In this final Proctor en Segovia post travel with us to Barcelona, watch a Real Madrid match at Santiago Bernabeú, and, finally to Sevilla and Andalucía’s Costa de la Luz. Enjoy a short film by Gray with student reflections on life in Segovia and footage taken throughout the term. Also contained within are captions by Gray and Sydney, and short pieces of writing by Will, Jaz, and Sydney!
As we approach the end of the Fall Term and students are in the midst of completing final exams in each of their courses, we take a look back at recent field trips by U.S. History and AP Government classes. Proctor's teachers continue to work to tear down the walls of the traditional classroom by allowing students to live the history they are studying.
Some endeavors provide immediate gratification. You put in the hard work and see immediate results. The arts is not one of those endeavors. Students spend an entire term refining their talents, exploring new techniques, trying different mediums. There is no right or wrong, just a constant opportunity to get better. The end of the term provides the community a window into this journey as student work is showcased at the art show and the dance team, jazz/rock ensemble, and vocal music ensemble perform.
Thursday evening, teams met one final time for the Fall Athletic season to recognize individual players with end of season awards. Over the past ten weeks, all of Proctor’s student-athletes and coaches have dedicated tremendous time and energy into creating a shared experience within each team that leads directly to student growth. While every athlete improved over the course of the season, team awards recognize those individuals whose outstanding contributions through leadership, sportsmanship, or ability made a significant impact on the team’s success this fall.
The Road to Character – not a novel – has a chapter on struggle and Doris Day’s life journey towards faith. A couple of sentences caught my attention and I’ve been rolling them over, particularly in light of last night’s stunning project presentations from various classes highlighting the hard work that goes on in the arts, in robotics, in psychology, and in social entrepreneurship classes. Fewer people today see artists as oracles and novels as a form of revelation. The cognitive sciences have replaced literature as the way many people attempt to understand their own minds. What? The novel and art dismissed by the cognitive sciences? No more fictional worlds explored, no more self-understanding deepened through characters? The arts unnecessary? Should the dismantling of English Departments begin tomorrow?
While excursions to other regions and cities of Spain are an integral part of the Proctor en Segovia experience, there is something comforting about returning to Segovia. Host families welcome students with warm, home-cooked dinners and are eager to hear of their adventures in Andalucía or on the Camino de Santiago. The granite and sandstone of the two-thousand-year-old Roman aqueduct and UNESCO World Heritage Site old town glows in the illumination of street lights. Inevitably, we have grown somewhat used to them, despite their grandeur, but they appear breathtaking again after a few days of absence. The return to our daily routine of meals with host families, classes at school on the Plaza Mayor and afternoon activities scattered throughout the city is reassuring. Estamos en casa, we are home, en Segovia.
The fall athletic season is nearing its end and Fall Term exams are just a week away. While we all are anxious about the final week and a half of the term and the significant amount of work that awaits us, we must take a minute to reflect on the past ten weeks and all we’ve accomplished.
After nearly fourteen days at sea, Proctor's Ocean Classroom aboard the Schooner Roseway finally made it to St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. Read the crew's most recent ship's logs to get a sense of what has been happening aboard the Roseway since landfall on Thursday. With just two weeks remaining in their nine week journey, Ocean Classroom is savoring these final days together in the Caribbean!
