When I sent a survey out to the student body asking about people’s experiences with the “diversity of thought” at Fieldston, I expected to hear back from maybe twenty people. I was thrilled when I received more than one hundred responses within twenty-four hours. In an Upper School body of more than 600, the FPJ received 109 responses.
There were two original goals of the survey. The first was to find out if students were willing to engage in potentially tense conversations. To do so, we asked students to rank their willingness to discuss race, class, gender, ethnicity, economics, and politics, on a scale of one to five. A “No opinion” option was included.
The second goal was to gauge whether students experienced a diversity of thought at our school and what the cause of that satisfaction or dissatisfaction is. We thought that this is a very broad question and might be hard to measure. To cope with this, we asked students to rate their agreement with two statements on a scale of one to five. The first statement was “I feel able and comfortable with sharing my opinion with my peers at school with backlash.” The second statement was “Fieldston is an intolerant/closed-minded institution.” Lastly, we asked students to rate on a scale of one to five how they feel: one was labeled “I feel silenced” and five was labeled “I feel heard/free to speak.” The first two questions may seem very similar, but I wanted to discover whether students’ opinions come from the actions of the school or if they are more socially dependent.
The first prompt of the survey asked students to rank their agreement with the statement, “I would be willing to discuss the following with someone I disagree with at Fieldston.” The numerical average in response to each topic (politics, economics, race, gender, ethnicity, class), respectively, was 3.49, 3.77, 3.14, 3.50, 3.32, 3.23.
Out of 109 responses, 61 students disagreed with the statement, “I feel able and comfortable with sharing my opinion with my peers at school without backlash.” 22 students are in the middle while 25 students agree. The first and second modes of the students’ responses are 2 and 1, respectively, which are the two closest to the “I disagree” statement. The average response is 2.46, 0.54 lower than the range’s middle, 3.00 while the median point is 2.00. Of the two extremes (1 and 5), 27 people chose 1 while 5 people chose 5.
One hundred and seven students elected to report their agreement with the statement, “Fieldston is an intolerant/closed-minded institution.” 1 was labeled “I disagree” and 5 was labeled “I agree.” Of the 107 responses, the average is 3.08, which is 0.08 greater than the middle of the range, 3.00. (The middle of the range is 3 because instead of 0-5, the range is 1-5.) The median is 3.00 while the mode is 2 and 3. The majority of responses (75.8%) are between 2 and 4.
The last prompt of the survey was “At Fieldston…” with a scale of 1 to 5. One was labeled “I feel silenced” while 5 was labeled “I feel heard/free to speak.” This question measures emotions over actual quantifiable ratings. Of 109 total survey responses, 107 people elected to respond to this question. The mean was 2.92, which is 0.08 lower than the middle of the range, 3.00. 41 students chose not to lean towards either side, while 34 leaned closer to the “I feel silenced” side. A similar number, 32, chose either 4 or 5, which are “I feel heard.” The mode was 3.00 and the median was also 3.00.
Finally, the survey offered students a chance to type out a response. We wanted to collect “anecdotal” observations that would travel along with the raw data. This included a disclaimer that it is “completely anonymous and may be quoted in my article.” 44 students typed out replies. The theme of these statements is an overarching displeasure with the diversity (or lack thereof) of thought. This displeasure stems from a multitude of origins: the school itself, other students, teachers, and more.
Multiple statements described the environment at Fieldston as an echo chamber. A common refrain was, “I feel as though Fieldston has been an echo chamber for since-minded liberal ideology, and has resulted in students and teachers being incredibly unwelcoming to thoughts or even inquiries about centrist or right-winged ideas.”Another repeated claim was, “Fieldston is a total echo chamber. Although I feel comfortable discussing opinions with certain peers, I often feel that most will judge me for opinions that are not totally mainstream.”
Many of these statements gave nuanced views: students said there are personal variables that influence how they engage in discussion with their peers.
