On a good day, there isn’t time to get to everything on my to-do list. During a January complicated by illness on campus, winter storms, and all the complexities that come with operating a boarding school during a global pandemic, to-do lists at the start of each day merely serve as a feeble attempt at grasping for what little control we have in how we choose to allocate our precious time. The anxiety that daily walks arm in arm through the door of uncertainty impacts us as adults, and most certainly impacts our students. 

Monday's MLK Day celebration combined the inspiring elements of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life with that of another human rights movement icon, Dr. Wangari Mathai of Kenya. Dr. Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, also helped lead a revolution for climate justice with other women in her nation to protect the land and forests after colonization and African patriarchal rule from the late 1970s until her death in 2011. We certainly know more about the powerful parts of Dr. King’s life, work, and legacy than we do of those who marched in his footsteps like Dr. Maathai, but the lesson that students came away with during our assembly and discussions afterwards was all about standing for what they feel is good, right, and just. 

The first year of pandemic life saw us toggle back and forth between in-person and virtual learning. Like so many schools around the world, we quickly realized that while a remote learning experience was still valuable, the intangible ingredient of human connection is the real magic to any learning environment. The same goes for the building of community and our twice a week all-school assembly. 

Boarding students returned to campus Monday afternoon to PCR tests and an arrival bubble in dorms until the results of those tests come back. It feels a bit like a flashback to winter and spring 2021 when we were an unvaccinated community with the unknowns of COVID-19 swirling around us. Even though we all wanted to avoid a return to bubbled life, it is a necessary step as we keep our ultimate goal in sight: the complete Proctor experience this winter. 

Being in Northern New England at this time has been a revelation. For the one-hundred and thirty of us new to Proctor this year, the routines are still new, but thankfully not as much as they were in the fall when they were “shiny” new. As we head into winter, we find more of our rhythm in this second trimester. We ground ourselves to our obligations and the joys of our time together as a school community as we creep up on the longest evening of the year.

We have a pile of puzzle pieces on a shelf in our living room that have evaded our children’s not-so-careful clean up methodologies. This little pile makes me sad each time I see it. So many puzzles that may never feel “complete”. Even when 499 of the 500 pieces of a puzzle fit together, our focus immediately goes to that one missing piece with an outsized impact on the whole. The same can be said for a school community like Proctor’s. It is only when all individuals within a school are pursuing their purpose that we begin to feel that unique energy of potential being realized.

Each week Lindsey Allenby captures smiles around campus between classes, heading into or coming out of assembly, and on the way to lunch that we then post on Flickr and our social media channels. When students see the camera, there is this gravitational pull toward their friends and in an instant smiles emerge. While we know parents love seeing photos of their children smiling, there are far deeper benefits to the simple act of smiling.

Professional Development days at Proctor look little like they might for a public school faculty simply because the spectrum of responsibilities extends well beyond the classroom. For most teaching faculty, time in the classroom represents only half of their job as they are also advisors, coaches, and dorm parents. Within all of these roles, our core responsibility remains focused on our mission of valuing the individual and recognizing the potential of each member of our community to stretch beyond what they had thought possible.