Dr. Alex Curtis, Head of Choate Rosemary Hall, on technology, VAR and running JFK's alma mater
“We can reject the idea that rigour and overcoming adversity are necessarily not fun and bad things. You can bring joy to even the most challenging things.”
Alex Curtis is head of school at Choate Rosemary Hall, the revered boarding school in Connecticut whose alumni include JFK. He has been at the helm of the school for 15 years, but his journey started on the other side of the Atlantic. Alex was a student at St Paul's School in London in the 1980s – a time when rigour was paramount and very much at the expense of enjoyment. He had brilliant A-level history teachers who expanded his learning, but something about the broader culture didn't sit right. It was only when he arrived at Swarthmore College in the US that he discovered learning could be collaborative and genuinely enjoyable for students – a realisation shaped his whole career. Chatting to Henry Faber, Alex reflects on why American schools have freedoms their UK counterparts don't, shares hard-won advice on raising capital and explains why he thinks banning technology from classrooms is a mistake.
🎙️ Episode highlights
Alex traces Choate's unusual history: a 1970s experiment where two single-sex schools operated on the same campus with separate heads, which everyone knew wasn't going to work before it even started.
He explains the biggest difference between US and UK education: no national exams. "I do not have a curriculum that is set by preparing for GCSE or A-levels. We have incredible control over that."
Alex reframes fundraising: you're not asking for a handout, you're inviting people to partner with you on something that will change lives. "If you can transfer some of that excitement to them, they're thrilled to be a partner with you."
He describes Choate as a laboratory proving that students from more than 60 countries can live together, actively listen and succeed in a world that feels increasingly polarised.
His controversial opinions: VAR should be ended tomorrow, the Premier League needs a salary cap, and banning technology from schools is short-sighted. "Our responsibility is to teach them how to use these tools responsibly."
What he'd tell his 16-year-old self: become a boarder sooner. His commute from Windsor was long and he was missing out on what made school work.