This Jan­u­ary, I had the plea­sure to spend three days at the Lan­don School, a boys school in D.C., with David Arm­strong ‘70. This Cot­tage Club alum­nus and fel­low His­tory con­cen­tra­tor wel­comed me to his sprawl­ing cam­pus in Bethesda, offer­ing me a packed sched­ule. I spent a day in each school divi­sion – lower (3-5th), mid­dle (6-8th), and upper (9-12th). Each day meant the oppor­tu­nity to sit in on a class or two, which Mr. Armstrong’s assis­tant Patti gen­er­ously arranged to be of the his­tor­i­cal per­sua­sion. I got to observe what it means to “know boys” the way only a top-notch school like Lan­don can. Hop­ing to max­i­mize the value of the expe­ri­ence, I kept a note­book with me – a size­able por­tion of which is now filled with obser­va­tions and “notes to self” about work­ing at an edu­ca­tional institution. 

Not only was I able to see the teach­ers in action, but I also got to sit down with them and hear about their career paths. Many took sur­pris­ing turns, but all of them con­cluded with sat­is­fac­tion at Lan­don. The boys I met shared this same pos­i­tive atti­tude. Those I met were well dressed, well man­nered, and respect­ful. At the request of a teacher, a fourth grade boy walked me to class. On the way, he gal­lantly asked, “How has your expe­ri­ence at Lan­don been so far?” The matu­rity and sin­cer­ity of the ques­tion com­pletely caught me off guard, but I assured him that I was very pleased with every­thing and everyone.

I spent a part of each day with the music depart­ment. My father grew up in D.C., so I had heard of Lan­don before – gen­er­ally as a strong com­peti­tor in ath­let­ics. I did not expect to find the real gem of the school to be its music pro­gram, but at the end of the first after­noon, it was unmis­tak­able. Run by the vet­eran musi­cian Earl Jack­son and his crew of geniuses, the band, orches­tra, choir, and hand bell classes were beyond impres­sive. I found myself envy­ing even the lower school boys for their luck in study­ing music at Landon.

David Arm­strong and Anna

Mr. Arm­strong took me to impor­tant meet­ings which fell dur­ing my visit, includ­ing a cal­en­dar meet­ing, a devel­op­ment meet­ing, and a big pic­ture meet­ing for divi­sion heads. By the end of my three days, I felt I had an insider’s view into the indi­vid­ual parts of a qual­ity inde­pen­dent school – as well as their sum. I learned so much about the pri­vate school envi­ron­ment. I can now actu­ally pic­ture apply­ing for jobs in edu­ca­tion and even­tu­ally tak­ing one, an idea which before seemed hope­lessly abstract. If this Princetern­ship comes up again, I whole­heart­edly rec­om­mend it. I could not have had a warmer recep­tion or a more use­ful set of expe­ri­ences. Mr. Arm­strong and his crew were fab­u­lous hosts, and I could not be more pleased with my Intercession.