On Thursday, September 1, the faculty and staff of MTA convened for a day of in-service in advance of the start of the 2016-17 academic year, the first year of MTA’s second century and the first under the leadership of new Head of School, Rabbi Joshua Kahn. Rabbi Kahn opened the meeting, greeting the staff and expressing his excitement for the coming year, a year in which the school has set ambitious goals to achieve. With an impressive presentation, Rabbi Kahn laid out three primary goals for the year: empowering students to own their learning, strengthening the MTA community, and enhancing school pride in the yeshiva. The idea is for teachers to model the learning and to help develop agile learners. John D'Auria, President of Teachers21 and former superintendent of the Canton school district, then presented to the faculty providing training on developing the growth mindset (based on the research of Carol Dweck). By modeling the growth mindset, creating a psychological safe culture for both teachers and students to learn, setting high standards, nurturing each student's growth, and focusing on effort, D'Auria demonstrated that all students can achieve and continue to grow. Additionally, Yeshiva University President Richard Joel spoke after lunch to talk about his excitement for the new school year and how uniquely MTA is situated to provide an education like no other because of its status as the lab school of a top university. The school leadership, faculty and staff are eager to continue to push the envelope and set the bar for Jewish education as they have done since 1916.