Every January, fresh off recent New Year’s resolutions, organizationally challenged folks like myself may feel more than a little aspirational when day planners start to line the walls of our local bookstores, surely hinting that when it comes to being organized, this is the year! With a new planner in tow, suddenly every appointment, event, activity, and thought quickly populates the new planner in a phase that has affectionately been dubbed “Calendar-Me” by people I am definitely not fooling (my coworkers). The problem is, somewhere around the three-week mark, Calendar-Me’s brilliant organizational commitment, like a comet streaking across the sky, fizzles suddenly, and I conveniently misplace the planner (and all my meticulous organizational goals) until months later, when I peruse the empty pages and sadly wonder where all those grand plans went. Last year, after losing a planner somewhere on the Pingry campus, I decided the problem was not me, but instead the entire day-planner industrial complex, and so I bought a giant monthly calendar, where Monthly-Calendar-Me set about filling it in with deadlines and plans, big and small. This oversized calendar was 2 feet by 2 feet and clearly meant to be safely affixed to a wall, but instead I lugged it back and forth from my desk, where it barely fit, to my car, where it only fit in the trunk. Used to, that is, until I somehow lost it, too.
The problem, dear reader, was, in fact, me.
All of this was top of mind when I set about covering the transformative work the Learning Specialists in the CAST Suite do. I came into an interview with them with a set of questions and the nagging feeling that either a person is breezily good at certain life skills or eternally bad. I was relieved to hear them say that, actually, anyone can learn these essential adulting skills, often referred to as executive functioning.
“Executive function is essentially the tools and skills that allow you to get through your everyday life,” explains Marcy Cohen, the Academic Support Manager for the Upper School. Tucked away in her office in the inviting and cozy CAST Suite, Ms. Cohen has a comforting, supportive way of speaking. “It can start in the morning, from that first moment that you wake up,” she says of executive function skills. “So you might be somebody who’s good at getting out of bed and knowing your morning routine. So you get out of bed, you brush your teeth, you get dressed, you eat breakfast, and then you start your workday. For some of us, that comes really easy. But for others, it’s more of a challenge.” Ms. Cohen insists these challenges can be overcome. “Some of us are really good at multitasking and recognizing that we need to focus on this task today, and then, because that’s a priority, we’re going to allow the tasks that are less of a priority to kind of sit until the next day. But some of us are not so good at that, so we might focus on the things that we prefer to do or enjoy more, but that is less of a priority. So we help students prioritize.”
With the help of Ms. Cohen and Jason Blazosek in the Upper School, students are strengthening these essential skills, and the help they provide ensures students will never settle into the stuck feeling that being good at these things will elude them. They meet with students throughout the day, walking them through their schedules, assignments, and upcoming tests. They help them to plan out their time with Google Doc planners, and proctor tests when a student needs to take an exam, without the classroom atmosphere that can sometimes serve as a distraction during a moment that requires intense focus. If a student falls behind in their homework, they don’t let them wallow in feeling overwhelmed. Instead, they simply steer them quickly back on track.
“Sometimes students will get behind in missing work, and it’s sort of like they can’t see straight, like ‘what do I do? I’m in quicksand here,’” observes Mr. Blazosek. “And then [Ms. Cohen] and I step in and say, number one, this is not that bad, but here’s what we need to do first. We need to identify the assignments that are urgent, or a couple of weeks behind, and where these other ones, we have more of a leeway with time to get them done. But let’s focus on getting these done first.”
“Some people are better at this than others,” Ms. Cohen says, “and they have more innate skills that allow them to know how to problem solve these areas, whereas other people just need additional support. So it’s not that you can’t ever be good at it—it’s just that you might need some systems into place.”
And so the CAST Suite is often a bustling place, filled with students doing their homework, studying with friends, or popping in and out of offices to talk through various big challenges until they become smaller and more manageable. For Ella Karch, who joined Pingry in Grade 8 and called the transition “such an adjustment,” she found that Ms. Cohen has been a steadfast source of support. Starting in her freshman year, she began meeting with Ms. Cohen to stay on top of her homework and busy schedule. “She was just so accepting and so open,” recalls Ella of her first meetings with Ms. Cohen. “That’s the first thing I noticed was that everybody in the CAST office—they are just so comforting. They really want to see you succeed. So whenever I was having trouble, I would sit in the CAST office and just hang out there. And socially, academically, whenever you have a problem, that’s the place where I like to go.”
Ella sees the help they provide as invaluable, and many things she struggled with in the past have become manageable. Previously, when she would take tests during class, and one student after another would flip a test page over, or walk up to the teacher to turn in their completed exam, she would feel her stress rising and her focus waning, affecting her ability to perform well. Now, Ms. Cohen will act as the proctor for a test while Ella sits in her office and focuses on the exam. “Ms. Cohen and Mr. B, they just really want to see me succeed. And they want to see all these students succeed.”
For Paige Travers, who stops in the CAST Suite to meet with one of the learning specialists once a week, she has found their support has given her confidence in many ways. “Even though I sometimes take longer to understand, I think my neurodiversity has made me much more dedicated and harder working in the long run,” she says. Her determination to succeed is key to embracing strategies to adapt her approach.
“They taught me how to be an advocate for myself,” admits Paige, before adding with a smile that she won the Faculty Prize earlier in the fall for making the most improvements academically and personally. She hopes that students who may be struggling with homework or tests or balancing deadlines with an often overwhelming high school schedule will head to the CAST Suite to utilize their help.
“I’ve learned to accept [my learning style] is different… but it’s not a bad different,” she says wisely. Ultimately, having that extra support can make all the difference, and the way she has adapted to overcome certain challenges, like studying twice as long as some of her peers, has led to a grit and determination that is sure to be a lifelong strength.
For those of us who feel the pressure to be perfect on our own—even if those expectations are only coming from within—getting additional support can go a long way. “Help is not a bad thing,” Paige observes. “It’s just a different route.”
Calendar-Me is taking note.
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To contact the author: Sara Courtney, Communications Writer