Head of School

For our May newsletter, I thought I would share my comments to the Class of 2021 on Prize Day.

Head of School's 2021 Prize Day Address

At the conclusion of this morning’s ceremony you will hear Fr. Klots read a prayer that he has read at the end of Prize Day for many years, by Sir Francis Drake, 16th century English privateer.  I have taken to reading this same prayer at the start of the school year because it is a prayer about both endings and new beginnings.

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

We should put this prayer into the context of Drake’s time. Transoceanic voyages in the 16th century were high risk affairs, something akin to riding a roller coaster today under construction, with a blindfold on in a thunderstorm, without seat restraints. While you may emerge unscathed, the odds are not overwhelmingly in your favor.

Drake’s ship, the Golden Hind, carried a crew of 80 and was a little over 120 feet long and 20 feet wide. You could fit over 30 of them inside the touch lines of this soccer pitch, roughly the distance from me to the red soccer bench, and between Mr. Garcia and Mr. Russell.

Top sailing speed was a sluggish eight knots, or a little over nine miles per hour. What is a five hour airplane flight today would take the Golden Hind two weeks to complete, assuming that for its entire journey, the wind was steady and strong enough (but not too strong) and at your back, and it encountered no currents in directions other than with you. 

If you were lucky, for food you would get a pound of salted or dried meat or fish, a pound of ship’s biscuits, and a gallon of beer a day. Without electricity or refrigeration, however, the food often became rancid before it was consumed, which was why they drank beer as it has a longer shelf life than stored water.

To complicate matters further, Sir Francis Drake and the English were at war with Spain so there was the constant threat of bloody, terrifying, close-quarter battles with enemy ships. 

Finally, with only the stars to guide them, ship captains such as Drake used the method of intentional error to navigate. If you tried to sail directly to your target, you would not know exactly where you were when you hit land necessarily and would have to guess which way you should go up or down the coast. For example, if your final port of call was due east, you would first head several degrees south and then, when you saw shoreline, you would turn north so that you could reach your intended destination. 

For all of these reasons, perhaps it is no surprise that the expected mortality rate on such voyages was 25- to 30% of a ship’s crew. 

Despite all of the dangers and hardships, in his prayer Drake is not asking for God’s assistance or protection but rather asking God to disturb him should he and his crew become too complacent, or overconfident, or too pleased with themselves. This is what makes Drake’s prayer so remarkable.

I do not think anyone would accuse us on the Hillside of being complacent this year, but Drake’s prayer is a good reminder, nonetheless, that we should take nothing for granted. The 2020-‘21 school year certainly presented us with multiple challenges at an unprecedented rate. Our planning to open school was not too dissimilar than navigating by intentional error. We did not really know in what state the pandemic would be last September, so we had to plan for the worst and hope for the best with multiple options in between, ready to adapt should the pandemic and the requirements to handle it shift. All of this made for a tempestuous year and a voyage where Drake would feel right at home. 

More than once, in July or August, I was reminded of a gibberish poem, Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky,” which begins: 
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
  And the mome raths outgrabe.

This makes about as much sense to us today as did “social distancing,” “contact tracing,” “quarantine vs. isolation,” “flattening the curve,” “PPE, PPP, CDC or WHO, and “Zoom” when the pandemic hit. 

And the boys who are sitting here today simply wanted to have as normal a senior year as they possibly could. As the rules kept changing and more restrictions were put in place, or modified, it all got passed on to the boys and they had to adapt. We have been on quite a voyage since last August. By the numbers, our Health Services Team administered over 4,000 COVID tests. We used over 15,000 disposable masks. Our kitchen crew served over 99,000 individually boxed meals and we spent 224 days on campus, together, in various stages of lockdown mode.

Academically we adopted a block schedule, which we were planning to implement in the fall of ‘21 or ‘22 but moved up to September 2020. Our underlying reason for this change is that we believe firmly this is how boys learn best, when they have three hours a day, five days a week, for eight weeks straight to focus on just one area of study. But we did not have the time for gradual adaptation; nor were we able to work through possible glitches we might encounter. So it was an experience of learning on the fly for everybody. What took place was a somewhat surreal year where we unexpectedly and fairly often changed routines, while at the same time endured going to the same classes and the same practices with the same people, every day for two, sixteen-week stretches without a break. Some might see this as mind-numbing, yet in fact this exemplifies one core South Kent School value, that is: simplicity of life. 

