The football game tonight at New Hampton will reveal the way competition courses through the Lakes Region schools. We like to compete against one another, and the contests can be fierce. No school in this grouping, which includes KUA, Holderness, New Hampton, Tilton, Vermont, and Brewster, likes to lose. No player, no coach, no fan. That will be clear tonight, or on Saturday at Tilton where so many of our teams compete this weekend.
Perhaps it was serendipity that Robert Azzi, a Muslim American, came to speak on Monday night. His arrival at the invitation of the Andover Library and Proctor also coincided with the first Presidential Debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Mr. Azzi spoke in the Wilkins Meeting House, sharing his reflections about being a Muslim in the United States. Born in Manchester, New Hampshire, the son of a mill worker, an architect by training and a photographer and journalist by trade, Mr. Azzi lived in the Middle East for decades as a photographer and reporter, working for Newsweek, Paris Match, Fortune, National Geographic and other publications. He has been a Nieman Fellow in journalism at Harvard University, where he also served as a member of the Leadership Council of the Harvard Divinity School. He spoke for two hours, about the same amount of time as the candidates.
Every incoming 9th grade student is scheduled into Freshman Seminar. It’s a class meant to help them with the transition into high school, being away from home, and navigating this so, so different landscape. Its focus is helping students thread safe passage through the siren calls of distracting technology and the bewildering social landscape. It’s about the role sleep and nutrition play. It’s about taking care of oneself. It’s also a place to slow down, a quiet space away from the jangle of classrooms and dorms, a place to catch one’s breath.
The mountains already seem distant. The bottomless swimming hole on the Cold River, the wind and view on the ridge leading up to Sandwich Dome, the rolling thunder on Sunday morning near Pond Brook – it all fades after the first few days of the campus schedule. Classes, assemblies, sports, the new Dining Commons, the spectacular weather, dorm meetings, advisory meetings – this is the new rhythm.
The tumble of the year has been reduced to days. Not too long ago backpacks were lined up in the cage and the first nervous moments of the year played out on Wilderness Orientation. In September we checked weather reports to see if we would be sleeping in the rain, and now we check to see if graduation will be on a clear day. How did it happen so quickly? Are we done so soon? The questions begin to swirl for all of us.
Look across any of the practice fields or the tennis courts and you know they are here. Arms swing, heads shake, faces are slapped as the pesky scourge of spring arrives in New Hampshire. I’ve read somewhere that there are over 1,800 species of black flies, but most of us could care less and just want to know where the bug stuff is and whether it will work. You’d think that living in New Hampshire one would gradually become inured. Not so. DEET, that toxic compound we deride during most of the year, becomes our friend. The black flies, part of every year, are simply to be endured.
There is much in the news about independent schools these days, and I write to share some of my thoughts about the current landscape. The recent stories in the New York Times, The Boston Globe, and AP wire services about alleged sexual misconduct by employees at several boarding schools are appropriately generating significant interest. An anticipated article, or series of articles, on misconduct at elite schools by the Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team adds to that interest. Collectively, schools and their boards recognize this is an important dialog to be in, a necessary and critical one. While to date Proctor Academy has not been contacted by the Globe or any other news organization, nor are we currently aware of any current or past students expressing concerns about faculty or staff sexual misconduct, we are sensitive to the issues raised in the media and want to ensure that we are considering all of the right community responses. How do we find the right balance of community introspection and community day-to-day momentum?
Last week I wrote about faith, this week I shift attention to Proctor’s Eaarth Day, and interconnectedness. Mitakuye Oyasin.
