Teaching Toward Tomorrow

A hearty welcome back to school! It has been wonderful to welcome you and your children back to campus for another year. Beginning our first day with smiles, waves, and more than a few pictures was exciting and invigorating after a summer of quiet hallways and focused preparation. 

As both a student and an educator,  I’ve always been excited by the sense of newness that each school year brings. New pens and pencils in a brand new backpack, new notebooks and colorful new folders, new sneakers and maybe a new hairstyle to show off on the first day: the first day of school brims with potential.

More importantly, a new school year comes not just with new things but with the potential to be someone new – to make a new friend, to try a new elective or activity, and to redefine who you are … or who you will be. 

During our opening day activities and through the first few days of school, all middle schoolers were asked to answer a deceptively simple question: “Who am I?” In advisory groups, students discussed and shared the traits, characteristics and values that they identified as core to their sense of self. Importantly, they shared not just who they are on the outside, but what they believed to be the most important aspects of who they are and how they wish others to see them. 

The wide variety of insightful responses, and what they perceive as the character traits most worth sharing and celebrating, is indicative of our wonderful student body. Many identified themselves through the lens of their academic pursuits, describing themselves as “smart,” “dedicated” or “creative” – admirable traits, to be sure. Others centered their identity around their friends or their families, writing that they are “loyal,” “friendly” or “a good brother.” 

One word, however, popped up again and again.  When given the opportunity to describe themselves in any way they liked, many of our students chose to describe themselves first and foremost as “kind.” Kindness, it seems, sticks out to our students as a uniquely meaningful and deeply important characteristic they see in themselves and in their peers. 

Kindness is, indeed, a core piece of our Middle School community. I see it in the way our students and teachers interact with each other in class and in the halls, in the way games are played at recess, and in the ways in which students consistently choose actions and words that lift up their classmates. That spirit of kindness is frequently on display at the start of the school year, as students stretch outside of their comfort zones in new classes, new activities and new friendships; because kindness is a community norm, our Middle School is a safe place to be yourself. 

One of the most delightful things about Middle School is the ability to constantly redefine who you are and who you will be. Every day is an opportunity to try something new or indeed to be someone new – and in a world where you can be anything, I am grateful that our students choose to be kind.