After the Feast
Historically, a perspective has appeared prior to the Thanksgiving Break urging everyone to celebrate this most American of holidays with the deepest, sincerest, and most unreservedly sentimental intent. This Thanksgiving, however, I look back at the break reflecting with a more contemplative frame of mind—one in which the gratitude felt was less abstract, more pragmatic, and more firmly fixed on Ridgeview’s community.
The fact that this is a community is too easily taken for granted. What forms a community ought to be more than the happenstance of individuals occupying a particular space for a particular time. I think this is why many scoff at the notion of a municipal community: it is too broad, too diverse, too unknown and unknowable. Ridgeview’s members have the advantage of having deliberately chosen to come together—they are united by something. This place is more than a building—it is the something that a group of people believe in together.
What is that something? Having participated in over fifteen years of student discussions, faculty seminars, parent coffees and reading groups, I know that it will be articulated differently, but the je ne sais quoi of what constitutes Ridgeviewian remains.
I am grateful to belong to this community, and to the extent that something this organic can be led, I am honored to lead it. What follows is an inexhaustive list of some of the reasons why.
That Ridgeview is the type of school that our graduates not only choose to visit, but to return to speaks to the impactfulness of this organization. A handful of our former students, after graduating, attending college, obtaining degrees, beginning lives and families of their own, made sacrifices and organized their lives in such a way so as to return to Ridgeview and make it more than it could have possibly been for them. For Mrs. Carvalho, Mrs. Gaub, Mrs. Stephens, and Mr. Bodak I am deeply grateful.
That Ridgeview has managed to persuade our parents that their presence and participation is crucial to the flourishing of our whole community is evidenced by their participation in morning reading groups with elementary students, by their filling out the room for Headmaster’s Coffees once a month, by their taking time away from work to act as chaperones on outdoor trips, and most gratifying to me, by their giving up a portion of their mornings to attend the weekly, monthly, and summer parent reading groups. While more attendees would always be welcome, what there is would be vibrancy enough. I am also grateful for our board members—none of whom is paid more than a once-per-month dinner to sift through budgets, read and re-read policies, put on a Christmas party, and ensure that our school is re-chartered every five years. If we are to remain, in any meaningful sense, a charter school, this participation is indispensable, and I am thankful for it.
Ridgeview is what it is for its students not only because teachers turn up to do their jobs, but because many teachers go far beyond what was originally conceived (or could have been conceived) in their contracts. For instance, we could pay someone to run a spelling bee, but how could we possibly contract for infectious enthusiasm? Or, to reading more generally, and still get anything like the energy given by Mrs. Hitchman? She is cherished because her absence is inconceivable. Similarly, who would be insane enough to sign a contract that required them to be at the school at six o’clock in the morning on Saturdays to organize students to run power tools (their personal tools) and build sets, and take on additional classes, and such an infinity of other responsibilities, assigned and unassigned, acknowledged and unacknowledged—it is impossible. It is insufficient to say that Ridgeview is more because of Mr. Schohl’s efforts, because it isn’t simply more, but utterly different. To give one more example, because I hear so frequently from students who acknowledge his contributions: would Ridgeview be at all the same without Dr. McMahon? Indisputably, it would not. When I listen to students talk about how much they have enjoyed his classes, his feedback on their essays, his management of a discussion, I nod along as their equal because we have enjoyed the same teacher. What a place to work! What people to study alongside!
I attended nearly every girls’ basketball game this season—as many as I’ve ever attended. I saw these girls win, and I saw them lose. I think both are important to be present for. Losing the championship by a single point was agonizing, but I saw so much growth in these girls over the course of a season that, while disappointed in the final score, I was undeterred in my pride. One of the best moments, from my perspective, was watching Isa play with tremendous enthusiasm, but also tremendous restraint during a game in which she was very clearly giving her less experienced teammates the opportunity to make shots. In order to do this, she had to work harder than usual to recover the ball and maneuver in such a way that she could return it to her teammates for another attempt without ever taking a shot that would have only further enhanced her glory and reputation. That she had a regard for their development, and sought out an opportunity to develop their confidence, is a testament not only to good sportsmanship, but to her character.
I also watched a young and new-to-the-job Athletic Director bring her trademark enthusiasm to many of those games, even clattering across the court in heels to clean up spilt blood. I don’t know whether I have ever before seen such a thing done with such class and professionalism. What I also saw from Miss Grace was a willingness to take on such a myriad of other tasks that it made her an indispensable part of our community: she responded to behavior calls with patience, promptness, and compassion, she greeted students and families arriving in the mornings, she encouraged high school students in their physical fitness assessments, hired and managed all of the coaches, and represented Ridgeview exceedingly well. For a small school with athletic ambitions, I am thankful for Miss Grace’s exuberance and work ethic.
There are those who make the chaos endurable, even cheerful. Mrs. Van Dusen and Mrs. Alexander manage to greet virtually every parent and student who materializes before them with courtesy and a smile. Having stood behind the glass and knowing just a sliver of what their days look like makes this all the more impressive. A similar thing happens in the Resource Room—busy teachers who have left things off too long (I am often among them), teacher’s assistants finalizing projects and sharpening a million pencils, tempers flaring, frustrations showing through, all of it delicately managed with good humor by Ms. Rasor. Children arriving with everything from broken bones to untied shoes, smelling awful and doing very gross things likely to get others sick—all tended to patiently and compassionately by Ms. Landers. A student crying, possibly a family tragedy unfolding, perhaps even a staff member who’s met his or her limit, being quietly ushered into Mrs. Hayhurst’s or Mrs. Simpson’s office. Ridgeview could not be Ridgeview without these people behaving as they do and doing what they do, and there is no compensation scheme in the world that could ensure that they will continue doing it. It is contingent on them believing in the mission and fundamentally being who they are.
One of the great privileges of this job is the opportunity to continue teaching. In most administrative positions at other schools, this would be the first thing to go, and the time would be filled with meetings and e-mails. It is a privilege because of the quality of the students, and I am grateful for them being here, for being who they are, and for the efforts they make to make our conversations worthwhile. Whether in discussion of difficult texts like Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics or grim discussions of Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilyich, they balance out seriousness with great hilarity—they make comments, the acumen and insightfulness of which, are often far beyond their years, and most say “thank you,” as they leave the classroom each day. They, more than Aristotle or Tolstoy, are what have kept me at Ridgeview all these years, and I am profoundly grateful for them.
I noted that this would invariably be an inexhaustive list, but the quality of the people at Ridgeview, the traditions it has built up over twenty years, the contributions of its teachers’ talents and time to plays, performances, and activities never originally envisioned, their adaptability to unenvisioned circumstances, the willingness of parents to read, think, give money, give time, hang off the side of a cliff, sleep in a tent in subzero weather, teach students how to shoot, navigate, and survive, and drive vans full of students obnoxiously singing or loudly discussing fantasy novels across the state and beyond its borders, prevent me from naming every person or citing every instance of every contribution or kindness, and that is a wonderful thing. That the list should be invariably inexhaustive is a sign of this community’s spirit and the gratitude we should all have for it. Thank you to all of you who have made it so.
D. Anderson
Headmaster
