Employee News and Views

"At this point in my career, I would like to help remove some of the barriers and obstacles that I had to fight against for this coming generation, to inspire, elevate, and lift people up to achieve their full potential at the School."

From access to standardized testing, travel restrictions, remote learning, and changes in grading and schedules, our students have had to pivot and adapt to the new normal when applying to colleges and universities.

As we approach the one-year mark of shutting down in-person school and moving to emergency remote learning, despite the exhaustion that so many of us feel, I am inspired and energized by the amazing work of our students and faculty.

Hope is in the air. Spring is here, and a new life will grow, rich with color, tradition, memory, community, and ritual remade for this time and this place. Our job now is to continue to nurture the love and life that comes after winter.

How do we inspire our community to actively engage in the conversations, to think critically about the inequities and injustices in this nation, and—as the powerful Dena Simmons puts it—to “engage in vigilant self-awareness”?

I invite you in this season of lengthening days, as the rapids and icy waters of COVID-19 stretch out before us to find ways to go deep, to find places where the water is calmer, the ice smoother. Before you know it, we will be up the river and ready to fly, and there will be a whole new world to greet.

While schools around the country and world are exploring the opportunities and implementation of competency learning, we embrace competency learning because it provides a method to truly unlock student-driven inquiry.

In the last six months as chaplain at White Mountain, I have witnessed something that, I believe, sets this school apart—a willingness to tend to the mending, to pay attention, and respond with calm, compassion, communication, and, yes, love.

I invite you, whatever your tradition or your beliefs, to consider how hope, peace, joy, and love continue to show up in your lives. Light a candle or two, remember, imagine, and celebrate the promise of warmth and light that the longer days bring.

"It is my enduring hope and intention that students see no separation between doing 'work' for school and doing 'work' for justice ... They will know it is about their duty and desire to be curious, courageous, and compassionate, both for themselves and for the humanity of all."