State of the School Address 2021
Just north of Fort Collins in the 1880s, an area called Soapstone sprung up and was sustained by sugar beet cultivation and the oil industry. There, outside of Waverley (a town named after the Sir Walter Scott novels) along Owl Canyon Road, a school called the Moessner School was built in the early 1900s. According to an oral history, it had just two teachers with the humorous names of Hail and Frost. Each Friday, parents attended a social event at the schoolhouse, listened to recitations, and discovered something about what their children were learning. A more intimate or well-informed school community is difficult to imagine.
My great hope is that Ridgeview, while admittedly much larger than the Moessner School, can be something like this for our community. That we can assemble as we are tonight and gain a clearer sense of what it is our children are learning and the overall state of our school reinforces this sense of common venture. More than this, I hope that Ridgeview can be a place where we all learn together, regardless of age or profession, because the habits of our lives, whether as explicit role models or as the expositors of otherwise unspoken practices and mores, will reinforce the moral and intellectual qualities we endeavor to transmit to our children. Indeed, it is not too much to claim that if we abdicate our role in determining what our children’s intellectual and moral inheritance will be, we will forfeit any right to bemoan the shape of our collective future. That we have chosen for our children to be enrolled in a charter school is an indication of our commitment to self-government and autonomy. What is not done for ourselves will nonetheless be done for or to us. Therefore, it behooves us to undertake this project with as much earnestness as our forebears did, and to be deliberative about the foundations upon which the next generation will build their lives.
In part, what we take stock in is that the individuals we entrust our children to will genuinely have their best interests in mind. We expect that they should not only know their subjects, or more generally “enjoy children,” but that they should have a mature regard for the moral development of youth. They should be affable, but they should also be serious enough to merit the authority they have been granted.
It follows that in considering the state of the school, we ought to consider the state of the faculty. Today marks the end of what is known nationally as “Teacher Appreciation Week,” an event begun by Eleanor Roosevelt and perpetuated by the National Educators Association (NEA). It is, for all intents and purposes, a lobbying event, and whether intentionally or unintentionally, it tends to draw attention to teachers as victims, or what Jacques Barzun once called the “pitiable drudges” tasked with taking care of everything the rest of society has left undone.
Let me be clear: it is right that we should celebrate teachers, but we should celebrate them for choosing teaching as a career and being good at it. The moral value of choice is critical. It not only precludes their being victims since choice is the expression of freedom and because they understood the financial implications in choosing such a career, but as importantly, it upholds the notion that each of us has had an opportunity to do with our lives as we would like. We were not, in other words, chosen for. It is a consequence of this choosing that lends teaching dignity and nobility. While teaching’s material rewards may be insubstantial, such a profession nevertheless has its consolations. It is a wonderful thing, that in this year of all years, when it has been more challenging than ever before, that the parents of our students have gone above and beyond in expressing their appreciation for our teachers. In particular, I would call out Mrs. Correll, who despite having moved on to another career, elected to bring her hallmark enthusiasm and good cheer to organizing the festivities that distinguished this past week.
I should note that I believe our teachers merit, rather than deserve, this appreciation because their interest in their students goes well beyond the transactional. The best of them are driven by a humane impulse and the desire to see young minds slowly awoken to the world. The gratifications of teaching are often long delayed: we may not see the consequences of our labors for many years, and that delay can oftentimes bring about a kind of demoralization. That Ridgeview contains within its building students ranging across thirteen years does much to alleviate this, and having had Mrs. Bennett present for so many senior theses is testament to our unique capacity to see a project through. Our relationships with alumni that extend a decade or more beyond graduation, our presence at weddings, and christenings, and baptisms, and university graduations, and the litany of updates about career changes and other seminal events allows us to gain a perspective about the worthwhileness of our work. That Ridgeview employs the kinds of teachers who are interested in fostering relationships of this substance and longevity is good cause for their being appreciated.
