The Alpine View

What Are We Training Ourselves to Notice?

Dear Mack Community,

For 1,001 consecutive days, I kept a gratitude journal.

Every day, without exception, I stopped and recorded things for which I was grateful. Some were significant. Many were wonderfully ordinary: a conversation, a meal, a person, an opportunity, a moment I might otherwise have passed without noticing.

By the end of those 1,001 days, something felt different.

I cannot prove that I had literally rewired my brain. But it certainly felt as though I had retrained my attention. I had become better at noticing what was good.

And I increasingly wonder whether attention is one of the most important things we practice.

What

Human beings appear to have something psychologists call a negativity bias. Across many kinds of experiences, bad news tends to command our attention more readily than good news. Problems demand action. Threats are hard to ignore. One influential review of the research summarized the phenomenon rather memorably: “bad is stronger than good.”

From an evolutionary standpoint, that makes some sense. Missing the beautiful sunset probably did not endanger our ancestors. Missing the predator in the bushes might have.

But there is a cost.

If we are not intentional, our attention can become remarkably skilled at detecting what is wrong while becoming surprisingly poor at registering what is right.

Years ago, I decided to experiment with that idea in a slightly unusual way.

I began calling companies that probably received far more complaints than compliments simply to thank them.

One day, I called Georgia Power.

When the customer service representative asked how she could help me, I explained that nothing was wrong. My refrigerator was running. My air conditioning was working. The lights came on when I flipped the switches.

I just wanted to say thank you.

There was a pause.

She was so surprised by the call that she eventually asked whether I would repeat what I had said to her manager. Before long, I was sharing my gratitude with more of the customer service team.

The electricity had been working all along.

What changed was that I noticed it.

So What

Chip and Dan Heath describe a related idea in Switch. When we encounter a problem, our instinct is often to study what is broken. The Heath brothers suggest that we should also find the bright spots: look for places where things are already working and ask, What is happening there, and how can we do more of it?

That is not ignoring problems.

It is widening the field of vision.

Gratitude does something similar.

It does not ask us to pretend that everything is wonderful. Schools are messy human communities. Families experience hard things. People make mistakes. There are problems that deserve our attention and injustices that demand action.

Gratitude is not denial.

It is the discipline of refusing to let what is wrong become the only thing we can see.

And perhaps that is why gratitude can be practiced. Research on gratitude journaling suggests that deliberately naming what we appreciate can shift attention and improve aspects of emotional well-being over time.

The practice begins to train a different question:

Not only, What went wrong today?

But also, What went right that I might otherwise have missed?

Now What

This matters in schools because there are bright spots everywhere.

A student who included someone at recess.

A teacher who noticed the child who needed a little more time.

A parent who extended grace.

A colleague who quietly solved a problem before anyone else knew there was one.

A child who tried again.

A classroom filled with laughter.

Hundreds of small things happen every day that make a community work. Most will never generate an email, a phone call, or a meeting.

Maybe that is precisely why we should train ourselves to notice them.

What if, this week, we deliberately searched for a bright spot?

What is working?

Who made something better?

What ordinary thing deserves to become visible because we chose to say thank you?

The problems will still be there. We will attend to them.

But perhaps gratitude helps us see the whole landscape.

For 1,001 days, my journal asked me to practice noticing.

Years later, I still believe the repetitions mattered.

Because what we repeatedly pay attention to has a way of shaping what we see.

And sometimes the bright side was there all along.

We simply needed to turn toward it.

With appreciation,

Bo

P.S. About The Alpine View: Each Sunday evening, I use this space to explore an idea connected to learning, leadership, childhood, or community through a What, So What, Now What lens. My hope is to offer something worth thinking about, talking about, and perhaps passing along.

Archives

The Alpine View

August 23, 2026

Stay Curious

Dear Mack Community,

A close friend of mine, Grant Lichtman, wrote a line years ago in The Falconer that has stayed with me:

“Questions are the waypoints on the path to wisdom.”

I love that image. A waypoint does not tell us we have arrived. It helps us locate ourselves, choose a direction, and continue the journey.

Perhaps wisdom requires us to become more curious and a little less certain.

What

Curiosity is deeply human. Watch a young child for five minutes and you will see evidence everywhere: Why? How? What if? What’s that?

But I do not think curiosity is simply something we either possess or lack. Curiosity can be developed. Like a muscle, it grows stronger when exercised and weaker when neglected. We can nurture habits of wondering, questioning, investigating, and reconsidering.

At Mack Morning Meeting this past Wednesday, I spoke with our students about one of the International Baccalaureate Learner Profile attributes: Inquirer. The IB describes inquirers as people who nurture their curiosity and develop the skills needed for inquiry and research.

I am especially drawn to that word: nurture.

We are not merely hoping our students remain curious. We are intentionally helping them become more curious.

So What

Every time we encounter something we do not understand, we face a small but consequential choice:

We can fill the gap with an assumption, or we can fill the gap with a question.

Someone sends an email that lands strangely. A child tells us part of a story. A colleague makes a decision we do not understand. Our brains are remarkably efficient at constructing explanations, and we can move quickly from incomplete information to certainty.

