Scholarly and Creative

Orientation Day at Saint David's School (*masks removed for photo).

In reflecting on last year and preparing for this one, I cannot help but recognize the bravery in this community. Mission-focused and data-driven, we safely opened early and remained open during the height of the pandemic. No small feat, it required both personal and professional bravery on the part of our teachers and staff, and trust and courage on the part of our boys and their families. We were cautious to the extent necessary, but committed to living our school’s principal mission and purpose. Our successful experience is a testament to the strength, resilience, and bravery of this community.

As we embark on our school’s 71st year, Covid-19 remains with us and we will be called upon again to be brave, resilient, flexible, and strong. Although closer to normal, our new school year will not reflect a full return to pre-Covid days. It will continue to challenge and test us in ways we cannot possibly anticipate. And maybe that’s a good thing. I’m not sure life should ever be taken for granted, thought of as predictable, typical, or “normal.” Instead, life must be seen as a gift and a blessing, to be actively experienced and lived. 

Our school-wide theme this year is “Scholarly and Creative.” This phrase can be found in the third sentence of our school’s mission statement. It refers to a defining characteristic of a Saint David’s boy, bound and contextualized in the Classical tradition of balance across our four pillars that informs our program—the Academic, Athletic, Artistic and Spiritual. 

As an adjective, scholarly connotes a boy of great knowledge and learning, an erudite, educated, lettered, literate, well-read boy. Used as an adverb, it is the visible employment of careful evaluation and judgement, a tangible focus on learning, the appeal to and use of the intellect. It can be seen in active, diligent study; a fondness for reading; the demonstration of profound knowledge; and reasoned debate. 

Creative too, can be used as an adjective or an adverb (creatively). A creative boy is clever, imaginative, ingenious, innovative, inventive, and original (as opposed to imitative). To be creative is to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, or relationships. In so many ways, our princess Mia was forced to do this. A synonym for creative I particularly enjoy, and one that happens to speak to our Classical tradition, is Promethean. When used in the creative context, it means “daringly original or creative.” To be Promethean, like its namesake Titan, you have to dare to challenge “the gods,” or in our modern context, the status quo, the “accepted norm.” To be Promethean takes courage; it takes virtue. After all, what good is “scholarly” (knowledge) without “virtue” (morality)? One is of no value without the other.

Acquiring knowledge and experience (wisdom) through rigorous academic pursuit is only truly valuable when it is used in creative ways to fix problems, right injustices, or solve disputes—to do good. Our responsibility as parents and educators is to prepare the next generation to help make the world an even better place—ut viri boni sint—by aspiring to be good men, good people. More often than not, this requires creative thinking outside the box. It demands continued questioning and examination of existing ideas, patterns, rules, behaviors, and order. Our job as parents and teachers is not to teach our children what to think; it is to teach them how to think and how to think lies at the nexus of scholarly and creative.

Our boys live in a world saturated with information; unlimited amounts of data at their fingertips. We celebrate knowledge, and so we should; we know the dangers of not knowing enough; however, when inundated, we can sometimes confuse information with understanding. T. S. Elliot once wrote: “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” In this fast paced technological age, I am also reminded of something Picasso once said: “What good are computers? They can only give you answers.” We must teach our children to seek information from reliable sources, to question these sources, to cross reference and verify. In short, we must teach them to be scholarly. 

As parents, we know life isn’t as much about the answers as it is the questions—what questions to ask, when to ask them, and of whom to ask. Those of us who have lived a little longer know that while answers can change, the questions seem always to remain. To be scholarly and creative then, is to constantly seek information, broaden knowledge, and deepen understanding in an effort to creatively improve the world. It’s here that life is truly lived.