Proctor Academy’s Ocean Classroom voyage continues their exploration of the waters off the coast of Maine as students familiarize themselves with the tasks required of operating the Harvey Gamage. Students share daily voyage log reflections from the past week at sea. Read more below. A huge shout out to Gunnar '22 and Holly for their amazing photography and for helping to document OC '21.
How many schools have a Cross Country course that winds along a beautiful river, through FIS homologated Nordic trails at a privately owned and operated ski area, and then opens into a field of sunflowers? Our guess is none. And yet this is the scenery that welcomes Proctor’s Cross Country team each day. After a year of mini-meets due to COVID-19, runners and coaches are thrilled to be back among the masses at this fall’s full league meets. With a Lakes Region meet Wednesday afternoon at the Proctor Ski Area, we caught up with senior Colin Shaver ‘22 and coaches Sarah Daney and Scott King to hear about this year’s squad and their goals for the season ahead.
Proctor en Segovia has returned for the 2021-2022 school year under new directors Ellie and Luis Mendoza. After their first three weeks abroad, students have settled into a routine with their host families, in their Spanish, literature, and history classes, and recently completed an excursion to Basque Country. Read student essays from their first few weeks living and learning abroad below.
As we begin the third week of classes, we remind ourselves that it is often that which we experience outside of the traditional classroom that has the greatest impact. This is what we seek to do at Proctor. To get proximate to our learning. To feel it with all five of our senses, and then to take that learning with us into our lives beyond the official end of the class block.
On Saturday, September 11, Hunter Churchill and I gathered our seven Proctor students and their student leader, River De Vink, to hike on Day #4 of Wilderness Orientation. We had decided that morning that we would head up Mount Willey, a formidable 4,285 foot peak in the heart of New Hampshire’s White Mountains.
Each week, or as often as we are able, we will share a Ship’s Log from Harvey Gamage capturing the essence of Proctor’s Ocean Classroom program. Each student will take a day to share a brief journal entry highlighting the excitement of living and learning at sea. Check out the first week of journal entries below as Ocean Classroom 2021 begins their voyage.
With a heavy heart, I share the sad news of the passing of Walter Wright '49. Throughout his lifetime, he remained committed to the growth and sustainability of Proctor. As a Proctor student, Walter was a school leader his senior year, played football, was on the student council and the improvement squad. He was also the recipient of the Shop Award and the Savage Leadership Award. Through my few conversations with Walter since I was appointed Head of School, he expressed a deep commitment to a culture of environmental sustainability that is now woven into the fabric of our community and perpetuated through the naming of the Walter Wright '49 Biomass Plant dedicated in his honor in 2009.
Each Proctor student graduates with a transcript filled with numbers and letters, a snapshot of their Proctor experience. While useful in some ways, this quick reference guide originally developed to standardize our assessment of a student’s “intelligence” for college admissions counselors insufficiently captures the entirety of a student’s growth journey through their high school years.
Shrouded in clouds and misty skies, the rigging of the Harvey Gamage framed the backdrop of Boston’s skyline to the west of Moakley Dock. Flapping aloft was a well worn Proctor flag, the same flag that flew above Gamage decades ago when it first hosted Proctor students. Each of the 28 send-offs for Ocean Classroom has been different, each special in its own way. While final hugs between the twenty-one students and their families could not happen due to COVID-19 protocols, the excitement and anticipation of the voyage ahead was evident.
The ramp up to student arrival can feel prolonged, but when we finally have our entire community together for that first assembly of the school year, it is electric.
After a year of hybrid classes, quarantines, mask etiquette, and fear of the novel situation of a global pandemic, we feel a little more settled entering this school year because our community has embraced the individual responsibilities required of addressing a global challenge. We have the same opportunity to teach individual responsibility as it relates to the pandemic of climate change and climate justice.
On September 11, 2001, I was just returning to school after burying our dad. My flight was supposed to leave on 9/11, but I decided to return home to Oregon a day earlier because there was nothing left to do.
Proctor Academy is delighted to announce a shift in fall 2021 Ocean Classroom programming aboard the Harvey Gamage of Sailing Ships Maine. For the past 28 years, Proctor’s term-long Ocean Classroom program has exposed high school students to the joys and challenges of life at sea, with the World Ocean School and its schooner Roseway serving as a key partner in providing the Ocean Classroom experience for the past seven years. Due to an unexpected turn of events, Roseway is unable to host Proctor’s Ocean Classroom experience this fall. Proctor made a rapid shift to partner with Sailing Ships Maine and the Harvey Gamage for the fall trimester program.
Each Registration Day, you can feel the rollercoaster of emotion as families arrive on campus and their Proctor experience begins in earnest. The theoretical idea of having a child attend boarding school becomes reality, and while much of everyone’s energy centers around excitement for what lies ahead, we acknowledge there is just enough anxiety and sense of loss to make the emotions of the day challenging.
In many cultures, gatherings are sacred, like the garments worn at a celebratory event. It’s where people feel comfort, receive information, share messages, and pass on what is essential about why the group exists. At Proctor, we are a mix of people, groups, religions, races, creeds, and cultures. Often, we come together to share in the joy of each other’s gifts, whether in the classrooms, spaces of play, upon the stage, or because of common interest. We all share one essential thing, which is the love for our small village - our school - that knits us together on pristine land in the middle of New Hampshire.