That this incredible work should have continued in what has been one of the oddest, most perplexing, and grueling periods of our school’s history makes our otherwise happy condition the more notable. While our response to COVID has undoubtedly been imperfect, we have not seen much evidence that there was a perfect response. To paraphrase a line from Theodore Roosevelt, we did “what we could with what we had where we were.” While we were subsumed in technologies we had hoped never to adopt, and unable to continue the kind of tutorial work shoulder-to-shoulder with our students, we persevered to cultivate a love of reading, learning, and drawing students to primary sources and great works. Owing to the vigilance of our entire community, we were largely able to realize our ambition of remaining open to the greatest number of in-person students for the greatest length of time.
Furthermore, in the midst of this crisis, Ridgeview reached its twentieth year and successfully renewed its charter with Poudre School District (PSD) for another five years. What began in Peggy Schunk’s living room culminates this evening in a fully remodeled PAC where we can expect that our children will continue to entertain, edify, and impress us for many, many years to come. That the process of renewing this charter was as smooth as ever is the consequence of an improved relationship with PSD and the thoughtfulness, diligence, and industry of our board of directors.
While all of our members made admirable contributions to this process, I would single Kristina Menon out for her tact and tenacity in tackling the Byzantine world of waivers. As a whole, Ridgeview’s board of directors is unlike any other. Every morning, at least one member of the Board welcomes virtually every student who passes through our doors. They sit through long board meetings, and while principally a policy board, they nonetheless listen to the principal and assistant principal, and have consistently offered sound advice and counsel. Of all their virtues, perhaps most impressive has been their capacity to distinguish between what is best for their children and what is best for the school as a whole. For them to give so freely of their time, to exert the emotional restraint required to administer impartially, and be steadfast in their commitment to classical education is a cause for deep gratitude.
Indeed, this Board has been impressive in their attentiveness and guidance regarding Ridgeview’s recovery and the changes that will be implemented in the coming year. Given the changes to the calendar, day schedules, organizational charts, system of faculty advisors, changes to facilities, and admissions procedures, a slew of updates and changes to policies had to be deliberated and eventually voted upon amid a charter renewal. That this came together in a timely way is testament to the stability and competence of Ridgeview’s board.
As I have said in many presentations, the purpose of all these changes is to provide a better quality of life for our students. The aim has been to provide them with a rigorous education, but to strike upon a way of so doing that does not compromise all other aspects of their lives. Whether our students are in the classroom or the backcountry, we will not accept the proposition that they are members of a lost generation. They are our future, and we will treat them accordingly. We will recover what can be recovered, supplement what can be supplemented, and work with every individual as an individual to ensure that their intellect and their character are developed to the fullest extent possible.
When we imagine what our community can be, I hope that we see alumni returning to share their experiences with our current students. The challenges of their academic work, their travel experiences, the joys and hardships of marriage and parenting: the breadths and depths of life communicated by one generation to the next. I hope that we see our parent community reading with one another, conversing with one another about ideas, and history, and art, and music—that they are seen to be living the kind of life celebrated at Ridgeview. They will, for instance, have such an opportunity with Tocqueville’s Democracy in America this summer. I hope that our students see our teachers living lives of quiet nobility that are worthy of emulation. The kind of life that comprehends the significance of both human achievement and natural beauty, and the kind of life that esteems self-knowledge and self-mastery. Finally, I hope that Ridgeview will long be a beacon to the kind of student who appreciates these types of things, who comes to read out of appreciation and curiosity rather than obligation, and who will, in his or her maturity, grapple humanely with the messiness of the human condition.
If Ridgeview can do all of this, it will be doing a lot. Happily, it is poised to do it. It has an experienced and diligent board, an industrious and caring administration, stable finances, impressive test scores, able students, and a faculty with dedicated hearts and minds. The state of the school is good, and like that small school on Owl Canyon a century ago, Ridgeview remains an intimate and focused community.
D. Anderson
Headmaster
Ridgeview Classical Schools
