What Is The Point?

I arrived at work at 7:30 am yesterday and left at around 8:30 pm. (Back to School night.) I don't regret one moment but every bone in my body aches. This morning is going to feature a direct trip to Dunkin Donuts for a large iced coffee.

There are plenty of things going on around town but today I'm going to take a break and refer you to a speech given by the Head of School at SSFS, Tom Gibian. It was his opening message to students at an All-School Assembly this week. Yes, the whole school: three year olds through high school seniors. There were a variety of student performances, both vocal and instrumental, dancers, and a slide show of the opening day of school.

Those were the things which fascinated my students. But I've been keeping Tom's speech in my heart. It shows that there's more than one way to view the education of our children. He begins:

Every morning when I wake up, one of the first things I think about is how we can make Sandy Spring Friends School an even more amazing place. I spend time on this question because no other question makes sense. I don’t want to think about how we can make Sandy Spring Friends School less amazing. I don’t want to think about how we can make Sandy Spring Friends School more ordinary, more like other schools. I already know how to do that. We would have less art. We would ask fewer questions. We would have less time for reflection. We would have less purple hair. We would not sit expectantly in Meeting for Worship. We would eat less food from the garden. We would be less welcoming. We might learn stuff but we would not see the connection to taking action.

Take a moment to read his message. See what you think.