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.
During the busyness of the academic year, we crave the pause afforded by Winter Break. Campus is quiet and we can refocus on the 30,000 foot perspective of why we exist as a school. We know our daily work is valuable, we see incremental progress in our students, our teaching, and our physical plant, but without moments of reflection, the "why" of this work can too easily be lost.
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.
Tonight marks the end of our first trimester. Our students feel like they have been through an important transformative time during these last few months. They came into the school masked and will leave having been “unmasked,” while deepening relationships with others and themselves.
This week Proctor’s Admissions Team will welcome more than 45 families to campus for tours and interviews. Last week was a similar schedule, as was the week before. On Saturday we welcome more than 30 students from Prep at Pingree to campus to learn about boarding school and Proctor’s educational model. As each family or student tours campus, they see Proctor in action on any given day. They see students in motion: classes, assembly, lunch, afternoon program, extra help sessions, study hall, weekend activities. What they don’t see, however, is any preconceived notion they might have had of what a boarding school should look like based on their watching of Dead Poets Society.
Each fall, the trails throughout the Proctor Woodlands are littered with acorns that threaten a rolled ankle even among the most nimble of hikers. As winter snows recede and spring temperatures catalyze the annual rebirth within the 2,500 acres of land Proctor calls home, some of these acorns will sprout and grow into saplings.
As educators, we engage daily in the unending balancing act of providing our students a sense of freedom and a sense of connection. While the pendulum of independence swings back and forth within a culture depending on the prevailing norms of the time, what we know at Proctor is that the adolescent brain biologically craves independence, and yet is only able to pursue that independence when surrounded by a nurturing community.