Sometimes we are right.

But certainty can arrive remarkably quickly for something we have not yet investigated.

There is a memorable scene in Ted Lasso built around the idea “Be curious, not judgmental.” Ted’s opponent believes he understands him. What he fails to do is ask the question that might have changed his entire assessment: Have you played much darts, Ted?

Judgment closes a loop. Curiosity opens one.

Brené Brown has written about the courage required for genuine curiosity because curiosity asks us to tolerate uncertainty. It requires admitting that there may be something we do not yet understand.

That matters enormously in schools, and probably everywhere else human beings gather. Communication is incomplete. Perspectives differ. Context matters. If we are not careful, we can become remarkably efficient storytellers about one another, filling in missing details and assigning motives before we have enough information to know whether our stories are true.

Curiosity interrupts that process.

It allows us to say:

There may be something here I do not yet understand.

Now What

If curiosity can be strengthened, we need repetitions.

Before responding: What question could I ask first?

When we feel certain about someone else’s motives: What else might be true?

When we hear one version of an event: Whose perspective have I not yet heard?

And perhaps the hardest one:

What would I ask if my goal were understanding rather than being right?

For Mack Kids, these habits sit at the heart of inquiry-based learning. We want students to develop knowledge, certainly. But we also want them to notice what they do not know, formulate worthwhile questions, revise their thinking, and remain intellectually alive.

The challenge may be even greater for adults. Experience gives us expertise, but expertise can tempt us toward certainty. The discipline is to know a great deal and remain genuinely curious anyway.

One of our Mack Admin Team norms is Stay Curious.

I increasingly think that is more than a professional norm. It is a way of learning, leading, parenting, disagreeing, and living alongside people whose stories we can never completely know.

Questions may indeed be the waypoints on the path to wisdom.

Perhaps our work is to keep exercising the muscle, asking the next question, and staying curious.

With curiosity,

Bo

P.S. About The Alpine View: Each Sunday evening, I use this space to explore an idea connected to learning, leadership, childhood, or community through a What, So What, Now What lens. My hope is to offer something worth thinking about, talking about, and perhaps passing along.

The Alpine View

August 16, 2026

What Are We Drawing Out?

Dear Mack Community,

I have always been fascinated by the words we use so frequently that we stop wondering what they actually mean.

Education is one of those words.

We build schools around it. We devote careers to it. Families make enormous decisions in pursuit of it. We debate its quality, measure its outcomes, fund it, reform it, and worry about its future.

But what exactly are we trying to do when we educate a child?

What

The history of the word itself offers an intriguing tension.

One Latin root associated with education, educare, carries the sense of rearing, training, or nurturing. Another, educere, means to lead forth or bring out. For generations, educators have noticed the difference between those two ideas.

One suggests that education is something we provide.

The other suggests that education is something we evoke.

Do we fill a child with knowledge, skills, habits, and wisdom that they do not yet possess?

Or do we create the conditions that allow capacities already forming within that child to emerge?

Of course, the answer is probably not either/or.

Great education requires both.

So What

This question feels especially alive to me at Mack.

Gifted and creative children have a remarkable way of reminding adults that learners are not empty vessels.

They arrive with theories.

Questions.

Intensities.

Connections we did not anticipate.

Interests that sometimes appear suddenly and then develop with astonishing depth.

They bring ways of seeing the world that are already distinctly their own.

Our responsibility as educators, then, cannot simply be to determine what a child should know and place it inside them.

Nor can it be to stand aside and assume that everything a child needs will simply emerge on its own.

Education lives somewhere in the productive tension between the two.

We introduce children to ideas they could not yet discover alone.

And we draw out ideas we could never have predicted for them.

We teach.

And we listen.

We establish boundaries.

And we create possibility.

We offer the accumulated knowledge of generations while remaining alert to the original thinking sitting directly in front of us.

Perhaps one of the great privileges of teaching is that we never know exactly who a child is becoming.

Now What

As this new school year begins, I find myself wondering what might already be waiting inside our students.

What question has not yet been asked?

What talent has not yet found its arena?

What friendship has not yet formed?

What idea is waiting for the right provocation?

What part of a child’s identity might become more visible this year because someone noticed, encouraged, challenged, or believed?

Those questions shift the posture of education.

Instead of asking only, “What do we need to teach?”

we also ask,

“What might we help emerge?”

That is a powerful way to think about children.

It may also be a powerful way to think about one another.

Schools themselves have unrealized capacities. So do teachers. So do parents. So do communities.

Perhaps education, at its best, is not simply preparation for some distant future.

Perhaps it is the disciplined, hopeful work of helping people become more fully what they are capable of becoming.

That feels like worthy work for a new school year.

With appreciation,

Bo

P.S. About The Alpine View: Each Sunday evening, I use this space to explore an idea connected to learning, leadership, childhood, or community through a What, So What, Now What lens. My hope is not simply to share news from Mack, but to offer something worth thinking about, talking about, and perhaps even passing along.

