The Buzz

On Thursday night, seven Proctor students presented in the Meeting House as part of the 18^th Hays speaking contest, while earlier in the week President Obama delivered his farewell address to the nation from Chicago. The seven Proctor students shared their insights to several hundred, while the President shared his with millions. He is a practiced orator, well-known for his grace and passion and his ability to seamlessly cross-thread the reality of a time’s complexity with belief in democracy’s better future to weave a hope we all might share. He inspires with his message, his delivery, and his integrity. One might expect there to be a gap in performance between the speech of a president and the speeches of sophomores in high school, but to be honest? That gap felt minimal on Thursday night.

The work of Proctor’s English Department, specifically American Literature students, will take center stage Thursday night at the Annual Hays' Speaking Prize. While this is certainly the most public display of work by students, these speeches are just the tip of the iceberg of the learning take place in the lower floor of Maxwell Savage Hall. 

As students return to campus after a two week hiatus, Proctor’s girls’ varsity hockey team kicked off the new year with five games in three days including four games at the Phillips Exeter Tournament. Suffering two losses on the first day of the tournament, the team played better with a tie and then a convincing 6-0 win over Vermont Academy in their last game of the tournament before returning to The Ted with a 2-1 win over Tilton School on Wednesday. The team, which sits at 5-4-1 to date, continues to improve, meshing new players and old, into a unique chemistry that will serve the group well as they head into a very busy stretch over the next eight weeks. *Thank you to Zach Webster '18 for sharing his photography for this piece! 

Proctor Academy's Mountain Classroom program transitioned back from Winter Break into the cacti-filled desert. Our first days were spent studying Wilderness First Aid in Arizona's beautiful Lost Dutchman State Park. Read more about their first week back below! 

Most of us go to the technology help desk because we dropped a phone, cracked a screen, forgot a password, or need help with an update. We need something. We go to the tech office humble and looking for help, and when we get to the first floor of the Fowler Learning Center, Anna, Jim, Spencer, Susan, or Seth wait with their store of infinite patient, deep knowledge, and good cheer. Those five manage and work with constant change, continual upgrades, and the persistent (and silly) “user error;” they live professional development. At Proctor, the repair space of grounded work stations, microscopes, and tiny tools is noteworthy and impressive, but the people are awe-inspiring: Anna, I am convinced, can field strip an iPhone (any model) and reassemble it in under ten minutes.

Last week, marketing guru Seth Godin published a blog entitled “The Awareness Threshold”. He discussed the seven step process through which people move from being unaware of an idea to awareness, to categorizing the idea based on our life experience, to forming an opinion, to experiencing the idea, to forming of a new opinion, and eventually to sharing that new opinion with others. This intellectual journey occurs daily as we learn about world events, political happenings, and new technological discoveries.

Shifting back to a regular schedule following vacation never is easy. We are incredibly fortunate to have spent the last two weeks living life at a slower pace as we enjoyed time with family and friends around the holidays.  As we scroll through our social media feed this morning and see friends outside of our Proctor bubble complaining about returning to work, we are reminded how fortunate we are to live and work in a boarding school environment. Our transition back to work does not sacrifice family time, but rather expands it as we welcome students back into our lives after a two-week hiatus. 

There are countless moments that define a school year. We try to capture as many as possible on video in order to share them with those in our greater Proctor Family. As 2016 winds down and we gear up for all that 2017 has in store for us, we share with you the Top 10 most viewed videos of 2016. Many thanks, as always, to the talented Ethney McMahon P'16, '20 for sharing her videography and editing talents with our team. Enjoy!