As we dive into this second week of the Winter Term, we feel ourselves rediscovering the comfortable routine of our classes, advisory groups, meals, practices, and extra help sessions. The first week of each term is spent settling into campus routines. Classes often have slightly different rosters, dorm compositions have shifted, new personalities introduced and social dynamics must evolve. 

Proctor’s educational model includes a revolving door of students studying off-campus each trimester. As twenty-two students return from fall Ocean Classroom and ten from Proctor en Segovia, forty-eight students depart on Mountain Classroom, winter Ocean Classroom, Proctor en Segovia, Proctor in Costa Rica, and European Art Classroom. The cohesiveness built over the course of the Fall Term is reshuffled and we, once again, have the opportunity to discover who we are as a community. 

The complexity of Proctor’s educational model certainly provides challenges, but we believe an always-shifting community provides an opportunity for different students to step into leadership positions. It shakes up the cliques that too often populate high school campuses, and provides fresh starts for students.  

We all benefit from change, even when it is hard. Just as we experience during shifts in the seasons -- the first snowfall, the sound of sap dripping into buckets in March, the first warm summer day, the first crisp fall night -- we become increasingly aware of our surroundings when there is interruption. Without these changes, the grooves of our well-traveled paths hold us in place, blinding us to the good that lies outside of the inadvertent ruts of routine we have created. 

Three times a year we have the opportunity to hit reset on our school culture. During these opening weeks, we step into our classes, our teams, our dorms, and our community with intentionality. We welcome new faces to the winter 2021-2022 edition of the Proctor community, and await the vision of community this remarkable group of young people and educators will create in the coming months.