Headmaster's Weekly Newsletter -- Week 5

It has been a great week!  Our teams are in full swing (and winning!), the first report cards are almost out (and they are looking really good - hooray!), and auditions for the School musical have revealed a wonderful depth and breadth of talent. As we head into our Thanksgiving Break, there is much to be thankful for.

 

Travellers in Nova Scotia know that once passed through security at the Halifax Airport, everyone is faced with a choice: stairs or escalator or elevator.  Like the game show “The Price is Right” all three choices are side by side. Which will it be? Door #1, #2, or #3?  To get to the departure gates you must go up a level.

 

I always take the stairs.

 

There are reasons for this choice.  I get restless sitting on a plane for hours and so any kind of movement beforehand will be beneficial.  Also, the stairs are always empty and faster.  Lining up for an elevator or the escalator seems like a waste of time.  For me, however, the real reason is more existential.  In an elevator world I want to take the stairs. Not that I think everything should be deliberately hard and a struggle, but that “the path less travelled” is intrinsically rewarding.

 

Maybe it was the way I was brought up. I grew up on a mountain and as dad took the car to work, I was never driven anywhere. Not to school, not to the hockey rink, not to friends’ houses. Coming home was always an uphill journey.  Maybe it was my years studying Greek tragedy or instructing for Outward Bound that ingrained in me a philosophy that choosing the easiest path in life is habit forming and to be avoided. It is the challenging route that offers the greatest views and rewards and (in literature especially) the opportunity for heroic deeds.

 

If school was easy, we would be missing the point.  It is meant to be challenging. As parents and teachers, it is our duty to protect our children from harm while providing them opportunities to fail. I always know when a child has had a great summer when I look at their knees and I see bruises and scrapes. I call them summer knees. These knees tell me that it has been a summer full of active play, of risk taking, of falling down and getting back up. This process of falling (or losing or making a mistake) and getting back up, is essential to the healthy growth and development of our children. It builds resilience. It is not healthy to always win, to continually receive perfect scores, to consistently hear how perfect you are, or to invariably say what those around you want to hear.

 

This Thanksgiving, I am grateful for the leadership in our province and the sacrifices and accommodations the people of Nova Scotia have all made to keep us healthy and safe. I am grateful that so many families have trusted our School and that we have 332 of the most wonderful children here as a result. This year I am especially grateful that we have a School which also takes the path less travelled.