Saint David's 72nd year is off to a joy-filled start! Our classrooms and hallways reflect the energy and excitement of boys slipping back into familiar routines, catching up with old friends, making new ones, and connecting with their incredible teachers. It's an exciting time for all. Below, I share some thoughts from my Opening Letter, which celebrates our theme this year "Joyful Balance":
"And all at once, summer collapsed into fall." *
After sending all the other knights to slay the dragon and failing, the king, left with no other options, sends his own daughter to protect the kingdom. Tearful, she confronts the monster just as George arrives on his white horse and sporting shining armor to save her and the kingdom. Today, George could just as easily be a Georgina or the princess herself. Regardless of the anachronistic nature of parts of this story, “chivalry” redefined for the 21st century has a place.
In origin, chivalry was formed in the Old French of the 11th century and meant “horsemanship.” In later French, chevalier meant a man of aristocratic standing and noble ancestry who was capable, if called upon, of equipping himself with a horse and arms, and who had experienced certain rituals that made him who he was. Chivalry’s meaning continued to evolve over time into a broader sense that can be best captured in what became known as a code of “chivalry,” or honor, that centered on the notion of being a champion for right and good against injustice and evil, a representation of the best of human nature and enterprise while maintaining a certain level of compassion and kindness—of civility.
We can all remember a time when common courtesies, social graces, and good manners meant something, when society supported these sensibilities. Not so much now. Today, there is less talk about social graces, respectful discourse, fundamental civility, or a shared sense of humanity. Instead of updating our conception of chivalry to align with modern life, much in our popular culture has abandoned it. Our children are repeatedly exposed to the crude and callous, creating a prevailing culture that’s comfortable being offensive and a world that’s increasingly harsh and less forgiving.
Most of us don’t live in a black and white world with ideal clarity, but rather navigate its gray complexities. Somewhere in-between is where deals are made and agendas are advanced, where ideas are generated and quality work is produced. Somewhere in-between is where learning thrives. We find ourselves today—parents, teachers, schools—planted in a time where extremes of thought have an amplified voice and our collective willingness to truly listen, not so much to what we agree with, but to what we don’t, is weakened.
What our popular culture needs is a return to respectful disagreement, a celebration of civil discourse and debate, and an openness to entertaining a thought without necessarily accepting it. And even more importantly, we must allow others to do the same without fear of label or accusation. Schools like Saint David’s can lead the way. We can be counter-cultural.
If we care about the times we live in, we need to help our children be more aware of the mean-spirited, discourteous, and impolite, and do more to model, embrace, and celebrate civility and a respect for difference that demonstrates a commitment to right wrongs, defend the defenseless, and stand up for those in need.
As a school community, we will spend this year asking ourselves: In a time of seemingly endless conflict, how do we teach our children to navigate the middle and balance the extremes while also recognizing when it’s important to put a stake in the ground and hold firm? And how do we do all this while cultivating a sense of joy so that our boys don’t become disillusioned or feel helpless, or fear “the difference.” For if humor—that ability to laugh at ourselves as individuals, institutions or as a society and nation—is lost, then all is lost. Our civility can be found in striking a “joyful balance”—our school-wide theme this year.
“Joyful” is found in the last sentence of the mission’s third paragraph: “Elementary education … should always be … joyful and designed to serve self, others and God.” “Balance” is found in the second sentence of the mission’s first paragraph: “The classical tradition of balance has guided the school since its founding.” We interpret the classical tradition as balance across four pillars—the academic, athletic, artistic and spiritual—and we focus on where “the good” lies in each: scholarship, sportsmanship, an appreciation for the aesthetic, and doing good, respectively. We look to ensure boys develop equally across all, while recognizing there will be ups and downs, successes and failures. Wasn’t it Mark Twain who penned, “What is joy without sorrow? What is success without failure? What is a win without a loss? What is health without illness? You have to experience each if you are to appreciate the other. There is always going to be suffering. It’s how you look at your suffering, how you deal with it, that will define you.”
All at once a boy can become a knight. Figuratively at Saint David’s, it happens at the end of third grade, where, after due preparation and a ceremonial cleansing ceremony by their teachers, the headmaster dubs them knights of Saint David’s. It marks the important rite of passage from the Lower to the Upper School. In reality, it happens when a boy is first confronted by a real challenge—especially one of conscience or morality. For George, it was his confronting the dragon, for Theseus, the Minotaur, and for our own namesake, David, Goliath. All good men are ipso facto knights.
Whether St. George, Theseus, or David, our “knight” fights “evil” while never losing sight of the principles that inform his decisions and guide his actions. He stands firm in “the good” and prevails. Having done so, he is consumed with joy. This is the joyful our founders had in mind when they penned the school’s mission. The joy that comes from being true to yourself and your values in the face of great challenges—that strong sense of self. All good men have two things in common: a suit of armor (a set of principles) and a fearless soul. And so, as summer collapses into fall and we embark on our school’s 72nd year, let’s remember, as Anthony Doerr writes in Cloud Cuckoo Land, “Sometimes the things that we think are lost are only hidden, waiting to be rediscovered.” Saint David’s boys, and by extension our society, can rediscover civility by learning to strike that joyful balance. Ut viri boni sint.
* Attributed to Oscar Wilde