A Faculty Farewell to Mr. Scandling

As the 2024–2025 school year comes to a close, Deerfield Academy prepares for a weighty farewell to English Teacher Mark Scandling. In his 38 years at Deerfield, he has taught various English courses, served as an advisor for numerous students, and became an irreplaceable presence in the community.

Mr. Scandling’s interest in English began with the inspiration of becoming an impactful investigative journalist. “[English has] always been something in the back of my mind... I came of age in the Watergate era... everybody was thinking, ‘I could be the next Woodward or Bernstein,’” Mr. Scandling explained.

In pursuit, he went on to Davidson College to major in journalism and continued to study journalism in graduate school at the University of North Carolina. To pay off his Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) scholarship, he served in the army for four years.

In his time in journalism, Mr. Scandling was a general assignment reporter. Although he enjoyed the job as “[he] could pursue whatever stories [he] wanted,” he was more interested in writing about the arts. After a few years, Mr. Scandling made the decision to step out of the field. “I decided that making other people’s personal tragedies public wasn’t something I wanted to do for my life,” he said. Mr. Scandling then took a teaching job at a day school in North Carolina.

Mr. Scandling first encountered Deerfield Academy while being a dorm assistant at graduate school. He had the opportunity to meet a student who attended the Academy who, years later, took up teaching at Deerfield. The alumni was planning on moving to teach in Malaysia and sent Mr. Scandling a note asking if he had ever considered teaching at a boarding school. “I hadn’t been planning it, and I didn’t really know anything about boarding school, but my buddy had spoken so highly of his experience as a student and a teacher. I thought, why not take a look?” Mr. Scandling remembered.

When Mr. Scandling came for his interview, the prospect of co-education was in the air. This intrigued him as he had been a member of Davidson’s first co-education class. “I could go through coeducation a second time,” he said.

At Deerfield, Mr. Scandling coached the wrestling team and both the boys’ and girls’ water polo teams. Having wrestled through high school and college, he already had previous experience in the wrestling room. However, Mr. Scandling had never seen a water polo game before. “I didn’t know anything about the sport; we just needed people to help out,” he said.

Mr. Scandling stated that learning to coach new sports at Deerfield as an adult was one of his “great satisfactions” in life.

In the fall of 2024, the Academy added The Mark Scandling Award to the list of athletic awards during a school meeting where he received a standing ovation. The newly named award will be “Given annually to the team’s most valued player who ‘played with a strong heart and a sharp mind.’”

Mr. Scandling led his teams to success not only in competition but also in terms of team spirit and community. As a coach, Mr. Scandling believes in empowering athletes. “If they can’t do it now, they’ll be able to do it later if they keep working on it,” he said. He attributes hard work to what allows this “transformation to occur,”

which builds both stronger athletes and stronger people. He also believes in patience, saying, “You can’t rush it, and if you take your time and patiently wait, the best results will come.”

Mr. Scandling’s philosophy of empowering athletes as individuals also applies to his teaching style in the classroom. Like many Deerfield English teachers, Mr. Scandling believes that the direction of classroom discussions should be student-led. From the independence granted to the students, silences are bound to happen in discussions. Trusting in those silences allows the students to grow. “If you just wait a little bit longer,” he said, “a student is likely to make a point you could’ve made yourself, and it’s so much better because the student brings it up rather than the teacher.”

Throughout his nearly 40 years of teaching, Mr. Scandling has exhibited a deep passion for education. Comparing teaching to journalism, he said, “I would rather be involved in helping shape someone’s life than to stand from a distance and report about it.” Mr. Scandling also called teaching an “investment,” where one will never really know if all the time and energy spent working with students made a difference. “But many years later, you find out, well, I guess I did make a difference,” he said.

In his retirement, Mr. Scandling plans to see more of the world and stay involved in young people’s lives, whether that be as a volunteer at a local school or an instructor at writing centers. “I still think I can offer something to young people,” he said.

To Mr. Scandling, we thank you for your 38 years of dedication to Deerfield. You have certainly made a difference in our community, and we wish you all the best in your retirement.