By Dr. Terry Macaluso, Head of School Emerita

One of the many pleasures of creating something from nothing is that everything is possible. Before something exists, it just isn’t. When it is, there are as many perspectives about that something as there are knowers who can form perspectives.

Perspective is the vantage point from which one takes in data. Perspective is also the result of what one does with the data one receives. When many perspectives combine, new ideas are created; perspectives change.

Perspectives are discreet entities until they make their way into the world as ideas. When ideas meet one another, perspectives change. When experience in relation to something changes, so do perspectives.

In 2002, when the idea of Eastside Preparatory School made its way into the world as an idea, everyone in the conversation had ideas about what it should be, but it took some time for perspectives to be shaped. In order for something to be a perspective—and not just a thing I thought up—it has to be tested in the public sphere. It has to exist “out there.”

When the school became a reality, it operated in one half of the space on the lower floor of what is now the Middle School building. From the perspectives of many, that wasn’t a school at all. There were sixteen students and half a dozen employees. There were no choirs, bands, or soccer teams. There was no cafeteria. There wasn’t even a gym. Several of the things that, in many of our minds, constitute a school just weren’t there. Apparently, a school needs a host of things EPS lacked in order to be a school.

Over the ensuing three or four years, everyone who visited the school, whether or not they enrolled, held the perspective that it just wasn’t large enough to be a school. Apparently, there is a population size that must be achieved in order for something to be a school. What is that number? Is it the same number for everyone?

When the enrollment at EPS was sixteen, there were many who thought it to be too small. When the enrollment was forty-five, some thought it too large. There was a “something,” a “culture” it was called, that would be lost if the school grew beyond forty-five students. But it was also still too small. There wasn’t a large enough population from which to choose friends. How many friendships must be possible for something to be a school?

When the school enrolled eighty-five students, it was destined to fail. The culture would be lost. The essence of the place would be sacrificed. When enrollment reached 200 some of us celebrated; others bemoaned the loss of “that special sauce.”

When EPS had a population of over 550 students and 125 employees it was “just right;” it was “too small;” it was “too large.”

All three of those perspectives are correct. The only time it matters that perspectives differ is when those differences become more significant than the entity itself. When my perspective is right, there isn’t room for any other thinking. When that occurs, the very thing that makes human collaboration engaging suffocates. If there can only be one perspective, then there’s nothing much to do.

EPS continued to evolve as it does to this day—and it’s true that the EPS of today isn’t the same as the EPS of yesterday. If EPS was the same school in year fifteen as it was in year three, it would mean that we had stopped thinking about it. This is, perhaps, the most important thing to understand about perspective: perspective is a photograph at any given moment about what one thinks of something. But, reality changes perspective and perspective changes reality.

When perspective becomes unchallenged belief, it prohibits dissent; when it ossifies, it allows no nuance and appears to be absolute. Then, thinking stops. Therein lies the danger.