Before they can enter the Administrative Conference Room, a sign, written in bright red capitals, tells students to “try this.” Students attempt to balance on the boingo board, which they’re later told is a physical representation of the ego, the id, and the superego. Principal Daniel B. Frank ‘74 points out that the class has separated by gender. A student jokes about the psychoanalytic implications of this split before senior Wilson Cedillo moves to the girls’ side of the classroom. 

This is Frank’s new classroom, where he offers his mini-course, the “Psychoanalytic Understandings of Human Experience,” to 17 seniors this winter. In the past, Frank has co-taught classes during letter blocks or dropped into various classrooms, but this mini-course is his own space to bring a passion project to life and reshape the student-administrator dynamic.

The seniors volunteered for seven one-hour sessions, taking place on Thursdays from 3:30 to 4:30 in the Administrative Conference room. Frank assigns readings that guide in-class discussion of pschyolcoaltic concepts.

Psychoanalysis is the study of the unconscious parts of the human mind, a field of psychology that tries to make meaning of how people make meaning. “Understanding not only why people do what they do, but why do they do it in a way that they do it,” Frank said. “People have all kinds of styles and approaches to how they relate to themselves, how they relate to other people, how they relate to symbols, ideas, places, objects.” 

Though the course is short, Frank tried to parse the dense material into digestible pieces meant to pique interests, not to be comprehensive. It’s also an experiment that sets the groundwork for more, as Frank learns what it takes to create a learning opportunity outside of normal structures. “Definitely way too short to actually, to have meaningful outtakes or lessons from it,” Cedillo said, “but it’s interesting, fun facts that you wouldn’t you learn in a traditional classroom.”

The first two classes familiarized students with the vocabulary and getting them to think about the significance of dreams. Students received a detailed syllabus at the beginning that lays out the different readings and topics that will guide the next seven sessions.

The course idea came to Frank after he remembered mini-courses offered by parents during his time at Parker. Frank’s father taught one on journalism that ended up sparking journalist, editor, and author Jonathan Alter’s interest in the field. “I’ll take an idea that hasn’t been used in a long time,” Frank said, “to see if there’s any creative space between either you take regular courses or you don’t take anything.”

Frank was strategic about his audience and his timing, making his pitch at graderoom to seniors with extra time after college applications. “It’s kind of a playground of ideas that I have,” Frank said. “Who wants to play in the middle of winter? When there’s only basketball, you can play with ideas, bounce those around.”

“I had some free time,” senior Wilson Cedillo said, and the class “just came at the right moment.”

As he made his pitch, Frank was mindful of last year’s student-administrator rift. “I was thinking of a variety of ways to help with what was clearly a, to use a psychoanalytic term, an empathic break,” Frank said. “When things are good, things are good, until they’re not. And how do you take advantage of seeing when something breaks down?” The disciplinary events made administrators examine the blind spots of what Frank called a “learning institution.” 

This was one creative solution that Frank wanted to pursue anyway. “It’s an engaging way to help the overall culture of healthy relationships where people know each other around here, as opposed to a sense of estrangement, which is not a healthy thing.”

Frank didn’t know what to expect from his pitch. “We bring the past with us into the present, whether we know it or not, that’s called transference,” Frank said. “If we are more aware of what we’re trying to do, we can bring the past into the present in ways that are maybe healthier than not so healthy.”

As an administrator and a disciplinarian, Frank was aware of the weight his presence carries for students and clarified in his pitch that no one was in trouble. “I’ve come for a lot of reasons,” Frank said. “I know a lot of students, not only in moments of crisis, but in everyday life where things are good. For me, the glass is more half full than half empty. I went with optimism.”

Within two days of Frank’s announcements, 17 students had signed up for the class, though Frank wasn’t paying attention to the number. “Even if half the number wanted to explore this, that would to me would have been successful because at least it would be a chance to talk about ideas that I think are really compelling,” Frank said. “So I think the optimism of that started to play itself out.”

Frank wanted the course to be low-stakes, without the pressure of grades and with an emphasis on conversation. “I really didn’t know what I was getting into,” Lowitz said. “It’s not a huge commitment, and also it’s kind of what I want to study in college. It was a really great opportunity to get a taste of collegiate level psychoanalytic, academic education, but also no tests, no assignments, more of a relaxed setting.”

Frank acknowledges that not all students will want to pursue psychoanalysis in college, but sees the course as valuable anyway. “Whatever path they follow in life, you’re going to work with people, you’re going to have to pay attention to yourself,” Frank said. 

Beyond teaching practical study skills and modeling the structure of a college lecture, Frank’s goal is for students to remember the experience as enriching years down the line. “If one idea stays with somebody and they nurture it over time, it might lead to something really interesting that we don’t even know about yet,” Frank said.

Cedillo was one student who went into the class looking for something extra but not future-defining after studying Macbeth through the lens of Freud in English class. The teacher and students, who were all volunteers, drew Cedillo to the course. “I definitely find it interesting,” Cedillo said. “but not enough so that I would change my major.”

Psychoanalysis did fascinate Frank in college, where he was an American Studies major, as well in graduate school at the University of Chicago, where he studied psychology and behavioral sciences. After receiving his degrees, Frank kept his interdisciplinary focus, teaching psychology, history, literature, sociology, and education at a variety of schools.

Frank structured the course around past readings he’s done on a wide range of topics—dreams, creativity, leadership, education—that he’s encountered throughout his own education and his teaching career at schools such as the Institute for Psychoanalysis. He boiled the readings down to one central question. “What’s involved in being a citizen in a diverse democratic society?” Frank said. “Both progressive education and psychoanalytic thinking can come together in a really compelling way.”

Previously, Frank has tried to translate his interdisciplinary interests to this classroom and many others. Frank taught a course called Sociological Imagination, co-taught Adolescence in America with former Head of Middle School Tom Rosenbluth, and Social Entrepreneurship with former Director of Educational Design and Innovation Martin Moran.

“The way that Dr. Frank is teaching, and also the topic of psychoanalysis and psychology as a whole, create a really great foundation for a lot of the more specific things that I’m learning in my other classes of Parker,” Lowitz said.

Frank brings his teaching style to other classrooms, in addition to his own. According to Frank, he frequents Sixth Grade English Teacher George Drury’s classroom, recently guest-taught on bipartisanship for Sixth Grade History Teacher Keedra Gibba, and visits into lower school classrooms for storytime. “If I can find a way to carve out the time where I could actually be a responsible teacher,” Frank said, “I would love to do more of that. I’ll continue to look for those opportunities because that’s why we’re here. It’s a learning institution I have as much to learn as I have to offer others too.”

“I never totally knew him as an educator, more as an administrator,” Lowitz said, “so I think it’s been a really great thing, especially as I come to the end of my 14 years of Parker, to see this other side of Dr. Frank.”