Athletically, we began the year fully masked, working on individual skills while maintaining six feet of social distancing, without competition (let alone the knowledge of whether or not we would ever actually compete). When we were allowed to compete, there were guidelines that at times were terribly restrictive, but we did end up putting together some tremendously successful seasons, with the prep soccer team going 20-3-10 (including some spring games), prep basketball boasting a record of 18-2, and the U18 hockey team going 26-10-2. These records would be impressive in a normal year; yet in a COVID-restricted year, they are extraordinary.

Alongside academics and athletics, we also adjusted our community life. Housing was determined largely by athletic team, and day students lived on campus. While this was good from a safety and team bonding perspective, it was a disappointment for our boys not to be able to share living experiences with our diverse student body that spans 22 states and 20 countries—boys from myriad backgrounds and interests. When there was a positive test on campus, we shut down the dorm of that cohort for up to fourteen days at a time, while all of the residents would still go to classes online, and eagerly wait for “yard time” as the supervised breaks outside became known.

In addition, we have had only two all-school gatherings this year: a chapel service at the start of school and one last week to end the year, both on the hillside in front of the chapel. All other chapel services were restrictive in both format and numbers attending. Father Klots would announce daily that we were to hum the hymn or sing it quietly beneath our masks in our spaced out seating in alternating pews; and he had to host at least ten services every week to ensure that chapel remained as robust a part of South Kent School life as possible.

Also, every single meal this year has been grab-and-go, meaning we have not had one sit-down meal together, a practice that usually takes place five or six times a week. This caused more work and stress for our kitchen staff, added duties for our faculty, and required great patience from our students as they waited in a properly spaced line that sometimes stretched out the door.

These were the challenges we faced, and our year would not have been successful without community wide buy-in, including leadership from the group sitting here today. 

South Kent School’s unofficial motto and a driving sentiment for nearly 100 years has been “Pigtail Against the World.” This defiant, roll-up-your sleeves call to get the job done regardless of obstacles has never been more important or more evident than during this pandemic year. It was indeed a call to be disturbed, just as Drake prayed. 
 
In fact, Lewis Carroll’s nonsensical “slithy toves could have brilliged and gyred and gimbled in the wabe” all they wanted in our preparations, but if the students had not understood and supported the School's efforts, we would have been sunk. All the planning in the world would not have worked without student cooperation and leadership, and the boys regularly provided both with patience, understanding, and good humor. 

The students, led by this group being celebrated today, made our year what it was. Make no mistake about it: this was not an easy year. At times we hit some patches of turbulent water, some true storms, but we all- students, faculty and staff - pulled together and got us through it in a way that should make us proud. 

To the boys who leave South Kent School today, I hope you learned two primary lessons this year. The first is that you should never shy away from challenging yourself; you can always find ways to do more, or ways to do your job better. You should now have confidence that you can always “dare more boldly, To venture on wider seas,” as Drake said.

Second, I hope that you learned to treasure what you have, and not take the normal or easy times for granted, guarding against the time when “with the abundance of things we possess, We have lost our thirst For the waters of life.”

Nothing was handed to you this past year. You all had to work to make it special in the face of some daunting challenges. Consequently, because of all that you have done and learned this year, I cannot see you moving on to your next adventure being in any way complacent. Chances are it will be difficult to blow you off course. 

So heed the words of Sir Francis Drake, and remember that when:

We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little...

We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

Thank you for all that you did to make this year work. You have lived “Pigtail Against the World.” You clearly demonstrated self-reliance and directness of purpose in uncharted waters. You should be proud of what you accomplished. The lessons that you take with you from South Kent School will serve you well. We look forward to having you come back to visit us here on the Hillside, sharing your achievements. 

Read more about Prize Day 2021

Video Updates:

SKS Hillside Update 2021 Weeks 13 and 14

SKS Hillside Update 2021 Week 15