Multiple students said that it depends on the topic. As one put it, “When the issue is especially emotionally charged, that’s when ‘diversity of thought’ really suffers.” another mentioned that “At Fieldston, we can say anything about politics without being silenced. Unless it is about Israel, in which case I would be ostracized by my friends if I said anything.”
Others mentioned who they are speaking to as the main variable: “It’s hard to answer these because my relationship to any person really affects my comfort level…I tend to only talk to people that I think of as nice, or, at least, unlikely to tell everyone about our conversations.” Another respondee wrote, “It is difficult to characterize the institution of Fieldston as a whole – I think the barriers we encounter in discourse and cross-communication stem from ill-nurtured interpersonal skills and a lack of understanding of our peers’ lived experiences.”
A couple of students expressed appreciation for the diversity of thought they experienced at Fieldston and the conversations they have had. One wrote, “I feel that there is a good diversity throughout race at Fieldston and I also feel that it creates a better and healthier community.” Another responded, “ I feel [diversity of thought] is a given at this school with so many different types of people and is something that I find interesting to be able to talk about with people of different views than my own.”
An overwhelming majority of these responses, however, made their dissatisfaction with the level of political diversity clear. For some, this frustration stems from social closed-mindedness and gossiping.
One student wrote, “There are still social constructs that exist with this institution where you could be penalized by your fellow peers…there is such a clear division between the minority and majority at Fieldston…people bring harsh emotions into things which cause blowback and more of a distance between minority and majority groups.” Another student responded, “A lot of both students and teachers are rather close-minded when it comes to politics and current world issues.”
Another responded that “It’s supposed to be a comfortable environment, but when you actually try to speak your mind, you’re shut down.” There are a plethora of similar responses, ranging from critical to scathing.
Other students shared personal anecdotes and experiences. “I never really felt free to speak about my feelings or opinions at Fieldston.” One student wrote that they “once shared their opinion on a view, on a political issue that others were also sharing their support about but because mine was opposite I was immediately talked bad about and it was the topic of the day.” A teacher responded, “I am afraid to talk freely about all of the topics you mention with students and peers, unless I have developed excellent rapport with them. I mostly feel silenced.”
While some focused on the social implications of sharing an opinion, others opened up on frustrations with the organization and structure of how they feel the school has handled hard conversations. One response reads “There is a lot of diversity of thoughts here but the school won’t let us talk about them. This was especially shown last year. When someone shares an idea that is just a bit too radical the school shuts it down.” Another student wrote, “The gap between what we say we stand for and what we actually do is so large, I don’t even recognize the school anymore.” Another said, “I feel like Fieldston only endorses the progressive school of thought, which I agree with, but I also think that more conservative people might not feel welcome here.” One student wrote that “Fieldston preaches ideas such as free speech and diverse opinions, but shuts them down the moment they are spoken of…The hypocrisy and feeding to the majority opinions is all Fieldston really does.”
Other students disagreed with this statement. In a statement that remained critical of the school’s actions, one student acknowledged that, “I personally believe that…Fieldston offers a wide range of perspectives and history in its academics.”
A few statements mentioned frustration with specific departments or teachers. “I think it’s absurd how often grading…is based on how well you regurgitate the teacher’s politics.” “The fact that even teachers who are meant to guide kids through their thoughts and let them grow into their own person with their own ideologies can sometimes be seen pushing their own ideologies and agenda in their grading and assignments is disappointing.”
One student responded, “I thought we were not allowed to speak politics and stuff like that.”
A handful of responses gave messages of hope. One student’s statement reads “I think many students can get very offended when someone disagrees with them. However, I have also had experiences where people accept opinions, and believe most Fieldston students in their heart believe in diversity of opinion.” Another student pointed to the opportunity that the recent presidential election gives the school: “Since the election, I think Fieldston can find a way to demonstrate both the red and blue perspectives, WHILE incorporating a blur or connection between the two parties that will hopefully not determine politics in Fieldston as just black and white. Left and right.”