As the forecast for Friday morning waffled between rain and potential clearing, we decided to move our planned outdoor assembly for Fall Family Weekend into the Wilkins Meeting House for the first time since the fall of 2019. Only the parents of our four-year seniors had experienced assembly in the theater, and we realized in that moment how much we had missed the shared energy of this space.
The agenda for assembly was simple: a welcome by advisors Lynne Bartlett and Kate Piacenza, a few quick announcements by students, faculty, and PAPA Chairs Petra and Collin Shaw P’20, ‘23, culminating with a quick game of head, hips, knees, and toes led by Kyle Connolly. And yet, like so many things at Proctor, a simple moment turned into magic. The space was alive, deeply alive, as our parents, grandparents, and siblings experienced the genuineness of this community. It was one small moment, in a weekend filled with moments, where our families were able to see Proctor in action.
Impressionist artists understood this intersection between singular moments and the never-ending movement of life. Focusing on the overarching colors and light in a scene, they captured paintings with a slight blur, the movement within the moment that we too often miss. The difference between a moment and momentum lies in our own desire to isolate a single period of time rather than appreciate all that is happening around that specific moment.
The images shared each day through Instagram, Flickr, and Vidigami capture individual moments, but can never fully capture the momentum within our students and within this community. We work to communicate momentum in our students through Official Notes and electronic communication between teachers, advisors, dorm parents, Learning Specialists and parents, but it is impossible to fully appreciate the momentum that surrounds each student without spending time in face to face relationship with one another.
Fall Family Weekend affords the opportunity to pause our normal operations and invite families into the Proctor experience. We make time for conversations on the sidelines, on the pathways, during parent/teacher conferences, and at social events where the varied voices of impact in each student’s life join together to paint a picture of observed academic and social growth since the start of the year.
Images from the weekend paint a beautiful picture: the spectacular fall colors, smiles, a seemingly perfect school community in rural New Hampshire. Of course there is more to each student’s journey, to our school’s journey, than the highlight reel that makes it on this blog or our social media accounts. There are hard conversations during parent/teacher conferences, disappointments, moments where students feel they fall short of the expectations of the adults in their lives. And all of this is ok. It is part of the growing up journey, part of doing our best as we live life alongside each other. If we are not careful, we only see the crisp, perfect moments without allowing ourselves to live fully in the blurry, slightly messy, and wholly beautiful space where momentum is allowed to build and lives are allowed to change.
Thank you to everyone who made this Fall Family Weekend possible: our students, our parents, our teachers, our coaches, our Development Team, Dining Services Team, Maintenance and Housekeeping Teams, Athletics Department and so many more. We hope everyone enjoys the long weekend and returns Tuesday evening ready for the final month of the Fall Term!
