which rights and responsibilities balance. Much of a student's life at Putney is experiential education, and they enjoy both independence and responsibility.
Putney is informal but not lax. Because our demanding academic program is balanced with physical work, play, and arts for everyone, our days are jam-packed. Students are encouraged to think for themselves, and respect is one of the community's critical values. Our students are known as individuals and are constantly interacting with adults, with whom they become very comfortable. The realities of working the land, caring for animals, and contributing to the well-being of a broader community all lead to natural self-discipline and an ability to be constructively self-reflective.
Our goal is to teach students how to define the right questions, research and analyze, and present their thinking in coherent and compelling ways. This can be measured by standardized tests such as the APS designed to teach students how to answer finite questions that others have posted. Putney has never had an AP curriculum, and we are now being joined by many of the top schools in the country. Colleges understand our program because our students do well in today's competitive college process. Our fundamental beliefs:
- To work not for marks, badges, honors, but to discover the truth and to grow in the knowledge of the universe and in the understanding of men, to treasure the hard stretching of oneself, to render service.
- To learn to appreciate and participate in the creative arts where a man gives expression to his struggle to communicate his inner life and beauty and grant these arts great prestige.
- To believe in manual labor, be glad to do one's share of it, and proud of the skills learned in the doing.
- To play just as wholeheartedly as one works, but watching out a bit for the competitive angle, remembering that play is for recreation and increased joy in living.
- To want to lend a hand to the community at large, not to live in an "ivory tower."
- To combat prejudices caused by differences in economic, political, racial, and religious backgrounds to strive for a world outlook, putting oneself in others' places, no matter how far away or how remote.
- To have old and young work together in a true comradeship relation, stressing the community and its need for the cooperation of all.
- To wish to live adventurously though not recklessly, willing to take risks, if need be, for moral growth, so that one progresses along the long slow road toward achieving a civilization worthy of the name.
The Putney School stands for a way of life. Putney is committed to developing each student's full intellectual, artistic, and physical potential. Putney students are encouraged to challenge themselves intellectually, to pursue rigorous learning for its own sake, to participate in activities and appreciate the arts, to contribute meaningfully to the work program that sustains the school community and the farm on which it is located, to engage in vigorous athletics, and to develop a social consciousness and world view that will provide the foundation for life-long moral and intellectual growth.
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