MS/SS Academic Assembly & Mr. Harvey's Take on Intellectual Humility

Middle/Senior Director of Academics, Mr. Dave Harvey then introduced the theme of the assembly: intellectual humility. He did so by presenting a riddle, asking what the following real and imagined people have in common:

The commonality is that these individuals consciously or unconsciously practice intellectual humility. This is defined as the habit of holding your beliefs with confidence, but also with looseness. It is the disposition to recognize the limits of your own knowledge and to accept that you could be wrong.

Intellectual humility is further explained by clarifying what it is not:

Mr. Harvey explained that a person with intellectual humility has views but recognizes they are "accountable to reality". This concept is a worthwhile theme at a school like CDS as students in Grades 8 to 11 choose their courses for next year, while Grade 12 students might feel as though they are in "existential crisis mode" about their futures. He stressed that it is okay not to be fully certain, in fact it is fairly common at this stage in their lives.

Two GY students, Vanessa Gianikos and Preston Baichoo, then spoke on the topic of intellectual humility. Both entered high school thinking they had "everything figured out," but their interests and what they thought they knew changed. They learned that intellectual humility involves being willing to revise what you think you know about yourself.

 

To wrap up, Mr. Harvey left our students with a meaningful challenge: to step beyond their own perspectives and make a conscious effort to understand points of view different from their own.