Respect for All

Friday was the first day of our 69th year. Classrooms and hallways are alive with the sights and sounds of our boys actively engaged in learning. Throughout the year, our boys will be challenged to dig deeper, fulfill potential, and grow in mind, body, and spirit.

Our school-wide theme this year, drawn from our mission's second paragraph, is respect.

In a time of seemingly endless discord, disrespect, and disregard in our broader popular culture, respect for each other and “the other,” regardless of belief, heritage, preference, or gender, lies in the hearts of all good men.

Respect begins by learning to have a healthy sense of self...This school year, we will critically reflect on a few key questions: How best do we teach boys to respect themselves? How do we ensure boys cultivate a healthy sense of themselves? At its essence, education is a journey of self-discovery that asks: Who am I? What is my purpose?

In order for boys to begin to answer these questions, they need to first learn to recognize and name their strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, prejudices, biases and limitations—and they must learn to do so honestly.

When our boys respect themselves, they have the tools needed to understand and appreciate the other—whether ideas, perspectives, beliefs or people—especially those that are “different.” Instead of fearing the unknown, unusual, or unorthodox, they embrace, engage with, and learn from it. Our job as educators is to constantly challenge our boys to become familiar with the unfamiliar, to experience the new and different—in the academic, athletic, artistic, and spiritual. We must help them understand that it’s in these moments of discomfort, uncertainty, difficulty, and challenge, that we often find our own true voice. Our scars often teach us more than our successes.

As parents and teachers, we have many allies in cultivating respect in our boys. Manners and the social graces are but two. “Manners,” Horace Mann said, “easily and rapidly mature into morals,” and our sense of morality defines who we are, how we see the world, and how the world sees us—it forms the foundation of respect. Their importance at Saint David’s is not diminishing; it is expanding: the look in the eye, the firm handshake, the “please” and “thank you,” the acknowledgement of someone new to the room, the humble bow after performing or receiving an award, the kind word, the holding of a door, the wait until everybody is served, the offering of a seat, the warm smile.

“Respect for ourselves guides our morals, respect for others guides our manners,” wrote novelist and clergyman Laurence Sterne. Our exercise of the social graces is the all-important social lubricant that fosters respect and grounds morality.

Another of our allies can be found in reclaiming conversation and in quiet reflection. Helping our boys put down the screen and engage in face-to-face conversation is key, for it is through conversation (and the fine and performing arts and literature) that we connect, that we can enter the lives of others, that we can see the world through their eyes. It is here that our boys develop empathy. Along the same lines, quiet reflection provides our boys the opportunity to speak with themselves. It is when we are quietest, that we can truly hear our own voices. Despite our culture’s insistence on immediate action without thought and the "next big thing," we must help our boys be fully present in the moment and reflective on the past.

Young men graduating from Saint David’s are called upon to be curious seekers of the truth, to become antidotes to popular trends, to cultivate a mind that constantly questions, probes, and critically examines the messages and practices of their day. What’s popular isn’t always what’s respectful or right. It will be in those moments when challenged with “the popular” or “the powerful” that our sons’ ability to hear their own voices will be most critical.

Through the value we place on respect for all, we engender a strong sense of belonging as a healthy foundation for learning.

For more information about Saint David's School, visit www.saintdavids.org

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