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2010 Back-to-School Night Speech by Head of Lower School Noreen Lidston

I was lingering over my breakfast cup of tea just one short month ago when I came across a wonderful article by Sun columnist Susan Reimer. She was recounting the emotional memories that September holds for her, even though her own children are grown now and have left school far behind.

Susan says, “For the parents of children, September, not January, will always be the start of the new year. September is the month of a new teacher and a new grade, new shoes and new school supplies. Who wouldn’t want the clean slate that September gives year after year?"

I have to agree with Susan. One of the things I love about working in education is how the process renews itself each year. Everyone – student and teacher alike – gets to start over – over and over again! With start of the new year come “New Year’s Resolutions” and Ms. Reimer lists six. See if these sound familiar:

• “Homework will be done right after school – and not in the car on the way to school.”
• “Dinners will be healthful and eaten together.”
• “Books will be read before bed.”
• “TV, video games, and free time on the computer will be limited . . . to weekends.”
• “Cell phones will be collected and held by Mom until homework and chores are done.”
• “Backpacks and sports equipment will be packed the night before – not during the hectic morning.”

Now I will share with you my list of five resolutions for the Lower School as we begin another new year:

1. Listening will be a top priority – and I don’t mean children listening to teachers! It’s the other way around, really. Teachers – and administrators – will learn a lot this year if they listen – really listen – to what children have to say.

2. Play will be a safely-guarded portion of everyday for students because play is the work of childhood. If I could, I would mandate an hour of play every day for every adult I know – especially me!

3. Time will be taken and time will be given every day. Time will be taken from our busy schedules to allow our children to see, hear, smell, taste, and touch the world they live in. They haven’t been in the world very long, and time must be taken for them to go out into the world to discover and explore it.

(As an aside, the oldest child in the Lower School was born in the spring of the year 2000. This means that every student in the Lower School is now a child of the new millennium! The youngest child was born in the fall of 2005. He is still four years old. That is how “new” some of them are!)

Time must also be given to children to grow and mature and develop at the rate that their own nature and biology have planned. Just as a sunrise or change of season can’t be hurried, neither should be a developing child. One thing we can’t do with time is waste it. Everyone working in the Lower School is lucky enough to be present for your sons’ and daughters’ childhood years. That time is fleeting, and we don’t want to let one minute of it slip away undervalued.

4. Your child’s safety and well-being will remain our first and foremost responsibility. This safety and well-being applies to their physical, as well as emotional, lives. Yes, there will be bumps, bruises, cuts, and scrapes that come along with a busy and active day at school, but careful and continuing supervision by alert adults will help to ensure that each day at school is a physically safe one.

Recently, for instance, we added a third person to the team on duty at the bus loop for morning drop-off. This is because children and moving vehicles are never closer together than they are during that half hour.

Your children should feel safe and secure emotionally while they are at school as well.

No child should feel diminished or demeaned as a result of an encounter with an adult in the Lower School. Guided and directed? Yes! Disciplined? Perhaps. But diminished? Never.

5. Children will not be the only ones who will be asked to “step out of their comfort zones.” This year, teachers will too, as part of their professional development process. And why? Because it is very instructive to try something new and not “get it” right away.

We tell the children that “It’s okay to make mistakes,” but there’s nothing like making a bunch of them to remind yourself just how bad making mistakes can feel.

This summer, I joined a friend at McDaniel College’s Common Ground on the Hill for a week’s instruction in Beginning Hammered Dulcimer. I don’t know why, really, other than that is was something entirely new for me and completely out of my comfort zone. In short, I was terrible. I got hammered!

The brochure had proclaimed that the ability to read music was not a prerequisite, but everyone could . . . except me. I was the only “non-reader” in the class. Out of that humiliation came insight – and a renewed bond with every child who “does not get it” or decides one day that he or she is -- for whatever reason – the worst one in the class.

I have continued to take dulcimer lessons, by the way. Here’s how it’s going: My teacher recently told me that he is only going to give me music for songs whose melodies I already know! When I have my next lesson . . . tomorrow . . . he is going to start me on “Angels We Have Heard on High,” so that I can perfect it before Christmas comes – three months from now!

It is hard . . . but I am going to keep on going! I am going for every child who finds that school is hard . . . but keeps on going. We are kindred spirits now.

So, that is the plan! Those are my resolutions for the year ahead – along with losing weight and exercising more, of course!

I hope that this new year is a rich and rewarding one for your children and you. The faculty and I will work hard to make it so. Thank you for entrusting us with your children. Happy New Year, everybody!