Hard Work and No Worry = Unconventional Excellence

In a letter written during GDS’s Grasslands era (late 1940s), the Georgetown Day School Board of Trustees (including President Philleo Nash, Vice President Arthur E. Goldschmidt, and Secretary/Treasurer W. Randall Compton) shared a phrase they felt best captured the school’s core educational principle: “Hard Work and No Worry.”

“The children in the Georgetown Day School should and do work hard to become proficient in the fundamental skills of the elementary grades, but they do it in a warm and friendly atmosphere which is as free of strain as the staff can make it,” they wrote.

“Under this type of instruction children acquire these skills rapidly and easily, leaving plenty of time for social studies and group projects. In a world in which cooperation and flexibility of approach are increasingly more necessary and more difficult, we believe children should begin as early as possible to learn about their relationships to the wider world of community and nation.”

From the beginning, GDS’s founders understood that challenge and curiosity are essential to learning, but that curiosity is often stifled by undue stress. That insight remains evident within the school’s culture today. Overnight trips, break days, and regular holidays, even ones of our own making such as First Friday, Hopper Holiday, Field Day, Fancy Sparkly Day, and Juicebox Petting Zoo Day, offer students regular time and space for rest, renewal, and community-building; our school remains dedicated to reducing strain in order to help students approach their work with refreshed curiosity. 

The results of this focus on balancing joy with rigor in the curriculum is evident not only in the success of GDS’s alumni, but in what they have to say about their time at GDS.