The Alpine View

Sunday, August 9, 2026

The Architecture of a Beginning

There may be a myth about beginnings: that they simply happen.

A new year arrives. A door opens. A child enters a classroom. A group gathers for the first time. The calendar turns, and something begins.

But the most meaningful beginnings are rarely accidental.

They are designed.

What

This week, I watched the Mackulty prepare for the arrival of our students.

Some of that work was visible: classrooms taking shape, materials finding their places, schedules becoming clearer, and colleagues gathering around shared plans.

Much of the most important work, however, could not be seen.

Teachers were imagining how students might feel as they arrived. They were thinking about how to establish trust, how to create belonging, how to communicate expectations, and how to make room for both joy and uncertainty.

They were not merely preparing rooms.

They were designing a beginning.

That distinction matters.

A room can be organized without being welcoming. A schedule can be efficient without being humane. A first day can run smoothly without becoming meaningful.

The deeper work is not simply arranging what students will do. It is considering what students might experience, notice, believe, and begin to understand about themselves.

So What

Beginnings possess unusual power because they help us answer questions we may not even realize we are asking.

What kind of place is this?

Who am I allowed to be here?

Do people notice me?

Will I be challenged?

Will I be supported?

Do I belong?

Students will not necessarily ask those questions aloud on Wednesday. They may ask them through a hesitant entrance, an enthusiastic wave, a carefully chosen seat, a sudden burst of conversation, or a quiet observation of how the adults around them respond.

And although the opening days of school are important, this is not only a lesson about children or classrooms.

We are continually creating beginnings for one another.

Every meeting has a beginning. Every conversation after a disagreement has a beginning. Every new friendship, new challenge, new team, and new attempt invites us to establish what might be possible.

A beginning is not merely the first moment in a sequence.

It is an act of orientation.

It tells us where we are, who is beside us, and what direction we might travel together.

Perhaps this is one reason Mack Kids love coming to school. They enter a community where adults understand that learning is not simply the transfer of knowledge. It is the careful creation of conditions in which curiosity, courage, connection, and growth can emerge.

That is both deeply human work and highly sophisticated educational work.

Now What

On Wednesday, a new school year will officially begin.

There will be energy, movement, reunion, uncertainty, delight, and probably a few moments that do not unfold exactly as anyone planned.

That is part of every real beginning.

Our responsibility is not to manufacture a perfect first day. It is to create a beginning sturdy enough to hold space for all the people who enter it.

For our Mackulty, that means greeting students with both intention and openness: communicating, in dozens of large and small ways, that they are known, valued, and capable.

For our families, it may mean remembering that a child can feel excited and nervous at exactly the same time. Our calm confidence can help them carry both.

And for all of us, it is an invitation to consider the beginnings we create.

What does our presence communicate when someone enters a space?

What becomes possible because of the way we welcome another person?

What might change if we treated beginnings not as moments to move through quickly, but as experiences worthy of careful design?

By Wednesday afternoon, the first day will be complete.

But the beginning will not be over.

In many ways, we will still be building it together.

With appreciation,

Bo

P.S. A note about The Alpine View: Each Sunday evening, I hope to share more than school news or upcoming dates. The Alpine View is intended to be a brief, thoughtful reflection on learning, leadership, childhood, community, and the ideas shaping our work at Mack. Using a What, So What, Now What structure, I will connect moments from school and life to questions worth considering together. My hope is that each edition offers something useful to carry into the week, discuss around the dinner table, or share with someone beyond our community.

The Alpine View
Sunday, August 2, 2026

Dear Mackulty,

Welcome back!

Tomorrow morning, we begin our year together, and I could not be more excited or more grateful to serve as your Head of School. I have been looking forward to this week with genuine anticipation. There is important work ahead, but first, I hope you know how deeply I admire what you bring to Mack and how eager I am to learn, create, and lead alongside you.

What

Over the past several weeks, I watched the World Cup with a level of commitment that probably surprised no one who knows me well. I arranged my schedule around matches, followed the developing storylines, and became invested in teams and players whose journeys stretched far beyond any single game.

What captivated me most was not simply the goals. It was the collective effort behind them. Players moved constantly without the ball. They anticipated one another. They recovered after mistakes. They trusted that someone else would be where they needed to be.

So What

Great teaching works much the same way.

The moments families and students see are only part of the story. Behind every meaningful learning experience are hundreds of thoughtful decisions, careful preparations, small adjustments, generous assists, and acts of trust among colleagues.

No one creates Mack Magic alone.

Our strength comes from talented individuals who understand that we are part of something larger. We notice one another. We communicate. We make the extra pass. We step forward when needed and create space for someone else to shine.

Now What

As we begin Mackulty Work Week, I invite each of us to ask:

What can I do this week to help someone else begin the year well?

Bring your ideas. Bring your questions. Bring your full and wonderfully human self.

I am honored to be on this team. Let’s begin.

With excitement and gratitude,

Bo

P.S. I am experimenting with calling these Sunday notes The Alpine View, a brief opportunity to look across the week ahead, notice what matters most, and keep our shared purpose in sight.