First Day Excitement for New Faculty at NFO

Great Hearts Academies July 10, 2023 -

The energy of the Maryvale Prep campus was comparable to the first day of school as new staff members from academies throughout the Valley arrived for the Great Hearts Arizona New Faculty Orientation (NFO). Teachers, faculty, and support staff were filled with excitement and a bit of nervousness as they made their way into the Marley Center for the Performing Arts looking for team members to sit with. The morning kicked off with a welcome from Arizona Superintendent Brandon Crowe.

Any anxiousness was quickly quenched once Crowe charismatically welcomed the new staff and introduced the first keynote of the day, The Six Loves of Great Hearts presented by Great Hearts Co-founder and Academies Officer, Dr. Dan Scoggin. This has become a beloved tradition for NFO and the running joke amongst seasoned staff is how many of the six loves that Scoggin will get through in the time allotted. A few friendly wagers were lost this year as Scoggin made it through all six in his allotted time of 45 minutes – a possible NFO record.

One distinctive of a Great Hearts education is our use of the Socratic Method and seminars with our scholars. It was only fitting that the new staff engage in a seminar of their own on their first day. Broken up into smaller groups and assigned a facilitator, they discussed the poem, “The Tuft of Flowers” by Robert Frost:

I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.

The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the levelled scene.

I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.

But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been,—alone,

‘As all must be,’ I said within my heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’

But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a ‘wildered butterfly,

Seeking with memories grown dim o’er night
Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight.

And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.

And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.

I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;

But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,

A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.

I left my place to know them by their name,
Finding them butterfly weed when I came.

The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,

Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.

The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,

That made me hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,

And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;

But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;

And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.

‘Men work together,’ I told him from the heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’

After lunch, attendees heard from Jake Tawney, Great Hearts Chief Academic Officer. Tawney is passionate when speaking about the curriculum we administer at Great Hearts, especially the subject of math. “We are intentional in our method of delivery,” explained Tawney. “We do not create and re-create with the winds of fickle culture. Rather, we receive what has been handed down.”

The first day concluded when Heather Washburn, Vice President of Academic Accessibility, spoke to the group about the education models throughout history and how the timeless tradition of classical education is set apart.

Great Hearts Harveston started NFO with their academy staff last week and Great Hearts Christos will begin orientation for their new private school faculty later this week. There was lot of information to process, and this was just the first day. As the new family members of Great Hearts “drink from a fire hose,” so to speak, they are all eager to put these principles and ideas into practice as our academies welcome students back for the 2023-24 school year.

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