Anndrew Reinfeld joins the Park community this year in a newly created role – Director of Student Support. With Park’s leadership team ready and supportive of how the areas Anndrew supports can grow and change, we have a wonderful canvas upon which to design a plan for working with teachers, students, and families as he seeks to deliver Park’s mission of student-centered programming.
Meeting Anndrew (and yes, there are two “n’s” in his name. He loves being asked to explain why!), you can’t help but feel his effervescent “Yes, and…!” approach to connection. He looks to serve as a “go to” person for challenges that touch on social-emotional learning, with the recognition that Park students aren’t just learning the content of core subjects…they’re learning what’s going on inside themselves, and inside their brains.
“Children are working through many things that we as adults take for granted,” he observes. “We learned ways to care for ourselves and ways to connect with others at some point and internalized the lessons, and we’ve forgotten that we needed to learn them in the first place.” He hopes that his team can help students see how they are learning these skills, and also understand that the adults in their lives aren’t “just magically good at working through conflict,” for example. “These are skills we learn and get better at.”
Anndrew pursued a master’s degree in education focused on school counseling and school social work after discovering an appreciation for educational spaces as an English as a Second Language teacher outside Beijing, China. Despite teaching classes of 70 or more students, he recalls,”What kept me interested and excited was meeting students as individuals.” His graduate program, which emphasized unlearning biases and assumptions, addressing misconceptions around mental health, well-being, emotions, cultures, and identities, also gave him the freedom to find new ways to approach therapeutic work. For example, he designed an improvisational comedy class for depression and anxiety, and has since been running therapeutic improv comedy at Mass General. “Making mental health fun!” he says. “Even today, while we’ve shed a good deal of stigma that once surrounded mental health, there’s still a presumption that therapy is ‘people in a room crying.’ Therapy – working on yourself – can and should be a fun activity – even if it’s not always easy.”
Fun is an essential element to bring to work with children – especially middle schoolers! – when it comes to mental health. “Improv is about taking the absurd things people bring you and accepting them,” he says. “There’s no predicting what students will bring to you…but meeting them in that playfulness and curiosity can take you far in the relationship with the child.”
Coming to Park, he’s particularly excited to be working with Middle School age students – an age group he particularly appreciates and enjoys. “It requires you to check your own ego at the door every morning, leave it at home, and bring the students a huge amount of empathy,” he observes. “Middle School is one of the hardest age groups in this life. Each student plays this out in different ways, testing the patience of the adults around them. It’s important to take a breath…and know that we’ve all been there.”
Anndrew is excited by the many spaces that Park provides for kids to “figure out who they are” – and develop individually. “Middle School kids want to be part of a group and to blend in…and to stand out as something special.” Providing them dedicated opportunities to think about who they are–and who others are–builds empathy. “They come to know that they are on a journey of self-discovery, and so are their peers. It gives them some grace in working through their growing pains, and empathy for others who are going through the same thing. Because you’re not figuring it all out on your own.” Yes, identity development is individual, unique to each child, but there are themes and experiences that people share. Anndrew says, “I think back on my own parents writing things off as ‘a phase.’ Even phases we pass through help us figure out who we are by figuring out who we aren’t.”
Anndrew and his team – which includes Julie Mumford as well as our new school counselor, Annie Maness – will be making their way around the school as they get to know teachers, students, and families. They look forward to not only addressing challenges that arise, but to focusing on proactive education that will help students understand that emotions and social challenges are hard, and that the learning is ongoing. “We don’t get these things perfect right away…but we get better at them.” With a robust team ready and eager to support holistic well-being, we couldn’t be more excited.
