---
title: "Learning to Play Like Yourself: The Identity Journey"
description: It is through relationships with those around us that we define ourselves. Without community, without peers to challenge us and push us and interact with us, who are we?
image: https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/hubfs/Blog_Pics/Community/2022-2023/Identity/Blog%201.jpeg
---

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## Learning to Play Like Yourself: The Identity Journey

Posted by [Scott Allenby](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/author/scott-allenby)

08/01/2022

This week, we are in the midst of conversations with a group of young alumni for our upcoming edition of the Proctor Magazine. Each of these alumni are entering the heart of their career. Some are in health care, others working for nonprofits, others teaching, and yet others running startups. While their experiences and career paths vary, they uniformly assert that Proctor served a powerful role in shaping who they are as adults. 

![Proctor Academy Boarding Prep School New England Proctor Academy Boarding Prep School New England](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Blog_Pics/Community/2022-2023/Identity/Blog%201.jpeg?width=3072&name=Blog%201.jpeg)

Each stage of development for a child is critical, but the adolescent (high school) years are perhaps the most transformative. A time of identity formation, we see young people grow into themselves, often through many different versions, over the course of four years. We write often about Proctor’s ability to expand a student’s identity through the varied experiences they will encounter both on-campus and off. They may come in identifying as a skier and leave an artist, a science focused student becomes an adventure sport enthusiast. They uncover passions that guide their future schooling and career paths, and we consistently attribute Proctor’s breadth of experiences to the success of our alumni. 

![Proctor Academy Boarding Prep School New England Proctor Academy Boarding Prep School New England](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Blog_Pics/Community/2022-2023/Identity/Blog%205.jpeg?width=2048&name=Blog%205.jpeg)

But it is not just about the schmorgashboard of offerings that expand a young person’s identity. [David Brooks’ recent op ed in the New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/28/opinion/find-who-you-are.html) challenges us to rethink how the control we have over the shaping of our own identities. Brooks notes, “A self exists only in relation to something else, while perceiving something and interacting with the world.” He goes on to write, “Gradually, out of these interactions a self emerges. This is the hardest phase. You can pile up myriad influences. You can pile up performances. But eventually it all has to cohere into a distinct way of perceiving the world, a distinct way of expressing yourself in the world.”

![Proctor Academy Boarding Prep School New England Proctor Academy Boarding Prep School New England](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Blog_Pics/Community/2022-2023/Identity/Blog%203.jpeg?width=6144&name=Blog%203.jpeg)

It is through relationships with those around us that we define ourselves. Without community, without peers to challenge us and push us and interact with us, who are we? For adolescents, it is these relationships with their friends and the adults in their lives at Proctor that their self begins to take shape. If we can only become what our friends, relatives, and colleagues make us, how can a school experience intentionally burst the bubbles we seek to create through curated experiences? 

![Blog 2](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Blog_Pics/Community/2022-2023/Identity/Blog%202.jpeg?width=2047&name=Blog%202.jpeg)

Some students will do it themselves - they are thrill seekers and connectors and extroverts who crave stimulation through experiences. But most of us prefer to operate within a sphere of comfort, interacting with those who reinforce our established sense of self. This is where Proctor’s educational model of curating experiences for small, diverse groups of young people comes into play. Through Wilderness Orientation, advisory, teams, classes, Project Period, Academic Concentrations, Off-Campus Programs, and so many other opportunities to engage meaningfully alongside a different group of peers, we push students into the uncomfortable so they can keep growing, keep expanding their identity by introducing new voices, new faces, new relationships, and new perspectives into their lives. 

![Proctor Academy Boarding Prep School New England Proctor Academy Boarding Prep School New England](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Blog_Pics/Community/2022-2023/Identity/Blog%206.jpeg?width=6144&name=Blog%206.jpeg)

Our job as a school is to cultivate community and experiences so that young people have the opportunity to make sense of themselves within a complex world. We are each writing our own stories, influenced heavily by those who surround us. The more diverse a set of peers and experiences we can provide our students, the more willing they will be to expand their own narrative of self. As Brooks writes, “Everybody who is writing a book or making a presentation or being a person in the world has to eventually wrestle with that cohering question: What’s the core here? Or as Miles Davis put it, “Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.” May each of our students have the confidence, eventually, to play like themselves. 

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- [May 2017 (27)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2017/05)
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- [March 2017 (16)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2017/03)
- [February 2017 (26)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2017/02)
- [January 2017 (22)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2017/01)
- [December 2016 (16)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2016/12)
- [November 2016 (22)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2016/11)
- [October 2016 (23)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2016/10)
- [September 2016 (16)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2016/09)
- [August 2016 (7)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2016/08)
- [July 2016 (5)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2016/07)
- [June 2016 (11)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2016/06)
- [May 2016 (25)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2016/05)
- [April 2016 (23)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2016/04)
- [March 2016 (16)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2016/03)
- [February 2016 (29)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2016/02)
- [January 2016 (18)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2016/01)
- [December 2015 (17)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/12)
- [November 2015 (17)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/11)
- [October 2015 (22)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/10)
- [September 2015 (13)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/09)
- [August 2015 (6)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/08)
- [July 2015 (7)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/07)
- [June 2015 (8)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/06)
- [May 2015 (27)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/05)
- [April 2015 (19)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/04)
- [March 2015 (14)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/03)
- [February 2015 (24)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/02)
- [January 2015 (21)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/01)
- [December 2014 (16)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2014/12)
- [November 2014 (18)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2014/11)
- [October 2014 (20)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2014/10)
- [September 2014 (17)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2014/09)
- [August 2014 (6)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2014/08)

see all

### Recent Stories

### Telling the Proctor story

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Located in  Andover, NH,  Proctor Academy is a private coeducational day and boarding school for grades 9–12. Students benefit from a rigorous academic program, experiential off-campus programs, fine and performing arts, competitive athletics, and a wide selection of extracurricular activities.

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(603) 735-6000

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