The winter athletic season has come to a close for the vast majority of Proctor athletes and coaches. However, Proctor’s USSA/FIS ski program season continues well into March with more than a dozen skiers competing at the Eastern Championships later this month. For the thirty skiers involved in Proctor’s elite level ski program, this season has seen unprecedented success alongside remarkable individual growth in all areas of boarding school life on the snow and off.
In his end of season remarks to the community at last Friday's athletic awards assembly, Gregor Makechnie '90 shared an excerpt from Mike Krzyzewski's autobiography, A Season is a Lifetime, recounting the remarkable journey an athletic season provides its athletes and coaches. As much as things may remain the same from year-to-year within a team, never does the same group of individuals share the same journey. With Sunday's 53-48 win over St. Andrew's School (RI), Proctor's girls' varsity basketball team arrived the same destination as they did last year (NEPSAC CHAMPIONS!), but the journey itself was wholly unique!
Last Sunday afternoon I walked through the Norris Family Theater to the sound of power drills and pieces of the set for The Foreigner thumping to the ground. The living room, the fireplace, the windows, and the doors – everything was gone. Where the night before there had been the beckoning magic of Cooper and Amanda conjuring a separate reality, now screws clattered to the floor and lumber was being stacked. Jacob pushed through with a broom, a visual cue to the lessons of deconstruction. Moment passes to moment, season to season, term gives way to term.
The longest and often most challenging of our three trimesters is nearing its completion with just four class days remaining before final exams and the reward of a two week Spring Break. Not only does our latitude limit our daylight during the winter months, but a shift in academic schedule to accommodate the 50% of students participating in snow sports creates inconsistencies in the academic week that unintentionally silos our community when we need each other most.
As I spend more and more time in Aix, the less I want to leave. I cannot believe that we only have like 3 weeks left on European Art Classroom. I have learned so much and cannot wait to learn more.
Over the last week we have been relatively busy processing discipline infractions: a dismissal, an appeal of another dismissal, and other blips on the discipline front that kept Drew Donaldson busy. I addressed the school in last Friday’s assembly prior to the weekend and spoke to the needs of the community, the need to collectively step up. Ours is not simply a community of rules, overly prescriptive, and we know relationships create the fabric of community and give it texture. So what does this last week say about Proctor in February?
It’s good to have a thought for the day, something to turn and twist like a Rubik’s cube to unlock some life pattern. Ian Hamlet gave us one in Thursday’s assembly and I’ve been turning it over ever since. Thursday’s was a reflection about identity: How do we come to the labels that we affix to ourselves? How many are put there by others? How many do we put on ourselves? And are they healthy?
