Each week a new student gets to write the blog. We can write about whatever we want. The thing is when teachers give you the freedom to write anything it is either amazing and the words come flowing onto the page, or a painstakingly slow process where you are stuck so long looking at a blank screen that you start to hallucinate or forget what words even are. So where to start?
The past week was filled with both excitement and exhaustion that Paris brought to us. We had a tight schedule and a lot of moving but it didn’t stop us from having fun and studying the artworks.
Just as Friday’s student panel during Revisit Day highlighted the impact of a Proctor education, today’s conversation between visiting families and current students reinforced how important it is to allow yourself to be curious. Nearly every student on the panel articulated how his or her experience at Proctor has been one of redefinition. But why is this? What environmental factors allow for this type of uncharacteristic vulnerability among adolescents at Proctor?
The first day was a jetlag-drenched adventure, a whirling, overstimulating blur of sunlight and new food and French. There was nothing for it but to follow the Flemings and hope not to fall asleep standing.
During Friday's Admissions Revisit Day, eleven students volunteered their time and to serve on a student-panel for visiting families. After Director of Admission Christina Dotchin opened the floor to questions from families, students responded without a script, prompts, or direction from any adults. It was a wonderful hour long window into the power of the Proctor experience from the student perspective.
This week’s March 30th editorial by Frank Bruni, College Admissions Shocker! is a humorous poke at the ridiculously competitive landscape of some of the top colleges in the country. The author of the editorial, and the best selling book Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be, takes on the foolishness of college admissions rate in a delightfully provocative way. And it has got me thinking on the eve of our own Revisit Day about our own school, our own process, and what the difference is between the landscapes of independent secondary schools and colleges.
During most professional development days, guest speakers come to campus and present new information for us, as teachers, to then bring back to our classrooms. Today, Proctor’s faculty took a bold step to rethink professional development by turning internally to our own faculty to share the work we are doing in our classrooms.
Greg Mickle ’96 knew he liked math from an early age. In elementary school, it came naturally to him, and as he entered high school, he knew he wanted to be an engineer. His journey through four years at Proctor and twenty years since made that dream come true, but he has found being an engineer is far more than working with numbers.
